With reference to the Rules given by the foregoing Statute for knowing where the moveable Feasts and Holy-days fall, it is extraordinary that they should contain so material an error as that, the discussion and correction of which are summed up in the following learned observations, which have been communicated to the Editor by Professor De Morgan. "EASTER DAY. "In the years 1818 and 1845, Easter day, as given by the rules in 24 Geo. II. cap. 23. (known as the act for the change of style) contradicted the precept given in the preliminary explanations. The precept is as follows; 66 6 'Easter-day, on which the rest' of the moveable feasts 'depend, is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon, or next after the Twenty-first Day of March; and if the Full Moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter-day is the Sunday after.' "But in 1818 and 1845, the full moon fell on a Sunday, and yet the rules gave that same Sunday for Easter day. Much discussion was produced by this circumstance in 1818: but a repetition of it in 1845 was nearly altogether prevented by a timely reference to the intention of those who conducted the Gregorian reformation of the calendar. Nevertheless, seeing that the apparent error of the Calendar is due to the precept in the Act of Parliament, which is both erroneous and insufficient, and that the difficulty will recur so often as Easter day falls on the day of full moon,-it may be advisable to select from the two articles cited in the note such of their conclusions and rules, without proof or controversy, as will enable the reader to understand the main points of the Easter question, and, should he desire it, to calculate for himself the Easter of the old or new style, for any given year. "1. In the very earliest age of Christianity, a controversy arose as to the mode of keeping Easter, some desiring to perpetuate the passover, others to keep the festival of the Resurrection. The first afterwards obtained the name of Quartadecimans, from their Easter being always kept on the fourteenth day of the moon (Exod. xii. 18, Levit. xxiii. 5.). * "In the Companion to the Almanac for 1845, is a paper by Professor De Morgan, On the Ecclesiastical Calendar', the statements of which, so far as concerns the Gregorian Calendar, are taken direct from the work of Clavius, the principal agent in the arrangement of the reformed reckoning. This was followed, in the Companion to the Almanac for 1846, by a second paper, by the same author, headed On the earliest printed almanacs', much of which is written in direct supplement to the former article. But though it is unquestionable that a Judaizing party existed, it is also likely that many dissented on chronological grounds. It is clear that no perfect anniversary can take place, except when the fourteenth of the moon, and with it the passover, falls on a Friday. Suppose, for instance, it falls on a Tuesday: one of three things must be done. Either (which seems never to have been proposed) the crucifixion and resurrection must be celebrated on Tuesday and Sunday, with a wrong interval; or the former on Tuesday, the latter on Thursday, abandoning the first day of the week; or the former on Friday, and the latter on Sunday, abandoning the paschal commemoration of the crucifixion. "The last mode has been, as every one knows, finally adopted. The disputes of the first three centuries did not turn on any calendar questions. The Easter question was merely the symbol of the struggle between what we may call the Jewish and Gentile sects of Christians and it nearly divided the Christian world, the Easterns, for the most part, being quartadecimans. It is very important to note that there is no recorded dispute about a method of predicting the new moon, that is, no general dispute leading to formation of sects: there may have been difficulties, and discussions about them. The Metonic cycle, presently mentioned, must have been used by many, perhaps most, churches. "2. The question came before the Nicene Council (A.D. 325) not as an astronomical, but as a doctrinal, question: it was, in fact, this, Shall the passover be treated as a part of Christianity? The Council resolved this question in the negative, and the only information on its premises and conclusion, or either, which comes from itself, is contained in the following sentence of the synodical epistle, which epistle is preserved by Socrates and Theodoret. 'We also send you the good news concerning the unanimous consent of all in reference to the celebration of the most solemn feast of Easter, for this difference also has been made up by the assistance of your prayers: so that all the brethren in the East, who formerly celebrated this festival at the same time as the Jews, will in future conform to the Romans and to us, and to all who have of old observed our manner of celebrating Easter.' This is all that can be found on the subject: none of the stories about the Council ordaining the astronomical mode of finding Easter, and introducing the Metonic cycle into ecclesiastical reckoning, have any contemporary evidence the canons which purport to be those of the Nicene Council * "It may be necessary to remind some English readers that in Latin and its derived European languages, what we call Easter is called the passover (pascha). The Quartadecimans had the name on their side: a possession which often is, in this world, nine points of the law. do not contain a word about Easter; and this is evidence, whether we suppose those canons to be genuine or spurious. "3. The astronomical dispute about a lunar cycle for the prediction of Easter either commenced, or became prominent by the extinction of greater ones, soon after the time of the Nicene Council. It is useless to record details of these disputes in a summary: the result was, that in the year 463, Pope Hilarius employed Victorinus of Aquitaine to correct the Calendar, and Victorinus formed a rule which lasted until the sixteenth century. He combined the Metonic cycle and the solar cycle, presently described. But this cycle bears the name of Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian settled at Rome, about A.D. 530, who adapted it to his new yearly reckoning, when he abandoned the æra of Diocletian as a commencement, and constructed that which is now in common use. "4. With Dionysius, if not before, terminated all difference as to the mode of keeping Easter which is of historical note: the increasing defects of the Easter cycle produced in time the remonstrance of persons versed in astronomy, among whom may be mentioned Roger Bacon, Sacrobosco, Cardinal Cusa, Regiomontanus, &c. From the middle of the sixth to that of the sixteenth century, one rule was observed. "5. The mode of applying astronomy to