Judaize (ˈdʒʊdeɪˌaɪz) or Judaise vb 1. (Judaism) to conform or bring into conformity with Judaism 2. (Judaism) (tr) to convert to Judaism 3. (Judaism) (tr) to imbue with Jewish principles. As early as Pope Sixtus I, some Christians had set Easter to a Sunday in the lunar month of NISAN. To determine which lunar month was to be designated as Nisan, Christians relied on the Jewish community. By the later 3rd century some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with what they took to be the disorderly state of the Jewish calendar. They argued that contemporary Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, choosing a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox. (Jewish calendar, or YHWHs calendar?) Christians, these thinkers argued, should abandon the custom of relying on Jewish informants and instead do their own computations to determine which month should be styled Nisan, setting Easter within this independently computed, Christian Nisan, which would always locate the festival after the equinox. They justified this break with tradition by arguing that it was in fact the contemporary Jewish calendar that had broken with tradition by ignoring the equinox, and that in former times the 14th of Nisan had never preceded the equinox. Others felt that the customary practice of reliance on the Jewish calendar should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error from a Christian point of view. The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria. Easter was henceforward to be a Sunday in a lunar month chosen according to Christian criteria—in effect, a Christian Nisan—not in the month of Nisan as defined by Jews. Those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar (called protopaschites by later historians) were urged to come around to the majority position. That they did not all immediately do so is revealed by the existence of sermons, canons, and tracts written against the protopaschite practice in the later 4th century. History tells us that the early Christians changed from the Hebrew calendar that YHWH authorised, to the Roman Julian calendar that He did not authorise. It is important to note that the term Judaising was outlawed for Christians under pain of death. Did Jesus Christ change the original religion, or did He reveal and expand upon the truths within Judaism?
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 16:52:49 +0000
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