Sophia Scriptura

Church History 5.23.1

Eusebius of Caesarea · Church History · ca. 300–325 · Caesarea · Read in context

Summary: The Easter controversy: the Asian churches ended the paschal fast on the fourteenth of the month whatever the weekday; the rest of the church ended it only on the Sunday of the resurrection.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:229

Ζητήσεως δῆτα κατὰ τούσδε οὐ σμικρὰς ἀνακινηθείσης, ὅτι δὴ τῆς Ἀσίας ἁπάσης αἶ παροικίαι ὡσὰν ἐκ παραδόσεως ἀρχαιοτέρας σελήνης τὴν τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην ᾤοντο δεῖν ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ πάσχα σωτηρίου ἑορτῆς παραφυλάττειν, ἐν ᾗ θύειν τὸ πρόβατον Ἰουδαίοις προηγόρευτο, ὡς δέον ἐκ παντὸς κατὰ ταύτην, ὁποίᾳ δʼ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ τῆς ἑβδομάδος περιτυγχάνοι, τὰς τῶν ἀσιτιῶν ἐπιλύσεις ποιεῖσθαι, οὐκ ἔθους ὄντος τοῦτον ἐπιτελεῖν τὸν τρόπον ταῖς ἀνὰ τὴν λοιπὴν ἅπασαν οἰκουμένην ἐκκλησίαις, ἑ § ἀποστολικῆς παραδόσεως τὸ καὶ εἰς δεῦρο κρατῆσαν ἔθος φυλαττούσαις, ὡς μηδʼ ἑτέρᾳ προσήκειν παρὰ τὴν τῆς ἀναστάσεως τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἡμέρᾳ τὰς νηστείας ἐπιλύεσθαι.

English · Claude translation

At this time no small controversy arose, because the communities of all Asia, as from an older tradition, thought that they ought to observe the fourteenth day of the moon for the feast of the Saviour's Pascha, the day on which the Jews had been commanded to sacrifice the lamb, so that the ending of the fasts had to be made on that day, whatever day of the week it might fall on. But it was not the custom for the churches throughout all the rest of the world to do it in this way; they kept the custom, which has prevailed to this day, from apostolic tradition, that it is not fitting to end the fasts on any other day than the day of our Saviour's resurrection.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:229 · Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Eusebii Caesariensis Opera, vol. 4: Historiae ecclesiasticae libri I–X (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871) · Greek text: W. Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Dindorf, Eusebii Opera 4. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Teubner, 1871); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1 (1890) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture
Topics
Fasting

Notes

Translation notes

  • The Asian (“Quartodeciman”) practice follows Exod 12:6. The digital text has a stray “ἑ §” for ἐξ (“from”).

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.23.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/23/1/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.23.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/23/1/).

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