One Day for Easter, and Not the Practice of the Jews

“At this meeting the question of the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was decided by the united judgment of everyone present that this feast ought to be kept by all, and in every place, on one and the same day. For what could be more fitting or honorable for us than that this feast, from which we date our hope of immortality, should be observed without fail by all alike, according to one settled order and arrangement? And first of all, it seemed an unworthy thing that in celebrating this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have wickedly defiled their hands with an enormous sin, and are therefore deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. For if we give up their custom, we are able to carry the proper observance of this ordinance on into future ages by a truer order, which we have kept from the very day of the Passion until the present time. Let us, then, have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd, for we have received a different way from our Savior. A course both lawful and honorable lies open to our most holy religion. Beloved brothers, let us take up this course with one accord, and withdraw from all share in their baseness. [a]

For their boast is absurd indeed, that without instruction from them we are not able to observe these things. How could they be capable of sound judgment, who, ever since the guilt of their parricide in killing their Lord, have been driven not by reason but by unruly passion, and are swept along by every impulse of the mad spirit in them? That is why, on this point as on others, they have no grasp of the truth. They are so wholly ignorant of the true settling of this question that they sometimes celebrate Easter twice in the same year. Why, then, should we follow those who are admittedly in grievous error? Surely we will never agree to keep this feast a second time in the same year. But even if these reasons were not weighty enough, it would still be your duty, in your wisdom, to strive and pray continually that the purity of your souls may not seem in anything to be stained by fellowship with the customs of these most wicked men.

We must also consider that disagreement in a matter of such importance, and about such a religious festival, is wrong. For our Savior has left us one feast in memory of the day of our deliverance, I mean the day of his most holy Passion. And he has willed that his catholic church should be one, whose members, however scattered in many different places, are nevertheless cherished by one spirit that runs through them all, that is, by the will of God. Let Your Holinesses consider in your wisdom how painful and scandalous it is that on the very same days some should be fasting while others are feasting; and again, that after the days of Easter some should be at banquets and entertainments while others are keeping the appointed fasts. It is plainly the will of divine Providence, then, as I suppose you all clearly see, that this practice should be properly corrected and brought under one uniform rule.