George Australia wrote:The First Ecumenical Council decreed that Pascha should be celebrated "not with the Jews" because prior to this, in some places, the Church was celebrating Pascha on the actual day of Passover (no matter what day of the week it was). These were the "Tessareskaedecatites" (literally "Fourteenth-ites") who celebrated Pascha on the 14th of Nissan, rather than the Sunday which followed it.
Correct, Pascha and the Nomical Passover can never coincide by their respective definitions. The Nomical Passover occurs on the night of the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox (14th Nissan), and Pascha is the Sunday after the first Vernal Full Moon (i.e., the Sunday after the Nomical 14th of Nissan), so, if the first Vernal Full Moon falls on a Sunday, the Pascha is the following Sunday. This is also why Pascha should never be a week later than the Nomical Passover.
Actually, it was the Apostles who influenced this. The "Wave-Sheaf" offering or "Omer" is commanded in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23:9-14). The "omer" was originally a unit of measure, which came to mean the "Wave-Sheaf". On the morning after the Sabbath of the Passover (i.e. Sunday Morning, or what should be our Pascha), the firstfruits were brought to the Temple to be offered to God. This consisted of a sheaf of Barley which was the "first-fruit" to ripen after the Winter. The priest would wave the sheaf before the God to offer it, and only after the Omer offering could food made from that year's fruits be eaten (only dried grains, legumes, fruits etc from the previous year could be eaten until the "Wave-Sheaf" or "Omer" was offered). So this was a firstfruit offering made on the day which came to be the day on which Christ Rose from the Dead. And the Apostle St. Paul makes this connection between the Resurrection and the Firstfruits when he says:
"But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 15:20.)
The days and weeks after the Wave-Sheaf offering had to be counted each day for seven weeks, (Leviticus 23-15-16) and this is known as "Counting the Omer". So, for example, on the 9th day after the Wave Offering, the announcement is made during prayer that "Today is the ninth day, which is one week and two days of the Omer (i.e. the "Wave-Sheaf"). After the Seven Weeks of the Omer (49 days) came the Feast of Shavu'ot on the 50th day or "Pentecost". This day was the harvest festival of the first-fruits, when the firstfruits would be harvested and brought to the Temple. It was also the Day which commemorated the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. And on this Day in AD 33 the Holy Spirit, Who teaches Truth, descended on the Apostles and established the Church, and through the Truth of the Holy Spirit, the Church is where the "firstfruits" of all creatures are gathered (or "harvested") as an offering to God, as the Apostle St. James says:
"Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures." (James 1:18 )
The assumption is often made that the decree that we should celebrate Pascha "not with the Jews" is antisemetic, but in fact, it isn't. If we were calculating Pascha as the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council decreed we should, then our Pascha would always fall on the day of the Wave-Sheaf offering.
Think about it: the first day of Passover is actually the 15th of Nissan, remembering that the Day begings at sunset, so Sunset on the 14th of Nissan is actually the start of the 15th. The Wave-Sheaf had to be offered in the Morning of the Sunday after the Saturday in Passover. Therefore if 14th Nissan was a Saturday, then the Wave-Sheaf would not be offered the next day, but on the following Sunday, since that 14th Nissan was not the Saturday in Passover, but the Saturday before it (and this most recently occured in 2001). Therefore, "the Sunday following the first vernal full moon" (or the Nomical Christian Pascha) is the Nomical Day of the Omer or "Wave-Sheaf" offering.
Therefore "not will the Jews" cannot mean anything other than not celebrating Pascha on any day other than Sunday (unlike the Jews who celebrate thier Passover on any day of the week). Yet, our Pascha (if we calculated it correctly) would always falls on the Nomical day of the Wave-Sheaf Offering, so it cannot be said that the decree "not with the Jews" was meant to be antisemetic, since we would always be celebrating Pascha on the same Jewish Holiday every year, and always during the Passover Week (or "Days of Unleaven Bread").
The conclusion of all this is that the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council decreed that we should be celebrating the Resurrection for Pascha, and the Resurrection of Our Lord took place on the day of the Wave-Sheaf (Omer) Offering. Our Pascha is a Resurrectional Pascha, whereas, if we celebrate "with the Jews", it would be a Crucifixional Pascha.
I've been giving this some more thought and I can see the logic in standardising the day of resurrection to the wave-sheaf offering day, but in reality it's no more accurate than any manipulation to standardise could be because it has to reject the reality of the orginal event which while including the wave-sheaf offering day only did so because it followed a particular 14 Nissan, an event which is not repeated annually.
In effect then, and I don't know how often this happens, Pascha bears no real relation to the orginal event any more than celebrating Pascha on the 14th does if by this the "Tessareskaedecatites" were remembering the resurrection. If the 14 Nissan falls on a Saturday then Pascha is celebrating a 7 day internment.
My objection here is that I do think it important that we remember Pascha for the day which Christ chose it to be, since it means Passover and Passover has specific theology in respect of Christ's death, the freeing from slavery etc. I think forgetting this by making it a moveable feast when it is the one immoveable we can all agree on is putting the cart before the horse.
I'd rather see 'Resurrection Pascha' on whichever day it really fell whether or not it was a Sunday and then, I don't know how often this would happen, when it did fall on a Sunday it would be so much more meaningful for me.
However, even if we continued to celebrate Pascha on the wave-sheaf offering day every year, I think we still need to remember Pascha the Crucifixion day.
Myrrh
More worrying is that this emphasis puts us in danger of Christ's admonition - that in exalting the traditions of men we break God's commandment, here just as surely as in His example regarding the korban food which disregarded the commandment to honour father and mother, by putting the idea of 'Church Fathers' alone as orthodoxy we dishonour our Church Mothers.