RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Easter
took the part of Asia Minor. Victor was not successful in subjecting the Asiatics to his views; on the other hand the Church of Asia Minor was not able to influence the Western Church to abandon the celebration of Sunday in favor of an account of the resurrection which was in evident contradiction to the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the tradition of Paul and the acknowledged Gospels, and in favor of a custom that was based merely upon the appeal to traditions which could not claim equal authority with the Gospels and apostles. Clement of Alexandria, as the representative of the view of the churches in Palestine and Alexandria, seems to have influenced the final result of the controversy.
For the following period the more important problem was the calculation of the term of Passover and Easter. In Asia Minor this question was not raised. The Jews strictly insisted that their festival should take place at the time of full moon, but beyond this they attempted no accurate calculation. It was probably in Egypt that the vernal equinox and the next full moon were first taken into consideration as fixed points in the calculation of Easter.
In Rome there developed in the mean time a different calculation of the festival of Easter which, beside the celebration of Sunday as 4. The £jje jay 0f resurrection, formed an object of dispute between the two
Nicene Decision as
to the Date Parties- According to a statement of of Cele- Tertullian, Easter was celebrated anhration. nually in the first month, i.e., March. But if Easter is calculated after the full moon which follows the spring equinox, it does not always take place in the month of March. Consequently at the time when Tertullian made this statement (in the beginning of the third century), Easter must have been celebrated in Carthage and in the Occident on an immovable day in the month of March. As Tertullian in another place designates the twenty-fifth of March as the day of the death of Christ, and as this tradition is very frequently in evidence in the whole Occident, it is to be assumed that in the Occident there began a fast on that date which was broken on the following Sunday in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. At the Council of Nicaea an attempt was made to abolish the differences between the various churches and to introduce the Egyptian calculation into all provinces. Easter was to be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But by this decision a uniform regulation of the question was not guaranteed, as is evident from the necessity of reaffirming the decision at the Synod of Antioch in 341. An anti-Judaistic polemic which is noticeable in the regulation of the question since the third century has undoubtedly influenced to a great extent the final victory of the custom of Palestine and Egypt. In spite of the decision of the councils, the churches of Mesopotamia, Antioch, and Syria adhered to the old custom.
(Erwin Preuschen.) III. The Easter Cycle: This is a determinate series of years such that in each series Easter
Sunday always recurs in the same sequence on the same day of the month. Such a cycle exists for the Julian calendar and comprises 532 years. Besides this cycle there is another, consisting of eightyfour years, which is mentioned at the close of the third century but which was later superseded by the cycle of 532 years because it was found that the computation was wrong. A lunar cycle of nineteen years is also named and only in this sense can an Easter cycle be connected with the Gregorian calendar.
Carl Bertheau.
Bibliography: On I.: Bingham, Origines, XX. v.; J. C. W. Augusti, Denkwurdigkeiten, vol. ii., Leipsic, 1818; F. Piper, Geschichte des Osterfestes, Berlin, 1845; H. Alt, Der christliche Cultus, part ii., Berlin, 1850; W I. Zip, Hist., Object and Proper Observance of the Holy Season of Lent, New York, 1875; E. Renan, L'Eglise chretienne, pp. 445-451, Paris, 1879; idem, M. Aurele, pp. 194-206, ib. 1882, Eng. transl. of both vols., London, n.d.; F. X. Kraus, Realencyklopadie der christlichen Alterthumer, i. 486-502, Freiburg, 1881; J. H. Hobart, Festivals and Feasts, London, 1887; L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien, pp. 226 sqq., Paris, 1889, Eng. transl., Christian Worship, pp. 236-239 et passim, London, 1904; T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, i. 180 sqq., Leipsic, 1889; idem, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alien Kirche, chap, vi., ib. 1894; Neander, Christian Church, i. 149, 297-300 et passim, ii.-iv. passim; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. i. passim, Eng. transl., vol. i.; Schaff, Christian Church, ii. 206-209; DCB, i. 586-595; DCG, i. 255; E. C. Achelis, Lehrbuch der praktischen Theologie, i. 292 sqq., Leipsic, 1898; G. Rietschel, Lehrbuch der Liturgik, i. 172 sqq., Berlin, 1900.
On II.: C. L. Weitzel, Die christliche Passafeier der drei ersten Jahrhunderten, Pforzheim, 1848; A. Hilgenfeld, Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche, Halle, 1860; W F. Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, i. chap, i., London, 1860; F. C. Baur, Das Christenthum der drei ersten Jahrhunderten, pp. 156-169, Tubingen, 1863; W Milligan, The Easter Controversies of the Second Century in their Relation to the Gospel of St. John, in Contemporary Review, Sept., 1867; J. F. S. Gordon, Scotichronicon, i. 60-65, Glasgow, 1867; E. Schurer, De controversiis paschalibus, Leipsic, 1869; idem, in ZHT, 1870, pp. 182 sqq.; L. Duchesne, La Question de la P&que, in Revue des questions historiques, July, 1880; G. Salmon, Historical Introduction to the N. T., lect. xv., London, 1894; Mc- Giffert in NPNF, 2d ser., i. 241; Neander, ut sup., i. 297- 300, ii. 337-338, iii. 347, 585; Schaff, ut sup., ii., 209-220. On III.: Van der Hagen, Dissertationes de cyclis paschalibus, Amsterdam, 1736; L. Ideler, Handbuch der . Chronologie, ii. 191-298, Berlin, 1826; idem, Lehrbuch der Chronologie, pp. 345-379, ib. 1831; B. Krusch, Studien zur christlichen mittelalterlichen Chronologie, Leipsic, 1880; H. Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, p. 144, Hanover, 1891.
EASTER COMMUNION: The celebration of the Lord's Supper early became one of the chief of the rites connected with Easter. Those who had become cold and lax in their attention on religious ceremonies felt that they must, on Easter, if at no other time, commune. In the council held in the Lateran in Rome in 1215, that which had become a practise was made an obligation, and the twenty- first canon of this council reads thus: " Every believer, of either sex, who has come to years of discretion, must at least once a year confess honestly his sins to his own priest and perform the penance which may be enjoined as far as he is able, and at least on Easter solemnly receive the Eucharist, unless his priest out of sufficient grounds has forbidden its reception. Whoever refuses so to do will be excluded from the Church, and on death be refused Christian burial' Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, v. 888.
Eastern Church