How the Quartodecimans celebrated 'Pascha' – and why it's important
Contrary to popular belief, the problem with the Quartodecimans was not their Easter tradition – which was accepted as a true Apostolic custom, even though it needed to be abandoned.
Contrary to popular belief, the problem with the Quartodecimans was not their Easter tradition – which was accepted as a true Apostolic custom, even though it needed to be abandoned.
Editor’s Notes
We continue here our translation of Fr Gabriel Daniel SJ’s treatment of the practice of the Quartodecimans – a group which fell out of the Church following the Council of Nicaea. (For more information about the Quartodecimans, and Fr Daniel, see Part I.)
This treatment was originally published by Fr Daniel as a companion piece to his translation of Fray Luis de León’s “system” for calculating the dates of Holy Week, and harmonising the four Gospels with each other and with the Roman liturgy.
In this part, we reproduce Fr Daniel’s Third Proposition
“For the Quartodecimans, celebrating the feast of Pascha according to their customs meant celebrating a feast of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In particular, it appears that the Quartodeciman practice treated the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan, according to the Jewish calendar, as the day on which Christ died. They celebrated this day with a festal meal at the beginning of the day, which is to say by our reckoning the evening of the day before (this being the same day by Jewish reckoning). This festal meal, naturally, recalls the Last Supper. They appear to have resumed fasting following this meal, for the daytime of the Crucifixion, and possibly until the feast of the Resurrection – although aspects of this remain uncertain.
While an extended essay on a very early group of heretics may seem like a strange choice for Holy Week reading, it is directly related to the Church’s celebration of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ – and, if Fr Daniel is correct, it not only makes sense of some apparent discrepancies in the Gospels, but also sheds further light on how the Resurrection fulfils the Mosaic Law, as we shall see in due course.
This is an important text – but it is long and theological, rather than devotional. For a more devotional piece about Maundy Thursday, see the below:
Note on the text
The text contains a number of marginal notes, which I have omitted.
Fr Daniel’s argument is that confusion has arisen through the use of terms for various feasts. In French, he uses Pâques to denote the Passover, Easter and the Quartodeciman observation of the Passion on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. As such, the author’s own usage can be quite confusing itself. In order to bring more clarity, I have used Passover to denote the Jewish festival, Easter to denote the celebration of the Resurrection, and Pascha to indicate either the period of the Triduum or earlier uses in which the meaning was less clear.
The Discipline of the Quartodecimans for the Celebration of Pascha
Fr Daniel Gabriel SJ
Articles IV-V
Taken from Recueil de divers ouvrages philosophiques, théologiques, historiques, Apologetiques et de Critique, Vol. III, MDCCXXIV, pp 473-508
The real timeline of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion (Fray Luis de León)
How an ancient controversy unlocks the Gospels’ Holy Week timeline (Fr Daniel Gabriel SJ)
How the Quartodecimans celebrated ‘Pascha’ (Fr Daniel Gabriel SJ)
Article IV
Third Proposition: For the Quartodecimans, celebrating the feast of Pascha according to their customs meant celebrating a feast of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The day of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the usage of the early Christians, was often called the day of Pascha. This usage lasted a long time. Among the countless proofs I could provide, I will be content with two or three. The first is a passage from Tertullian taken from the book On Prayer, Chapter 18:
“On the day of Pascha,” he says, “which is like the day of the great fast and the public fast, we do not give the kiss of peace.”
It is clear that he speaks of the day when the Church celebrated the Passion of Our Lord.
The other proof is drawn from a popular error that perfectly demonstrates this truth, and which Saint Gregory of Nazianzus speaks about in Oration 42 where he says that many imagined that the name of Pascha comes from the Greek πάσχειν (Paschein), which means to suffer – because on that day Our Lord was crucified. In fact, Saint Augustine also mentions it in one of his letters (which in the old editions is numbered 119 and 55 in the new), and which is still found in some editions of Saint Jerome’s works under the title: On the Celebration of Pascha:
“The word Pascha,” says Saint Augustine, “is not Greek, as is commonly believed, but Hebrew, as those who know both languages say; for it does not come from the Greek word πάσχειν (Paschein), which means to suffer.”
Finally, here is what the Chronicle of Alexandria says:
“The first feast of Pascha celebrated by the holy Apostles after the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven, they celebrated on Friday, the fourteenth of the moon of the first month, which corresponds to the eleventh of April by the Roman calendar; and as for the feast of the Resurrection, they celebrated it on the thirteenth of April.”
This, combined with the protest of the Quartodecimans I mentioned, and with the passage from Saint Chrysostom that I cited at the end of the preceding article, is sufficient to prove my proposition. Here now, however, is something even more positive.
Saint Epiphanius (hær. 50) speaks of certain Quartodecimans – or rather a certain type of schismatics who could not strictly be called Quartodecimans since they did not obligate themselves to celebrate Passover on the fourteenth of the moon, yet they were still called thus. He says they boasted of having the Book of the Acts of Pilate, where they found that the Savior was crucified on the 24th of March, and for this reason, they wanted to celebrate Passover on that day, regardless of what day of the week the fourteenth of the moon fell. Therefore, according to this type of Quartodeciman, celebrating Pascha was celebrating the Passion.
