PRACTICE OF THE 14 CONTINUES MORE THAN EVER

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA   

The Quartodeciman Controversy

This practice led to a significant 2nd-century dispute known as the Easter Controversy, which centered on whether the holiday should follow the Jewish calendar or always be celebrated on a Sunday to honor the Resurrection. 

• Asiatic Practice: Led by figures like Polycarp of Smyrna and Polycrates of Ephesus, these Christians claimed their tradition of celebrating on the 14th of Nisan was inherited directly from the Apostles John and Philip.
• Roman Practice: The Church in Rome and most other regions insisted on a Sunday celebration, citing traditions from Peter and Paul.
• Conflict and Resolution:
  • Pope Anicetus (c. 155): Met with Polycarp to discuss the issue. While neither persuaded the other, they remained in communion.
  • Pope Victor I (c. 189–199): Attempted to excommunicate the Asiatic churches for their non-conformity. He was rebuked by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who advocated for peace and reminded Victor of his predecessors' moderation.
  • Council of Nicaea (325): Officially settled the matter by decreeing that Easter should be celebrated by all Christians on the same Sunday. 

Aftermath

Following the Council of Nicaea, Quartodecimanism gradually declined and those who continued the practice were eventually regarded as heretical sects, such as the Audaeans. By the 5th century, the practice had largely disappeared. 

THE PRACTICE OF KEEPING THE 14TH AS A MEMORIAL OF THE LORD'S DEATH, CONTINUED WITH PEOPLE AND GROUPS OF PEOPLE, HERE AND THERE, IN THE HILLS AND VALLEYS, AND THE BRITISH ISLES.  IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY THE PRACTICE HAS ONLY INCREASED THE MORE.

PASSOVER HYMNS THAT TOUCH THE HEART

Softly and Tenderly, Jesus Is Calling

Will L. Thompson, 1847-1909

Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling for you and for me; See on the portals he's waiting and watching, Watching for you and for me.

Come home.

Our hymnbooks are full of invitations.

Sometimes the songs request that God come to us. Sometimes they bid us to come home to him.

Written in 1880 by Will Thompson, an Ohio music-store owner and music publisher, this soft and tender invitation became a favorite at turn-of-the-century revivals.

Nineteen years after the song's publication, Thompson visited a dying Dwight L. Moody-—-the premiere, nationally renowned evangelist of his day. Though visitors were restricted, Moody insisted that Thompson be allowed to come in. A reflective Moody, looking back over his persuasive ministry, his crowd-drawing preaching, gave Thompson the ultimate compliment:

"I would rather have written 'Softly andTenderly,' than anything I have been able to do in my whole life." Thompson's song tugs at the heart.

Come home, come home, Ye who are weary, come home. Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling, O sinner, come home.

Another notable in Moody's circle of friends, gospel songwriter Fanny Crosby, once nudged a New York "Bowery bum" toward the Kingdom, piquing his interest by noting that "the sweetest words in our language or any other are mother, home, and heaven."

Come home. The invitation works for the dying: The choir of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church sang Thompson's classic at Martin Luther King's memorial service.

Time is now fleeting; the moments are -passing . . . Shadows are gathering; deathbeds are coming, Coming for you and for me. Come home. Come home.

It works for the homesick. Cynthia Clawson's interpretation of the song winds hauntingly through the 1985 movie Trip to Bountiful, the story of an old woman's obsession: to escape Houston and her ditzy daughter-in-law and get back to her homestead in Bountiful, Texas. (I think of the William Wordsworth lines: "Homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food."

It works for the wayfaring. My colleague Peggy says she came to Christ, being drawn by Thompson's music as rendered in the Bountiful movie, which is ultimately a woman's journey to freedom. Not freedom from a daughter-in-law but freedom of spirit. Peggy recalls watching the movie when it was broadcast on TV.

