1. What is a Quartodeciman?

  2. Who was Eusebius?

  3. Who was Polycarp and was he a Quartodeciman?

  4. Who was Polycrates and was he a Quartodeciman?

  5. How was Polycarp killed?

  6. From the Somerset Sabbath Fellowship Library CD NEW ADVENT • Edition 2 in the Catholic Encyclopedia we find the following information about the Quartodecimen controversy.
    1. In the article Ephesus we find:
      • About 110 St. Ignatius of Antioch, having been greeted at Smyrna by messengers of the Church of Ephesus, sent to it one of his seven famous epistles. During the first three centuries, Ephesus was, next to Antioch, the chief centre of Christianity in Asia Minor. In the year 190 its bishop, St. Polycrates, held a council to consider the paschal controversy and declared himself in favour of the Quartodeciman practice; nevertheless the Ephesian Church soon conformed in this particular to the practice of all the other Churches.
      • Notice this article in the Catholic Encyclopedia shows it was a Passover issue as stated in Eusebius, not really an Easter issue as stated in the other article in this same Catholic Encyclopedia.
      • The conversion of Passover to Easter did not all happen at once. They slowly and methodically changed a little at a time.
    2. In the article Pope under the subsection Victor we find:
      • St. Victor - During the pontificate of St. Victor (189-98) we have the most explicit assertion of the supremacy of the Roman See in regard to other Churches. A difference of practice between the Churches of Asia Minor and the rest of the Christian world in regard to the day of the Paschal festival led the pope to take action. There is some ground for supposing that the Montanist heretics maintained the Asiatic (or Quartodeciman) practice to be the true one: in this case it would be undesirable that any body of Catholic Christians should appear to support them. But, under any circumstances, such a diversity in the ecclesiastical life of different countries may well have constituted a regrettable feature in the Church, whose very purpose it was to bear witness by her unity to the oneness of God (John 17:21). Victor bade the Asiatic Churches conform to the custom of the remainder of the Church, but was met with determined resistance by Polycrates of Ephesus, who claimed that their custom derived from St. John himself. Victor replied by an excommunication. St. Irenaeus, however, intervened, exhorting Victor not to cut off whole Churches on account of a point which was not a matter of faith. He assumes that the pope can exercise the power, but urges him not to do so. Similarly the resistance of the Asiatic bishops involved no denial of the supremacy of Rome. It indicates solely that the bishops believed St. Victor to be abusing his power in bidding them renounce a custom for which they had Apostolic authority. It was indeed inevitable that, as the Church spread and developed, new problems should present themselves, and that questions should arise as to whether the supreme authority could be legitimately exercised in this or that case. St. Victor, seeing that more harm than good would come from insistence, withdrew the imposed penalty.
      • Notice again, this article also shows it was a Passover issue, not an Easter issue. The early church clearly kept Passover and not Easter. First they changed the day and later they changed the name and persecuted those who held true to what the apostles handed down.
    3. In the article St. Melito we find:
      • St. Melito Bishop of Sardis, prominent ecclesiastical writer in the latter half of the second century. Few details of his life are known. A letter of Polycrates of Ephesus to Pope Victor about 194 (Eusebius, Church History V.24) states that "Melito the eunuch [this is interpreted "the virgin" by Rufinus in his translation of Eusebius], whose whole walk was in the Holy Spirit", was interred at Sardis, and had been one of the great authorities in the Church of Asia who held the Quartodeciman theory. His name is cited also in the "Labyrinth" of Hippolytus as one of the second-century writers who taught the duality of natures in Jesus. St. Jerome, speaking of the canon of Melito, quotes Tertullian's statement that he was esteemed a prophet by many of the faithful.
    4. In the article Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament we find:
      • The practice of preserving after the celebration of the Liturgy a portion of the consecrated elements for the Communion of the sick or for other pious purposes. The extreme antiquity of such reservation cannot be disputed. Already Justin Martyr, in the first detailed account of Eucharistic practice we possess, tells us that at the close of the Liturgy "there is a distribution to each and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons" (I Apol., lxxxvii). Again St. Irenæus as quoted by Eusebius (Church History V.24.15) wrote to Pope Victor that "the presbyters before thee who did not observe it [i.e., the Quartodeciman practice] sent the Eucharist to those of other districts who did observe it".
      • Amazing, people who refused to keep the Eucharist known as Quartodecimans.
    5. In the article Epact we find:
      • Epact - The surplus days of the solar over the lunar year; hence, more freely, the number of days in the age of the moon on 1 January of any given year. The whole system of epacts is based on the Metonic Lunar Cycle (otherwise known as the Cycle of Golden Numbers), and serves to indicate the days of the year on which the new moons occur.

