shall thenceforth be an alien from the Church, as one who not only heaps sins
upon himself, but who is also the cause of destruction and subversion to many;
and it deposes not only such persons themselves from their ministry, but those
also who after their deposition shall presume to communicate with them. (Hefele
and Leclerq 1907: 714–5)Although the emphasis is on obedience to the Council of Nicaea, the brief
reference to observing Easter‘at the same time as the Jews’does not go
unnoticed: it is this deviant practice, in particular, that is being targeted. It is
no coincidence, therefore, that this canon was issued in Antioch, the Syrian
metropolis: for the tradition of observing Easter with the Jews, more precisely
on the Sunday following the Jewish Passover (and not on a date determined
independently by somefixed cycle) was distinctive, in the early fourth century,
of the provinces of Syria and the East, and it is in these provinces that
Constantine had met most opposition (see above, near nn. 106–7). After the
Council of Nicaea, and through most of the fourth century, obedience to
Nicaea became a major issue in Syria and called forfirm action on the part
of pro-Nicene church leaders.^151 Thus the seventh‘Apostolic Canon’of the
Apostolic Constitutions, a Syrian work redacted around 380CE, rules that‘if a
bishop, priest or deacon celebrates the holy day of Easter before the vernal
equinox with the Jews, he shall be deposed’.^152 The contemporary Canons of
Laodicea—another major northern Syrian city—similarly condemn, though
without specifying sanctions, the celebration of festivals with the Jews.^153 But
most conspicuous is John Chrysostom’s third homily against Judaizing Chris-
tians, written and delivered in Antioch in 387CE,when, according to the
Alexandrian cycle, Easter was to be celebrated on the late (and therefore highly
controversial) date of 25 April. The homily was aimed at Christians in Antioch
who were about to follow the Jews and observe Easter in the earlier month.
Although much of the homily is a rejection of the Jewish Passover, what
matters to Chrysostom—as he makes very clear—is not the correct date of
(^151) As we have seen above, the practice of observing Easter with the Jews was similarly
opposed, albeit in an ambivalent way, by the eastern faction of the Council of Serdica in 343
CE. In the particular case of 327CE, however, Lejbowicz (2006) 52–3 argues that the harsh
measure of excommunication was taken by the Council of Antioch, for political reasons, to
counterbalance its otherwise anti-Nicene stance.
(^152) Apostolic Constitutions8. 47: 70, in Metzger (1985–7) iii. 300–1; on the date and prove-
nance of this work, see ibid. i. 55–60. See alsoApostolic Constitutions5. 17. 1–3 (ibid. ii. 266–9,
Stern 2001: 68, 84), which takes up the theme in more detail by revising the earlier ruling of the
Didascalia(on which see below, n. 180).
(^153) Canon 37 in Hefele and Leclerq (1907) 1019; the precise date and historical context of
these canons remain, however, unclear (ibid. 989–95). In this context the verb‘to celebrate with’
(óıíåïæôÜÇåØí) may mean more than celebrating festivals on the same date, because the canon
that follows (38) prohibits‘to receive unleavened bread from the Jews’, and canon 39 prohibits
celebrating festivals with the pagans (ibid. and Mitchell 2005: 221, on which see below, n. 180).
Similar remarks apply toApostolic Constitutions8. 47: 70–1, which in substance is very similar to
this passage.
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