Easter, but only obedience to Nicaea and unity of the Church: he repeatedly
writes, ‘we put more importance on harmony (symphonia) than on the
observance of dates’,^154 since the‘decree’of Nicaea was about keeping Easter
‘together and in harmony’.^155 In summing up, it is not Judaism that is
castigated, but rather calendar diversity:‘fasting at this or that time is not
matter for blame; but to rend asunder the Church...to create dissension...
these are unpardonable...these do deserve serious punishment’.^156
It is in this climate of harsh, punitive Church canons andfiery homilies
against calendar deviance, calendar diversity, and observance of Easter‘with
the Jews’ that we find the emergence, for the first time in history, of
heretical groups defined as heretical purely or largely because of their
calendrical, Easter practices. These groups emerge all of a sudden in sources
from the 370s or 380s, and seem to persist well into thefifth century; they
are located mainly in Asia Minor and the Near East, and are characterized
by mildly Judaizing calendrical practices. Most frequently mentioned among
them are the Quartodecimans (a new term, not attested earlier in history)^157
and the Novatians, whose heretical Easter observances are carefully distin-
guished in the sources.
A list and concise description of these heresies appears in the opening of an
anonymous homily on the date of Easter, composed in Asia in the same
contentious year of 387CE. It describes in turn the‘Quartodeciman heresy’,
that observes Easter with the Jews, i.e. on the same date; the Novatians, who
follow the Jewish month and the Jewishluna XIV, but observe Easter on the
following Sunday; and the Montanists, another‘heresy’, who observe Easter on
thefixed date of day 14, month 7 (of the Asian calendar, i.e. 6 April).^158
Epiphanius of Salamis covers similar ground, but in far more detail, in his
slightly earlier heresiology, thePanarion. The 50th entry of thePanarion,on
the‘Quartodecimans’(Tessareskaidekatitai), describes them as a‘heresy’(50.
- who hold all the doctrines of the Church (50. 1. 2–3) but differ only on
the date of Easter, which they keep on one day only (i.e. the day of the Passion
onluna XIV, but not the day of the Resurrection) (ibid.). The heresy, however,
is subdivided:
- who hold all the doctrines of the Church (50. 1. 2–3) but differ only on
They keep the Passover on whichever day it is that the fourteenth of the month
falls; but the ones in Cappadocia keep the same one day on the eighth before
the Kalends of April (25 March). And there is no little dissension in their ranks(^154) John Chrysostom,AdversusIudaeos3. 3. 1 (Harkins 1979: 54); see also 3. 5. 6 (ibid. 65).
(^155) Adv.Iud.3. 3. 4 (ibid. 55)ŒïØíBfi ŒÆd óıìçþíøò.
(^156) Adv.Iud.3. 6. 13 (ibid. 70).
(^157) Actually, in the sources of this period (later 4th–5th cc.) the term is only attested in the
Greek,Tessareskaidekatitai(see further below, n. 160). I shall use, however, the later and
common translation 158 ‘Quartodeciman’.
Floëri and Nautin (1957) 117–19 (chs. 7–10).
414 Calendars in Antiquity