        The Church lunar calendar
        It is generally held that the Last Supper took place on the Jewish Feast of the Passover, which was always kept on the fourteenth day of the first month of the old Jewish calendar. Consequently, since this month always began with that new moon of which the fourteenth day occurred on or next after the vernal equinox, Christ arose from the dead on Sunday, the seventeenth day of the so-called paschal moon. It is evident, then, that an exact anniversary of Easter is impossible except in years in which the seventeenth day of the paschal moon falls on Sunday. In the early days of Christianity there existed a difference of opinion between the Eastern and Western Churches as to the day on which Easter ought to be kept, the former keeping it on the fourteenth day and the latter on the Sunday following. To secure uniformity of practice, the Council of Nicæa (325) decreed that the Western method of keeping Easter on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon should be adopted throughout the Church, believing no doubt that this mode fitted in better with the historical facts and wishing to give a lasting proof that the Jewish Passover was not, as the Quartodeciman heretics believed, an ordinance of Christianity.

        As in the Julian calendar the months had lost all their original reference to the moon, the early Christians were compelled to use the Metonic Lunar Cycle of the Greeks to find the fourteenth day of the paschal moon. This cycle in its original form continued to be used until 1582, when it was revised and embodied in the Gregorian calendar. The Church claims no astronomical exactness for her lunar calendar; we shall show presently the confusion which would necessarily result from an extreme adherence to precise astronomical data in determining the date of Easter. She wishes merely to ensure that the fourteenth day of the calendar moon shall fall on or shortly after the real fourteenth day but never before it, since it would be chronologically absurd to keep Easter on or before the Passover. Otherwise, as Clavius plainly states (Romani Calendarii a Gregorio XIII P.M. restituti explicatio, cap. V, § 13, p. 85), she regards with indifference the occurrence of the moons on the day before or after their proper seats and cares much more for peace and uniformity than for the equinox and the new moon. It may be mentioned here that Clavius's estimate of the accuracy of the calendar, in the compilations of which he took such a leading part, is extremely modest, and the seats assigned by him to the new moons tally with strict astronomical findings in a degree which he seems never to have anticipated. The impossibility of taking the astronomical moons as our sole guide in finding the date of Easter will be best understood from an example: Let us suppose that Easter is to be kept (as is at least implied by the British Act of Parliament regulating its date) on the Sunday after the astronomical full moon, and that this full moon, as sometimes happens, occurs just before midnight on Saturday evening in the western districts of London or New York. The full moon will therefore happen a little after midnight in the eastern districts, so that Easter, if regulated strictly by the paschal full moon, must be kept on one Sunday in the western and on the following Sunday in the eastern districts of the same city. Lest it be thought that this is carrying astronomical exactness to extremes, we may say that, if Easter were dependent on the astronomical moons, the feast could not always be kept on the same Sunday in England and America. Seeing, therefore, that astronomical accuracy must at some point give way to convenience and that an arbitrary decision on this point is necessary, the Church has drawn up a lunar calendar which maintains as close a relation with the astronomical moons as is practicable, and has decreed that Easter is to be kept on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the paschal moon as indicated by this calendar.

  7. Do scriptures clearly show the keeping of an evening 14th day of the first moon Passover?

  8. Brethren, are you a Quartodeciman?
    1. Moses was a Quartodeciman. (Exodus 12:1-11; Exodus 12:18-22; Numbers 33:1-4; Leviticus 23:4-6; Numbers 9:1-5; Numbers 9:9-12; Numbers 28:16-17)
    2. Joshua was a Quartodeciman. (Joshua 5:10-12)
    3. Hezekiah was a Quartodeciman. (2 Chronicles 30:1-3; 2 Chronicles 30:15)
    4. Josiah was a Quartodeciman. (2 Chronicles 35:1)
    5. Ezra was a Quartodeciman. (Ezra 6:18-22
    6. Ezekial was a Quartodeciman. (Ezekiel 45:21)
    7. Jesus Christ, Yahshua Messiah was a Quartodeciman. (Matthew 26:1-30)
    8. Matthew the tax collector was a Quartodeciman. (Matthew 26:1-30)
    9. Simon, who is called Peter was a Quartodeciman. (Matthew 26:1-30)
    10. Andrew brother of Peter was a Quartodeciman. (Matthew 26:1-30)
    11. James the son of Zebedee was a Quartodeciman. (Matthew 26:1-30)
    12. Mark was a Quartodeciman. (Mark 14:1-26)
    13. Bartholomew was a Quartodeciman. (Mark 14:1-26)
    14. James the son of Alphaeus was a Quartodeciman. (Mark 14:1-26)
    15. Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus was a Quartodeciman. (Mark 14:1-26)
    16. Luke was a Quartodeciman. (Luke 22:1-39)
    17. Thomas was a Quartodeciman. (Luke 22:1-39)
    18. Simon the Canaanite was a Quartodeciman. (Luke 22:1-39)
    19. John was a Quartodeciman. (John 13:1-38)
    20. Phillip was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    21. Polycarp was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    22. Thraseas was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    23. Sagaris was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    24. Papirius was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    25. Melito was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)
    26. Polycrates was a Quartodeciman. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-Bk 5 Ch 24)

  9. Why aren't all who claim to be God's people keeping an evening Passover on the 14th the way scriptures clearly instruct us?