223 ON JESUS’ LAST WEEK(S) cated the others, if Irenaeus had not intervened, reminding him that at Rome, before Pope Soter (167-174), “among others, the pre- sbyters who presided over the church which you presently direct [ . . . ] did not celebrate [the feast] and did not allow their faithful to celebrate it [...]. Nevertheless, they remained at peace with those who came from other churches where it was celebrated”. Other documents of the time 32, especially Paschal homilies, show that both parties had the same view of Easter as the salvation feast of the human race 33. Some commentators were not prepared to accept a Christianity without Easter-Passover (Pasxa) 34. But this fits what has been ¥ said previously about the account of the Last Supper in the Syn- optics. Furthermore, Justin’s testimony is significant: he gives a detailed picture of Christian life at Rome in his own time (around 150 CE), but he never makes any kind of reference to Easter when he speaks of the Eucharist and the Lord’s day (Apol. I :65-67) ; con- versely, when he discusses the Paschal lamb with Tryphon, there is no hint of an analogous Christian custom. A clear conclusion emerges: the Easter Sunday custom de- fended by Victor was actually a novelty, whereas the weekly Lord’s Day worship is apparent from the very beginning as the first day of a new Creation (see Ep. of Barnabas 15 :9). As for the See M. RICHARD, “La question pascale au IIe siècle ”, L’Orient syrien 6 32 (1961) 179-212. The First Council of Nicaea (325) has fixed a general usage opposed to 33 the Quartodecimans (at least for the fast), see W.L. PETERSEN, “Eusebius and t h e Paschal Controversy”, Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism ( e d s . H.W. ATTRIDGE – G. HATA) (SPB 42; Leiden 1992) 311-325. See S.G. HALL, “The Origins of Easter”, Studia Patristica XV (TUGAL 34 128 ; Berlin 1984) I, 554-567, who conjectures that from the very beginning a Quartodeciman Passover was celebrated at Rome, and that Easter on Sunday would have been enforced by Soter, following a widespread usage. B. LOURIÉ, “ Les quatre jours ‘de l’intervalle’: une modification néotestamentaire et chré- tienne du calendrier de 364 jours”, L’Église des deux Alliances. Mémorial Annie Jaubert (1912–1980) (eds. M. PETIT et al.) (Piscataway, NJ 2008) 103-134, accepts Tuesday evening for Jesus’ last Passover, and surmises that from the very beginning the day of his resurrection (starting on Saturday eve- ning) was called Pasxa ; observing that the latter fell four days after the ¥ former, he introduces the four-day interval mentioned in 1 Enoch 75:1, supposed to be the “correction” of the solar year (see § I.2 above). These two far-fetched views go well beyond the available data.