The only possible allusion in the New Testament
to the observance of a Christian Passover, or festival
of the death of Christ, is
1. Testimony
where "Christ our Passover" is said
to have been sacrificed for us. That
of
the the Jewish Christians continued to
Nicene keep the Jewish festivals is altogether
Period. probable, if not
certain, from Paul's
habit. On the other hand, Paul seems
to disparage the observance of special festivals
except the first day
of the week
(
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week and of the year on which pascha 2. Teed. was to be celebrated. He records that
mony as early as the middle of the second cen of the to , there was dispute over this doubleNioene question, Polycarp of Asia Minor and Period. Anicetua of Rome being at that time
the representatives of the two views. Eusebius further says that the churches in Asia Minor derived their custom of observing the pascha from the Apostle John and Philip. Without doubt Christian elements were incorporated into the celebration. It was not a question of whether a day corresponding to the Passover should be celebrated, but a question of the time at which it was to be celebrated. Further, according to Eusebius, the churches of Asia Minor finished "their fasting on the festival of the Savior's passover." This was the 14th of Nisan. In other parts of the Church, Eusebius goes on to say, it was not their custom " to end it on this day " but, " on no other day than that of the Lord's resurrection." From this it would seem on the surface that in Asia Minor the Churches finished the fasting on the day set apart for the pascha, that is in all probability the day commemorating the crucifixion, and in the rest of the world they carried the fasting over to Sunday. Joy is not mentioned as an element in the celebration in the case either of Asia Minor or of the rest of the world, so that if the resurrection was celebrated at all as a separate feast, Eusebius does not indicate it. We can not think that, if the resurrection was celebrated, fasting and grief entered into its observance, as has been deduced from this statement of Eusebius. (For the fast preceding Easter, see Fasting , II., § 3). To this passage of Eusebius have been added recently passages from the Canons of Hippolytus (TU, vi. 4, pp. 115-116) and from Aphraatea (ed. Bert, T U, new ser., iii. pp.170-171). The former speaks of the pascha as a time of fasting and lamentation. Aphraatea also (cf. Bert, in TU, ut sup. p. 83) seems not to have in mind the resurrection when he speaks of the Christian pascha. However, Alexander of Egypt (d. 264, Routh, Religuice Sacra,, iii. 223 sqq.) distinguishes the festivals of the death and of the resurrection.
From these unsatisfactory notices, different views have been deduced. Neander, Hilgenfeld and P. Schaff have held that in the second and third centuries the pascha included the celebration of the resurrection and death of Christ; Steitz and Drews
only the death; while Schürer, Karl n- Moller, and others hold the modified
oln- view that it celebrated the completioneions. of the full work of redemption and not specifically either the death or the resurrection. It must be .lid that the silence of the writers of the ante-Nicene period, who give such scant notice of the pascha feast, can not safely be interpreted to mean that the resurrection was not celebrated as a distinct part of the pascha festival. The few extant notices, taken by themselves, seem to favor the theory that there was but one festival of the
pascha and that it included the death and the resurrection. Certainly in the fourth century the term pascha stood for both the resurrection and the death of Christ. It was then called "the holy feast, the pascha of our salvation" as by the Council of Antioch 341 (canon i., Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, i. 513); and Athanasius frequently describes the pascha as a feast of joy at which the Lord himself is the festival. It is a festival of redemption (cf. "Festal Letters," ANF, 2d ser., iv. 506-556). Finally, in the fourth century pascha came to be used in a limited sense for Easter Sunday alone, as by the Councils of Arles 314, Carthage 397, and the First Synod of Toledo 400 (canon xx.). Contemporaneously the whole feast of the pascha was known undet the two names the pascha of the crucifixion and the pascha of the resurrection. They were parts of a single festival.
3. The Day of Celebration: As already indicated, Eusebius states that there was a wide difference in the customs prevalent in Asia Minor and the rest of the Christian world in regard to the day of the year and of the week on which the pascha festival was to be celebrated. The Christians of Asia Minor were called 6,)uartodecimana from their custom of celebrating the pascha invariably on the 14th of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish year and falling in the springtime. The date might fall on Friday or on any of the other days of the week, which fact made no difference in the celebration of the paschal feast. For this reason the day of the resurrection did not always fall on a Sunday. In the churches of the West and also in parts of the East a different custom prevailed. The result of these differences was that different sections of the Church might and did observe the pascha on different dates. Out of this difference grew the Paschal Controversies, so-called (see II., below). The Council of Nica'a had for its second object the unification of the date of the Christian pascha, which the Council of Arles (314) had referred to as a moat desirable thing " that the pascha of the Lord should be observed on one day and at one time throughout the world " (cf. Hefele, Con ciliengeschichte, i. 205). The decree of Nicwa fixed as Easter Sunday the Sunday immediately following the fourteenth day of the so-called paschal moon, which happens on or first after the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox invariably falls on Mar. 21. Easter, then, can not occur earlier than Mar. 22, or later than Apr. 25. In the former case the fourteenth day of the moon would coincide with Mar. 21, the day of the veinal equinox. In the latter, the fifteenth day of the moon would happen on Mar. 21, and a whole lunar month would have to intervene before the condition, "the fourteenth day of the moon first after the vernal equinox," was fulfilled; and, as this might be Sunday, Easter Sabbath would not occur till seven more days had elapsed, i.e., Apr. 25.
