CELEBRATE THE PASSOVER?

EARLY CHURCH INCLUDING POLYCARP

CONTINUED TO CELEBRATE PASSOVER

Both Jewish believers and Gentile Christians in the Church at Jerusalem and Antioch, including Polycarp, a Church Father (80 - 167 CE) continued to celebrate the Passover on the 14th of Nisan and did so for the first two centuries. 

Polycarp (80 – 167 AD) a Church Father, who both Irenaeus and Tertullian state was a disciple of John the Apostle, was the bishop of Smyrna (69 - 155 CE) in Asia continued to celebrate Passover on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan 14, the day that Jesus was crucified (John 19:14, 19:31, 19:42) as he had been taught by the Apostle John. The Church at Jerusalem and Antioch continued to celebrate Passover, while the churches in and around Rome changed the practice of keeping the Passover on the 14th of Abib/Nisan to celebrating Easter on the following Sunday calling it “the day of the resurrection of our Saviour”. Later they distanced the keeping of Easter from the week of the Passover so as to have nothing to do with the Jewish Passover.

Those who continued to celebrate the Passover on the 14th of Nisan were called Quartodecimani, Latin for “fourteenthers”, because of holding their celebration on the fourteenth day of Nisan.

Irenaeus says that Polycarp visited Rome when Anicetus was bishop (153 – 168 CE) and among the topics discussed was this divergence of custom, with Rome instituting the festival of Easter in place of the Passover.

Irenaeus noted: “Neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it - the Passover on the 14th of Abib.

According to Eusebius, in the last decade of the second century a number of synods were convened to deal with the ‘controversy’ of continuing to celebrate Passover on the 14th of Nisan, ruling unanimously that the celebration of Easter should be observed and be exclusively on Sunday, rejecting any keeping of the Passover.

One of these synods held in Rome in 193 CE was presided over by its Bishop Victor (Pope Victor I), who sent a letter about the matter to Polycrates of Ephesus and the churches of the Roman province of Asia. He ademately rejected any keeping of the Passover, and threatened to excommunicate those who kept the Passover.

Polycrates emphatically stated that he was following the tradition passed down to him:

“We observe the exact day [14th of Abib/Nisan]; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the lord’s coming … All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. And I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have closely followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven.”

Within the same year, Polycrates presided over a council at Ephesus attended by several bishops throughout that province, which rejected Victor’s authority and kept the province’s passover tradition.

Bishop Victor was so upset by Polycrates’ position regarding the continued observance of Passover on the 14th of Nisan that he sought to have him excommunicated from the church.

It is believed that the celebration of the Passover on the 14th of Nisan by the Church disappeared around the time of the First Ecumenical Council, held in 325 at Nicaea and was replaced by the celebration of Easter on a Sunday.

Note: Passover was kept by the lord Jesus on the night before his arrest and during the supper he did he following: And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. - Luke 22:19. 

Note: 1 Corinthians 11:24-25:  And when he had given thanks, he brake the bread, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: do this in remembrance of me.

After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do you, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of me.

When should we do these things if not during the Passover meal on the 14th of Abib/Nisan, the same night the Jews today keep the Passover.

We are to remember what his death has done for us when he shed his blood and gave up his body to be crucified on the stake when we partake of the bread and the wine as symbols of his body and his blood shed for us.

We are to proclaim his resurrection as Paul and apostles did often, but there is no place in the bible that expresses that we are to keep a celebration of the day or evening he was resurrected.

We are however to remember his death until he returns!