"It was one of those serendipitous events. I turned on the TV and there were two women riding on a bus, talking. Believe it or not, the scene was compelling.Then came the song: 'Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, See on the portals he's waiting and watching,  Watching for you and for me.' The image flashed into my mind of Jesus standing on a rock beckoning me with soft and loving eyes. He was motioning to me with his right arm to come to him. He could not understand why I would not come and accept this love that was waiting, just for me. For weeks afterward I sang that song and tried to learn the words. I sang and cried while I did the dishes. I sang and cried while I folded the clothes. One day my husband started singing along. Starded, I asked him how he knew the words. He said it was an old hymn they sang in all the Baptist churches. (I had never heard it in a Catholic church.) I was amazed—right here in my own home was someone who could teach the words to me. 'How could you know this song and not sing it or share it?' I demanded. To him it was just another hymn among many. To me it evoked a personal call from Jesus to me to open my heart to him. It was the most beautiful music in the world:

O for the wonderful love he has promised . . . Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon, Pardon for you and for me. Come home. Come home.

Fanny Crosby placed home among the most beautiful words in any language. And poet Wordsworth pictured God as being "our home."

Home, where the porch light is always on, beckoning. Not understanding why any homesick child would not come all the way in.

If you make the Most High your dwelling ...

then no harm will befall you,

no disaster will come near your tent.

Psalm 91:9 -10

Lord, I have come to you as my home. And yet I know that you are always beckoning me further in. I open myself to you today. I hear your call to come home, past the parlor, into the kitchen to sit at your table.

From the book: "Spiritual Moments with the Great Hymns" by Evelyn Bence.

Ah yes, the Passover is the time to draw close to Christ, to meditate on His love and mercy; a time to deeply think about sin, yes to remember we are sinner, but also to be lifted up in praise and wonderment that Jesus gave His life so we could live forever in the Father's Kingdom. We are indeed saved by grace. If you have never studied my study called "Saved by Grace", then you need to do so. I feel it is one of the best and most important studies I was inspired to write.

Keith Hunt 

HISTORIANS AND GOD'S FESTIVALS

 

