Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Another Heresy, that of the Sabbatians, is originated by the Novatians. Their Synod in Sangarus. Account in Greater Detail of the Easter Festival.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XVIII.—Another
Heresy, that of the Sabbatians, is originated by the Novatians. Their
Synod in Sangarus. Account in Greater Detail of the Easter
Festival.
A division arose during the
same reign among the Novatians1554
| 1554Soc. v. 21, 22. Soz. has independent material.
|
concerning the celebration of the festival of Easter, and from this
dispute originated another, called the Sabbatian. Sabbatius, who, with
Theoctistus and Macarius, had been ordained presbyter by Marcian,
adopted the opinion of the co-presbyters, who had been convened at
Pazoucoma1555
| 1555Παζουκώμῃ ;
Soc. ἐν
Πάζῳ κώμῃ.
|
during the reign of Valens, and maintained that the feast of the
Passover (Easter) ought to be celebrated by Christians as by Jews. He
seceded from the Church at first for the purpose of exercising greater
austerity, for he professed to adopt a very austere mode of life. He
also declared that one motive of his secession was, that many persons
who participated in the mysteries appeared to him to be unworthy of the
honor. When, however, his design of introducing innovations was
detected, Marcian expressed his regret at having ordained him, and, it
is said, was often heard to exclaim that he would rather have laid his
hands upon thorns than upon the head of Sabbatius. Perceiving that the
people of his diocese were being rent into two factions, Marcian
summoned all the bishops of his own persuasion to Sangarus, a town of
Bithynia, near the seashore, not far from the city of Helenopolis. When
they had assembled, they summoned Sabbatius, and asked him to state the
cause of his grievance; and as he merely complained of the diversity
prevailing in regard to the feast, they suspected that he made this a
pretext to disguise his love of precedency, and made him declare upon oath that he would never accept
the episcopal office. When he had taken the required oath, all were of
the same opinion, and they voted to hold the church together, for the
difference prevailing in the celebration of the Paschal feast ought by
no means to be made an occasion for separation from communion; and they
decided that each individual should be at liberty to observe the feast
according to his own judgment. They enacted a canon on the subject,
which they styled the “Indifferent (ἁδιάφορος)
Canon.” Such were the transactions of the assembly at Sangarus.
From that period Sabbatius adhered to the usage of the Jews; and unless
all happened to observe the feast at the same time, he fasted,
according to the custom, but in advance, and celebrated the Passover
with the usual prescriptions by himself. He passed the Saturday, from
the evening to the appointed time, in watching and in offering up the
prescribed prayers; and on the following day he assembled with the
multitude, and partook of the mysteries. This mode of observing the
feast was at first unnoticed by the people but as, in process of time,
it began to attract observation, and to become more generally known, he
found a great many imitators, particularly in Phrygia and Galatia, to
whom this celebration of the feast became a national custom. Eventually
he openly seceded from communion, and became the bishop of those who
had espoused his sentiments, as we shall have occasion to show in the
proper place.
I am, for my own part, astonished that Sabbatius and his
followers attempted to introduce this innovation. The ancient Hebrews,
as is related by Eusebius,1556
| 1556Eus. H. E. vii. 32. Extracts from the canons
of Anatolius.
|
on the testimony of Philo, Josephus, Aristobulus, and several others,
offered the sacrifices after the vernal equinox, when the sun is in the
first sign of the zodiac, called by the Greeks the Ram, and when the
moon is in the opposite quarter of the heavens, and in the fourteenth
day of her age. Even the Novatians themselves, who have studied the
subject with some accuracy, declare that the founder of their heresy
and his first disciples did not follow this custom, which was
introduced for the first time by those who assembled at Pazoucoma; and
that at old Rome the members of this sect still observe the same
practice as the Romans, who have not deviated from their original usage
in this particular, the custom having been handed down to them by the
holy apostles Peter and Paul. Further, the Samaritans, who are
scrupulous observers of the laws of Moses, never celebrate this
festival till the first-fruits have reached maturity; they say it is,
in the law, called the Feast of First-Fruits, and before these appear,
it is not lawful to observe the feast; and, therefore, necessarily the
vernal equinox must precede. Hence arises my astonishment that those
who profess to adopt the Jewish custom in the celebration of this
feast, do not conform to the ancient practice of the Jews. With the
exception of the people above mentioned, and the Quartodecimani of
Asia, all heresies, I believe, celebrate the Passover in the same
manner as the Romans and the Egyptians. The Quartodecimani are so
called because they observe this festival, like the Jews, on the
fourteenth day of the moon, and hence their name. The Novatians observe
the day of the resurrection. They follow the custom of the Jews and the
Quartodecimani, except when the fourteenth day of the moon falls upon
the first day of the week, in which case they celebrate the feast so
many days after the Jews, as there are intervening days between the
fourteenth day of the moon and the following Lord’s day. The
Montanists, who are called Pepuzites and Phrygians, celebrate the
Passover according to a strange fashion which they introduced. They
blame those who regulate the time of observing the feast according to
the course of the moon, and affirm that it is right to attend
exclusively to the cycles of the sun. They reckon each month to consist
of thirty days, and account the day after the vernal equinox as the
first day of the year, which, according to the Roman method of
computation, would be called the ninth day before the calends of April.
It was on this day, they say, that the two great luminaries appointed
for the indication of times and of years were created. This they prove
by the fact that every eight years the sun and the moon meet together
in the same point of the heavens. The moon’s cycle of eight years
is accomplished in ninety-nine months, and in two thousand nine hundred
and twenty-two days; and during that time there are eight revolutions
made by the sun, each comprising three hundred and sixty-five days, and
the fourth part of a day. For they compute the day of the creation of
the sun, mentioned in Sacred Writ, to have been the fourteenth day of
the moon, occurring after the ninth day before the calends of the month
of April, and answering to the eighth day prior to ides of the same
month. They always celebrate the Passover on this day, when it falls on
the day of the resurrection; otherwise they celebrate it on the
following Lord’s day; for it is written according to their
assertion that the feast may be held on any day between the fourteenth
and twenty-first.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
