community to the next, could reckon the lunar calendar in very different ways.
Calendar diversity was neither planned nor deliberate: in most cases, differ-
ences are likely to have been accidental (e.g. the new moon being sighted on
different days), and it is difficult to assess the extent to which Jews, and for that
matter Christians, were themselves aware of calendar differences between
their various, often far-flung communities. In any event, to the Christians as
much as to the Jews calendar diversity was a fact of life which did not seem to
disturb or bother anyone; it did not lead to either theological disputes or social
divisions. In the context of ancient society, a tolerant attitude to calendar
diversity would not have been in any way surprising.
Late second-century controversies: the Churches
of Rome and AsiaThe earliest evidence of controversies about the date of Easter—indeed, the
earliest evidence regarding the date of Easter at all—belongs to the later second
century. Most important are the events that took place inc.190, which are only
described in sources from the late third and early fourth centuries (and later)
but with some citations of purportedly contemporary letters. This controversy
opposed, infirst instance, the Church of Rome (led by its bishop Victor) and
those of Asia Minor (headed by Polycrates of Ephesus). The Asian custom,
which Polycrates and his colleagues defended, had been to celebrate Easter on
the 14th of the lunar month, at the same time as the Jews. This practice is
commonly called‘Quartodeciman’(i.e. of the 14th), and hence the events of
c.190CEas the‘Quartodeciman controversy’; but this designation is anachro-
nistic, and I shall therefore not use it in the context of this controversy. As we
shall later see,‘Quartodeciman’is a heretical label that appears only from the
mid or later fourth century, and that was only retrospectively attributed by
somefifth-century Church historians to Polycrates.^62 In 190CE, no one would
have regarded Polycrates and the churches of Asia as heretical.
The position of Victor, reflecting an old custom of the Church of Rome and
eventually to become universal in medieval and later Christianity, was to
observe Easter on the Sunday following the 14th.^63 The rationale of this
tradition was apparently twofold:firstly, the prime significance of Easter was
(^62) Socrates,HE5. 22. 15. Note that the controversy ofc.190 is only mentioned in this passage
to make a point about calendar heresy in the late 4th c. (as will be explained below); Socrates’
designation of Polycrates as‘Quartodeciman’is specifically intended to serve the purposes of this
point.
(^63) Eusebius (HE5. 23) only says that Easter was observed on Sunday. Third-c. and later
sources suggest (as we shall see below, n. 123) that the custom in Rome was, more precisely, to
prevent Good Friday from occurring beforeluna XIV, and thus to celebrate Easter on the Sunday
no earlier thanluna XVI.
382 Calendars in Antiquity