4. Bites of Celebration: Up to the year 300 notices are very scant. Eusebius states that the pascha was celebrated with mourning, and that church synods (exclusive of those in Asia Minor) ordered that "the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord" should be observed only on the Lord's
.:,.;
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After 300 notices of the festivities of Easter are frequent and many sermons on the pascha are preserved in Ambrose, Augustine, and other writers. The day was looked upon as the most joyous festival of the year. The week beginning with Easter Sunday was observed with special religious festivities and each day had its sermon.
2. In the Easter Sunday was called dominica Post- in (ylb2S (see Alb; Catechumenate, § 4) or octavo infantium and thePeriod Sunday closing Easter week was and
M ddle called octavo pasehce or pascha clams sum. Ambrose in his sermon on the "Mystery of the Pascha" (MPL, xvii. 695) gives full expression to the joyous feelings which were involved in Easter. He called the day the real beginning of the year, the opening of the months, the new revival of the seeds and the res toration of the joy interrupted by the cold of winter. On that day God, as it were, relighta the sun and given light to the moon. The Easter cele bration began on Saturday, sometimes as early as three o'clock in the afternoon, as is stated to have been the case in Jerusalem by the "Itinerary" of Silvia (cf. Hauck-Herzog, RE, xiv. 743). This Saturday celebration was known as the Easter or Paschal Vigils. Augustine called this vigil the "mother of all the sacred vigils" (Sermo ecxix., MPL, xxxviii. 1088), and says that even the heathen kept awake on that night. According to Lactantius (De divinis institutionx'hua, VIL, xix., ANF, vii. 215) and Jerome (on Matt, xAV. 6, MPL, xxvi. 184), the Lord was expected to return at that time. The celebration is referred to by other authors, in missals, in the codes of Theo dosius and Justinian and in the acts of coun cils. The services in the churches consisted of readings from the Law, the Prophets and the narratives of the Lord's passion, in the administration of baptism and confirmation, and ended with the Eucharist. For Spain and Gaul these services are recorded in the Mozarabic Liturgy (MPL, Ixxxv.), and in the Gothic missal the Gallic missal, the Gallic sacramentaryand the Lectionary of Luxeuil (all in MPL lxxii.). The use of lighted candles became universal and is attested as the custom in Rome at least as early as the middle of the third century. The Canons of Hippolytus (TU, vi. 4, p. 136) say " that on the night of the resurrection no one should sleep and every one should have a light, for on that night the Redeemer made every one free from the darkness of sin and the grave." Augustine bears witness to the custom of lighting and carrying candles. Eusebius says that the whole city of Constantinople was illuminated with wax candles and columns of wax (" Life of Constantine," iv. 22). Gregory Nazianzen (d. 390) and Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395, " Oration on the pascha," xlii.) speak of persons of all ranks carrying tapers and lamps. The custom of the paschal fire was also an early institution and can be traced back to 600 at least as in vogue in France. Alcuin (De diz;inis ofj'rciis, xvi.17,MPL, ci. 1205) and Boniface (d. 752, MPL, lxxxix. 951) definitely refer to it. The new fire was struck from a atone and the tapers and candles lighted from it. Perhaps the custom was drawn from the ceremony of the Romans at the altar of Vests at the opening of the New Year, Mar. 1. The symbolical significance of such an act, as a means of instruction to the people and as an expression of piety for the new light brought into the world by the resurrection is so natural that it is not necessary to fall back upon the old Roman ceremony. In Gaul the custom was also observed, how widely is not known, of placing five pieces of incense in the great paschal candle to symbolize the five wounds of Christ. The codes of Theodosius and Just*nian recognized the joyous character of the day by encouraging the emancipation of slaves and the liberation of minor criminals, and ordering the omission of spectacular entertainments during Easter week. It was also made a time for the presentation of gifts and the distribution of alma. The acts of councils (Orleans, 538, Macon, 581, and others) down through the Middle Ages to the Fourth Lateran (1215) and later councils forbade the Jews to tread the streets or to show themselves out of doors from Maundy Thursday till after Easter, lest the joy of the Christians should be interrupted.At the present time the religious festivities of Easter time in the Greek and Latin Churches involve the substantial elements in the ancient custom of the day. Elaborate solemn rites are observed on Saturday and until the cockcrowing of Easter morning when the tapers (extinguished on Good Friday) are lighted with the words " The Light of Christ." In the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem until a few years ago the pious fraud of the "holy fire" was perpetrated by the Greek patriarch who presented from the sacred tomb s. In three times a lighted taper or torch which he declared had been lighted ern by a miracle without human interven Times. tion. The spectators, wrought to great excitement, struggled to light their tapers at the miraculous fire, and then carried it throughout the Greek world. Often disgraceful scenes occurred and the intervention of the Turkish soldiery was required to prevent or check violence. In the twelfth century Saladin is said by an early tradition to have witnessed this miracle and acknowl-
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