By Ralph Orr
Did the apostolic church keep the Passover in memory of Jesus' death? That is what the Worldwide Church of God taught. What most Protestants call the Lord's Supper, the church called Passover. For clarification, some have preferred the phrase New Testament Passover.
Because Jesus instituted and commanded the Lord's Supper at the beginning of the Passover day, the church saw the ordinance as a revision of the old covenant Passover festival. Bread and wine now replaced lamb and bitter herbs.
God commanded the Jews to annually observe their Passover on the 14th day of their first month (Nisan 14). The church reasoned that the Christian Passover must also be kept at that same time. We taught that to observe this ordinance at any other time was wrong, even sinful.
This rationale and practice had a certain logic to it. It fit the church's former belief that old covenant days were now in force for Christians. It seemed to be echoed in Paul's teaching that Jesus is our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7). As Jesus is the Lamb of God, valid comparisons can be made between his ministry and the original Passover lamb in Exodus.
For these and other reasons, many believed that the name Lord's Supper was inappropriate, and that the only proper name for the Christian ordinance was Passover. Based on this perspective, members would point out a difference in their beliefs by saying: "We don't keep the Lord's Supper. We keep the Passover."
Because we thought this view was biblical, the church believed that God's first-century church had no other practice. That most Christians did not agree with this view needed to be explained.
The explanation that became widely accepted was that Satan's church, in rebellion against God's commands, substituted Easter for Passover. Satan's church, of course, was the church at Rome.
The Roman church was said to be wrong on two counts. First, it supposedly rejected the once-a-year Passover and replaced it with a much more frequent practice now called Eucharist or Communion. Second, the church added Easter to its calendar.
The Worldwide Church of God once considered the addition of Easter a grave evil. We argued that Easter was essentially a pagan festival. After all, weren't pre-Christian customs a part of Easter celebrations? Wasn't the word Easter a reference to a pagan goddess?
Then there was the command-based argument. This argument correctly observed that God did not command us to observe Jesus' resurrection, only his death. Therefore, if God did not command it, then it must be wrong.
Related to the command-based argument was the first century church argument. Since the first century church supposedly did not celebrate Jesus' resurrection, then neither should we--the two assumptions being that worship practices of the apostolic church were the God-ordained worship practices for all time, and that the New Testament's silence about a resurrection celebration can only mean that the first century Christians did not have one.
All three of these arguments are classical Protestant arguments dating from the Reformation. Though rarely applied to the subject of Easter, American fundamentalist, evangelical and Anabaptist circles continue to use them to justify various sectarian positions.
For example, based on these premises, some won't use musical instruments in their worship. Others deny Christians any participation in secular government. Still others oppose any ritual or theology developed since the apostles.
Besides the arguments mentioned, the Worldwide Church of God also thought it found support in a now obscure, but once quite heated controversy--the Quartodeciman controversy. (Quartodeciman refers to the 14th day of the month.) We have sometimes called this controversy the Passover-Easter controversy. Others have called it the Easter controversy or the Paschal controversy.
That some scholars refer to the controversy as an Easter controversy is unfortunate. Easter, of course, is an English word. Today the word implies, for most English-speakers, a host of cultural assumptions alien to the original controversy.
The disputants in the Quartodeciman controversy did not use Easter to describe what they were arguing over. Therefore, to describe the Quartodeciman controversy as a Passover-Easter controversy, especially to a Worldwide Church of God member, can obscure the nature of the dispute rather than clarify it.
Historically the church's telling of the Quartodeciman controversy focused on three events: the controversy between Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, and Anicetus, the bishop of Rome, that occurred around A.D. 155; the more heated controversy between Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, and Victor, the bishop of Rome, that broke out around 195; and the decree of Constantine following the Nicene Council in 325.
Scholars disagree about the controversy's details. They do agree that its arguments revolved around whether the primary Christian spring festival should happen on Nisan 14 (the Passover day) or annually on a Sunday.
Eusebius is our primary source for the controversy between Polycarp and Anicetus. Polycarp knew the apostle John and was of such stature that many considered him John's spiritual, though not apostolic, successor in Asia Minor. Polycarp believed that Nisan 14 was the correct time for the spring festival, but Anicetus, bishop of Rome, favored Sunday.
But what were some Christians doing on Nisan 14 and others doing on "Easter"? Were some observing the Passover as the only time for the Lord's Supper, while others were observing a pagan holiday? If so, how did each view the other?
A careful reading of the evidence shows that an annual Lord's Supper was not the issue, neither was Easter, or at least what we think of as Easter. No one was arguing that the Lord's Supper should only be kept once a year. And no one was arguing over Easter bunnies and colored eggs.
