Prev TOC Next
[Image]  [Hi-Res Image]

Page 46

 

Easter THE NEW BCHAFF-HERZOQ 48

edged its miraculous character (Itinerarium Ricardi I. v. 16, ed. W. Stubbs, London, 1864). Easter is observed throughout the Continent by the various bodies of Protestants. The Church of England has always observed the day and the Protestant Episcopal Church of America follows it. The Puritans abolished all special recognition of the festival. The churches of Scotland as well as the different nonepiscopal branches of the Protestant Church in America are more and more using the day as a means of commemorating the resurrection of the Lord, confirming the faith of men in the hope of the resurrection, and giving expression to the joyous character of the Christian religion.

II. The Paschal Controversies: While Jewish Christians for a time celebrated the Jewish Pass over, the practise of the Church was not uniform either in the day or in the ideas and customs at taching to what eventually became the Easter festival. The Christians of Asia Minor celebrated the Jewish Passover on the 14th of

1. The Nisan, sting with it, according to Quarto. some, the commemoration of the de-

deoimans of Asia pure of Jesus from his disciples Minor. and the institution of the Lord's Sup per. According to others, the day was celebrated in strict obedience to Jewish law, without any allusion to Gospel history. A third view maintains that the Christians of Asia Minor celebrated on the 14th of Nisan the memory of the death of Jesus. But the grounds of the contro veiey must be nought elsewhere. If the sources are examined without prejudice and without re gard to criticism of the Gospels, a different result must necessarily be reached concerning the sig nificance and import of the celebration. Euse bius says that it was decided on the basis of numer ous conferences of bishops that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord from the dead should be celebrated on no other day than on the Lord's day and on that day the Easter fast should be broken (Hilt. eccl., V. xxiii. 2, NPNF, 2d aer., i. 241). Hence it is evident that the party who were opposed in the conferences, who were un doubtedly the Christians of Asia Minor, must have celebrated the mystery of the resurrection on the day on which the fast was broken, and that this day was not Sunday but the 14th of Nisan, around which the controversy revolved. This conclusion is justified by the account of Epiphaniua concern ing the Quartodecimans (that is, those who com memorated the Lord's death on the 14th), in which he relates that fasting and the celebration of the resurrection took place on the same day. It is hardly conceivable that a bitter and protracted controversy should have originated on a mere matter of fasting; the real reason for the differ ences lay deeper. The Christians of Asia Minor appealed to an old apostolic tradition according to which Jesus rose on the evening of the day of his death, and the opposition of the Occidentals was directed mainly against the commemoration of death and resurrection on the same day.

The Syriac Didascalia makes an attempt to harmonize the tradition of the canonical Gospels and

that of the Christians of Asia Minor. On the morning of Friday Jesus was led before Pilate and crucified on the same day. He suffered six hours, and those are counted as one day. Then there was a darkness, lasting three hours; and that is counted as a night, and further, from the ninth hour till evening three hours,-another day, and

8. Doors- bath. In the Gospel of Matthew we meatary read, « Now late on the eabbath day Bases as it began to dawn toward the first and Her-

monistic day of the week, came Mary MagdaCalenla- lane," etc. (Matt. xxviii. 1, R. V.). boas. The calculation is strange, but rte purpose is easily seen. The author believed that Jesus rose on the evening of the Friday on which he suffered death. In order to reconcile this tradition with the other which assumed a resurrection on the third day, he calculated (as above) in such a way that Jesus really rose after two days and two nights although only one day had passed. It is not known whether Friday of every week was celebrated by fasts and the mysteries of resurrection or the 14th of each month or the 14th of Nisan in each year. In the Orient, Sunday was not known as the day of resurrection, and hence there was no weekly celebration of this. day, but in the Occident Wednesday and Friday were regular fast-days, and .Sunday was celebrated as the day of resurrection. It is doubtful whether the Occident possessed in addition a special day in the year for the commemoration of the death and the resurrection of the Lord.

When Polycarp visited Anicetus in Rome (c. 154), the celebration of Passover was discussed, but no agreement was arrived at. Polycarp appealed to the old age of the tradition in Asia Minor,

S. Con- Neither made concessions, but there troversy was no rupture. At the beginning of is the c the paschal controversies, there arose Ceatnry. also he heresy of the Montaniats who by means of the Egyptian calen dar designated the seventh of April as the day of the death of Christ on which they annually celebrated Passover without regard to the day of the week and the phase of the moon. This revolu tionary spirit was opposed by the representatives of the Church of Asia Minor, especially by Melito of Sardis and Apollinsris of Hierapolis, but, owing to his disagreement with the Church of Asia Minor, Victor of Rome was favorably inclined toward the Montanists. He attempted to exclude the churches of the province of Asia from the ortho dox Church, but Polycarp of Smyrna defended the old custom so that the measures of Rome could not be carried out. Most of the bishops took the part of Polycarp. Even Irenaeue wrote to Victor in the name of the Gallican bishops, exhorting him to be moderate. The leaders of the Church of Palestine, such as Narcissus of Jerusalem, The ophilus of Caesarea, also the bishops of Pontua and Gaul, and the Church of Alexandria stood on the aide of Victor, appealing to the tradition of the Apostles, while Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia