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Religion & the Bible The Pass
Over to Easter
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The history behind the
establishment of Easter as a principal festival within the church is an
example of the inculturation of Judeo-Christian and pagan celebrations. The Judeo-Christian Passover
became fused with pagan fertility worship to create a new festival
celebrating the resurrection of Christ. This was observed at a different time
from the Passover. Known as the Quartodeciman controversy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartodeciman the debate over when this celebration concerning
Christ should be observed reverberated across the empire through the second,
third and fourth centuries. Eventually it was established by the Council of Nicea
in A.D. 325 and reinforced at the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 341. The Synod
called for the excommunication of any who resisted the new Easter observance.
Those who resisted were forced to move beyond the reach of the empire. A STATEMENT AGAINST JUDAISM The name Quartodeciman
(“fourteenth” in Latin) derives from the fact that elements within the
church, especially in Asia Minor, wished to honor Christ's death as the early
church had done, according to Jewish reckoning on the 14th of Nisan—the same
date as the Jewish Passover. Others, however, led by the church at Rome,
wanted to celebrate Christ's resurrection at Easter, a wholly artificial date
which was the Sunday following the first new moon in the new year (under the
Julian Calendar, the New Year began at the vernal equinox, or March 25).
Hence it was a debate about the 14th. The force of the argument is perhaps
best seen in Constantine's own words in heralding the changes established by
the Council: “It seemed to every one a most
unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the
celebration of this most holy solemnity, who polluted wretches! having
stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their
minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we
should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more
legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord's passion
even to the present times. Let us have nothing in common with the most
hostile rabble of the Jews. We have received another method from the Saviour” (Isaac
Boyle, Historical View of the Council of Nice with a Translation of
Documents, J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1879, p. 52). Constantine appears to have been
misinformed about the origins of Easter. The intensity of the debate that led
to the Council of Nicea, and the fact that the Council was called by
Constantine in the first instance, indicates that the simplicity of the
emperor's pronouncement obfuscated the real issues. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who
recorded the events of the Council of Nicea for us in his Ecclesiastical
History, establishes the first pretext for changing the keeping of the
Passover. He records the testimony of Irenaeus, a bishop of Lyon in the late
second century, who stated that the start of the controversy was in the days
of Xystus (c. A.D. 115–125), from whose days the observance of the 14th was
no longer followed in the West (Ecclesiastical History, 5.24). FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES Yet Pius, a successor to the
bishopric of Rome, claimed in A.D. 147 that his brother Hermes had received
instruction from an angel who commanded that the event should be kept
on “the Lord's Day” and not on the 14th (Joseph Bingham, The
Antiquities of the Christian Church, R. Bingham, ed., Oxford University
Press, 1855, p. 302). That the church in the second
century had to resort to such claims for authenticity of its teachings, and
not to apostolic authority, is a clear indication that this was a departure from
what had been received. In fact, while Easter is always on
a Sunday, the 14th of Nisan may be on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or
Saturday, but never on a Sunday. Constantine's ruling also glossed
over another important aspect. The 14th was the memorial of Christ's death,
whereas those advocating what we know as Easter were focused on His
resurrection. Hence a major theological divide existed between the two groups
of adherents. The Quartodecimans, in holding to the memorial of death, were
maintaining a very Hebraic pattern. It exists to this day in the remembrance
of the death of an individual, and is celebrated with a Yahrzeit. Following the fall of Jerusalem,
those Christians in Asia Minor claimed to follow the apostolic teaching,
especially relating to the Passover. Christians based in Rome, however, began
to celebrate Easter. Polycarp, a disciple of the
apostle John, traveled to Rome in A.D. 159 in an effort to seek harmony
between the two schools of thought, but without success. His successor, Polycrates,
claimed to be the eighth in a succession of bishops in Asia Minor, dating
from the time of the apostles, who had kept the 14th as the time to recognize
the death of Jesus Christ (Ecclesiastical History, 5.24). The
defenders of the 14th constantly claimed apostolic instruction. The church in
the West could claim none. Melito of Sardis, a writer of the
late second century, also contended for the Passover on the 14th as an event
to celebrate the death of Jesus Christ. His sermon on the Passover goes further
than the historical records we have of Polycarp and Polycrates. In his
homily, he makes the connection between the death of Christ as the Passover
Lamb and the need for Christians to put leaven (yeast) out of their
lives—leaven being a symbol of sin. This echoes the writings of the apostle
Paul to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 5:7 - 8). It also shows an
understanding on the part of Melito of the sequence of the festivals
established in Leviticus and observed by the Jews to this day. It highlights
the relationship of the Passover to the other festivals—a relationship that
was lost to the church by its newly developed focus on the resurrection. At the start of the fifth century,
Epiphanius, another church historian writing some 50 years after Eusebius,
recorded that the Quartodecimans were observers of “the Johannean
tradition [i.e., of the apostle John] which for a long time was prevalent in
Asia Minor” (C.J. Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils,
Clark, Edinburgh, 1896, vol. 1, p. 334). So the festival changed from one
that had deep roots in the Old Testament and Jewish practice dealing with
death, to one associated with resurrection, to which the name Easter relates.
No account exists in either the Old or the New Testament instructing such a change
in observance. The concept of a crucifixion was, as the apostle Paul stated,
difficult for the pagans. For a son of God to be treated as a common criminal
did not endear the religion to the masses. A resurrection, although it
created ambiguities for ideas of the afterlife, was much easier to accept. PN |
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Joh 11:9 Jesus answered, Are there
not twelve hours in the day? If a
man walk
in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this
world
Jon 1:17
And
Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly
of the fish THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS.
Mat 12:40
for
as Jonah was THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS in the belly of the
whale; so shall the Son of man be THREE
DAYS and THREE NIGHTS
in the heart of the earth.
