Easter dispute

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As Easter dispute the disagreement referred to the concerning Easter in Christianity prevailed since its inception until the 8th century.

There were differences in

  • the choice of which event is to be commemorated in the Passion of Jesus Christ ,
  • the choice of day of the week,
  • the demarcation to the Jewish Passover festival,
  • the method of setting the date in advance.

In some places or at some times, more than one of these differences worked.

The Passion of Jesus Christ

According to the New Testament, Jesus and his twelve first called disciples celebrated the last supper on Maundy Thursday , was crucified on Good Friday and rose on the third day ( Easter Sunday ).

Easter on the day of the crucifixion

The quartodecimans celebrated Easter on Nisan 14th . That was the day of the crucifixion. The Quartodecimans lived in Palestine (outside Jerusalem ), Syria, and Asia Minor between the 1st and 5th centuries .

Easter on the day of resurrection

The day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ soon became commonplace. The main reason was that Easter should not be celebrated at the same time as the Jewish Passover festival.

Easter every week

Christians who did not live in Jerusalem had trouble terminating the Passion time with the help of the Passover day. For a short time there was a tradition among them of commemorating the Passion of Christ every week from Thursday to Sunday.

The weekday

The link to the Jewish lunisolar calendar used at the time of Jesus Christ has not been abandoned to this day. The day of the spring full moon, Nisan 14, is not a fixed weekday. This was already handed down in the Didaskalia Apostolorum . Whether the day of the crucifixion or the day of the resurrection, there are different days of the week in each commemorative year.

Easter on a changing weekday

The Jewish Christians living with the Jews in Jerusalem celebrated Easter at the same time as the Passover celebration.

Easter on a Sunday

The Gentile Christians preferred Easter Sunday. After the apostles' council (around 48 AD), missionary Christians were no longer expected to accept commandments (circumcision and other things) observed by Jewish Christians . This also loosened the bond with the Passover date. The festival was celebrated on a fixed weekday. The original day of the resurrection was chosen, a Sunday.

Differentiation from the Jewish Passover festival

The proto-fascists (living in Syria, Mesopotamia and part of Cilicia) did not clearly distinguish themselves from the Passover festival. Although they commemorated the resurrection on the Sunday after Nisan 14, they often set Easter a month earlier than the other Christians. This was because the Jewish calendar got mixed up after the destruction of Jerusalem and the beginning of spring was no longer adequately considered.

To this day there is a wish that Easter never takes place on the same day as the Passover festival (15th Nisan). In Rome , the 16th Nisan was initially considered the earliest day of Easter. With the adoption of the Alexandrian calculation method , the 15th Nisan also became possible there. That was a compromise to Alexandria, where Easter could initially even be on Nisan 14th. Only in the Orthodox Church does one still pay attention to the fact that Easter always takes place after Passover.

The Council of Nicaea

At the Council of Nicaea , an attempt was made to resolve the fundamental differences in the Easter dispute by setting the date of Easter. The exact wording of the decision has not been preserved, but it can be concluded from a letter from Emperor Constantine that Easter is to be celebrated according to the council:

  • on a Sunday after the 14th Nisan (directed against the Quartodecimans),
  • on a Sunday after the Jewish Passover festival (directed against the proto-fascists).

The council has not yet achieved the intended unity in the Easter celebration. But from now on it was mainly a question of which is the correct and safe calculation method to determine the date in advance.

Different calculation methods for determining the Easter date

Main article: Computus (Easter bill)

The task is
to find the first Sunday after the spring full moon.

The date of the beginning of spring

The date of the beginning of spring is fixed in a solar calendar , for example in the Julian calendar .

In Patriarchate Alexandria (Egypt, 3rd century) and in Rome working Easter computer ( Computisten ) not used the same date: March 21 the one, March 25 others.

The lunar circle

The dates of the phases of the moon are variable in a solar calendar. As an aid to classifying the phases of the moon in the Julian solar calendar, natural (astronomical) cycles of the sun and lunar cycle, which have approximately the same period, are used.

