CHAP. I. Of the TABLES, RULES, and CALENDAR. PART I. OF THE TABLES AND RULES. SECT. I. Of the Rule for finding Eafter. 1 Chap. I. THE proper Lessons and Pfalms being spoken to at large Part I. in other parts of this treatise, there is no need to fay any thing particularly concerning the Tables that appoint them. I fhall therefore pass them by, and begin with the Rule for finding Eafter; which ftands thus in all Books. of Common-Prayer printed in or fince the year 1752: Eafter-day 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, Eafter-day is the Sunday after. Rule for finding Eafter. occafion this rule Upon what §. 2. To fhew upon what occafion the rule was framed, it is to be obferved, that in the firft ages of Christianity there arose a great difference between the churches of Afia and other churches, about the day, whereon Eafter ought to be celebrated. was framed. * In this edition, after the example of all others published fince the year 1752, this chapter is printed with the alterations neceffary to adapt it to the new Calendar, Tables, and Rules, which were ordered to be prefixed to all future editions of the Book of Common-Prayer, by the A&t 24 Geo. II. intitled, An A& for regulating the commencement of the year; and for correcting the calendar. The Churches. The churches of Afia kept their Easter upon the same Part I. day on which the Jews celebrated their paffover, viz. upon Eafter difthe fourteenth day of their first month Nisan (which month ferently obbegan at the new moon next to the vernal equinox); and ferved by this they did upon what day of the week foever it fell; and different were from thence called Quartodecimans, or fuch as kept Eafter upon the fourteenth day after the Paris, or appearance of the moon: whereas the other churches, especially those of the Weft, did not follow this cuftom, but kept their Easter on the Sunday following the Jewish paffover; partly the more to honour the day, and partly to distinguish between Jews and Chriftians. Both fides pleaded apoftolical tradition: these latter pretending to derive their practice from St. Peter and St. Paul: whilft the others, viz. the Afiatics, faid they imitated the example of St, John3. where ob Council of Nice. This difference for a confiderable time continued with a Ordered to great deal of chriftian charity and forbearance; but at be every length became the occafion of great buftles in the church; where on which grew to fuch a height at laft, that Conftantine the fame thought it time to use his interest and authority to allay day by the the heat of the opposite parties, and to bring them to a uniformity of practice, To which end he got a canon to be paffed in the great general council of Nice, "That "every where the great feaft of Eafter fhould be obferved "upon one and the fame day; and that not on the day of "the Jewish paffover, but, as had been generally obferved, "upon the Sunday afterwards." And that this difpute might never arife again, these paschal canons were then alfo eftablished, viz. 1. "That the twenty-firft day of March fhall be ac- The Paf"counted the vernal equinox. chal canons paffed 2. That the full moon happening upon or next after in the "the twenty-firft day of March fhall be taken for the full Council of moon of Nifan. 13. "That the Lord's day next following that full moon "be Eafter-day. 14. But if the full moon happen upon a Sunday, Easter "day shall be the Sunday after." Nice. out by the §. 3. Agreeable to thefe is the Rule for finding Eafter, The Moons which we are now difcourfing of. But here we muft ob- to be found ferve, that the Fathers of the next century ordered the Golden new and full moons to be found out by the cycle of the Number. 2 Jofeph. Antiq. Judaic. 1. 3. c. 10. 3 Eufeb. Hift. Eccl. 5. c. 23, 24. D3 p. 193, &c. Vide et 1. 4. c. 14. Chap. I. moon, confifting of nineteen years, invented by Meton the Athenian, and from its great usefulness in ascertaining the moon's age, as it was thought for ever, was called the Golden Number; and was for fome time ufually written in letters of Gold. By this cycle, I fay, the Fathers of the next century ordered the moon's age to be found out; which they thought a certain way, fince at the end of nineteen years the moon returns to have her changes on the fame day of the folar year and month, whereon they happened nineteen years before. For which reason the cycle was fome time afterwards placed in the calendar, in the first column of every month, in fuch manner as that every number of the cycle fhould stand against those days in each month, on which the new moons fhould happen in that year of the cycle. But now it is to be noted, that though at the end of every nineteen years the moon changes on the very fame days of the folar months, on which it changed nineteen years before; yet the change happens about an hour and a half fooner every nineteen years than in the former; which, in the time that the Golden Number ftood in the calendar, had made an alteration of about five days. Eafter was kept fometimes fooner and the rule rect. §. 