One may conjecture that there was some diver- gence in the first three centuries both as to the name and as to the actual observance of this com- memoration. It seems likely that in many cases the Resurrection and the Passion were observed on the same day. This must usually have been the case with the Quartodccimans, who observed the fourteenth day of the lunar month ; but it was also apparently often tlie case with those who kept the Sunday, for, as we shall see below, the fast observed before the Sunday was often only of one day's duration, and did not always include the Friday. Even well on in the 4th cent, we find a relic of this in the 7"' v/ '//(■/// nf ttin- Lord, where the Friday before F.;i^fii' is n.it iiR-iitioned as the day of coramemoratiim lli>^ r,i~-iou but as a pre- paration for the fi>tival, and the Passion and Resurrection are apparently commemorated to- gether, just as the Ascension and Pentecost were often joined (see below, § 2 b). There is nothing a priori incongruous in commemorating and giving thanks for the Redemption of mankind on a day of rejoicing, especially when a severe fast of a day or two had just preceded. The probable con- clusion, then, is that Pascha usually meant, before the 4th cent., the commemoration both of the Death and of the Resurrection of Christ, the festi- val with its preceding fast, and that the erroneous derivation from Trderxo) favoured a certain indefi- niteness in the use of the word. This derivation, it may be observed, as well as the equally false Syrian one, probably explains wliy a name with such a very Jewish association became so popular. When, somewhat later, a distinction had to be made between Good Friday and Easter Day, the names 7rd<rxa aravpibixtiiov and xdirxa ava- aTwijiov were invented (Ducange, «.u. 'Pascha').
Another use of the name Pascha is to be noted. In the Testament of our Lord (i. 28, 42, ii. 8, U, 12, 18) it means the forty days before Easter, though of these forty days only the last two were fasts. Holy Week is" called 'tlie last week of Pascha.' The end of Pascha is to be after the Saturday at midnight. The ' forty days of Pascha ' are specially mentioned. Similarly in Apoat. Can. 69 (68) we find -ritv ayiav Te<T<iapaKoiTTJ]v Tou -iraaxa. But in the Testament, Pascha is used absolutely in this sense. In this work, however, we also read of ' the feast of Pascha ' (i. 42), when widows (presbyteresses) are to give alms and batlte. Tlie bathing was on the Thursday before Easter.\
' Pascha ' was sometimes used for Holy Week.
Thus in Apost. Const, v. 18 we read : ' Fast in the days of Pascha beginning from the second till the Preparation and the Sabbath, for they are days of sorrow, not of feasting.' And so perhaps Can. Hipp. § 195 tt". (below, d).
Other names for Easter were : among the Latins, 'Dominica gaudii' (Bingham, Ant. XX. v. 5) ; among the Greeks, ij.eyd\ri KvpiaKv ; whUe the
common Syrian name was and is ]ALqJ_0> 1jp»
' the feast of the Resurrection.'
(b) Early observance of Easter. — The Apostles, no doubt, continued to keep the Jewish Passover ( Xc 20*) ; but it is uncertain if the first Gentile Christians observed it in any way, or whether they were content with the weekly commemo- ration. It is not even certain if the Jewish Christians kept it in any way as a Christian festival. Yet the phrases rb irdaxa riP-Civ . . . Xpiaros and (opTd^oip.cv (1 Co 5"'-) would be speci- ally appropriate if the Christians at Corinth were at the time when St. Paul Avrote from Ejihesus, namely, before Pent«cost (1 Co 16^), observing an Easter festival. But it is significant that there is no mention of Easter in the Apostolic Fathers or in Justin Martyr ; and its absence in the Didache is specially noteworthy, since that Church Order mentions the Lord's Day, the fast before baptism, and the Wednesday and Friday fasts. We can, however, trace the observance of Easter at Rome back to the time of Pope Xystus, c. 120 A.D., for Irenteus tells us [ap. Eusebius, HE v. 24) that Xystus and his immediate successors, while not observing the Quartodeciman practice themselves, yet were at peace with those who did ; and from what follows it is clear that Irenteus means that
still further; for Polycarp, as Irenoeus says (ib.), traced his custom of keeping Easter to St. John. The conclusion may probably be, either that Easter was not universally observed as an annual commemoration early in the 2nd cent., or, more probably, that it had not then the great import- ance which it acquired later in the century, from the disputes as to tlie day when it should be kept.
(c) T/c "';/'' . .rii Controversy. — A brief summary • :\ i '. ijuestion is necessary for thepuri"i ■ I i'; ;iunary; for more detailed accounts i.i it, i - i. r- n' !• may be made to the works mentioned at the end of this article. The con- troversy arose in the 2ud cent, and came to a head in the last decade of it ; it was concerned
with the question whether the Paschal ration should follow the day of the week or the day of the lunar month on which the events commemorated originally occurred. Tliose who upheld the former practice no doubt laid chief stress on the Resurrection of our Lord, since they fixed on Sunday for their commemoration ; while the latter, who were called Quartodecimans or Teffo-apfo-KaiSfitaTiTac (Socrates, HE v. 22, Sozomen, HE vii. 19), probably at first emphasized our Lord's death, as they adhered to 14th Nisan, the day on which He died, or was thought by them to have died ; whereas, on no calculation did He rise on that day. "The theory has, indeed, been advanced by the Tubingen school that the Quartodecimans commemorated the Last Supper rather than the Pas- sion or Resurrection. According to the Synoptists, the Last Supper appears to have taken place on the evening of 14th Nisan, and the Crucifixion to have been on the loth ; while, according to the Fourth Gospel, the Death of our Lord would appear to have been at the time of the killing of the Paschal lambs, and the Last Supper therefore to have taken place at the end of 13th Nisan. We