What was the Quartodeciman Controversy?

67 But you mention two things in particular, which you say are founded on tradition, and which are not in scripture — Lent and Sunday. The apostles, you say, instituted the solemn fast of Lent. If they did, certainly it is not found in Scripture. But let us see what the facts are. I need only quote Irenaeus, a godly Father of the church, who had heard Polycarp, who had heard John. There was a dispute between Victor, the bishop of Rome, and the churches of Asia, as to the celebrating of Easter. Victor would have it on Sunday, and the Asiatic churches celebrated it (as did all the old British, till the sixth or seventh century, if I remember right) on the day of the resurrection, whatever day of the week it fell upon. For the Passover was computed by moons, and was held upon the fourteenth day after the new moon, and the resurrection was three days of course after, and this did not always fall on a Sunday. The Easterns went by the days of the month, the Westerns by the days of the week. Well, Victor refused to own them as Christians at all. Irenaeus agreed, it seems, with Victor in opinion as to the day it should be kept upon. But earlier than this, some thirty or forty years before, the aged Polycarp, himself a disciple of John, came from Asia to Rome, to confer with Anicetus, bishop of Rome, about it.

Think of a disciple of John himself (and a most blessed old man he was, and a martyr too) going all wrong, and insisting on a tradition derived from John himself, contrary to the pope's tradition and his authority too! Well, Polycarp would not give in, nor Anicetus either; but they agreed, it seems, to part in peace, and each go his own way. But Victor, a more energetic and less Christian man than Anicetus, orders all the Christians in Asia to change their rules in this respect, and follow Rome, and give up their apostolic tradition. However, they would not; and then he excommunicated them all in mass, as far at least as Rome was concerned. It was thunder, however, not lightning, for they did not obey; and the bishops elsewhere continued in communion with them. This did not please all the bishops, says Eusebius, some of them writing pretty sharply to him (Victor); and Irenaeus warned him not to cut off whole churches who observed the tradition of their ancient customs. This was at the end of the second century; and then he adds (says Eusebius), not only was the controversy about the day, but about the form itself of the fast; for some think they ought to fast one day, others two, and others more, and some measure this day forty hours, day and night; and this variety of observance had not its birth first in our age, but began long before, with those who went before us … And then he adds, and thus the disagreement as to the fast commends the unanimity of the faith. — (Euseb. 5:24).

68 Now this little bit of ecclesiastical history gives occasion for one or two remarks: first, how the Roman bishop sought to satisfy his ambition, not quite two centuries after Christ; but, secondly, at the same time, not only Polycrates at Ephesus and others, but other bishops besides paid no attention to his orders, and even rebuked him sharply; thirdly, what a slippery thing tradition is! Here, as to this very Lent, which is adduced as a proof of apostolic tradition, Polycarp, who conversed with John, has one from him which he will not give up; because he who leaned on the Lord's bosom, he says, had so kept it and taught. But Victor, who professed to have Peter's and Paul's too, excommunicates whole churches, because, after Polycarp's clear tradition, they kept John's. Could not tradition secure certainty on such a trifle as this? The conflict was maintained till the fourth century, and even long after that the Asiatic way was maintained in certain churches derived from that country.

248 But here we begin to get into our old difficulties as to the succession. Optatus, Jerome, Augustine, and others put first Anicetus; next Irenaeus, Tertullian and others put Pius first. Not only so; it is disputed whether Hyginus sat four or twelve years. As Platina, an ancient secretary and historian of the popes, says (sub Pio), "In this place the times vary, as some put Pius, others Anicetus first. The histories also vary. However it may be in so remote a history and such great negligence of [our] ancestors, it will be better to get at the things themselves in some way, [though] done a little sooner or a little after, than pass them altogether" — a strange ground for certainty of faith. In his time arose the dispute of the East with Rome as to the observance of Easter. The East, alleging the apostles' authority, kept it on the 14th of the moon. Victor would have it on the Lord's day, and take the next one to the 14th. Polycarp had come to make peace during the time of Anicetus, but Victor refused communion with all the East, who alleged they followed John; and it remained in abeyance till the Council of Nice, which decided it should be on a Lord's day. So the day of the week carried it against the day of the month, and the church was not divided in spite of Victor.

It is a curious piece of history that the Scotch and British Christians, too, with the north of England, kept Easter as the Asiatics did; and it was centuries after, in 664, that the Roman practice prevailed after a conference in the north of England. It was the Scotch Christians of Iona, who were not subject to any bishop, but governed by presbyters, who evangelized Germany and Switzerland and the north, as far as it was done in early years, but it fell under the power of centralizing Rome. The British and Irish churches did not till long after. The Saxons were evangelized from Rome; and by the Normans, already in subjection to Rome. But this by the bye.

249 When we arrive at Anicetus, we find ourselves in serious difficulties. We can hardly doubt there was such a pope — at least Irenaeus puts him clearly in his list, not, after all a very sure one, as we have seen in Cletus and Anacletus, whom some hold to be one person, some two. And Polycarp, it must be supposed, had interviews with Anicetus about Easter; but when he was pope, and even whether he was pope, is in no way certain. In what is called the "Chronicle of Damascus" no mention is made of him at all; but Soter immediately succeeds Pius. Baronius makes Soter succeed Anicetus, A.D. 175; others declare Soter began his episcopate in 168; others say Anicetus died A.D. 161. Baronius makes Pius pope in 158; but some make the beginning of his pontificate in 142 and Eusebius (4, 11); gives him fifteen years, and says he died in 157, a year before Baronius makes him pope. Baronius gave him ten years, Pagius begins his pontificate in 141, and places his death 151; so that the first year of Pius for Baronius is the sixth of Anicetus for Pagius, who makes Anicetus begin his pontificate in 151, where Baronius places the twelfth of Telesphorus. (Baronius, vol. 1, under these popes).

