I do not think that anyone needs to worry about whether or not the days are complete since, as has already been mentioned, at the time Jesus would not have been understood as meaning such, but simply as three days, however partial.
I think history shows this is true since Easter has traditionally been celebrated on Sunday. While the obvious counter-argument is to say they are wrong, I do not see how the ancients could interpret this wrong, since the Gospels were written a way that would be easier for them to understand than us. It was with ancient figures of speech, in ancient languages, that Jesus’ words were recorded, so I think that the ancients probably had a better grasp of what Jesus meant in the ancient languages, than us in modern times would in modern languages.
Here is an eye-opener on the real history of Easter which every professing Christian should know.
Easter, says Alexander Hislop in his
The Two Babylons, “bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than
Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven….”
In the ancient Chaldean idolatrous sun-worship, as practiced by the Phoenicians, Baal was the sun god; Astarte, his consort or wife. And Astarte is the same as
Ishtar, or the English “Easter.”
Hislop says, “The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the
third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish [and Protestant] Church, and at the time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called
Pascha, or the Passover, and… was very early observed by many professing Christians….
That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified… That festival
was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent.”
From the Encyclopedia Britannica (comments in brackets):
“There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers…. The first Christians [the original true Church] continued to observe the Jewish [that is, God’s] festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus
Passover, with a new conception added to it, of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead,
continued to be observed.
“Although the observance of Easter was at a very early period in the practice of the Christian Church, a serious difference as to the day for its observance soon arose between the Christians of Jewish and those of Gentile descent, which led to a long and bitter controversy. With the Jewish Christians… the fast ended… on the 14th day of the moon at evening… without regard to the day of the week.
The Gentile Christians on the other hand [that is, the beginning of the Roman Church, now substituting pagan for true Christian doctrines]…
identified the first day of the week with the resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month.
“Generally speaking, the Western Churches [Catholic] kept Easter on the 1st day of the week, while the Eastern Churches [containing most of those who remained as part of the true Christian Church] followed the Jewish rule. [That is, observing Passover on the 14th of the first sacred month instead of the pagan Easter.]
“
Polycarp, the disciple of John the Evangelist [the Apostle John of the NT], and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 [sic] to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that see, on the subject, and
urged the tradition which he had received from the apostles of observing the 14th day. Anicetus, however, declined.
About forty years later (197), the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia [the territory of the Churches at Ephesus, Galatia, Antioch, Philadelphia, and all those mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3 – and the Churches established through the Apostle Paul]. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish usage “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” – Jude 1:3].
“Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing at Rome. This, Polycrates firmly refused to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Polycrates and the Christians who continued the eastern usage [that is, those who continued in God’s way, as Jesus, Peter, Paul, and all the early true Church had done]. He was, however, restrained [by other bishops] from actually proceeding to enforce the decree of excommunication… and the Asiatic churches retained their usage unmolested. We find the Jewish [true Christian Passover] usage from time to time reasserting itself after this, but it never prevailed to any large extent.
“A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council at Nicaea in 325. At that time the Syrians and the Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the 14th day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that ‘none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews.’” [That is, in plain language, the Roman Church now decreed that none should be allowed to follow the ways of Christ – of the true Christian Church.]
