Questions about the Paschalion

[Mockingbird0]

If we are to take only the earliest sources that reference what Nicea decreed concerning Pascha, then we should disregard it altogether as obsolete.

The Julian computus is obsolete and should be scrapped, but this has nothing to do with the question of whether those who were alive at the time of the Council should be considered the most reliable witnesses to its proceedings.

Those earliest sources written by attendees of Nicea, only say that it was convened to get the asia minor churches to celebrate Pascha on a sunday after passover, rather than their own ancient custom which was to celebrate it on the day of unleavened bread relying on the jewish community. St Athanasius & Eusebius of Ceasaria, only say that these christians were the reason Nicea took up the easter question, and this reveals the context of why Constantine said to disregard the jewish calendar (as this was imperative for the quartodecimans).

Side point: The Easter controversy at Nicea was not about Quartodecimanism. It was a controversy between two schools of Sunday observance, whom we might call "Jewish calendarists" or traditionalists, and "Independent calendarists" or innovators. The traditionalists wanted to continue linking Easter to the Jewish passover in the traditional way by setting Easter to the Sunday that fell within the Week of Unleavened Bread as fixed by the local Jewish communities in every place. The innovators wanted the church to compute its own, independently computed, Christian lunar month of Nisan, with its own, Christian, week of Unleavened Bread, and to set Easter to the Sunday of that week. The Council sided with the innovators, who claimed, with some justification, that their innovation actually restored the older tradition of celebrating after the equinox from which the contemporary Jewish calendars had departed.

Main point: The earliest witnesses to the Council's proceedings never say that it established any 19-year cycle. Still less do they say that it established the specific 19-year cycle that is now called the Byzantine Paschalion or Julian Computus. Some of the evidence from the years immediately after the council, such as Athanasius's Letter 18 of A.D. 346, and the Aramaic Index entry to the lost Festal Letter 21, which states that Easter 349 was held on the 30th of Parmuthi (= March 26th) "because the Romans refused", is plainly inconsistent with the view that the Nicene Council had settled all the mathematical details of the Easter computation. All the evidence from those early years is consistent with the view that the Coucil only laid down the general principles of independent computations, unanimity, and the equinox, and left the mathematical details to be worked out in practice--which, in any case, they were.

I'm going to try to gather as much Patristic testimony for the first 100 years after Nicea, concerning what those Fathers claimed the Nicene Synod decreed about Pascha and post them on a seperate thread.

Good. Folk should avoid adopting an overly-deferential or overly-legalistic attitude toward patristic writings. If you present evidence that clearly shows that the fathers were as capable as anyone of believing silly and spurious tales, you may help some to avoid those snares.

If you read French, you might find the following article helpful: methodos.revues.org/538?&id=538

 

[buzuxi02]

If we cannot rely on the contemporaries im not sure who we can rely on. But thanx for clarifying the roman method, i was under the impression that the Milan churches that followed the alexandrians would be in agreement with the romans.

I still believe the 19 year cycle was agreed to in Nicea, hence all Nicea agreed to was retaining the 'status quo' used by the Alexandrians. I dont see this as far fetched at all. From what I understand the council of Sardica tried to replace the Nicean decree at the time Athanasios was in Rome underv exile, the Sardican council produced a table of Easter dates for the next 50 years but it failed bbeing accepted rather quickly, the reason of the dating adjustment in letter 18 was based on the new ruling at this council.

 

[Mockingbird0]

If we cannot rely on the contemporaries im not sure who we can rely on.

As I have tried to show, I rely on the writings of the conciliar generation, and I try to read what they actually wrote, to pay careful heed also to what they did not write, and I try not to read their writings anachronistically in the light of what later generations, without supporting evidence, thought they had done.

But thanx for clarifying the roman method, i was under the impression that the Milan churches that followed the alexandrians would be in agreement with the romans.

I hope I have convinced you also that the Gregorian paschalion is a 19-year Cycle, just as the Julian is.

I still believe the 19 year cycle was agreed to in Nicea, hence all Nicea agreed to was retaining the 'status quo' used by the Alexandrians.

I agree in part. The Council wanted the churches to adopt (1) a lunar calendar which approximated the moon's visible phases reasonably closely, which would be (2) computed independently of the Jewish calendar, and which would (3) set the festival to a Sunday after the full moon of the "month of new fruits"--that is, the festival would always fall after the equinox. The Alexandrine computus (which, however, had not yet stabilized into its final form) fulfilled these basic requirements. But so did the Roman, though the two systems did not always agree on the date for the festival. So both systems were implicitly accepted by the council, but neither was explicitly decreed. I think the council was unaware of the differences between the two systems. But I also think that anyone who was aware of these differences would have thought them of minor importance. The bishops wrote to each other frequently anyhow and could resolve discrepancies as they arose. This is, in fact, what they sometimes did, one city occasionally giving way to the other's preference in the course of the mid-4th century. Rome seems to have given way to Alexandria in 330, 340, and 341; Alexandria to Rome in 346 and 349. In 333, they compromised on a date that seems not to have been strictly in accord with either system. Beginning in the mid-5th century, however, Alexandria refused to make any more concessions, and Rome and some other parts of the Western church began the slow and contentious process of adopting the Julian paschalion in the form in which it had finally stabilized.

 

[Mockingbird0]

An advantage of using tables based on averages, rather than more precise computations, is that they can be constructed even under adverse conditions using simple integer arithmetic.

To elaborate on this point: Easter as predicted by the Gregorian calendar, which uses the average synodic lunar month, rounds the age of the moon off to whole days, and uses a fixed equinox of March 21st, almost always agrees with what would be arrived at using more precise astronomical computations. In the years 2001-2025 Gregorian and astronomical Easter are the same every year except 2019, according to a table posted by the World Council of Churches:

oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/faith-and-order-commission/i-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/towards-a-common-date-for-easter/towards-a-common-date-for-easter.html#c10576

 

[Mockingbird0]

To remove all doubt that the Gregorian paschalion is a 19-year cycle, here is the Gregorian paschalion currently in use summarized in its Paschal full moons. For comparison, the Gregorian dates of the Julian Paschal full moons are also given.

Year of cycle / Gregorian PFM / Gregorian date of Julian PFM

• 1 / April 14 / April 18
• 2 / April 3 / April 7
• 3 / March 23 / April 26
• 4 / April 11 / April 15
• 5 / March 31 / April 4
• 6 / April 18 / April 23
• 7 / April 8 / April 12
• 8 / March 28 / May 1
• 9 / April 16 / April 20
• 10 / April 5 / April 9
• 11 / March 25 / April 28
• 12 / April 13 / April 17
• 13 / April 2 / April 6
• 14 / March 22 / April 25
• 15 / April 10 / April 14
• 16 / March 30 / April 3
• 17 / April 17 / April 22
• 18 / April 7 / April 11
• 19 / March 27 / April 30

The Gregorian PFM dates are valid until December 31, 2199. The Gregorian equivalent dates for the Julian PFMs are valid until February 23rd, 2100.

One can see that in years 3, 8, 11, 14, and 19 of the cycle, Gregorian and Julian Easter are a lunation apart. They will differ by 4 or 5 weeks in those years.

In the other years, Julian and Gregorian Easter will be on the same day if a Sunday does fall in the period from the day after the Gregorian PFM to the day of the Julian PFM inclusive. They will be a week apart otherwise.

Example: This year, 2012, is year 18 of the cycle, so the Gregorian moon is full on Saturday, April 7th, while the Julian moon is not full until the following Wednesday, April 11th. Since a Sunday intervenes, the two festivals are a week apart.