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(Hilt. eccl. V., xxiii.-xxv., NPNF, 2d ser., i. 241 aqq.). In this famous passage the historian has especially in mind the conflict as to the day of the

week and of the year on which pascha 2. Teed. was to be celebrated. He records that

Nioene 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 Euaebius. (For the fast preceding Easter, see FASTING, IL, §. 3). To this passage of Eusebiua 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 Schiirer, Karl n- Moller, and others hold the modified

eions. 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 IL, 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