EASTER
228
EASTER
with the blood of the paschal lamb. The parish priest
visits the houses of his parish; the papal apartments
are also blessed on this day. The room, however, in
which the pope is found by the visiting cardinal is
blessed by the pontiff himself (Moroni, Dizionariq, s. v.
Pasqua).
10. The Greeks and Russians after their long, severe Lent make Easter a day of popular sports. At Con- stantinople the cemetery of Pera is the noisy rendez- vous of the Greeks; there are music, dances, and all the pleasvires of an Oriental popular resort; the same custom prevails in the cities of Russia. In Russia anyone can enter the belfries on Easter and ring the bells, a privilege of which many persons avail them- selves.
Duchesne, Orig. du CuUeChret. (Paris, 1SS9): Kellner. Heor- tologie (Freiburg im Br., 1906); Probst. Die iiUesten romischen Sacramentarien und Ordines (Miinster, 1892); Gueranger, £>as Kirchenjahr, Ger.tr. (Mainz. 1S7S). V, 7; Kraus, Real-Encyk.; Bernard, Couts de Liturgie Romaine; Hampson, Calendarium Medii ^vi (London, 1S57); Kirchenlex., IX, cols. 1121—11; NiLLES, Calendarium idriusque Ecclesiw (Innsbruck, 1897); MiGNE. La Liturgie Catholique (Paris, 1863); Binterim, Z)cni- wurdigkeiten (Mainz, 1S37); Grotefend, Zeilreehnung (Han- over, 1S91-1S9S); Lersch, Einleitung in die Chronologie (Frei- burg, 1S99); Bach. Die Osterberechnung (Freiburg, 1907); Schwartz, Christiiche und judische Ostertafeln (Berlin, 1905); Suntne Lafini Quartodecimani ? (Prague, 1906); Duchesne, La question de la Pdque du Concile de Nicee in Revue des quest, histor. (1880), 5 sq.; Krusch, Studien zur christlich-mittelalter- lichen Chronologie (Leipzig, 1880); Rock. The Church of Our Fathers (London. 1905). IV ; Albers, Festtage des Herrn und seiner Heiligen (Paderborn, 1890).
Frederick G. Holweck.
Easter Controversy. — Ecclesiastical history pre- sences the memory of three distinct phases of the dis- pute regarding the proper time of observing Easter. It will add to clearness if we in the first place state what is certain regarding the date and the nature of these three controversies.
First Phase. — The first was mainly concerned with the lawfulness of celebrating Easter on a weekday. We read in Eusebius (Hist. EccL, V, xxiii) : " A question of no small importance arose at that time [i. e. the time of Pope Victor, about A. D. 100]. The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch [itrl T^s ToO ouTT)plov Ilaffxa iopriji], contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they ol)served the practice, which from Apostohc tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of Our Saviour. Syn- ods and assemblies of bishops were held on this ac- count, and all with one consent through mutual corres- pondence drew up an ecclesiastical decree that the mystery of the Resurrection of the Lord should be cele- brated on no otlier day but the Sunday and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on that day only. " Tliese words of the Father of Church His- tory, followed by some extracts which he makes from the controversial letters of the time, tell us almost all that we know concerning the paschal controversy in its first stage. A letter of St. Irena;us is among the extracts just referred to, and this shows that the diversity of practice regarding Easter had existed at least from the time of Pope Sixtus (c. 120). Further, Irena"us states that St. Polycarp, who, like the other Asiatics, kept Easter on the fovirteenth day of the moon, whatever day of the week that might be, follow- ing therein the tradition which he claimed to have de- rived from St. .Jolm the .Vpostle, came to Rome c. l.'iO about this very question, but could not be persua<led by Pope Anicetus to relinquish his Quartodeciman ol> eervance. Nevertheless lie w;is not debarred from communion with the Roman Church, and St. Iren:eus, while condemning the Quartodeciman practice, never-
theless reproaches Pope Victor (c. 189-99) with having
excommunicated the Asiatics too precipitately and
with not having followed the moderation of his prede-
cessor. The question thus debated was therefore
primarily whether Easter was to he kept on a Sunday,
or whether Christians should observe the Holy Day of
the Jews, the fourteenth of Nisan. which might occur
on any day of the week. Those who kept Easter with
the Jews were called Quartodecimans or TTjpoCfTes (ob-
servants); but even in the time of Pope Victor this
usage hardly extended beyond the Churches of Asia
Minor. After the pope's strong measures the Quarto-
decimans seem to have graduallj' dwindled away.
Origen in the "Philosophumena" (VIII, xviii) seema
to regard them as a mere handful of wrong-headed
nonconformists.
Second Phase. — The second stage in the Easter controversy centres round the Council of Nicsea (a. d. 325). Granted that the great Easter festival was al- ways to be held on a Sunday, and was not to be coin- cident with a particular phase of the moon, which might occur on any day of the week, a new dispute arose as to the determination of the Svmday itself. The text of the decree of the Council of Nica?a which settled, or at least indicated a final settlement of, the difficulty has not been preserved to us, but we have an important document inserted in Eusebius's "Life of Constantine" (III, xviii sq.). The emperor himself, writing to the Churches after the Council of Nicsea, exhorts them to adopt its conclusions and says among other things: "At this meeting the question concern- ing the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved by the united judgment of all present that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day. . . .\nd first of all it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin . . . for we have received from our Sav- iour a different way. . . And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities in the hope that your Wisdoms will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome and in Africa, throughout Italy and in Egypt .... with entire unity of judgment." From this and other indications which cannot be speci- fied here (see, e. g., Eusebius, " De Paschate" in Schmid, " Ost erf estf rage", pp. 5S-59) we learn that the dispute now lay between the Christians of SjTia and Mesopotamia and the rest of the world. The im- portant Church of Antioch was still dependent upon the Jewish calendar for its Easter. The Syrian Chris- tians always held their Easter festival on the Sunday after the Jews kept their Pasch. On the otlier hand at .Vlexandria, and seemingly throughout the rest of the Roman Empire, the Christians calculated the time of Easter for themselves, paying no attention to the Jews. In this way the date of Easter as kept at .-Vlex- andria and .4ntiocli did not always agree; for the Jews, upon whom Antioch depended, atlopted very arbi- trary methods of intercalating embolismic months (sccCalendar, Vol. Ill, p. 15S) before they celebrated Nisan, tlie first spring month, on the fourteenth day of which tlie paschal lamb was killed. In particular welearn that they had become neglectful (or at least the Christians of Rome and .Vlexandria declared they were neglectful) of thelaw tluit the foiirteoiith of Nisan must never precede the equinox (see .Schwartz, t'hrist- liche und jiulische Ostertafeln. pp. 1.3S sqq.). Thus Constantine in the letter quoteil above protests with horror that the Jews sometimes kept two Paschs in one year, meaning that two Paschs sometimes fell between one equino.x and the next.
The Alexandrians, on the other liand, accepted it as a first principle that the Sunday to be kept as Easter Day must necessiirily occur after (ho vernal equinox, then identified with 21 Marcli of the Julian year. Thia