But here is what seems to me a decisive proof in favor of my proposition. The Emperor Constantine, in the letter he wrote to all Christian churches regarding the Council of Nicaea, expresses himself thus regarding the differences of Pascha between the Quartodecimans and the other churches:
“First of all,” he says, “it seemed to everyone unworthy to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy feast... it is appropriate to follow the way we have followed from the day the Passion of the Savior was first celebrated, until now.”
These last words are remarkable, because if they pertained to the Resurrection, he should have said, from the day the Resurrection of the Savior was first celebrated. Therefore, it was the feast of the Passion which the Quartodecimans celebrated on the day they called their feast of Pascha.
What follows a few lines below is even clearer:
“Moreover,” he adds, “one must reflect that it is against all reason not to agree on a matter of such importance, and in the celebration of so great a feast. Our Savior has left us but one feast, which is the day of our Redemption, that is, of His most holy Passion. He wanted there to be only one Catholic Church, whose members, though dispersed in various places, should be animated by the same spirit.”
Is it not evident that what the Quartodecimans called the day of Pascha was about the feast of the Passion?
Article V
Objection and Response
Is it possible, someone might ask, that the Quartodecimans like Polycrates and the others who were involved during the time of Pope Victor, who were Christians and good Christians, did not fast on the day they celebrated the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ? For if they celebrated the Passion on the fourteenth of the moon, then they did not fast, since Eusebius explicitly states that the Quartodecimans ended their fast on the fourteenth of the moon.
I respond that a difficulty of this nature, even if I cannot fully satisfy it, is not capable of destroying the certainty of a fact for which I believe I have provided very convincing evidence. Considering how little we know about the discipline of the Asians, it would not be very surprising if we were ignorant of precisely what they did regarding this matter on the day they celebrated the Passion. Furthermore, the fast and other extreme austerities detailed by Saint Epiphanius in his exposition of faith and elsewhere, being a preparation for the feast, would not be surprising if they ended at the beginning of the feast itself. It would end on the day of the Resurrection for all other Christians who regarded the Resurrection as the great feast and their Pascha, and it could end for the Quartodecimans with the Passion, which they also considered their great feast, and which was also the day of their Pascha. They would thus be following the Jews whose fasts ended with the Passover feast. We fast on the eve of Saint Peter, but not on the day of his passion or martyrdom. However, I will present other thoughts that have come to me on this subject.
First of all, even though the translators of Eusebius have translated the words of his text as “finem jejuniis imponere” (to end the fasts), the Greek words can just as well be translated as “solvere jejunia,” to break the fasts or to interrupt the fasts. Thus, Eusebius may have used these terms with respect to the Quartodecimans even if, after breaking their fasts with the Paschal feast, they had resumed fasting on the day of the Passion which they celebrated afterward.
And this behavior would not be unique to the Quartodecimans. The Council of Laodicea, held either a little before (or, more probably, after) the Council of Nicaea, prohibits, through a canon, the custom observed by some of breaking the Lent fast on the Thursday before Easter Sunday: (“The fast of the last week of Lent must not be broken on Thursday”), and those who acted this way were not Quartodecimans.
Saint Augustine, in his Letter 118, speaks of a similar custom that existed in his time in some churches. But those who broke their fast on Holy Thursday did not cease to fast the following day – the feast of the Passion, which was a Friday – a day on which, even independently of the Passion, the entire Church was obliged to fast. Thus, the Quartodecimans, after the Paschal feast they held at night like Our Lord, fasted the following day and continued fasting until the day of the Resurrection, from which and until Pentecost it was forbidden to fast. And certainly, they were never reproached for spending that day in joy, as Saint Epiphanius reproached the heretics Aerians [not to be confusd with the Arians] who, in that time devoted to mortification, began the day with a good meal, laughter, and amusements.
Moreover, the words of Eusebius can very well be understood as referring to the extraordinary fasts that Christians practiced during the last week of Lent, which they concluded with a complete abstinence from all sorts of foods, according to the fervor or strength of each individual, sometimes for a whole day, two, three, four, and at other times, for longer. This is what was actually called the fast of Pascha, and which they ended on the night from Saturday to Sunday of the Resurrection – or on Sunday morning at the crowing of the rooster, as Saint Epiphanius says in his exposition of the faith. It is of this kind of fast, this Pascha fast, that Saint Irenaeus, writing to Pope Victor in favor of the Asians, says that there was no law in the Church; and I am persuaded that it is this fast that Eusebius refers to in the passage that addresses it. The Asians or Quartodecimans ended it on the night of the fourteenth of the moon, but what I am saying is that this did not prevent them from observing the ordinary fast on the day of the Passion and from spending that day in devotion and exercises of piety according to the spirit of the mystery. For them, as for other Christians, it was forbidden to fast from Resurrection to Pentecost; they prayed standing, singing the Alleluia. They were never accused of having violated the discipline common to all the Churches.
