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fixed at forty days,

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26

 with reference to the forty days’ fasting of Christ in the wilderness and the

Old Testament types of that event (the fasting of Moses and Elijah).

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27

§ 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.

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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,

up in our times, but long ago among those before us, who perhaps not having ruled with sufficient strictness, established the

practice that arose from their simplicity and ignorance."

326

quadragesima.

327

Matt. 4:2; comp. Ex. 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8.

328

See note at the end of the section.

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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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.

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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,

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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."

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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.

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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

329

So Renan regards the controversy, Marc-Aurèle, p. 194, as a conflict between two kinds of Christianity. "le christianisme

qui s’envisageait comme une suite du judaisme," and "le christianisme qui s’envisageait comme la destruction du judaisme."

330

By Mosheim (De rebus christ. ante Const. M Com., p. 435 sqq.) and Neander (in the first edition of his Church Hist., 1.

518, but not in the second I. 512, Germ. ed., I. 298 in Torrey’s translation). There is no trace of such a Jewish custom on the part

of the Quartadecimani. This is admitted by Hefele (I. 87), who formerly held to three parties in this controversy; but there were

only two.

331

The celebration of the eucharist is not expressly mentioned by Eusebius, but may be inferred. He says (H. E. V. 23): "The

churches of all Asia, guided by older tradition (

                          

, older than that of Rome), thought that they were bound

to keep the fourteenth day of the moon, on (or at the time of) the feast of the Saviour’s Passover (

                                

),

that day on which the Jews were commanded to kill the paschal lamb; it being incumbent on them by all means to regulate the

close of the fast by that day on whatever day of the week it might happen to fall."

332

Justin M. Dial.c.111; Iren. Adv. Haer. II. 22, 3; Tert. De Bapt. 19; Origen, In Matth.; Epiph. Haer. XLII. St. Paul first

declared Christ to be our passover (1 Cor. 5:7), and yet his companion Luke, with whom his own account of the institution of

the Lord’s Supper agrees, represents Christ’s passover meal as takin, place on the 14th.

333

The 

ιδ ́=14, quarta decima. See Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23:5, where this day is prescribed for the celebration of the Passover. Hence

ΤεσσαρεσκαιδεκατῖταιQuartodecimani, more correctly Quartadecimani. This sectarian name occurs in the canons of the councils

of Laodicea, 364, Constantinople, 381, etc.

334

Philosph. or Refutat. of all Haeres. VIII. 18.

335

So also Renan regards it, L’égl. Chrét., p. 445sq., but he brings it, like Baur, in conflict with the chronology of the fourth

Gospel. He traces the Roman custom from the pontificate of Xystus and Telesphorus, a.d. 120.

134

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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