This is Communio Sanctorum, the history of the Christian Church, season two.

This is part four of the first centuries, and we'll give it the title, An Easter Tussle.

Have you noticed that,

generally speaking, Christians like to argue? Maybe we get it from our spiritual ancestors,

the Jews. Once while on a tour of Jerusalem at what we're called the southern steps of the Temple Mount, our Jewish guide told us that there's a frequent joke told among his people

that where you have two Jews, you have three opinions. Yeah, it seems that controversy has been a part of

the history of the church since its inception. And maybe that's really more of a human tendency

that's something that's unique to or the sole prerogative of the followers of Jesus.

In this fourth episode of the first centuries of the church, we're taking a look at an

acrimonious debate that split the church into warring camps before the end of the second century.

Even while facing the pressure of persecution from without, believers decided to spin up their own internal stress.

Now, surely, if Christians were going to draw lines and take sides while being battered by a world of hostile pagans,

what they argued over must have been super important, right?

I mean, we must be dealing with some critical

issues of theology, an essential of the faith. Well, they certainly thought it was important.

We, on the other hand, probably don't find it to be that crucial. It all had to do with the timing

of Easter. Yep, they went to town on when to commemorate the death

and resurrection of Jesus. As we examine this, we could go into the minutia of detailed

terminology and the fine nuances of theological musings that underpinned the different positions

that were taken at the time. I'm not going to do that for this reason.

It would bore the bejebers out of nearly everyone.

And, well, I'd be mouthing stuff I don't really understand.

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