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Council of Nicea I

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EXCURSUS ON THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE EASTER 
QUESTION.
 
(Hefele: Hist. of the Councils, Vol. I., pp. 328 et seqq.)
The differences in the way of fixing the period of Easter did not indeed 
disappear after the Council of Nicea. Alexandria and Rome could not 
agree, either because one of the two Churches neglected to make the 
calculation for Easter, or because the other considered it inaccurate. It 
is a fact, proved by the ancient Easter table of the Roman Church, that 
the cycle of eighty-four years continued to be used at Rome as before. 
Now this cycle differed in many ways from the Alexandrian, and did 
not always agree with it about the period for Easter--in fact(a), the 
Romans used quite another method from the Alexandrians; they 
calculated from the epact, and began from the feria prima of 
January.(b.) The Romans were mistaken in placing the full moon a 
little too soon; whilst the Alexandrians placed it a little too late.(c.) At 
Rome the equinox was supposed to fall on March 18th; whilst the 
Alexandrians placed it on March 21st.(d.) Finally, the Romans differed 
in this from the Greeks also; they did not celebrate Easter the next day 
when the full moon fell on the Saturday.
 
Even the year following the Council of Nicea--that is, in 326--as well 
as in the years 330, 333, 340, 341, 343, the Latins celebrated Easter on 
a different day from the Alexandrians. In order to put an end to this 
misunderstanding, the Synod of Sardica in 343, as we learn from the 
newly discovered festival letters of S. Athanasius, took up again the 
question of Easter, and brought the two parties(Alexandrians and 
Romans) to regulate, by means of mutual concessions, a common day 
for Easter for the next fifty years. This compromise, after a few years, 
was not observed. The troubles excited by the Arian heresy, and the 
division which it caused between the East and the West, prevented the 
decree of Sardica from being put into execution; therefore the Emperor 
Theodosius the Great, after the re-establishment of peace in the 
Church, found himself obliged to take fresh steps for obtaining a 
complete uniformity in the manner of celebrating Easter. In 387, the 
Romans having kept Easter on March 21st, the Alexandrians did not 
do so for five weeks later--that is to say, till April 25th--because with 
the Alexandrians the equinox was not till March 21st. The Emperor 
Theodosius the Great then asked Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria for 
an explanation of the difference. The bishop responded to the 
Emperor's desire, and drew up a chronological table of the Easter 
festivals, based upon the principles acknowledged by the Church of 
Alexandria. Unfortunately, we now possess only the prologue of his 
work.
 
Upon an invitation from Rome, S. Ambrose also mentioned the period 
of this same Easter in 387, in his letter to the bishops of AEmilia, and 
he sides with the Alexandrian computation. Cyril of Alexandria 
abridged the paschal table of his uncle Theophilus, and fixed the time 
for the ninety-five following Easters--that is, from 436 to 531 after 
Christ. Besides this Cyril showed, in a letter to the Pope, what was 
defective in the Latin calculation; and this demonstration was taken up 
again, some time after, by order of the Emperor, by Paschasinus, 
Bishop of Lilybaeum and Proterius of Alexandria, in a letter written by 
them to Pope Leo I. In consequence of these communications, Pope 
Leo often gave the preference to the Alexandrian computation, instead 
of that of the Church of Rome. At the same time also was generally 
established, the opinion so little entertained by the ancient authorities 
of the Church--one might even say, so strongly in contradiction to their 
teaching--that Christ partook of the passover on the 14th Nisan, that he 
died on the 15th(not on the 14th, as the ancients considered), that he 
lay in the grave on the 16th, and rose again on the 17th. In the letter 
we have just mentioned, Proterius of Alexandria openly admitted all 
these different points.
 
Some years afterwards, in 457, Victor of Aquitane, by order of the 
Roman Archdeacon Hilary, endeavoured to make the Roman and the 
Alexandrian calculations agree together. It has been conjectured that 
subsequently Hilary, when Pope, brought Victor's calculation into use, 
in 456--that is, at the time when the cycle of eighty-four years came to 
an end. In the latter cycle the new moons were marked more 
accurately, and the chief differences existing between the Latin and 
Greek calculations disappeared; so that the Easter of the Latins 
generally coincided with that of Alexandria, or was only a very little 
removed from it. In cases when the  id   fell on a 
Saturday, Victor did not wish to decide whether Easter should be 
celebrated the next day, as the Alexandrians did, or should be 
postponed for a week. He indicates both dates in his table, and leaves 
the Pope to decide what was to be done in each separate case. Even 
after Victor's calculations, there still remained great differences in the 
manner of fixing the celebration of Easter; and it was Dionysius the 
Less who first completely overcame them, by giving to the Latins a 
paschal table having as its basis the cycle of nineteen years. This cycle 
perfectly corresponded to that of Alexandria, and thus established that 
harmony which had been so long sought in vain. He showed the 
advantages of his calculation so strongly, that it was admitted by 
Rome and by the whole of Italy; whilst almost the whole of Gaul 
remained faithful to Victor's canon, and Great Britain still held the 
'cycle of eighty-four years, a little improved by Sulpicius Severus. 
When the Heptarchy was evangelized by the Roman missionaries, the 
new converts accepted the calculation of Dionysius, whilst the ancient 
Churches of Wales held fast their old tradition. From this arose the 
well-known British dissensions about the celebration of Easter, which 
were transplanted by Columban into Gaul. In 729, the majority of the 
ancient British Churches accepted the cycle of nineteen years. It had 
before been introduced into Spain, immediately after the conversion of 
Reccared. Finally, under Charles the Great, the cycle of nineteen years 
triumphed over all opposition; and thus the whole of Christendom was 
united, for the Quartodecimans had gradually disappeared.(1)
 
 

 




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