Feasts of God - Comments

What some historians say about the Feasts of God

COMPILED BY KEITH HUNT CONYBEARE AND HOWSON: "......From the Hebrew point of view, the disciples of Christ would be regarded as a Jewish sect or synagogue.......But they were by no means separated from the nation. They attended the festivals; they worshipped in the temple. They were a new and singular party in the nation, holding parculiar opinions, and interpreting the Scriptures in a parculiar way. This is the aspect under which the Church would first present itself to the Jews.......The FESTIVALS observed by the Apostolic Church were at first the same with those of the Jews; and the observance of these was continued, especially by the Christians of Jewish birth, for a considerable time. A higher and more spiritual meaning, however, was attached to their celebration; and particularly the Paschal feast commemoration of blessings actually bestowed in the death and resurrection of Christ" (THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST.PAUL. Pages 55, 346). PROFESSOR STANLEY in his sermon on St.Peter, page 92, says: " The worship of the Temple and the Synagogue still went side by side with the prayers, and the breaking of bread from house to house.........The fulfilment of the ancient law was the aspect of Christianity to which the attention of the Church was most directed." PHILIP SCHAFF says in his large work HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. page 546, that it is with tolerable certainty that the Jewish Christians (particularly those at Jerusalem) observed the law with its weekly and yearly festivals. In the following paragraphs of the same chapter, he is quite at a loss to explain why the apostle Paul criticized the Galatians for observing Jewish festivals (Schaff's understanding of Gal.4:10), while at the same time observing them himself! Schaff acknowledges that James kept the holy days, because of the respect shown to him by the Jewish community. But concerning Paul, Schaff could not understand why the apostle allowed Romans to observe the holy days (Schaff's interpretation of Rom. 14:5,6), but forbade the Galatians. Schaff goes on to say on page 559, that Paul kept the feasts and he kept them as a Christian! PAUL COTTON in his book FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY, says that the influence of conservative Christianity was discernable upon the Eastern or Asian churches for several centuries; that even after Sunday worship was largely accepted, the Sabbath continued to be observed - especially in the East. even as late as A.D. 425, the people of Constantinople and several other cities assembled on the sabbath (pages 63-65). His conclusion is that the church was by no means united with respect to Sunday worship, nor did it make a radical departure from Sabbath observance. The process, Cotten says, was a gradual one. It was Gentile influence he says that brought about Sunday observance; and while Christianity began in Judaism, it absorbed many points of paganism and became a worldly religion (page 159). NEANDER says that it was opposition to Judaism that led to the establishment of Sunday, rather than the Sabbath, as the day of worship - and while Christians in the East tolerated Sunday worship in the churches, they continued to retain the Sabbath for some time. In the West, however, the opposition to Judaism was so strong that Saturday was selected as a fast day, in order to make it less appealing to those who should care to observe the Sabbath. According to Neander, the contrast between the two groups of Christians - those who observed Saturday and those who observed Sunday - was quite noticeable, and that some antagonism was apparent in the matter of YEARLY festivals (Neander, Vol. 1 pages 295-297). SCHAFF (HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, page 558) says the Jewish Christians kept the Passover and all the annual FESTIVALS appointed by God through Moses and put them into Christian meaning.   In the footnote, Schaff says, "It is very remarkable that St.John makes Jewish festivals, especially the Passover, so prominent in the public life and ministry of Christ. He evidently considered them significant types of the leading facts of the Gospel history." On page 559, he further states that the second century Paschal controversies prove that the early church kept the Jewish festivals and that they derived their authority from the apostles! GAMBLE AND GREEN in their work SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA Vol. 1, pages 21-35, say that the earliest historical writings relating to the Britons attest to the founding of Christian church in the British Isles, as early as the first century - either by Paul or by any of his converts to Christianity (made while in prison in Rome). There is no doubt they say that Christianity was planted in England before the appearance of the Catholic Augustine, A.D. 596. In Augustine's biography we are told that he found the people of Britain engaged in the most grievous and intolerable heresies, being given to Judaizing and ignorant of the sacraments and festivals of the church (Roman Catholic). There is much history available about the British or Celtic church before the arrival of the Roman Catholic religion in 596 A.D. The 7th day Sabbath was the weekly rest day, and they were accused of being Quartodecimine observers - those who observed the memorial of Christ's death on the 14th of Nisan, as they stated they had been taught by the apostle John himself. Further British history shows that it was not until A.D. 664 that Oswald, king of Northumberland, became convinced of the idea of apostolic succession from Peter to the then Pope, and was persuaded to accept Easter Sunday. So gradually over time, Easter Sunday took foothold in Britain, and pushed out and away the observance of the Lord's death on the 14th of Nisan or Abid. As far as Ireland was concerned, Irish historians state that during the reign of DERMOND (A.D. 528), Christianity was flourishing in Ireland - and that they had received it from the a ASIATICS. Scottish historians state that it was customary in Ireland, as well as in Scotland, for their early churches to keep Saturday. Queen MARGARET, in attempting to harmonize the Scottish church with the rest of Europe, stated that the majority of the Scottish church did not reverence the "Lord's day" but held Saturday to be the Sabbath. The Sabbath was observed in Scotland as late as A.D. 1093. And in Wales, the Sabbath prevailed until A.D. 1115. In spite of persecution and unpopularity, Sabbath keeping continued in England. Sometimes, prominent Sabbath preachers were imprisoned. Among those who advocated the seventh-day Sabbath was WILLIAM WHISTON, who translated the works and writings of the Jewish historian JOSEPHUS into English (Gamble and Green, pages 108, 112). This is only a FEW of the historical writings of men who search the ancient records of history. There is indeed MUCH proof from history and the New Testament itself that God's true elect and chosen people continued to observe not only the SEVENTH day Sabbath, but also the FESTIVALS of the Eternal as outlined in Leviticus chapter 23. Sometimes this light was hardly noticeable as God's people took refuge from persecution in the hills and valleys and dales of Europe and Britain. But the light NEVER WENT OUT. As Jesus said, He would build His church and the gates of death would never prevail against it. Eventually scattered remnants of the true Church of Christ, came across the ocean to settle in the New World of North America. There they established the faith, sometimes looking as though it would die, but those who were strong were courageous, stood tall, searched the scriptures daily, were willing to be led and taught by the Spirit into all truth. They would not deny the name of God or His holy word. The truth of the correct weekly Sabbath and yearly Festivals grew and grew. The Lord raised up various ministers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who proclaimed loud and strong the feasts of the Eternal. If you know and practice the observance of God's festivals then you my friend are partakers of this heritage. ........................ Written April 1985

PASSOVER HYMNS - WHAT A FRIEND

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Joseph Striven, 1820-86

What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear!  

