§ 37.2. =The Paschal Controversies.=--During the 2nd century, there were three different practices prevalent in regard to the observance of the Paschal festival. The Ebionite Jewish Christians (§ 28, 1) held the Paschal feast on the 14th Nisan according to the strict literal interpretation of the Old Testament precepts, maintaining also that Christ, who according to the synoptists died on the 15th, observed the Passover with his disciples on the 14th. Then again the church of Asia Minor followed another practice which was traced back to the Apostle John. Those of Asia Minor attached themselves indeed in respect of date to the Jewish festival, but gave it a Christian meaning. They let the passover alone, and pronounced the memorial of Christ’s death to be the principal thing in the festival. According to their view, based upon the fourth Gospel, Christ died upon the 14th Nisan, so that He had not during the last year of His life observed a regular Passover. On the 14th Nisan, therefore, they celebrated their Paschal festival, ending their fast at the moment of Christ’s death, three o’clock in the afternoon, and then, instead of the Jewish Passover, having an Agape with the Lord’s Supper. Those who adopted either of those two forms were at a later period called _Quartodecimans_ or _Tessareskaidekatites_. Different from both of these was a third practice followed in all the West, as also in Egypt, Palestine, Pontus and Greece, which detached itself still further from the Jewish Passover. This Western usage disregarded the day of the month in order to secure the observance of the great resurrection festival on the first day of the week. The πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, then, if the 14th did not happen to be a Friday, was always celebrated on the first Friday after the 14th, and the Easter festival with the observance of the Lord’s Supper on the immediately following Sunday. The Westerns regarded the day of Christ’s death as properly a day of mourning, and only at the end of the pre-Easter fast on the day of the Resurrection introduced the celebration of the Agape and the Lord’s Supper. These divergent practices first awakened attention on the appearing of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna at Rome in A.D. 155. The Roman bishop Anicetus referred to the tradition of the Roman Church; Polycarp laid stress upon the fact that he himself had celebrated the Paschal festival after the manner followed in Asia Minor along with the Apostle John. No common agreement was reached at this time; but, in token of their undisturbed church fellowship, Anicetus allowed Polycarp to dispense the communion in his church. Some fifteen years later a party, not distinctly particularised, obtained at Laodicea in Phrygia sanction for the Ebionite practice with strict observance of the time of the Passover, and awakened thereby a lively controversy in the