The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law; to whom we gave no such commandment: it seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you, with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same thing by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.'
These things indeed pleased God: for the letter expressly says, It seemed good to the Holy Ghost to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.' There are nevertheless some persons who, disregarding these precepts, suppose all fornication to be an indifferent matter; but contend about holy-days as if their lives were at stake, thus contravening the commands of God, and legislating for themselves, and making of none effect the decree of the apostles: neither do they perceive that they are themselves practicing the contrary to those things which God approved. It is possible easily to extend our discourse respecting Easter, and demonstrate that the Jews observe no exact rule either in the time or manner of celebrating the paschal solemnity: and that the Samaritans, who are an offshoot from the Jews, always celebrate this festival after the equinox. But this subject would require a distinct and copious treatise: I shall therefore merely add, that those who affect so much to imitate the Jews, and are so very anxious about an accurate observance of types, ought to depart from them in no particular. For if they have chosen to be so correct, they must not only observe days and months, but all other things also, which Christ (who was made under the law') [801] did in the manner of the Jews; or which he unjustly suffered from them; or wrought typically for the good of all men. He entered into a ship and taught. He ordered the Passover to be made ready in an upper room. He commanded an ass that was tied to be loosed. He proposed a man bearing a pitcher of water as a sign to them for hastening their preparations for the Passover. [He did] an infinite number of other things of this nature which are recorded in the gospels. And yet those who suppose themselves to be justified by keeping this feast, would think it absurd to observe any of these things in a bodily manner. For no doctor ever dreams of going to preach from a ship--no person imagines it necessary to go up into an upper room to celebrate the Passover there--they never tie, and then loose an ass again--and finally no one enjoins another to carry a pitcher of water, in order that the symbols might be fulfilled. They have justly regarded such things as savoring rather of Judaism: for the Jews are more solicitous about outward solemnities than the obedience of the heart; and therefore are they under the curse, because they do not discern the spiritual bearing of the Mosaic law, but rest in its types and shadows. Those who favor the Jews admit the allegorical meaning of these things; and yet they wage a deadly warfare against the observance of days and months, without applying to them a similar sense: thus do they necessarily involve themselves in a common condemnation with the Jews.
But enough I think has been said concerning these things. Let us now return to the subject we were previously treating of, the fact that the Church once divided did not stay with that division, but that those separated were again divided among themselves, taking occasion from the most trivial grounds. The Novatians, as I have stated, were divided among themselves on account of the feast of Easter, the controversy not being restricted to one point only. For in the different provinces some took one view of the question, and some another, disagreeing not only about the month, but the days of the week also, and other unimportant matters; in some places they hold separate assemblies because of it, in others they unite in mutual communion.
[768] Gal. iv. 21.
[769] Gal. v. 13.
[770] Gal. iv. 10.
[771] Col. ii. 16, 17.
[772] Heb. vii. 12.
[773] ho apostolos...ta euangelia, the two parts of the New Testament, speaking generally. See Sophocles' Greek Lex. of the Rom. and Byzant. Periods under apostolos and euangelion .
[774] Gal. v. 1.
[775] Matt. xxvi. 2; Mark xiv. 1; Luke xxii. 1.
[776] tessareskaidekatitai , those who observed Easter on the fourteenth day of the lunar month (Nisan of the Jewish calendar). On the Quartodeciman controversy, see Schürer, de Centroversiis Paschalibus secundo post Christum natum Sæculo exortis; also, Salmon, Introduction to the New Testament, 3 ed. p. 252-267.
[777] Irenæus, Hær. III. 3, 4.
[778] Polycarp suffered martyrdom in 156 a.d. (see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II. Vol. I. p. 629-702, containing conclusive proof of this, as well as a history of the question); whence it appears that it was under Antoninus Pius that he died. Valesius therefore infers that Socrates meant to speak of Irenæus as suffering martyrdom under Gordian, and not of Polycarp. If this be the case, we must assume a serious corruption of the text, or an unparalleled confusion in Socrates.
[779] Euseb. V. 24.
[780] Josephus, Antiq. III. 10. The passage is worth quoting entire, running as follows: In the month Xanthicus, which is called Nisan by us, and is the beginning of the year, on the fourteenth day of the moon, while the sun is in the sign of Aries (the Ram), for during this month we were freed from bondage under the Egyptians, he has also appointed that we should sacrifice each year the sacrifice which, as we went out of Egypt, they commanded us to offer, it being called the Passover.'
[781] The Audiani, who averred that the Synod of Nicæa first fixed the time of Easter.
[782] Euseb. Life of Constant. III. 19.
[783] Cf. Bingham, Christ. Antiq. XX. v.
