Easter, Fasting, Baptism, Marriage and Other Customs of the Churches

Since we have touched on the subject, I think it not unreasonable to say a few words about Easter. It seems to me that neither the ancients nor the moderns who have chosen to follow the Jews have had any reasonable ground for quarreling so stubbornly about it. For they have not taken into account that when Judaism was changed into Christianity, the obligation to keep the law of Moses and its ceremonial types came to an end. The proof of this is plain: no law of Christ allows Christians to imitate the Jews. On the contrary, the apostle expressly forbids it. He not only rejects circumcision but also warns against quarreling over festival days. In his letter to the Galatians he writes: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” Continuing his argument, he shows that the Jews were in bondage as servants, but that those who have come to Christ are “called into the freedom of sons.” Moreover, he urges them not to observe “days, and months, and years” at all. Again, in his letter to the Colossians he plainly declares that such observances are merely shadows. That is why he says: “Let no one judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days. These are a shadow of things to come.” He confirms the same truths in the letter to the Hebrews, in these words: “For when the priesthood is changed, there is of necessity a change of the law as well.” [a]

So neither the Apostle nor the Gospels have anywhere laid the “yoke of slavery” on those who have embraced the truth. They have left Easter and every other feast to be honored by the gratitude of those who have received grace. People love festivals because they give them a rest from work, and so each person in each place, by a custom that took hold, has celebrated the memory of the saving passion as he pleased. The Savior and his apostles did not command us by any law to keep this feast. Nor do the Gospels and the Apostle threaten us with any penalty, punishment or curse for neglecting it, as the law of Moses does the Jews. It is only for the sake of historical accuracy, and to reproach the Jews because they polluted themselves with blood on their very feasts, that the Gospels record that our Savior suffered in the days of “unleavened bread.” The aim of the apostles was not to appoint festival days, but to teach a righteous life and piety. And it seems to me that just as many other customs have grown up in particular places by usage, so the feast of Easter came to be kept in each place according to the particular ways of each people, since none of the apostles made any law about it. The facts themselves show that the practice began not by law but as a custom.

In Asia Minor most people kept the fourteenth day of the moon, without regard to the sabbath. Yet they never separated from those who did otherwise, until Victor, bishop of Rome, carried away by too fiery a zeal, hurled a sentence of excommunication against the Quartodecimans in Asia. For this reason Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul, sharply rebuked Victor by letter for his excessive heat. He told him that although the ancients differed in how they celebrated Easter, they did not stop sharing communion with one another. He also told him that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who afterward suffered martyrdom under Gordian, continued in communion with Anicetus, bishop of Rome, although he himself kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, following the custom of his native Smyrna. Eusebius reports this in the fifth book of his Church History. So while some in Asia Minor kept the day just mentioned, others in the East kept the feast on the sabbath but differed about the month. The first group thought the Jews should be followed, even though the Jews were not exact. The second group kept Easter after the equinox and refused to celebrate with the Jews. As they put it: “It ought to be celebrated when the sun is in Aries, in the month the people of Antioch call Xanthicus and the Romans call April.” In this, they said, they were following not the Jews of today, who are mistaken in almost everything, but the ancients, and Josephus, according to what he has written in the third book of his Jewish Antiquities. So these people were at odds among themselves. But all the other Christians in the Western regions, as far as the ocean itself, are found to have celebrated Easter after the equinox, by a very ancient tradition. And those who act this way have in fact never disagreed on the subject.

It is not true, as some have claimed, that the synod under Constantine changed this festival. For Constantine himself, writing to those who disagreed about it, urged them, since they were few in number, to agree with the majority of their brothers. His letter can be found in full in the third book of Eusebius’s Life of Constantine. But the passage in it about Easter runs as follows:

“It is a fitting order, which all the churches in the Western, Southern and Northern parts of the world observe, and some places in the East as well. For this reason everyone has on the present occasion judged it right, and I have given my word that it will have the agreement of your good sense, that what is observed with one accord in the city of Rome, throughout Italy, Africa and the whole of Egypt, in Spain, Gaul, Britain, Libya and all Greece, the diocese of Asia and Pontus, and Cilicia, your wisdom also will readily embrace. Consider not only that the number of churches in the places named is greater, but also that, while there should be general agreement in what is most reasonable, it is fitting for us to have nothing in common with the treacherous Jews.” [i]

