Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 04-24-2010, 10:16 AM

A little while ago I commissioned an excellent Greek scholar to make a translation of Eusebius of Caesarea's work On the Celebration of Easter (De solemnitate paschalis). The work is actually lost, but an epitome in 12 chapters survives, and was discovered by Angelo Mai and published ca. 1820.

The translation has now arrived, and is online here, as well as a PDF version at Archive.org here. I've placed it in the public domain so help yourselves.

A different translation with commentary and study is due out from Dr. Mark DelCogliano in a volume of papers from Brill sometime soon. But of course that one will not be freely available (although well worth consulting, I am sure).

Also I got bored a week ago and decided to translate John Chrysostom's First Sermon (when he was first made a priest) into English from the old French translation of Bareille. This too is done and is online here. It's not terribly interesting, about a third of it being an encomium of the Bishop of Antioch, Flavian, who had ordained him. But as far as I know there is no other English translation.

I place them both in the public domain. Do whatever you like with them, personal, educational, commercial or whatever. My hope is to encourage interest in both.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PhilosopherJay · 04-24-2010, 11:25 AM

Great stuff, thanks Roger.

I was fascinated by Eusebius' explanation of how Easter started:

Quote:

8. When, however, the emperor most beloved of God was presiding in the midst of the holy Synod,[38] and the question of the Pascha was brought forward, there was said all that was said. And three [fourths] of the bishops of the whole world had the advantage in numbers as they strove against those of the East: The peoples of the North, the South, and the Occident together, being fortified by their harmony, pulled in the opposite direction from those of the Orient, who were defending their ancient custom. But at the end of the discussion, the Orientals yielded, and thus there came to be a single festival of Christ

It seems that Constantine stopped Christians from celebrating Passover and forced them to celebrate Easter.

This compliments ideas contained in Ralph Monday's article Christ, Constantine, Sol Invictus: the Unconquerable Sun, here

This makes it even clearer how Eusebius previously retro-projected the new Easter-Passover argument into the past. He does it through a letter by Ireneaus in Church History. He hoped to convince Constantine to allow the Eastern churches to continue their worship of Passover. He pretended that Irenaeus, the (imaginary?) Bishop from Gaul (where Constantine was from) had successfully urged the (imaginary?) Pope Eleutherius to grant freedom to the Eastern Churches to celebrate Passover 150 years before.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

A little while ago I commissioned an excellent Greek scholar to make a translation of Eusebius of Caesarea's work On the Celebration of Easter (De solemnitate paschalis). The work is actually lost, but an epitome in 12 chapters survives, and was discovered by Angelo Mai and published ca. 1820.

The translation has now arrived, and is online here, as well as a PDF version at Archive.org here. I've placed it in the public domain so help yourselves.

A different translation with commentary and study is due out from Dr. Mark DelCogliano in a volume of papers from Brill sometime soon. But of course that one will not be freely available (although well worth consulting, I am sure).

Also I got bored a week ago and decided to translate John Chrysostom's First Sermon (when he was first made a priest) into English from the old French translation of Bareille. This too is done and is online here. It's not terribly interesting, about a third of it being an encomium of the Bishop of Antioch, Flavian, who had ordained him. But as far as I know there is no other English translation.

I place them both in the public domain. Do whatever you like with them, personal, educational, commercial or whatever. My hope is to encourage interest in both.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

arnoldo · 04-24-2010, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Great stuff, thanks Roger.

I was fascinated by Eusebius' explanation of how Easter started:

Quote:

8. When, however, the emperor most beloved of God was presiding in the midst of the holy Synod,[38] and the question of the Pascha was brought forward, there was said all that was said. And three [fourths] of the bishops of the whole world had the advantage in numbers as they strove against those of the East: The peoples of the North, the South, and the Occident together, being fortified by their harmony, pulled in the opposite direction from those of the Orient, who were defending their ancient custom. But at the end of the discussion, the Orientals yielded, and thus there came to be a single festival of Christ

It seems that Constantine stopped Christians from celebrating Passover and forced them to celebrate Easter. . .

No, the controversy was regarding the correct calender date for Passover.

Quote:

The feast of Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred at the time of those observances.

As early as Pope Sixtus I, some Christians had set Easter to a Sunday in the lunar month of Nisan. To determine which lunar month was to be designated as Nisan, Christians relied on the Jewish community. By the later 3rd century some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with what they took to be the disorderly state of the Jewish calendar. They argued that contemporary Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, choosing a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox.[31] Christians, these thinkers argued, should abandon the custom of relying on Jewish informants and instead do their own computations to determine which month should be styled Nisan, setting the Easter festival within this independently-computed, Christian Nisan, which would always locate the festival after the equinox. They justified this break with tradition by arguing that it was in fact the contemporary Jewish calendar that had broken with tradition by ignoring the equinox, and that in former times the 14th of Nisan had never preceded the equinox.[32] Others felt that the customary practice of reliance on the Jewish calendar should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error from a Christian point of view.[33]

The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

The controversy over the date of Passover/Easter paled in comparison to the Arian controversy but it is an interesting one for obvious historical reasons.