This is a song for the lonely—-those  who ever have been, are, or will be—written by a man who was familiar with friendship and acquainted with grief. Various threads of his life story-—-the tragedy, the mercy, the mystery-—-bear retelling.

After graduating from Trinity College in Dublin and spending several years in a military college, Joseph Scriven was forced by poor health to switch careers. Taking up theology, he studied for the Anglican ministry though in time he decided not to "go for" ordination.

Then, the night before Scriven was to be married, his bride was thrown from a horse—into the river in which she drowned.

Some say Scriven never quite recovered from this loss. At the age of twenty-five he left Ireland-—-alone—for Canada, where he was a family tutor on Rice Lake in Ontario. There Scriven fell in love again, but alas tragedy struck twice: his fiancee died of pneumonia, shortly after being baptized in the biting cold lake.

It seems that Scriven wrote "What a Friend" at this juncture-—-in 1855, for his mother, possibly sending it to her with the news of his misfortune and grief. (Can a mother bear her son's sorrow?) One copy he mailed to Ireland. Another-—-of draft manuscript quality and titled "Pray without Ceasing"-— went into his own scrapbook. It's not at all clear how the poem-—-with no author attribution at all—found its way into an 1865 book published in Boston: Social Hymns, Original and Selected. Ten years later Ira Sankey made a last minute substitution to include it in a widely distributed gospel-song collection. He later noted that "the last hymn that went into the book became one of the first in favor."

Scriven never did marry. He was increasingly viewed as an eccentric—sometimes tormented by town toughs. But if eccentric, the element was entwined with a faith that worked. He was known for "preaching to everyone about the love of Jesus." There was nothing empty about his words; a friend to the needy, he went about doing good, for example, sawing wood for the sick and the widows too poor to hire help. (It's said he would be "handyman" only for people who couldn't pay for his services.) "When he saw a need, he gave people money (not that he had much), his own winter clothing, his time. After Scriven's death a liquor salesman in town said, "If ever there was a saint on earth, it was Joseph Scriven."

Never robust, Scriven's health failed him before he reached nature's allotted three-score years and ten. Hearing of his predicament, friends took him in. Thumbing through Scriven's scrapbooks, his host-nurse, a Mr. Sackville, found an old handwritten copy of the popular song. The wheels began churning. "Did you write this?" he asked.

For my mother, he explained. I didn't intend anyone else to see it.

When asked again—directly—-if he'd written the poem, Scriven answered, "The Lord and I did it between us."

This one statement makes me think this man knew the friendship of Christ as well as he knew grief. 

To Scriven, Christ was a present partner, a burden bearer, helpmate who came alongside to inspire, to encourage, and help carry the load. "Can we find a friend so faithful / Who will all our sorrows share?" This is the type of friend noted in Proverbs 18:24 - "who sticks closer than a brother." This is the Friend who "took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:4).

And Jesus is the Friend who remains steady, still today. When we're lonely, feeling abandoned, in need of a soul mate. Jesus' word to his disciples might be his word to us: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his masters' business. Instead, I have called you friends" (John 15:15).

Lord, allow me to know you as the friend who sticks closer than a brother. 

I might end the- story there; but Scriven's death is shrouded with such mystery that I cannot cut short the account. October 9—10, 1886: Scriven was sick, feverish, possibly delirious. He was also by some accounts severely depressed over his deteriorating health and his inability to care, for himself, physically and financially. Some postulate that he was still haunted by the loss of his first love, river-swept from his life. With what intent or purpose, no one knows, but sometime in the night he left his bed. In the morning he was found down by the lake, on his knees as if in prayer, his forehead to the ground—drowned in six shallow inches of water.

From the book "Spiritual Moments with the Great Hymns" by Evelyn Bence.

Oh how tragic to loose two to-be wives like that. Yes through times of sorrow and hardship, some can write the most beautiful spiritual songs. This on "What a Friend we Have in Jesus" has to be now one of the most famous and beloved spiritual hymns of all time.

Keith Hunt