Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. Now this title might stump you a little bit.

The Fourteenthers. What could this possibly be about?

Well this actually refers to a rather significant debate in the early church.

The Latin here is Corto Desimani, and we just turn that into English as the 14thers.

I'm not sure that's an English word and I'm not even

sure that's a Latin word. This is a reference to the idea of the

fourteenth of the month and of course this is a particular month the 14th of Nissan.

The controversy here has to do with the celebration of Easter.

In the early church there were two different views that vied for attention.

One of these is represented in the church father Polycarp.

That great name that means many fish.

Polycarp, who was martyred in 155, was a 14ther.

He held to the view that no matter what day of the week,

the 14th of Nissan is the day that Easter should be celebrated.

It was linked up as it is in the Gospel's account to the celebration of Passover in the

Old Testament, and to make that connection to Passover in the 14th of Nissan,

Polykarp was insistent that we celebrate Resurrection Day and we celebrate Easter on the 14th of Nissan.

Well, there was another view in the early church that it would be celebrated in the Sunday

after the 14th of Nissan, and this particular view was held by Anacetus.

At the time, Anacetus was the Bishop of Rome.

He died in 168, and the record is not all that clear if he died of natural causes or

is martyred.

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