Furthermore, none of the Quartodecimans claimed that it was wrong to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. To the contrary, the evidence indicates that both Polycarp and Anicetus celebrated Jesus' resurrection. Polycarp's claim seems to have been that the best day to do so was on Nisan 14. Anicetus argued for Sunday.
What is more intriguing for us is that Polycarp claimed his practice came to him from the apostle John. In other words, Polycarp essentially argued that the practice of celebrating Jesus' resurrection on Nisan 14 was an apostolic practice, at least for the apostle John. His argument was not so much scriptural as it was traditional.
Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, chapters 23 to 25, makes it plain that the Quartodeciman controversy involved in part when to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. He tells us that the churches in Asia Minor, focusing on the crucifixion as of primary importance, argued for Nisan 14 as the day to commemorate the entire story of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection.
The church at Rome, focusing on the resurrection, argued that there was no need to depend on the Jewish calendar and that Sunday was the most appropriate day of all.
Further study yields other surprises. For one, notice that no one in the Quartodeciman controversy argued over the actual day of the resurrection. This was not in dispute. When Rome said they memorialized the resurrection on Sunday, neither Polycarp nor anyone else argued, "Don't you know the resurrection wasn't on Sunday?" The argument was not over the day of Jesus' resurrection, but over what day was most appropriate to commemorate it annually.
To resolve the dispute, Polycarp traveled to Rome. A since-lost letter by Irenaeus, quoted by Eusebius and others, tells us what happened.
"When the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John, the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he associated.... Neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it."
So what did they do with this impasse? Did Anicetus call Polycarp a Jew for commemorating the resurrection on the Passover? Did Polycarp call Anicetus a pagan, or one who had denied the faith for celebrating the resurrection on a Sunday? Did he accuse him of denying God's law? Not at all. Both men decided they would not quarrel. They chose to live in peace.
What happened next we would have thought extraordinary. Irenaeus' letter records that Polycarp and Anicetus took the Lord's Supper together. It didn't matter to them what season or day it was. Taking the Lord's Supper together symbolically showed their unity in Christ. After this, "they parted from each other in peace."
We can be certain that this happened because Irenaeus' letter, written only a few decades after the original event, called on another bishop of Rome to repent and follow the well-known example of his predecessor.
A few decades later Polycrates and Victor did not get along nearly as well. The discussion about "Easter" began to degenerate. In anger, Victor excommunicated the Quartodeciman Polycrates and those who shared his views. Many bishops protested, such as the aforementioned Irenaeus, though they did not agree with the Quartodeciman position. Victor's attempted excommunication apparently failed.
By the 300s the Quartodecimans were much less influential. Though the Nicene Council dealt primarily with the issue of the Word's eternal divinity, it also considered and rebuked the Quartodeciman position. Where once churches found unity despite their diversity, some types of diversity were now beginning to be seen as a threat to unity.
The passage of several hundred years since John's death saw the church combat many heresies. Not every diversity had proven healthy to the faith. As persecution became less of a problem, the church spent more time defining orthodoxy. The Nicene Council decreed that Christians should celebrate Jesus' resurrection on a Sunday.
After the Council's close, Emperor Constantine supported its judgment with a vile anti-Semitic attack against all Quartodecimans. He ordered a severe persecution of those who refused to comply.
In summary, the Quartodeciman controversy was not an Easter-Passover controversy as we have framed those terms. The Roman church apparently did not initiate the celebration of Jesus' resurrection, as the Asian churches had no objection to this practice. Evidence indicates that they and the apostle John did the same.
"False Christians" at Rome were not rejecting God's law by substituting pagan festivals for God's Holy Days. God himself abolished Israel's festivals as requirements when he abolished the old covenant.
There simply is no evidence that because they were anti-Semitic the early Roman church chose Sunday as the day of their celebration. Vehement anti-Semitism arose later. The record shows that they chose Sunday based on their understanding of when the Gospels said Jesus arose.
The issues that separated the Quartodecimans from other Christians were over the timing of their customs, not the value of the customs or the timing of the resurrection. Initially, those holding differing views considered each other Christian. They understood each other to be a part of the body of Christ. To display their unity they took the Lord's Supper together whatever the date.
It should go without saying that celebrating the foundational events of our faith, especially events having to do with Jesus' earthly ministry, is fitting. Celebrating his resurrection is the joyful response of believers to the message: "He is risen!"
It is not surprising that early Christians formalized such celebrations as a part of their annual cycle of worship. By contrast, those who argue over dates often miss the profound significance of the events being celebrated.
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