PhilosopherJay · 04-25-2010, 03:45 PM

Hi Arnoldo,

Eusebius seems to be saying that it is not a problem with the Jewish calendar, but a problem with the Jews celebrating the pascha meal on the day of Christ's death:

Quote:

8... But at the end of the discussion, the Orientals yielded, and thus there came to be a single festival of Christ—and thus they stood apart from the killers of the Lord, and were joined to those who hold the same doctrine.[39] For nature draws like to like. And if someone were to say that it is written, "On the first day of [the festival] of Unleavened Bread the disciples approached the Savior and said to him, 'Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Pascha?'—and he sent them to such-and-such a man, bidding them to say, 'I am celebrating the Pascha at your house'"[40]—I will answer that this is not a command, but a historical account of an event that took place at the time of the Savior's passion. It is one thing to recount the ancient event, and quite another to make a law and to leave behind commands for posterity...
12. I assert that the Jews have gone astray from the truth, ever since they plotted against the Truth itself and drove away from themselves the Word of Life. And the Scriptures of the holy Gospels present this fact clearly. For they testify that the Lord ate the Pascha on the first day of Unleavened Bread; but they did not eat the Pascha that was customary for them on the day on which, as Luke says, "the Pascha had to be sacrificed,"[48] but instead on the following day, which was the second day of Unleavened Bread and the fifteenth day of the lunar month, on which, when our Savior was being judged by Pilate, they did not enter the praetorium—and consequently, they did not eat it on the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which it had to be sacrificed, in accordance with the Law. For in that case they themselves too would have been celebrating the Pascha along with the Savior; instead, they were blinded by their own wickedness from that very time, concurrently with their plot against the Savior, and they wandered from all truth. We, on the other hand, conduct the same mysteries [as Christ did] all through the year: On every day before the Sabbath we carry out a remembrance of the Savior's passion through a fast that the Apostles first engaged in at the time when the bridegroom had been taken away from them; and every Lord's day we are made alive by the consecrated body of the same Savior, and are sealed in our souls by his precious blood.

It seems clear to me that Eusebius is saying in section 8 that there is no command to celebrate Pascha as Christ did on the Thursday Night before he was arrested. In section 12, he says that the Christians fast on the day that the Jews celebrate Passover (Friday) and that they celebrate the Lord's day (the Sunday when he rose).
As noted before, he says this was instituted at the Council of Nicaea by the instructions of Constantine and that prior to this they had celebrated, at least in the East, Passover on Friday, along with the Jews.
He does note that the Jews celebrate their Passover on the 15th of Nissan, instead of the 14th of Nissan when Jesus celebrated his Passover meal, but Eusebius says nothing about the Jewish calendar going astray.

I think we should take the word of Eusebius on this issue. After all, he was at Nicaea.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Great stuff, thanks Roger.

I was fascinated by Eusebius' explanation of how Easter started:

It seems that Constantine stopped Christians from celebrating Passover and forced them to celebrate Easter. . .

No, the controversy was regarding the correct calender date for Passover.

Quote:

The feast of Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred at the time of those observances.

As early as Pope Sixtus I, some Christians had set Easter to a Sunday in the lunar month of Nisan. To determine which lunar month was to be designated as Nisan, Christians relied on the Jewish community. By the later 3rd century some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with what they took to be the disorderly state of the Jewish calendar. They argued that contemporary Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, choosing a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox.[31] Christians, these thinkers argued, should abandon the custom of relying on Jewish informants and instead do their own computations to determine which month should be styled Nisan, setting the Easter festival within this independently-computed, Christian Nisan, which would always locate the festival after the equinox. They justified this break with tradition by arguing that it was in fact the contemporary Jewish calendar that had broken with tradition by ignoring the equinox, and that in former times the 14th of Nisan had never preceded the equinox.[32] Others felt that the customary practice of reliance on the Jewish calendar should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error from a Christian point of view.[33]

The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

The controversy over the date of Passover/Easter paled in comparison to the Arian controversy but it is an interesting one for obvious historical reasons.

04-24-2010, 10:16 AM	#1
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	Eusebius on Easter, Chrysostom's First Sermon, now online in English A little while ago I commissioned an excellent Greek scholar to make a translation of Eusebius of Caesarea's work On the Celebration of Easter (De solemnitate paschalis). The work is actually lost, but an epitome in 12 chapters survives, and was discovered by Angelo Mai and published ca. 1820. The translation has now arrived, and is online here, as well as a PDF version at Archive.org here. I've placed it in the public domain so help yourselves. A different translation with commentary and study is due out from Dr. Mark DelCogliano in a volume of papers from Brill sometime soon. But of course that one will not be freely available (although well worth consulting, I am sure). Also I got bored a week ago and decided to translate John Chrysostom's First Sermon (when he was first made a priest) into English from the old French translation of Bareille. This too is done and is online here. It's not terribly interesting, about a third of it being an encomium of the Bishop of Antioch, Flavian, who had ordained him. But as far as I know there is no other English translation. I place them both in the public domain. Do whatever you like with them, personal, educational, commercial or whatever. My hope is to encourage interest in both. All the best, Roger Pearse

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