QUARTODECIMANI. — This name designates the followers of the ancient Jewish computation, which placed the feast of Easter on the 14th of Nisan (a lunar month in March), whatever day of the week it might fall upon. This custom, almost exclusively confined to the proconsular province of Asia, was contrary to the practice of Rome, which, from the time of Pope Sisto, assigned the Sunday following the said celebration.
From this arose the so-called “Paschal controversy,” which concerned not only the date of Easter but also the duration of the fast and the principal significance of the solemnity: while the faithful of Asia intended to commemorate chiefly the death of the Lord, elsewhere, especially at Rome, greater emphasis was placed on the Resurrection. Pope Victor (189–99) decided to put an end to the dispute, and at his request synods were convoked throughout the Church. Eusebius records the replies sent by the synods of the provinces of Palestine, Pontus, and the distant Osroene (Edessa), as well as the letters written on this occasion by Bacchillus of Corinth and Irenaeus of Lyons. All these replies favored the Roman date, except those of the synods of Asia, where Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, urged resistance, writing to the Pope: “It is we who celebrate the true and genuine day (of Easter), adding nothing nor subtracting anything... in conformity with the Gospel, without varying anything, and according to the rule of faith... I have lived sixty-five years in the Lord; I have been in contact with the brethren of the whole world, I have read all the Scripture and I am not frightened by terrors, because greater men than I have said: it is necessary to obey God rather than men” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, cap. 24). Then Victor took the grave decision to separate from ecclesiastical communion, as heretics, “ὡς ἐπιστολός οὖς ἐπιστολός” [as letters which are letters], the Churches of Asia. But Irenaeus, judging this measure excessive, wrote to the Pontiff a letter in which he respectfully exhorted him to the gentleness shown by his predecessors: “Among the presbyters (the bishops of Rome) who before Soter governed the Church now entrusted to you, namely Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus, Sixtus, none practiced the Asian observances nor permitted their subjects to do so; yet despite this they were in peaceful relations with those who came from the Churches of Asia” (Eusebius, loc. cit.). What resolution the Pontiff took is unknown, but it is certain that the Asian Churches adopted the Roman usage, practicing it from the beginning of the 4th century.
These events bear high witness to the primacy of the bishop of Rome.