It is clear that in this case the apostles must have been misrepresented.  Peter and Paul certainly never taught the members of the Church of Rome to eat the Paschal lamb, for the Jewish temple continued standing until after both these eminent ministers had finished their career, and meanwhile the eating of the Passover was confined to those who went up to worship at Jerusalem.  Philip and John may have continued to keep the feast according to the ancient ritual until shortly before the ruin of the holy city; and if, afterwards, they permitted the converts from Judaism to kill a lamb and to have a social repast at the same season of the year, they could have attached no religious importance to such an observance.  But now that both parties were heated by the spirit of rivalry and contention, they extracted from tradition a testimony which it did not supply.  Vague reports and equivocal statements, handed down from ages preceding, were compelled to convey a meaning very different from that which they primarily communicated; and thus the voice of one tradition could be readily employed to neutralize the authority of another.

It is a curious fact that the custom which now created such violent excitement gradually passed into desuetude.  At present there are few places [629:1] where the eating of the Paschal lamb is continued.  But otherwise the practice for which Victor contended eventually prevailed, as the Roman mode of celebration was established by the authority of the Council of Nice.  What is called Easter Sunday is still observed in many Churches as the festival of the resurrection.  But the institution of such a festival is unnecessary, as each returning Lord’s day should remind the Christian that his Saviour has risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that sleep. [629:2]

This Paschal controversy generated no schism, but other disputes, which subsequently occurred, did not terminate so peacefully.  About the middle of the third century disagreements respecting matters of discipline rent the Churches of Carthage and Rome.  At Carthage, the malecontents sought for greater laxity; at Rome, they contended for greater strictness.  At that time the confessors and the martyrs, or those who had persevered in their adherence to the faith under pains and penalties, and those who had suffered for it unto death, were held in the highest veneration.  They had been even permitted in some places to dictate to the existing ecclesiastical rulers by granting what were called tickets of peace [629:3] to the lapsed, that is, to those who had apostatized in a season of persecution, and who had afterwards sought readmission to Church communion.  These certificates, or tickets of peace, were understood to entitle the parties in whose favour they were drawn up to be admitted forthwith to the Lord’s Supper.  But it sometimes happened that a confessor or a martyr was himself far from a paragon of excellence, [630:1]