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Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, he ordered the bishops to settle the matter once and for all. It was one of the two big issues of the council.
Council Confirms Roman Usage
At the time of the Nicaean Council, the Syrians and the Antiochenes were the only defenders of the observance of the 14th day. They stood little chance!
“The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that ‘none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews’ “(ibid.).
In the spiritually darkened minds of those at the council, anything that was biblical – anything that God commanded – was “Jewish.”
The bishops at Nicaea so abhorred anything they thought to be Jewish that they “decided that Easter Day should always be on a Sunday, but never at the same time as the feast of the Jews. If the 14th Nisan fell on a Sunday, Easter Day was transferred to the following Sunday” (Burns, The Council of Nicaea, page 46).
“For how,” explains Constantine, “could we who are Christians possibly keep the same day as those wicked Jews?” (Arian Controversy, Gwatkin, page 38).
So strong was the anti-Jewish feeling that pork or ham – an abomination to the Jews – was deliberately eaten on Easter to show utter contempt for anything Jewish. In this case the Jewish way also happened to be God’s way as revealed in the Bible.
Thus, the Nicaean Council – regarded by the world as one of the great milestones of Christianity – condemned observance of the New Testament Passover, one of God’s most sacred memorials, without even looking into the Bible! And by “violence and bloodshed” – as history shows (Hislop, page 107) – the observance of the pagan Easter was enforced in its place.
Does it Make Any Difference?
But some will say: “Yes, I know that Easter has a pagan origin, and I can plainly see that Christ was not resurrected on a Sunday. But as long as we keep Easter in a Christian spirit as a kind of remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, what difference does it make?”
The answer to this question depends purely and simply on whether or not God exists. If there is no God, then, of course, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
But if there is a living God in heaven – and you can absolutely PROVE that there is – and if that God says it makes a difference to HIM, then it had better make a difference to you, too!
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