The Paschal Canon of
Anatolius of Alexandria.1155
| 1155 First
edited from ancient manuscript by Ægidius Bucherius, of the
Society of Jesus. |
————————————
I.
As we are about to speak on the subject of the
order of the times and alternations of the world, we shall first
dispose of the positions of diverse calculators; who, by reckoning only
by the course of the moon, and leaving out of account the ascent and
descent of the sun, with the addition of certain problems, have
constructed diverse periods,1156
| 1156
Circulos. [Note the reference to Hippolytus.] |
self-contradictory, and such as are never found in the reckoning of a
true computation; since it is certain that no mode of computation is to
be approved, in which these two measures are not found together.
For even in the ancient exemplars, that is, in the books of the Hebrews
and
Greeks, we find not only the course of the
moon, but also that of
the sun, and, indeed, not simply its course in the general,
1157
| 1157
Gressus. Vol. v. p. 3; also Bunsen, i. pp. 13, 281.] |
but even the
separate and minutest moments of its hours all calculated, as we shall
show at the proper time, when the matter in
hand demands it. Of
these Hippolytus made up a period of sixteen years with certain unknown
courses of the
moon. Others have reckoned by a period of
twenty-five years, others by thirty, and some by eighty-four years,
without, however, teaching thereby an exact method of calculating
Easter. But our predecessors, men most
learned in the books of
the Hebrews and
Greeks,—I mean Isidore and Jerome and
Clement,—although they have noted similar beginnings for the
months just as they differ also in
language, have, nevertheless, come
harmoniously to one and the same most exact reckoning of Easter, day
and month and
season meeting in
accord with the highest honour for the
Lord’s resurrection.
1158
| 1158
[It seems probable that the hegemony which Alexandria had
established in all matters of learning led to that full recognition of
it, by the Council of Nicæa, which made its bishop the dictator to
the whole Church in the annual calculation of Easter. Vol. ii.
343.] |
But Origen also, the most erudite
of all, and the acutest in making calculations,—a man, too, to
whom the epithet
χαλκευτής1159
| 1159
i.e., “smith” or “brasier,” probably from
his assiduity. |
is given,—has
published in a
very elegant manner a little book on Easter. And in this book,
while declaring, with respect to the day of Easter, that attention must
be given not only to the course of the
moon and the transit of the
equinox, but also to the passage (
transcensum) of the sun, which
removes every foul ambush and
offence of all
darkness, and brings on
the
advent of
light and the
power and
inspiration of the
elements of
the whole
world, he speaks thus: In the (matter of the) day of
Easter, he remarks, I do not say that it is to be observed that the
Lord’s day should be found, and the seven
1160
| 1160
Lunæ vii. Perhaps, as Bucher conjectures, Lunæ xiv.,
fourteen days, &c. |
days of the
moon which are to elapse, but
that the sun should pass that
division, to wit, between
light and
darkness, constituted in an equality by the dispensation of the
Lord at
the beginning of the
world; and that, from one hour to two hours, from
two to three, from three to four, from four to five, from five to six
hours, while the
light is increasing in the ascent of the sun, the
darkness should decrease.
1161
| 1161 The
text is doubtful and corrupt here. |
…and the addition of the twentieth
number being completed, twelve parts should be supplied in one and the
same day. But if I should have attempted to add any little drop
of mine
1162
| 1162
Aliquid stillicidii. |
after the
exuberant
streams of the eloquence and
science of some, what else
should there be to believe but that it should be ascribed by all to
ostentation, and, to speak more truly, to madness, did not the
assistance of your
promised prayers animate us for a little? For
we believe that nothing is
impossible to your
power of prayer, and to
your
faith. Strengthened, therefore, by this confidence, we shall
set bashfulness aside, and shall enter this most deep and unforeseen
sea of the obscurest calculation, in which swelling questions and
problems surge around us on all sides.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