But you shall have, reader, a specimen from history also. After relating what we have stated as to the observation of Easter, and that the Quartodecimans (the Asiatics who kept it the third day after the fourteenth of the moon) alleged that John had taught them; and the Romans boast that they had received their way from Peter and Paul, but that neither could bring a writing to prove it (he does not seem to have valued oral tradition much), he goes on to speak of Lent. Socrates, lib. 5, c. 22. "For these who are of the same faith, the same differ among themselves in rites. It will not therefore be out of place to add somewhat about the various rites of the churches. First, therefore, those fasts which are kept before Easter you will find differently kept among different people; for those who are at Rome fast three weeks continuously, except the sabbath and the Lord's day (it is a question whether this does not apply to Novatians). Those who are in Illyria, and throughout Achaia, and those who live in Alexandria, fast six weeks before Easter, and call that the quadragesimal fast. Others, again, follow a different custom from that. They begin their fast the seventh week before Easter, and, fasting three only of five days with intervals, call the time nothing the less quadragesimal; and I cannot but wonder why, although they differ among themselves about the numbers of days, they still call it by the same name of quadragesimal."

At the council of Nice was also determined the day on which Easter should commence. Although this would be considered by many a matter of small consequence, it had been hotly contested, and one bishop of Rome attempted to excommunicate whole districts for not observing Easter on the right day!

The word "Easter" occurs once in the Authorised Version (Acts 12:4), where the word is pascha, which is elsewhere translated "Passover," and is so translated here in the Revised Version. This shews that in the translators' minds Easter and the Passover corresponded. But the Passover is associated with the crucifixion: "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. 5:7); and the Passover fell on the 14th day of Nisan, and might occur on any day of the week; whereas Easter is generally accepted to refer to the resurrection, and commences on a Sunday. The former mode of reckoning was mostly adopted in the east, and the latter in the west. At the council of Nice it was settled for the latter.

There is nothing in the New Testament respecting the keeping of Easter. Acts 12:4 simply refers to the Passover as a suitable time for Herod to deliver up Peter to destruction. Of course the Passover was observed by the Jews, and probably by the Jewish converts. The words sent out from the council were "that all the brethren in the east, who formerly celebrated Easter with the Jews, will henceforth keep it agreeably with the Romans and ourselves, and all who from ancient time have kept Easter as we." The crucifixion was observed on what is called Good Friday by fasting, etc.; the following Sunday commenced Easter as a festival.

It is in the third century that we see the beginnings of an organization of the church above the local level. In the preceding century there had already been councils of bishops on a regional basis, debating about the Montanist crisis in Asia Minor and about the date of Easter. These councils became more and more usual.

It is in the third century that we see the beginnings of an organization of the church above the local level. In the preceding century there had already been councils of bishops on a regional basis, debating about the Montanist crisis in Asia Minor and about the date of Easter. These councils became more and more usual.

The bishop of Rome, assuming an undue authority, took upon himself to excommunicate the bishops of Asia! A synod was at once called at Carthage. It is said to have consisted of eighty-seven bishops. The questions to be considered were: 1, the validity of baptism by heretics; 2, the conduct of Rome.

Ecclesiastical history, though miserably undiscerning as to the Lord's way and will, is forced to own, not only heterodox parties, some of them numerous and wide-spread, but the church of the west antagonistic openly and for a long while to that of the east on a trivial question, aggravated later by a graver dogmatic difference after the original breach was healed at the council of Nice in A.D. 325. For how utterly sad to make a public breach about the time of observing the Pasch (or, Easter, as it was called later)? But the saddest fact of all was the church's observance of it at any time, whether when the Asiatics celebrated it, or as the Romans did. It was a return, as Gal. 4 had ruled, to the beggarly elements of the world. In east or in west the church judaised beyond all recovery. At length came the Reformation, which gave occasion to national churches so-called, and subsequently to nonconformist bodies. No wonder that Augustine's idea of the invisible church revived and prevailed among Protestants.

If we take history, we find there was no such doctrine in the early church, and further, that popes have grievously erred. Thus Cyprian, and all the African and Asiatic, and Egyptian bishops, resisted Stephen's doctrine. Before that, when Victor refused communion with the Eastern churches on a question of keeping Easter, the godly Irenaeus rebuked him, many bishops concurring. "This did not please all the bishops," says Eusebius, some of them speaking pretty sharply to him (the pope). (Eus. 5, 24.) And till the Council of Nice, the East and West continued their own observances as to what Victor excommunicates them for. So Augustine, in the case of Marcellinus (which, strange to say, Baronius quotes with approbation, thinking only of Catholic doctrine), says, "Whatever Marcellinus may have been, it is no prejudice to the Catholic church diffused in the whole world. We are in no way crowned by their innocence, nor condemned by their iniquity … In the threshing-floor (of the church) there can be good and bad." (De Unico Baptismo, Cont. Peter 16, or Ben. 39.) He had not the remotest idea of infallibility in a pope. If he was a bad one and sacrificed to idols, the faith was not affected by it. So indeed Tertullian asks triumphantly in respect of such falls, "Do we prove faith by persons, or persons by faith?" Listen to the plain language of Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, the great friend of the pope, the great stickler for orthodoxy and church authority in his day: "Nor is the church of the Roman city to be esteemed one, and that of all the earth to be another. Both the Gauls, and Britons, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of faith. If authority be sought, the world is greater than a city. Wherever there is a bishop, Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or Alexandria, or Tunis, he is of the same worth, he is of the same priesthood. The power of riches and the humility of poverty make neither a more exalted nor an inferior bishop; but all are successors of the apostles."*