In Alexandria the 19-year circle ( Meton cycle ) was used, in which 19 solar years are about the same length as 235 lunar months .

In Rome the 84-year circle was used. In it, 84 solar years are about as long as 1039 lunar months. Other less used circles were 8 (Oktaeteris), 16, 72 and 112 years long.

The Dionysian-Alexandrian Method

The method developed in Alexandria prevailed against the Roman method as the main competitor because it

The oldest evidence for the use of the 19-year circle is given by Anatolius , 260 to 282 bishop of Laodicea , who was a born Alexandrian. He was followed by Eusebius of Caesarea († about 338), who made an Easter cycle from several circles (beginning 285). The Easter cycle of Theophilius , 389 to 412 Patriarch of Alexandria, began in 380. A short time later, the Egyptian monk Anianus recognized that an Easter cycle is 532 years long and that the dates of Easter Sunday are repeated afterwards. The next Easter cycle of 5 circles (437 to 531) comes from Cyrillus , 412 to 444 Patriarch of Alexandria.

The Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus created the epoch of the Christian era with the year of Jesus Christ's birth . He used the chance that the Easter cycles of Eusebius and Cyrillus can be extended backwards to the year 0 (1 BC at Exiguus) and equated the beginning of the first Easter cycle with the Christian epoch. Thus the first Easter cycle ended coincidentally with the last Easter table from Cyrillus. Exiguus worked out new Easter tables as early as 525. However, they were valid for the first circles of the second Easter cycle beginning in 532. The calculation to 1063, the end of this second complete Easter cycle, was published by Beda Venerabilis in 725.

Exiguus campaigned for the Alexandrian method, which was expanded to include his name in his honor, in the vicinity of Rome. Beda lived in England. From there he implemented the Dionysian-Alexandrian method in the rest of the Western Church , because the missionary work of continental Europe north of the Alps was carried out from the British Isles.

The Roman method

In the 84-year circle, the moon is 1 day ahead of the sun in about 66 years , in the 19-year circle by 1 day in about 310 years.

The dispute between Rome and Alexandria, which arose because of differently determined Easter dates, was often settled by compromise. Sometimes Rome gave in, sometimes Alexandria gave in. From around 350 onwards, Alexandria was no longer ready to compromise. There were different Easter dates in both places when Rome did not give in. After the division of the Roman Empire (395), the bond that held the Western and Eastern Churches together loosened further. The Patriarchate of Alexandria justified its claim to power by claiming that its Easter dates at the Council of Nicaea would have been designated as authoritative. The Council paid great respect to Alexandrian science, but left the Pope to decide on an annual date.

The Alexandrian method ultimately prevailed in the West because of its accuracy and because of the shorter circle. In addition to the later Exiguus , the Aquitan monk Victorius , who in 457 created an Easter cycle on behalf of the later Pope Hilarius , paved the way . He used the Alexandrian method, but carefully considered the Roman characteristics. He let the difference in the earliest possible date exist. The Pope should be able to decide whether the 15th of Nisan is an Easter date.

The 84-year method lasted longest in parts of Gaul , with the Anglo-Saxons , Irish, and English . In the latter, it required by Bede (725) nor the prestigious Bishop Elbod Bangor (to 770) that the imprecise circles in Wales was abolished.

The dispute over the calculation method for determining the Easter date was now over after about four and a half centuries in the Western Church.

literature

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Didaskalia Apostolorum , chap. XXI, On the Passover and Resurrection of Christ, 114, para. 2
  2. ^ A b Joseph Bach: The calculation of Easter in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 12 .
  3. ↑ Joseph Bach: The Easter calculation in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 13 .
  4. ^ A b Joseph Bach: The calculation of Easter in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 16 .
  5. ↑ a b c Joseph Bach: The calculation of Easter in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 17 .
  6. ↑ Joseph Bach: The Easter calculation in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 19 .
  7. ↑ Nikolaus A. Bär: Different Easter dates between Alexandria and Rome.
  8. ↑ Joseph Bach: The Easter calculation in old and new times. Strasbourg 1907, page 14 .