The first reflection su^jgested by this catena la the unanimity with which (apart from some of the Basilidjans) Christian antiquity attributed the Crucifixion to a day not later than March 26 ; the second, that if a confusion between the ra*-x«» rruupirifAst and the wstffx'*- attaa-rettrifj^t be allowed for, the dates, March 23 and 25, March 18 and 20, pair off with and explain one another — i.e. if March 25 was understood, not of the Crucifixion but of the Resurrection, March 23 became the day of the Crucifixion ; or by a similar hut converse process, March 20 might be transferred from the Resurrection ^with tlie Crucifixion on March 18) to the Crucifixion. Thus ehminating the three Boflilidian dates as probably mere Gnostic fancies, of the two pairs that alone are left, March 18-20 and 23-25, March 25 (TertulLian, Hippolj-tus, Acta of Pilate? etc) haa clearly older and better testimony than March 23 (Lactantius, some known to Epiphanius, Paschal Chronicle), and March 18 (irriy^x^a of Acta of Pilate older than Epiphanius) than March 20 (Epiphanius hicuelf). But these ultimate days, March 18 and 25, iire exactly ft week apart, and very likely the one is to be explained as a OonsciouB alteration of the other ; but which of which ?
For that day of the two for which authority is vastly pre- ponderant, March 25, Dr. Salmon in an admirable article on Hippolytus {Diet. Christ. Biogr. iii. 926) looks upon that writer's Paschal Cycle, published about a.d. 221, as the single source. Hippolytus there (very erroneously) supposes that after each eight years the full moon comes round to the same day of the solar month again ; and accepting the traditional date A.D. 29 for the Crucifi.vion, he naturally assumes that, since the full moon in a.d. 221 did actually fall on March 25, tiie full moon in A.D. 29, 192 or 8x24 years earlier, must have t&Uen on the same day. * Actually this is a week astray, the true day being March 18. We are safe in presuming that whenever Marcn 2.S is mentioned as the day of tne Passion, th« Cyeie of Hippolytus is the source of the account." Yet this theory, simple and attractive as it is, hardly satisfies all the elements of the problem. It might be possible to explain the wide acceptance of March 25 in Doth East and West by the dual _po8ition of Hippolytus, a Greek writer on Western soil ; but 'Tert.,' Adv. Judieos, if genuine, and Hippolj-tus' own Com- mentary on Daniel, would still stand in the way of deducing March 25 as the day for the Passion directly from March 25 as the day of the full moon in a.d. 221. For Tertullian's Mon- tanlst writings commence about a.d. 200, and his whole literary activity was almost at an end by a.d. 22U, so that if the first portion of the advernus Judceos is 'certainly Tertullian's, and Tertullian's while still a churchman' (Puller in Diet. Chrint. BioffT. iv. 8276), its chronology cannot be due to the Paarhal Cycle of A.D. 221. In the same way Hippolytus' Fourth Book on Daniel 'was apparentlv written much earlier than the' Chronicle and Paschal Tables (Lightfoot, Clement, ii. 392) ; and as It, too, gives March 25 for the Passion (from which also ultimately comes its Dec. 25 for the Nativity, see above, p. 405'*), • second reason is supplied for pushing back the origin of the tradition of March 26 into the 2nd cent.
Genuine, of course, the tradition cannot be, because, as Balmon says — see also the table given earlier in this article — not the 25th but the 18th was the March full moon in a.d. 29. But this is exactly the day remaining still for discussion, that, namely, which was given in copies Epiphanius had seen of the Acts of Pilate. It is true that even in these Acts March 25 is supported (\.) by all existing MSS and versions; ^i.) by those Quartoaecimans who regularly kept the Pascha on March 26 on the authority of the Acts : (iii.) by pseudo- Chrysostom in a.d. 387, who accepts the date as historically true on the same authority. It is possible, therefore, that the 18th is simply an accidental corruption, IE instead of H' before the kalends of April ; but it is possible also tliat it is the genuine reading of the Acts, altered intentionally at some early period, whether because the 25th was already then the more popular date, or because the iHth was increasmgly open to the suspicion of falling before the equinox. And' if genuine in the Acts, it Is a really curious and remarkable confinna- tion of a possible date for the Crucifixion, Friday Nisan li of the year a.d. 29.
Dr. Salmon Indeed says (foe. cit.) that * It Is obvious that if early trustworthy tradition had preserved the day of the solar year on which our Ixird sufTcrca, the Church would not have
rrjilexed herwelf with calculations of paschal full moons.' But ) not all traditions which mav in fact bo true wore necessarily known to bo true to the ancients ; (ii.) after all, what the Church was aiming at in paschal cycles was a system for cal-
culating beforehand in terms of the solar year a lay that was not solar but lunar. As pseudo-Chrv-sostom lucidly points out, the different data of the chronology of the Crucifixion will not converge in ordinary years ; the Church could only imitate the season as far as was practicable, combining elements from the solar year (the equinox as a first term a qiio), from the lunar year (the full moon as a second term a tjuo), and from the week (Friday). But if the day of the solar year bad been considered alone, the full moon would necessarily have been thrown over, and the full moon was the one point which all Christians united in treating as essential to a proper paschal celebration.*