Are you a Quartodeciman?

I’ve been so busy that Rosh Hashanah has snuck up on me! You may recall my post from a year ago which introduced Ernest Martin’s analysis that Rosh Hashanah is Yeshua’s (Jesus) real birthday: 9/11/-3. So we celebrate not only the creation of the world, but the appearance of the creator of the world to earth as The Messiah – to redeem mankind! But this was far from His first appearance on earth, for as Asher Intrater’s book, Who Ate Lunch With Abraham? details, the Son of Man has appeared in many other ways throughout the Bible. Yom Kippur will follow 10 days later to conclude the Days of Awe. This year, Sukkot will arrive 10/1 through the 9^th plus the last great day of the Feast: where Yeshua said: I am the Light of the World!

The Fall Biblical Holidays - today’s post looks briefly at Church history to see why it is that Christendom is so ignorant about these Biblical holidays.

Selected portions from Torah Club Volume 6 Chronicles of the Apostles – Va-etchanan page 1160+:

“Polycarp of Smyrna was born around the time of the destruction of the Temple (circa 70 CE). In the early second century, he became the bishop of Smyrna. He lived to the age of 86, when the Romans put him to death by burning him at the stake.

Apparently, Polycarp knew John and learned directly from him. He may have even traveled with him. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, personally knew Polycarp.

Polycarp and the disciples of John kept the Passover and biblical festivals with their teacher. They celebrated it on the fourteenth day of the lunar month as prescribed by the Torah: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening” (Exodus 12:18.) Irenaeus says that Polycarp “observed Passover with John, the disciple of our Master, and the other apostles with whom he associated.”

Long after John’s death, Polycarp and all the believers under John’s apostolate continued to keep Passover according to the Jewish reckoning in the Torah. The church in Rome, however, tried to impose the custom of fasting from Friday until Saturday night during the week of Passover and then celebrating the Lord’s Supper together as a Passover meal on the first day of the week. In the mid-second century, Anicetus, bishop of Rome, tried to force Christians everywhere to adopt the Roman custom. The Christians who refused to adopt the Roman custom were called “fourteeners” (quartodecimans) because they insisted on keeping Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan. Polycarp traveled to Rome and explained that they could not adopt the new custom because they followed the tradition that they had received directly from John and the apostles.

From Ecclesiastical History 5.24.16: “Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp to set aside what he had always observed with John, the disciple of our Master, and the other apostles with whom he had associated. Neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe Passover. As he said he ought, according to the customs of the elders that had preceded him. (Irenaeus, Letter to Victor in Eusebius)

More from James Pyles' article Supersessionism in the Church from Messiah Journal:

Religious Festivals

There are innumerable differences between the practice of Judaism and Christianity, but one of the dissimilarities most apparent to Christians is that in holidays. The major Christian holidays are Christmas and Easter. While most Christians know about Passover and Chanukah, and may even have some awareness of other Jewish festivals and commemorations such as Shavu’ot (Festivals of Weeks), Sukkot (Festival of Booths) and perhaps the High Holidays, they do not consider any of those events to have a Christian application… The church clearly made a decision to substitute those religious events that are directly connected to the Jewish links of the Messianic faith with holidays that are almost wholly disconnected. Since the parallel between Passover and Easter is the one most recognized by Christianity, I’ll focus my attention there.

The council of Nicea in 325, called by Constantine to settle the controversy over Arianism, continued the efforts of the early Church to dissociate Christianity from Judaism by deciding that Easter would no longer be determined by or celebrated during Passover. It declared that “it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people.”

This eliminates all of the festivals and commemorative events observed by Yeshua and his Jewish disciples from any inclusion in modern-day Christian celebrations of the Jewish Messiah, Passover included.

IRONY: The one holiday that the church completely ignores is the one in which there is a definite commandment for all of the nations to celebrate in Messianic days: Sukkot (Zechariah 14:6-19)

In closing, James Pyles ends his article: “Supersessionism, for most Christians, is not a conscious and deliberate act of rejecting the Judaism of Jesus, but rather, it is a habit. It is something taught from the very beginning to those entering the Christian faith and woven so completely within the tapestry of the church, that no one notices the dark thread stained with the tears of a Jewish Yeshua who has been rejected and replaced, along with all of his Jewish disciples, by the Christian Jesus.