Such is the substance of the emperor’s letter. Moreover, the Quartodecimans claim that the keeping of the fourteenth day was handed down to them by the apostle John, while the Romans and those in the Western regions assure us that their practice began with the apostles Peter and Paul. Neither party, however, can produce any written evidence for what it claims. But I conclude that the time of keeping Easter in different places depends on custom from this: those who agree in faith differ among themselves on questions of custom. And it may not be out of place to note here how customs vary among the churches. [j]

The fasts before Easter are kept differently by different peoples. Those at Rome fast three weeks in a row before Easter, except Saturdays and Sundays. Those in Illyricum, all over Greece, and at Alexandria keep a fast of six weeks, which they call “the forty days’ fast.” Others begin their fast in the seventh week before Easter, fasting only three periods of five days, and those at intervals, and yet they too call that time “the forty days’ fast.” It surprises me that, differing in this way in the number of days, they should both give it one common name. But some give one reason for it and others another, each according to his own fancy. One can also see disagreement about the manner of abstaining from food, as well as about the number of days. Some abstain entirely from anything that has life. Others eat fish alone of all living creatures. Many eat birds as well as fish, saying that according to Moses these too were made out of the waters. Some abstain from eggs and from fruit of every kind. Others eat only dry bread; still others not even that. Others again fast until the ninth hour and afterward eat any kind of food without distinction. Among various nations there are still other customs, for which countless reasons are given. But since no one can produce a written command as authority, it is clear that the apostles left each person to his own free will in the matter, so that each might do what is good not by force or necessity. Such are the differences among the churches about fasts.

There is no less variety in regard to religious assemblies. For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the sabbath of every week, the Christians of Alexandria and of Rome have stopped doing this because of some ancient tradition. The Egyptians near Alexandria and the people of the Thebaid hold their religious assemblies on the sabbath, but they do not take part in the mysteries in the way usual among Christians in general. After they have eaten and had their fill of food of every kind, they make their offerings in the evening and then partake of the mysteries. At Alexandria, again, on the Wednesday of Passion Week and on Good Friday, the Scriptures are read and the teachers explain them, and all the usual services are held in their assemblies except the celebration of the mysteries. This practice at Alexandria is very old, for it appears that Origen usually taught in the church on those days. He was a very learned teacher of the Sacred Books. He saw that the “weakness of the law” of Moses was made weaker still by explaining it literally, and so he gave it a spiritual interpretation. He declared that there has only ever been one true Passover, the one the Savior celebrated when he hung on the cross; for it was then that he defeated the opposing powers and set this up as a trophy of victory over the devil. In the same city of Alexandria, readers and chanters are chosen without distinction from the catechumens and from the faithful, whereas in all other churches only the faithful are promoted to these offices.

I have also learned of another custom in Thessaly. If a clergyman there, after being ordained, should sleep with his wife, whom he had lawfully married before his ordination, he is degraded from his office. In the East, indeed, all clergy, and even the bishops themselves, abstain from their wives; but they do this of their own accord, and not because any law requires it. For there have been many bishops among them who have had children by their lawful wives while they were bishops. The author of the practice that prevails in Thessaly is said to have been Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in that region. Love stories called the Ethiopica, which he wrote in his youth, still circulate under his name. The same custom prevails at Thessalonica, in Macedonia, and in Greece. I have also known of another peculiarity in Thessaly: there they baptize only in the days of Easter. As a result, a very great number of them die without having received baptism.

