This is, if not the oldest Christian argument, pretty close

This is, if not the oldest Christian argument, pretty close
by sorin69 (2024-04-01 12:40:44)
Edited on 2024-04-01 12:46:02

In reply to: Slight nit (is that redundant?) posted by ufl

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to it. I refer to the argument over the dating of Easter. It passed through several stages, beginning with the so-called Quartodecimans (if you're a stickler for Latin grammar, Quartadecimans) of the late second century, who kept Easter with the Jews when they observed Passover, the fourteenth of the (lunar) month of Nisan. They were opposed by an apparent majority, who kept Easter on Sunday after observing the death of Jesus on a Friday. You can read about it in Book 5, sections 23-25, in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, which includes pertinent (if selective) documentation. The issue was still unresolved at the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325, where it was alleged to be the other reason for the Council beyond the controversy associated with Arius, as you can read about in Eusebius' Life of Constantine. It was resolved to hold it on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Western Christians were still fighting over it when the Venerable Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the early eighth century (too many places to mention). I pass over the Eastern Christians who have clung to the Julian calendar.

Edited for writing lapses. I should "pretty close" to earliest in the sense of issues that emerged outside the writing and canonization of the New Testament.