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A DIVISION arose during the same reign among the Novatians
concerning the celebration of the festival of Easter, and from this
dispute originated another, called the Sabbatian. Sabbatius, who,
with Theoctistus and Macarius, had been ordained presbyter by
Marcian, adopted the opinion of the co-presbyters, who had been
convened at Pazoucoma during the reign of Valens, and maintained that
the feast of the Passover (Easter) ought to be celebrated by
Christians as by Jews. He seceded from the Church at first for the
purpose of exercising greater austerity, for he professed to adopt a
very austere mode of life. He also declared that one motive of his
secession was, that many persons who participated in the mysteries
appeared to him to be unworthy of the honor. When, however, his
design of introducing innovations was detected, Marcian expressed his
regret at having ordained him, and, it is said, was often heard to
exclaim that he would rather have laid his hands upon thorns than upon
the head of Sabbatius. Perceiving that the people of his diocese were
being rent into two factions, Marcian summoned all the bishops of his
own persuasion to Sangarus, a town of Bithynia, near the seashore,
not far from the city of Helenopolis. When they had assembled, they
summoned Sabbatius, and asked him to state the cause of his
grievance; and as he merely complained of the diversity prevailing in
regard to the feast, they suspected that he made this a pretext to
disguise his love of precedency, and made him declare upon oath that he
would never accept the episcopal office. When he had taken the
required oath, all were of the same opinion, and they voted to hold
the church together, for the difference prevailing in the celebration
of the Paschal feast ought by no means to be made an occasion for
separation from communion and they decided that each individual should
be at liberty to observe the feast according to his own judgment. They
enacted a canon on the subject, which they styled the "Indifferent
Canon." Such were the transactions of the assembly at Sangarus.
From that period Sabbatius adhered to the usage of the Jews; and
unless all happened to observe the feast at the same time, he fasted,
according to the custom, but in advance, and celebrated the Passover
with the usual prescriptions by himself. He passed the Saturday,
from the evening to the appointed time, in watching and in offering up
the prescribed prayers; and on the following day he assembled with the
multitude, and partook of the mysteries. This mode of observing the
feast was at first unnoticed by the people but as, in process of time,
it began to attract observation, and to become more generally known,
he found a great many imitators, particularly in Phrygia and
Galatia, to whom this celebration of the feast became a national
custom. Eventually he openly seceded from communion, and became the
bishop of those who had espoused his sentiments, as we shall have
occasion to show in the proper place.
I am, for my own part, astonished that Sabbatius and his followers
attempted to introduce this innovation. The ancient Hebrews, as is
related by Eusebius, on the testimony of Philo, Josephus,
Aristobulus, and several others, offered the sacrifices after the
vernal equinox, when the sun is in the first sign of the zodiac,
called by the Greeks the Ram, and when the moon is in the opposite
quarter of the heavens, and in the fourteenth day of her age. Even
the Novatians themselves, who have studied the subject with some
accuracy, declare that the founder of their heresy and his first
disciples did not follow this custom, which was introduced for the
first time by those who assembled at Pazoucoma; and that at old Rome
the members of this sect still observe the same practice as the
Romans, who have not deviated from their original usage in this
particular, the custom having been handed down to them by the holy
apostles Peter and Paul. Further, the Samaritans, who are
scrupulous observers of the laws of Moses, never celebrate this
festival till the first fruits have reached maturity; they say it is,
in the law, called the Feast of First-Fruits, and before these
appear, it is not lawful to observe the feast; and, therefore,
necessarily the vernal equinox must precede. Hence arises my
astonishment that those who profess to adopt the Jewish custom in the
celebration of this feast, do not conform to the ancient practice of
the Jews. With the exception of the people above mentioned, and the
Quartodecimani of Asia, all heresies, I believe, celebrate the
Passover in the same manner as the Romans and the Egyptians. The
Quartodecimani are so called because they observe this festival, like
the Jews, on the fourteenth day of the moon, and hence their name.
The Novatians observe the day of the resurrection. They follow the
custom of the Jews and the Quartodecimani, except when the fourteenth
day of the moon falls upon the first day of the week, in which case
they celebrate the feast so many days after the Jews, as there are
intervening days between the fourteenth day of the moon and the
following Lord's day. The Montanists, who are called Pepuzites
and Phrygians, celebrate the Passover according to a strange fashion
which they introduced. They blame those who regulate the time of
observing the feast according to the course of the moon, and affirm
that it is right to attend exclusively to the cycles of the sun. They
reckon each month to consist of thirty days, and account the day after
the vernal equinox as the first day of the year, which, according to
the Roman method of computation, would be called the ninth day before
the calends of April. It was on this day, they say, that the two
great luminaries appointed for the indication of times and of years were
created. This they prove by the fact that every eight years the sun
and the moon meet together in the same point of the heavens. The
moon's cycle of eight years is accomplished in ninety nine months, and
in two thousand nine hundred and twenty two days; and during that time
there are eight revolutions made by the sun, each comprising three
hundred and sixty five days, and the fourth part of a day. For they
compute the day of the creation of the sun, mentioned in Sacred
Writ, to have been the fourteenth day of the moon, occurring after
the ninth day before the calends of the month of April, and answering
to the eighth day prior to ides of the same month. They always
celebrate the Passover on this day, when it falls on the day of the
resurrection; otherwise they celebrate it on the following Lord's
day; for it is written according to their assertion that the feast may
be held on any day between the fourteenth and twenty first.
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