At Antioch in Syria the church building is turned the other way round, so that the altar faces not toward the east but toward the west. In Greece, at Jerusalem and in Thessaly they go to prayers as soon as the candles are lit, in the same way the Novatians do at Constantinople. At Caesarea, likewise, and in Cappadocia and in Cyprus, the presbyters and bishops explain the Scriptures in the evening, after the candles are lit. The Novatians of the Hellespont do not hold their prayers in quite the same way as those of Constantinople; in most things, however, their practice is like that of the prevailing church. In short, among all the sects it is impossible to find anywhere two churches that agree exactly in their order of prayers. At Alexandria no presbyter is allowed to preach to the people, a rule made after Arius had stirred up trouble in that church. At Rome they fast every Saturday. At Caesarea in Cappadocia they shut out from communion those who have sinned after baptism, as the Novatians do. The Macedonians in the Hellespont followed the same discipline, and so did the Quartodecimans in Asia. The Novatians in Phrygia do not admit people who have married twice; those of Constantinople neither admit nor reject them openly; while in the Western regions they are openly received.

This variety arose, I imagine, from the bishops who governed the churches in their several times. Those who received these various rites and customs handed them down as laws to those who came after them. To give a complete list of all the different customs and ceremonies in use in every city and country would be difficult, or rather impossible. But the examples we have given are enough to show that from some early precedent the Easter festival was celebrated differently in each province. So those who claim that the time of keeping Easter was changed at the Synod of Nicaea are talking at random. For the bishops gathered there worked hard to bring the original dissenting minority into line with the practice of everyone else.

That many differences arose over such matters even in the age of the apostles was well known to the apostles themselves, as the book of Acts testifies. For when they learned that a disturbance had broken out among believers because of a dispute about the Gentiles, they all met together and issued a divine law in the form of a letter. By this decree they set Christians free from slavery to outward observances and from all useless quarreling about these things, and they taught them the path of true piety, prescribing only what helps to reach it. The letter itself, which I will copy here, is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles:

“The apostles and elders and brothers send greetings to the brothers from among the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law,’ though we gave them no such command, it seemed good to us, having met with one accord, to send chosen men to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have sent Judas and Silas, who will also tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from food offered to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” [t]

These things truly pleased God, for the letter says plainly: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things.” Yet there are some who ignore these commands and treat all sexual immorality as a matter of no importance, while they fight over holy days as if their lives depended on it. In this way they go against the commands of God, make laws for themselves, and set aside the decree of the apostles. Nor do they see that they themselves are doing the opposite of what God approved. [u]

It would be easy to say much more about Easter and to show that the Jews keep no exact rule either in the time or in the manner of celebrating the Passover, and that the Samaritans, who are an offshoot of the Jews, always celebrate this festival after the equinox. But this subject would need a separate and lengthy treatise. So I will only add this. Those who are so eager to imitate the Jews and so anxious to keep the types exactly ought not to depart from them in any detail. For if they have chosen to be so precise, they must keep not only days and months, but also everything else that Christ, who was “born under the law,” did in the Jewish manner, or suffered unjustly from the Jews, or did as a type for the good of all people. He got into a boat and taught. He ordered the Passover to be made ready in an upper room. He commanded that a donkey that was tied up be untied. He gave them a man carrying a jar of water as a sign, to hurry their preparations for the Passover. He did countless other things of this kind, which are recorded in the Gospels. And yet those who think they are counted righteous by keeping this feast would consider it absurd to observe any of these things in a bodily way. No teacher ever dreams of going to preach from a boat. No one imagines he must go up into an upper room to celebrate the Passover there. They never tie up a donkey and then untie it again. And no one orders another to carry a jar of water so that the symbols might be fulfilled. They have rightly regarded such things as smacking rather of Judaism. For the Jews care more about outward ceremonies than about the obedience of the heart, and that is why they are under the curse: they do not see the spiritual meaning of the law of Moses, but rest in its types and shadows. Those who side with the Jews accept the allegorical meaning of these things, and yet they wage a deadly war over the keeping of days and months without applying the same kind of meaning to them. In this way they necessarily bring on themselves a condemnation they share with the Jews.

But enough, I think, has been said about these things. Let us now return to the subject we were dealing with before: that the church, once divided, did not stop at that division, but that those who had separated were divided again among themselves, taking occasion from the most trivial grounds. The Novatians, as I have said, were divided among themselves because of the feast of Easter, and the dispute was not limited to one point. For in different provinces some took one view of the question and some another, disagreeing not only about the month, but also about the days of the week and other unimportant matters. In some places they hold separate assemblies because of it; in others they remain in communion with one another.