chronology has always involved these two principles. First, the actual position of the heavenly body is not the object of consideration, but what astronomers call its mean place, which may be described thus. Let a fictitious sun or moon move in the heavens, in such manner as to revolve among the fixed stars at an average rate, avoiding the alternate accelerations and retardations which take place in every planetary motion. Thus the fictitious (say mean) sun and moon are always very near to the real sun and moon. The ordinary clocks show time by the mean, not the real, sun and it was always laid down that Easter depends on the opposition (or full moon) of the mean sun and moon, not of the real ones. Thus we see that, were the calendar ever so correct as to the mean moon, it would be occasionally false as to the true one: if, for instance, the opposition of the mean sun and moon took place at one second before midnight, and that of the real bodies only two seconds afterwards, the calendar day of full moon would be one day before that of the common almanacs. Here is a way in which the discussions of 1818 and 1845 might have arisen: the British legislature has defined the moon as the regulator of the paschal calendar. But this was only a part of the mistake. "6. Secondly, in the absence of perfectly accurate knowledge of the solar and lunar motion (and for convenience, even if such know ledge existed), cycles are, and always have been taken, which serve to represent those motions nearly. The famous Metonic cycle, which is introduced into ecclesiastical chronology under the name of the cycle of the golden numbers, is a period of 19 Julian* years. This period, in the old calendar, was taken to contain exactly 235 lunations, or intervals between new moons, of the mean moon. Now the state of the case is this; 66 19 average Julian years make 6939 days 18 hours "235 average lunations make 6939 days 16 hours 31 minutes. "So that successive cycles of golden numbers, supposing the first to start right, amount to making the new moons fall too late, gradually, so that the mean moon of this cycle gains 1 hour 29 minutes in 19 years upon the mean moon of the heavens, or about a day in 30 years. When the calendar was reformed, the calendar new moons were four days in advance of the mean moon of the heavens: so that, for instance, calendar full moon on the 18th usually meant real full moon on the 14th. "7. If the difference above had not existed, the moon of the heavens (the mean moon at least), would have returned permanently to the same days of the month in 19 years; with an occasional slip arising from the, unequal distribution of the leap years, of which a period contains sometimes five and sometimes four. As a general rule, the days of new and full moon in any one year would have been also the days of new and full moon of a year having 19 more units in its date. Again, if there had been no leap years, the days of the month would have returned to the same days of the week every seven years. The introduction of occasional 29ths of February disturbs this, and makes the permanent return of month days to week days occur only after 28 years. If all had been true, the lapse of 28 times 19, or 532 years, would have restored the year in every point: that is, A.D. 1, for instance, and A.D. 533, would have had the same almanac in every matter relating to week days, month days, sun, and moon (mean sun and moon at least). And on the supposition of its truth, the old system of Dionysius was framed. Its errors are, first, that the moments of mean new moon advance too much by 1h. 29m. in 19 average Julian years; secondly, that the average Julian year of 3651 days is too long by 11m. 10s. "8. The Council of Trent, moved by the representations made on the state of the Calendar, referred the consideration of it to the Pope. "The Julian year is a year of the Julian calendar, in which there is leap year every fourth year. Its average length is therefore 365 days and a quarter. In 1577, Gregory XIII. submitted to the Roman Catholic Princes and Universities a plan presented to him by the representatives of Aloysius Lilius, then deceased. This plan being approved of, the Pope nominated a commission to consider its details, the working member of which was the Jesuit Clavius. A short work was prepared by Clavius, descriptive of the new calendar: this was published in 1582, with the Pope's bull (dated February 24, 1581) prefixed. A larger work was prepared by Clavius, containing fuller explanation, and entitled 'Romani Calendarii a Gregorio XIII. Pontifice Maximo restituti Explicatio.' This was published at Rome in 1603, and again in the collection of the works of Clavius in 1612. "9. The following extracts from Clavius settle the question of the meaning of the term moon, as used in the Calendar : : .... "Who, except a few who think they are very sharp-sighted in this matter, is so blind as not to see that the 14th of the moon and the full moon are not the same things in the Church of God?... Although the Church, in finding the new moon, and from it the 14th day, uses neither the true nor the mean motion of the moon, but measures only according to the order of a cycle; it is nevertheless undeniable that the mean full moons found from astronomical tables are of the greatest use in determining the cycle which is to be preferred. . . . the new moons of which cycle, in order to the due celebration of Easter, should be so arranged that the 14th days of those moons, reckoning from the day of new moon inclusive, should not fall two or more days before the mean full moon, but only one day, or else on the very day itself, or not long after And even thus far the Church need not take very great pains. . . . for it is sufficient that all should reckon by the 14th day of the moon in the cycle, even though sometimes it should be more than one day before or after the mean full moon. . . . . We have taken pains that in our cycle the new moons should follow the real new moons, so that the 14th of the moon should fall either the day before the mean full moon, or on that day, or not long after; and this was done on purpose, for if the new moon of the cycle fell on the same day as the mean new moon of the astronomers, it might chance that we should celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews or the Quartadeciman heretics, which would be absurd, or else before them, which would be still more absurd.' "From this it appears that Clavius continued the calendar of his "The title of this work, which is the authority on all points of the new calendar, is Kalendarium Gregorianum Perpetuum. Cum Privilegio Summi Pontificis Et Aliorum Principum. Romæ, Ex Officina Dominici Base. Cum Licentia Superiorum' (Quarto, pp. 60). MDLXXXII. |