[784] Baronius (Ann. 57 and 391 a.d.) finds two mistakes here: first, in the assertion that the Romans fasted three weeks only before Easter, and second, in the assertion that during those three weeks Saturdays were excepted. Cf. also Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs Sacrés et Ecclesiast. Vol. VIII. p. 523, 524. Valesius, however, quotes Pope Leo (fourth sermon on the Lent Fast) and Venerable Beda to prove that Socrates' assertion concerning the exception of Saturday may be defended. See Quesnell, de Jejunio Sabbati; Bingham, Origin. Eccl. XXI. I. 14; also Beveridge, de Jejunio Quadragesimali.
[785] Tessarakoste = Lent; the Latin equivalent is, of course, Quadragesima.
[786] Gen. i. 20.
[787] Valesius rightly conjectures that very few observed this mode of fasting during Lent, basing his opinion on the order of worship and various deprecatory expressions in ancient authors with respect to it. It may be noted that the Mohammedan Fast of Ramadan is observed on the same principle and in a similar manner. The fast begins with the dawn of the sun and continues until sunset, being complete for that space of time. With the setting of the sun, however, every person is at liberty to eat as he may please.
[788] ounaxeon. Sophocles (Greek Lex. of the Rom. and Byzant. Period) gives the following senses to the word: 1. Religious meeting'; 2. Religious service'; 3. Place of meeting'; 4. Congregation.' To these we may add on the authority of Casaubon (Exercit. XVI. ad Annal. Baronii, No. 42) 5. The celebration of the Eucharist.' It is in the second sense given by Sophocles that it is used here.
[789] i.e. Saturday. Sunday is never called the Sabbath' by the ancient Fathers and historians, but the Lord's day' (kuriake). Sophocles (Greek Lex. of the Rom. and Byzant. Period) gives three senses to the word; viz., 1. The Sabbath' [of the Jews] (so in the LXX and Jewish writers). 2. The week.' 3. Saturday.' Many early Christians, however, continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath along with the first day of the week. Cf. Bingham, Christ. Antiq. XX. 3.
[790] prospherontes , freely = celebrating the Eucharist.' Irenæus, Contra Hæres. XVIII. 3; Euseb. Demonstr. Evan. X. 1; Athan. Apol. Contr. Arian, 28.
[791] If any bishop...does not fast on Wednesday or Friday let him be deposed.' So Apost. Can. 69. These two days are universally joined together by the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches.
[792] Cf. Rom. viii. 3.
[793] hupoboleis, lit. = prompters,' whose duty it was to read the Psalms which the people chanted.
[794] On the celibacy of the clergy and its gradual growth, see Bingham, Christ. Antiq. IV. 5; Apost. Can. 51, and Council of Gangra, Can. 1 (Hefele, Hist. Ch. Councils, Vol. II. p. 325 seq.).
[795] A novel on the adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea. The Heliodorus who wrote the Ethiopica was, according to Photius, Biblioth. chap. 94, a native of Phoenicia, hence not the same as the bishop of Tricca. Others ascribe the Ethiopica to Heliodorus the Sophist, who flourished under the Emperor Hadrian.
[796] According to the Apost. Constit. (II. 57) a church should be built so as to face the east. This regulation was generally followed, but there were exceptions. Cf. Bingham, Christ. Antiq. VIII. 3. 2.
[797] i.e. the catholic or orthodox church; used perhaps in the same way as the expression established church' in modern times.
[798] Apost. Can. 64, provides that no cleric or layman shall fast on the Sabbath day (Saturday, see note 22, above), the former on pain of being deposed, the latter, of being excommunicated. It appears, however, that the Roman church observed the day as a fast, while the Greek church held it to be a feast. Socrates, however, seems to contradict the statement he had made above (see note 17) that at Rome Saturdays and Sundays were excepted from the list of fasting days in Lent. From Augustine's Epistles, 36. 31 et al., it appears that he fasted on Saturday and regarded this the regular and proper course to be pursued, and actually pursued by members of the church. Hence the present statement of Socrates must be taken as correct to the exclusion of the former.
[799] Apost. Can.17. He who has been twice married after baptism...cannot become bishop, presbyter, or deacon, or any other [cleric] included in the sacerdotal list.'
[800] Acts xv. 23-39. The quotation is here from the Authorized Version. The Revised has it slightly altered. We subjoin it for comparison. The apostles and the elder brethren unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting: Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls; to whom we gave no commandment; it seemed good unto us, having come to one accord, to choose out men and send them unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves also shall tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, it shall be well with you. Fare ye well.'
[801] Gal. iv. 4.