THE QUARTODECIMANS. 413 Celebration of Easter-Day. N the early ages of the Christian Church serious differences arose as to the precise day upon which Easter should be celebrated, and led to very angry dissensions, which degenerated even into schism and heresy. Under the Jewish dispensation Easter was always celebrated on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month of the Jewish year, irrespective of what day of the week upon which that day might fall. Many early Christians of the east, especially those of the Asiatic churches, adopted the Jewish usage in selecting that day as their Easter day, as is recorded by Eusebius, b. V. ch. 23. This custom seemed to imply that Christians were subject to the obligation of observing the Jewish ceremonial laws, and that they were not abolished by Christ, and to assert this was certainly then heretical. This error was condemned at the Council of Arles in the year 314, and at the Council of Nice in 325; and those who refused to submit to the decrees and censures there pronounced were declared schismatics, and were called Quartodecimans. One of the principal forerunners of these schismatics was Blastus, and he and his followers were condemned by Pope Sl. Eleutherius, who governed the Church for fifteen years, and died after the Emperor Commodus, in the year 194. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, wrote in favour of the usage of the Asiatics, but Pope St. Victor was very decisive in his disapprobation, as we learn from the writings of Eusebius, Baronius, Coustant, De Marca, Thomassin, Graveson, Natalis Alexander, and T. John Philip Monti. St. Victor reigned for nine years, and died in the time of Severus, in the year 203. The Roman 414 THE ESSENCE OF THE HERESY. Church celebrated Easter day exclusively on Sunday, and that the Sunday next after the fourteenth day of the first lunar month after the vernal equinox. In order to liberate herself totally from even the appearance of observing the Jewish ceremonials, Rome determined that the Christian Easter should never coincide with the Jewish Easter, and for this end selected the Sunday succeeding the fourteenth day as the Christian Easter Sunday. Some Christians in remote churches did not follow this rule, for though they celebrated Easter day exclusively on Sunday, if the fourteenth day happened to fall on Sunday, they celebrated that as their Easter day. The Scots, Picts, and Britons and Irish followed this usage. They persevered in it for some time, probably through veneration for the memory and teaching of St. Columb, who through mistake, was said to have adopted this custom. It was, however, merely a matter of discipline with them, and never amounted to schism, and they eventually submitted to the discipline of the discipline of the Universal Church, chiefly through the zealous exhortation of Pope Honorius. The Qurtodeciman heretics contumaciously insisted on the obligation under the Christian dispensation, of observing this Jewish ceremonial law. In this was the essence of their heresy. The Irish Church never maintained this heterodox doctrine. Neither did the objectionable usage in the West originate with the Irish or Scotch Churches. It was probably introduced from France by some of the early Irish missionaries, and practised for some time, from their not being aware that it was opposed to the usage of Rome. But when the voice of Pope Honorius reached the far distant Bishops of Ireland, they instantly acquiesced in the teaching of Rome: "Roma locuta est; causa finita est". I AM THE RESURRECTION. 415 THE CEREMONIES UNFOLD THE BLOSSOMS OF OUR HOPES. During the universal gloom which overwhelmed the world, from man's fall to the coming of our Redeemer, Heaven supplied an uninterrupted succession of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and witnesses, who bore testimony to the truth, from the death of the just Abel to the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, so that amidst all the errors of the world, truth and hope could never be totally obliterated. They were, as it were, breaks in the clouds, through which beamed the cheering rays of the hopes of redemption, breaking through the interstices in the impending clouds of Heaven's wrath. This continued concatenation of prophecies was as an electric chain sunk in the depths of oceans of woe, conveying the promised vital spark of hope from the garden of Paradise to the Bethlehem crib and Calvary's mount! "So truth lent many a ray, To bless the Pagan's night But, Lord! how weak, how cold were they To Thy one glorious Light!" O blessed hope! which, during the dark and weary night of our exile and captivity, sustained us with the cheering expectation of being restored to life and light, to grace, and to the heritage of our everlasting kingdom! Our condition was like that of one dead, and in the sepulchre, keeping in reserve the key of his tomb, with a lingering feeling that he might thereby one day open the door, and yet return alive to the world and to society and to home. "Ego sum resurrectio et vita"-"I am the resurrection and the life"! O perennial plant of hope! which shoots its roots deep into the Christian soul, and whilst all else around is withered and desolate, like the laurestine, which lays its blossom aud verdant leaf on a pillow of Alpine snow, this plant of hope fledges with a green foliage the disconsolate heart, all mouldering in ruins! It is the ever-green and eternal branch of God's own planting in the land of the righteous!-Isaiah. lx. "My own, elect, and righteous land! 66 66 The branch forever green and vernal, Singulariter in spe constituisti me !"-"Thou hast singularly settled me in hope !"-Ps. iv. 10. |