But it seems to me that Saint Epiphanius can provide us with a way out of this difficulty, by informing us that the Quartodecimans resumed their works of penance after their Paschal feast. This is in a passage where Father Petau confesses that this matter was unclear to him, and it would have seemed less obscure to him if he had had the idea I give here of the customs of the Quartodecimans. This is the passage from Saint Epiphanius.
The heretical Audians, who had become Quartodecimans, cited as an authority for their custom of celebrating Pascha on the fourteenth of the moon, a certain book called the Constitutions of the Apostles – different from the one we have today, but equally falsely attributed to the Apostles. They cited in their favor some words from that book, as written by the Apostles:
“Do not worry about counting the days; but celebrate the Feast together with your brothers of the circumcision; keep Pascha with them.”
Saint Epiphanius asserts that by the brothers of the circumcision one must understand Jews who had become Christians, while the followers of Audianus understood it to mean Jews who remained Jews. Saint Epiphanius insists that the Apostles, assuming they are the authors of that book, gave this rule only to maintain uniformity in the celebration of the Feast; from which he reasons thus against those heretics:
“If the Apostles, for the sake of peace and to maintain harmony, judged it appropriate to keep Pascha at the same time as the Jews, the enemies of Jesus Christ, how much more appropriate is it to celebrate it with the whole Church, to avoid causing a schism?”
He then proves that one cannot literally fulfill everything that this book prescribes for the celebration of Pascha, and that thus one must look more at the intention of the Apostles, which is to establish uniformity, than at the letter of this supposed rule. Here, he says, is something the Apostles order Christians regarding Pascha:
“While the Jews are having their joyful feasts, you Christians fast and mourn for them, because it is during this feast that they crucified Jesus Christ, and while they eat their unleavened bread and bitter herbs with sorrow, have your feast.”
He shows them that by following this rule to the letter, it will sometimes happen that Christians must fast on Sunday, when that day falls on the fifteenth of the Pascha moon – and therefore, on the Jewish Passover feast on which Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to him, was crucified. But not only is that forbidden throughout the Church, but even – adds Saint Epiphanius – this same book of the Constitution of the Apostles, which curses the one who fasts on Sunday.
“Cursed is he who afflicts his soul on the Lord’s Day.”
This is precisely the passage from Saint Epiphanius which proves, as I have said, that the Quartodecimans resumed fasting after the Paschal feast, and that they celebrated the Passion of the Savior after this feast.
For according to this order, while the Jews began to eat their unleavened bread and bitter herbs with their Passover lamb – a ceremony that had nothing but sorrow for them – while, I say, the Jews began their unleavened bread and ate their bitter herbs with sorrow on the night of the fourteenth of the moon, the Quartodeciman Christians had their Paschal feast with joy; and the next day these same Christians fasted and mourned because it was the day the Jews had crucified their Lord. Is this not explicitly what I have said – namely, that the Quartodecimans, after having broken and ended their great Paschal fast with the feast on the night of the fourteenth of the moon, fasted immediately afterward when celebrating the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
I had added that this passage from Saint Epiphanius had seemed incomprehensible to P. Petau. Here is how he explains it in his observations on this holy Father:
“One can conclude,” he says, “from Saint Epiphanius’s perspective on this supposed decree of the Apostles that, in the early times of the Church – especially while Jews were Bishops of Jerusalem – it was ordained that Pascha be celebrated by Christians at the same time as it was by the Jews; that is, on the fourteenth of the moon regardless of the day it fell on, provided it was after the equinox. This is the manner mandated by the Apostolic Constitutions’ mandate: Christians will celebrate while the Jews eat their unleavened bread with bitter herbs.
“But regarding the other point,” P. Petau continues, “while the Jews celebrate with joy, Christians would be in mourning and sadness. This cannot be, unless we say that the day following the Christian Pascha, which was the first of the Jews’ unleavened bread, was then a fast day in the Church, which is completely false. For it is certain that fasting was prohibited for the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost.
“However,” he continues, “no matter how one explains this passage and the preceding one, there always remain many difficulties.”
Thus concludes this scholarly man, assuming what is false: that the Quartodecimans, celebrating Pascha on the fourteenth of the moon, were celebrating the feast we now call by that name [Easter]. On the contrary, by assuming, what is true and I have proven – that for the Quartodecimans, celebrating Pascha was something very different from the feast of the Resurrection, and that after their Paschal feast they celebrated the Passion of Our Lord – this passage from Saint Epiphanius is very easy to understand, as I have shown, and it teaches us what was the discipline of the Quartodecimans on the subject in question here.
To be continued.
Read Next:
The real timeline of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion (Fray Luis de León)
How an ancient controversy unlocks the Gospels’ Holy Week timeline (Fr Daniel Gabriel SJ)
How the Quartodecimans celebrated ‘Pascha’ (Fr Daniel Gabriel SJ)
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Based text of translation made with the assistance of AI and each line scrutinised and checked against the French text.