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As Eusebius says, the disciples of John followed the Quartodeciman observance of celebrating Easter on Passover. But they were the only ones who did so. The rest of the Roman world around 150 A.D. or so was keeping the feast of Easter on Sunday. Also, it's not like one group was keeping the Jewish feast, while the other was the Christian. They were *both* keeping the Christian feast of Easter, just on different days.
Moreover, even if you were right that the Quartodeciman observance was the original one, note very carefully that Irenaeus (whom Eusebius quotes) says that this difference was not a matter of one branch apostasizing into paganism, but of two competing traditions, over which the Churches agreed to disagree:
If you are right that the Easter observers apostasized, then tell me, exactly why did the observers of Passover agree to stay in communion with the corrupted pagan Babylonians?

103 posted on 07/11/2006 6:49:13 AM MDT by Claud

The Quartodeciman observance was the original one.

Quartodecimanism ("fourteenism", derived from Latin) refers to the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on the fourteenth day of Nisan in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar (for example Lev 23:5, in Latin "quarta decima"). This was the original method of fixing the date of the Passover, which is to be a "perpetual ordinance"[1].
See the Holy Word of G-d
Lev 23:4 'These are the appointed times of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them.
Lev 23:5 'In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the LORD'S Passover.
Lev 23:6 'Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

b'shem Y'shua

Xenia, insofar as the Quartodeciman practice was the Jewish practice, it is certainly older. However, it may not have been the universal Apostolic practice; as the Roman method was universal, goes back to at least Sixtus, and may well have gone back to Peter and/or other Apostles--the evidence is not clear but only suggestive.

However, what we should be careful about saying is that the Roman practice was evidence of apostasy and/or defiance of the OT ordinances. As Eusebius makes explicitly clear, the people who kept the Passover date nevertheless kept communion with everyone else and did not condemn them for their beliefs. They agreed to disagree and did not consider the other side to be apostates.

One can have one's own preference, but by condemning the Sunday Easter as apostasy, one departs drastically from the actual practice of the Johannine Quartodecimans.