4. By this means it happened that Eafter was kept fometimes fooner and sometimes later than the rule seemed to direct, and the Fathers of the Nicene council intended. fometimes For it is very manifeft that they defigned that the first full later than moon after the vernal equinox fhould be the pafchal full feems to di- moon: (for otherwise they knew that the refurrection of our bleffed Lord could not be commemorated at the time it happened :) but then, for want of better skill in aftronomy in thofe times, they confined the equinox to the twenty-firft of March; whereas it hath fince been difcovered not only that the moon's cycle of nineteen years complete was too long, but also that the Julian folar year, which they reckoned by, exceeds the true folar one by about eleven minutes every year; which had brought the equinoxes forward eleven or twelve days from the time of the Nicene council. Hence it must often have happened, that the first full moon after the twenty-firft of March hath been different from the firft full moon after the vernal equinox; and that they who have obferved Easter according to the letter of the Nicene canons, and the rule for finding the paschal full moon by the Golden Number 5 Blondel's Roman Calendar, Part I. lib. 2. c. 5. as The Pafchal Limits answering the Gold- as placed foon after in the calendar, have not always ob- Part I. ferved it according to the intent of thofe Fathers. But yet as foon as ever the canons were paffed, the whole catholic church was very strict in adhering to them; and fo tender of the authority of them, that about two hundred years after the Nicene council this following table was drawn up by Dionyfius Exiguus, a Roman; wherein are expreffed all thofe days, on which the firft full moons after the twenty-firft of March happen in all the nineteen years of the lunar cycle: which was fo well approved of, that, by the council of Chalcedon holden a little after, it was agreed that the Sunday next follow-Golden ing the paschal limits answering the golden numbers, as they are expreffed in this table, thould be Easterday; and that whosoever celebrated Eafter on any other day fhould be accounted an heretic. count. Numb. I 9 The Pafchal Limits. April 5. March 22. 10 JI April 15. 12 April 4. 13 March 24. 14 April 12. 15 April 1. According to this table was Easter obferved from the year of Chrift 534, or thereabouts, till the year 1582: at which time Pope Gregory XIII. reformed the calendar, and brought back the vernal equinox to the twenty-firft of March. So that the Roman church keeping their Easter from that time on the firft Sunday after the first full moon next after the twenty-firft of March, obferved it exactly according to the ufe of the primitive church. And in the year 1752, the like reformation was made in our calendar, by ordering the third day of September in that year to be called the fourteenth, thereby fuppreffing eleven intermediate days, and bringing back the vernal equinox to the twenty-first of March, as it was at the time of the Nicene council. SECT. II. Of the Tables for finding Eafter. AFTER the Rule for finding Easter is inferted an account when the rest of the moveable feafts and holy-days begin; and after that follow certain tables relating to the feafis Chap. I. and vigils that are to be obferved in the Church of England, and other days of fafting or abftinence, with an account of certain folemn days for which particular fervices are appointed. But these, and every thing relating to them, I fhall have a more convenient opportunity to treat of hereafter; and therefore fhall pafs on now to the Tables for finding Eafter. dria was at firft ap The Bishop When the Nicene council had fettled the true time for of Alexan- keeping Easter in the method fet down in the firft fection of this chapter, the Bishop of Alexandria (for the Egyppointed to tians at that time excelled in the knowledge of astronomy) give notice was appointed to give notice of Eafter-day to the Pope of Eafter- and other Patriarchs, to be notified by them to the Metroday to other Churches. politans, and by them again to all other Bishops. But this injunction could be but temporary: for length of time muft needs make fuch alteration in the ftate of affairs, as must render any fuch method of notifying the time of Eafter impracticable. And therefore this was obferved no longer than till a Cycle or courfe of all the variations which might happen in regard to Easter-day might be fettled. §. 2. Hereupon the computifts applied themselves to frame fuch a Cycle: and the vernal equinox being fixed by drawn up. the council of Nice, and Eafter-day by them also appointed to be always the first Sunday after the firft full moon next after the vernal equinox; they had nothing to do, but to calculate all the revolutions of the moon and of the days of the week, and enquire, whether, after a certain number of years, the new moons, and confequently the full moons, did not fall out, not only on the fame days of the folar year, (for that they do after every nineteen years,) but also on the fame days of the week on which they happened before, and in the fame ordinary courfe. Becaufe, by calculating a table for fuch a number of years, they might find Easter for ever; viz. by beginning again at the end of the last year, and going round as it were in a circle. Cycles afterwards The Cycle And firft a Cycle was framed at Rome for eighty-four of 84 years. years, and generally received in the Western church; it being thought that in that space of time the changes of the moon would return to the same days both of the week and year in fuch manner as they had done before?. During the time that Eafter was kept according to this Cycle, Britain was separated from the Roman Empire, and the 6 See Pope Leo's Epiftle to the Emperor Marcianus, epift. 64. 7 See the Bishop of Worcester's Hiftorical Account of Church-govern. ment, p. 67. and Bede Hift. 1. 5. c. 22. in fin. British |