§ 62. The Paschal Controversies.

§ 62. The Paschal Controversies.

I. The sources for the paschal controversies:

Fragments from Melito, Apollinarius, Polycrates, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus, preserved in Euseb. H. E. IV. 3, 26; V. 23-25; VI. 13; The Chronicon Pasch. I. 12 sqq., a passage in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus, Lib. VIII. cap. 18 (p. 435, ed. Duncker & Schneidewin, 1859), a fragment from Eusebius in Angelo Mai's Nova P. P. Bibl. T. IV. 2O9-216, and the Haeresies of Epiphanius, Haer. LXX. 1-3; LXX. 9.

II. Recent works, occasioned mostly by the Johannean controversy:

Weitzel: Die Christl. Passafeier der drei ersten Jahrh. Pforzheim, 1848 (and in the "Studien und Kritiken," 1848, No. 4, against Baur).

Baur: Das Christenthum der 3 ersten Jahrh. (1853). Tüb. 3rd ed. 1863, pp. 156-169. And several controversial essays against Steitz.

Hilgenfeld: Der Paschastreit und das Evang. Johannis (in "Theol. Jahrbücher" for 1849);Noch ein Wort über den Passahstreit (ibid. 1858); and Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche nach seiner Bedeutung für die Kirchengesch. und für die Evangelienforschung urkundlich dargestellt. Halle 1860 (410 pages).

Steitz: Several essays on the subject, mostly against Baur, in the "Studien u. Kritiken, "1856, 1857, and 1859; in the "Theol. Jahrbücher, "1857, and art. Passah in "Herzog's Encycl." vol. XII. (1859), p. 149 sqq., revised in the new ed., by Wagenmann, XI. 270 sqq.

William Milligan: The Easter Controversies of the second century in their relation to the Gospel of St. John, in the "Contemporary Review" for Sept. 1867 (p. 101-118).

Emil Schürer: De Controversiis paschalibus sec. post Chr. soc. exortis, Lips. 1869. By the same: Die Paschastreitigkeiten des 2^ten Jahrh., in Kahnis' "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1870, pp. 182-284. Very full and able.

C. Jos. von Hefele (R.C.): Conciliengeschichte, I. 86-101 (second ed. Freib. 1873; with some important changes).

Abbé Duchesne: La question de la Pâque, in "Revue des questions historiques," July 1880.

Renan: L'église chrét. 445-451; and M. Aurèle, 194-206 (la question de la Páque.

Respecting the time of the Christian Passover and of the fast connected with it, there was a difference of observance which created violent controversies in the ancient church, and almost as violent controversies in the modern schools of theology in connection with the questions of the primacy of Rome, and the genuineness of John's Gospel. [328] 28

The paschal controversies of the ante-Nicene age are a very complicated chapter in ancient church-history, and are not yet sufficiently cleared up. They were purely ritualistic and disciplinary, and involved no dogma; and yet they threatened to split the churches; both parties laying too much stress on external uniformity. Indirectly, however, they involved the question of the independence of Christianity on Judaism. [329] 29

Let us first consider the difference of observance or the subject of controversy.

The Christians of Asia Minor, following the Jewish chronology, and appealing to the authority of the apostles John and Philip, celebrated the Christian Passover uniformly on the fourteenth of Nisan (which might fall on any of the seven days of the week) by a solemn fast; they fixed the close of the fast accordingly, and seem to have partaken on the evening of this day, as the close of the fast, but indeed of the Jewish paschal lamb, as has sometimes been supposed, [330] 30 but of the communion and love-feast, as the Christian passover and the festival of the redemption completed by the death of Christ. [331] 31 The communion on the evening of the 14th (or, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the day from sunset to sunset, on the beginning of the 15th) of Nisan was in memory of the last pascha supper of Christ. This observance did not exclude the idea that Christ died as the true paschal Lamb. For we find among the fathers both this idea and the other that Christ ate the regular Jewish passover with his disciples, which took place on the14th. [332] 32 From the day of observance the Asiatic Christians were afterwards called Quartadecimanians. [333] 33 Hippolytus of Rome speaks of them contemptuously as a sect of contentious and ignorant persons, who maintain that "the pascha should be observed on the fourteenth day of the first month according to the law, no matter on what day of the week it might fall." [334] 34 Nevertheless the Quartadecimanian observance was probably the oldest and in accordance with the Synoptic tradition of the last Passover of our Lord, which it commemorated. [335] 35

The Roman church, on the contrary, likewise appealing to early custom, celebrated the death of Jesus always on a Friday, the day of the week on which it actually occurred, and his resurrection always on a Sunday after the March full moon, and extended the paschal fast to the latter day; considering it improper to terminate the fast at an earlier date, and to celebrate the communion before the festival of the resurrection. Nearly all the other churches agreed with the Roman in this observance, and laid the main stress on the resurrection-festival on Sunday. This Roman practice created an entire holy week of solemn fasting and commemoration of the Lord's passion, while the Asiatic practice ended the fast on the 14^th of Nisan, which may fall sometimes several days before Sunday.

Hence a spectacle shocking to the catholic sense of ritualistic propriety and uniformity was frequently presented to the world, that one part of Christendom was fasting and mourning over the death of our Saviour, while the other part rejoiced in the glory of the resurrection. We cannot be surprised that controversy arose, and earnest efforts were made to harmonize the opposing sections of Christendom in the public celebration of the fundamental facts of the Christian salvation and of the most sacred season of the church-year.

