Easter has been the high festival of the Church since the days of the apostles; though the primitive ritual like the primitive creed foUowed no invariable rule. Tlius wliile the churches in a large majority celebrated Easter-Sunday on the first Lord's-day after the 14th of Nisan, on which our Lord suffered : others, as the Asiatic churches, commemorated our Lord's death on the 14th of Nisan as being the very day of the Saviour's cross and passion. Tliis they diil irrespectively of the day of the week on which it might fall. The paschal fast also was variously observed. TertuUian speaks of it as ex- tending over the Holy Week (Z>e Jejun. c. xiv) ; Epipha- iiius says, " The Catholic Church solemnizes not onl^' the 14th of Nisan, but the entire week" (//cer. 1,3), making a distinction from the Ebionitish Quartodecimani, who kept fast only on the 14th of Nisan. The Western and more Catholic rule was to observe the Friday preceding the Easter-Sunday as a rigid fast, the Church identi- fying the apostles' sorrowing with their own, and the fast was not resolved till Easter-morn ; while the Asiatic Quartodecimani party regarded the 14th of Nisan from a doctrinal point of view as the commemoration-day of man's redemption ; and at the hour in which our Lord said "It is finished," i. e. at three o'clock in the after- noon, the fast was brought to an end (Euseb. Ilist.Eccl. V, 23), and the day closed with the collective Agape and celebration of the Lord's Supper. Wliether the fast was resumed and maintained till Easter-day does not appear, neither is it certainly known whether these churches celebrated Easter on the Lord's-day next following, or on the next day but one to the 14th of Nisan, on what- ever day of the week that might fall. The latter, how- ever, would seem to have been the practice from the de- cree of an early synod (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v, 23) convened to consider the case, which ordained that the Feast of the Resurrection should be celebrated on the Lord's-day and on no other, and that the paschal fast should then be brought to a close ; for the ordinance would not have been needed if there had been nothing in this particular to amend. Hefele, however, sees in this decree a proof that the Asiatic Easter was always celebrated on the VII.— Z z
LordVday. The Council of Aries, A.D. 314, at which British bishops were present, similarly decreed that Easter should only be celebrated on the Lord's-day. Irenjeus declares that with respect to the paschal fast there was a great divergence of practice, some churches fasting for one day, as the Ebionites, some for two, and some for the forty hours, day and night, that immedi- ately preceded the dawn of Easter; and he speaks of it as an old-standing discrepancy, ov vvv Itf-iJiiMV ytyovvla aX\a Kai ttoXv arpiWtpov im ruJv irpb yfiwv (A/i. ad Victor Frugm. c. iii, Cambr. ed.). The primitive Church, therefore, knew no fixed rule for the universal observance of the paschal fast.
With respect to the precise day on which the Lord's death should be commemorated, there was a threefold difference of practice. (1.) The Catholic Church affirmed that our Lord suffered on the 14th of Nisan ; but seeing that the new creation dates from Easter-morning, the Lord's-day next following was the vacrxn avaaTc'iaif^LOV, and the Frida}' preceding was the Traaxa dTctvpihaijiov. Thus the rule was fixed according to the day of the week on which our Lord suffered, and was declared to be the true ordinance, tci^iq d\tj9t<TTipa. This was the prac- tice of the Church of Rome, and of the generality of churches throughout Christendom, and was said to have been derived from the apostles Peter and Paul (Euseb. fJist. Eccles. v, 23 ; Socrat. Hist. Eccles. v, 22). (2.) The Asiatic rule was professedly based upon the au- thority of John the Evangelist and of Philip, and was adopted by the churches of Proconsular Asia {Hist. Eccles. V, 23) and those of the neighboring provinces, also in Mesopotamia, Syria, Cilicia (Athanas. .4 d A Jr. c. 2, de Synod. Ariin. et Sel.), and, as Chrysostom says, Antioch (/« eos qui Orat. in Puscha Jej. [ed. Bened. i, 008]). It was the belief of all the churches that our Lord was put to death on the 14th of Nisan, the day on which the ' paschal lamb was slain. But many denied that the Last Supper was installed at the paschal feast, or that our Lord celebrated the Passover at all in the last year of his min- istry, the statements of the synoptical Gospels notwith- standing (see Chron. Pctsch. i, 10-16). The Asiatics commemorated the Lord's death on the 14th of Nisan, being guided by the day of the Jewish month, as the more general practice followed the day of the week on which Christ died. They were taunted for the Juda- izing practice, though the Church of Rome in its ritual and liturgy had more perhaps in common with the syna- gogue than the churches of Asia. The Quart odecimans were but a small party in the Church. Still fewer in number (3) were the Ebionitish or Judaizing Quarto- decimans who held to the observances of the Mosaic law, and engrafted on them the Christian celebration, making the 14th of Nisan a day of hybrid ceremonial, in which type and antitype, shadow and substance, law and Gospel, were hopelessly confused.