The Early Christians
n“A whole body of
‘Against the Jews’ literature was produced by leading Fathers who defamed the Jews as a people and emptied their religious beliefs and practices of any
historical value. Two major
causalities of the anti-Jewish campaign were Sabbath and Passover. The Sabbath was changed to Sunday and Passover was transferred to
Easter-Sunday. Scholars usually recognize the anti-Judaic motivation
for the repudiation of the
Jewish reckoning of Passover and adoption
of Easter-Sunday instead. Joachim Jeremias attributes such a development to ‘the inclination to
break away from Judaism.’ In
a similar vein, J.B. Lightfoot explains
that Rome and Alexandria adopted Easter-Sunday to avoid ‘even the semblance of Judaism’”
- Samuele Bacchiocchi, God's Festival in Scripture and History, 1995, pp. 101-103
- Samuele Bacchiocchi, God's Festival in Scripture and History, 1995, pp. 101-103