The gist of the paschal controversy was, whether the Jewish paschal-day (be it a Friday or not), or the Christian Sunday, should control the idea and time of the entire festival. The Johannean practice of Asia represented here the spirit of adhesion to historical precedent, and had the advantage of an immovable Easter, without being Judaizing in anything but the observance of a fixed day of the month. The Roman custom represented the principle of freedom and discretionary change, and the independence of the Christian festival system. Dogmatically stated, the difference would be, that in the former case the chief stress was laid on the Lord's death; in the latter, on his resurrection. But the leading interest of the question for the early Church was not the astronomical, nor the dogmatical, but the ritualistic. The main object was to secure uniformity of observance, and to assert the originality of the Christian festive cycle, and its independence of Judaism; for both reasons the Roman usage at last triumphed even in the East. Hence Easter became a movable festival whose date varies from the end of March to the latter part of April.

The history of the controversy divides itself into three acts.

1. The difference came into discussion first on a visit of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to Anicetus, bishop of Rome, between a.d. 150 and 155. [336] 36 It was not settled; yet the two bishops parted in peace, after the latter had charged his venerable guest to celebrate the holy communion in his church. We have a brief, but interesting account of this dispute by Irenaeus, a pupil of Polycarp, which is as follows: [337] 37

"When the blessed Polycarp sojourned at Rome in the days of Anicetus, and they had some little difference of opinion likewise with regard to other points, [338] 38 they forthwith came to a peaceable understanding on this head [the observance of Easter], having no love for mutual disputes. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe [339] 39 inasmuch as he [Pol.] had always observed with John, the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles, with whom he had associated; nor did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe Gr. (threi'n) who said that he was bound to maintain the custom of the presbyters (=bishops) before him. These things being so, they communed together; and in the church Anicetus yielded to Polycarp, out of respect no doubt, the celebration of the eucharist Gr. (thVn eujcaristivan), and they separated from each other in peace, all the church being at peace, both those that observed and those that did not observe [the fourteenth of Nisan], maintaining peace."

This letter proves that the Christians of the days of Polycarp knew how to keep the unity of the Spirit without uniformity of rites and ceremonies. "The very difference in our fasting," says Irenaeus in the same letter, "establishes the unanimity in our faith."

2. A few years afterwards, about a.d. 170, the controversy broke out in Laodicea, but was confined to Asia, where a difference had arisen either among the Quartadecimanians themselves, or rather among these and the adherents of the Western observance. The accounts on this interimistic sectional dispute are incomplete and obscure. Eusebius merely mentions that at that time Melito of Sardis wrote two works on the Passover. [340] 40 But these are lost, as also that of Clement of Alexandria on the same topic. [341] 41 Our chief source of information is Claudius Apolinarius (Apollinaris), [342] 42 bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in two fragments of his writings upon the subject, which have been preserved in the Chronicon Paschale. [343] 43 These are as follows:

"There are some now who, from ignorance, love to raise strife about these things, being guilty in this of a pardonable offence; for ignorance does not so much deserve blame as need instruction. And they say that on the fourteenth [of Nisan] the Lord ate the paschal lamb (to probaton ephage) with his disciples, but that He himself suffered on the great day of unleavened bread [344] 44 [i.e. the fifteenth of Nisan]; and they interpret Matthew as favoring their view from which it appears that their view does not agree with the law, [345] 45 and that the Gospels seem, according to them, to be at variance. [346] 46

The Fourteenth is the true Passover of the Lord, the great sacrifice, the. Son of God [347] 47 in the place of the lamb ... who was lifted up upon the horns of the unicorn ... and who was buried on the day of the Passover, the stone having been placed upon his tomb."

Here Apolinarius evidently protests against the Quartadecimanian practice, yet simply as one arising from ignorance, and not as a blameworthy heresy. He opposes it as a chronological and exegetical mistake, and seems to hold that the fourteenth, and not the fifteenth, is the great day of the death of Christ as the true Lamb of God, on the false assumption that this truth depends upon the chronological coincidence of the crucifixion and the Jewish passover. But the question arises: Did he protest from the Western and Roman standpoint which had many advocates in the East, [348] 48 or as a Quartadecimanian? [349] 49 In the latter case we would be obliged to distinguish two parties of Quartadecimanians, the orthodox or catholic Quartadecimanians, who simply observed the 14th Nisan by fasting and the evening communion, and a smaller faction of heretical and schismatic Quartadecimanians, who adopted the Jewish practice of eating a paschal lamb on that day in commemoration of the Saviour's last passover. But there is no evidence for this distinction in the above or other passages. Such a grossly Judaizing party would have been treated with more severity by a catholic bishop. Even the Jews could no more eat of the paschal lamb after the destruction of the temple in which it had to be slain. There is no trace of such a party in Irenaeus, Hippolytus [350] 50 and Eusebius who speak only of one class of Quartadecimanians. [351] 51

Hence we conclude that Apolinarius protests against the whole Quartadecimanian practice, although very mildly and charitably. The Laodicean controversy was a stage in the same controversy which was previously discussed by Polycarp and Anicetus in Christian charity, and was soon agitated again by Polycrates and Victor with hierarchical and intolerant violence.