followed the Jewish computation, as harmonizing with the Saviour's practice, and cared notliing for the equi- nox, which their Easter occasionally anticipated ; and for this reason the term Protopaschita; was applied to thera. The confusion caused by these differences must have been very great, and especially in conterminous churches, where one custom ended and another began ; but it was not till A.D. 314 that an attempt was made to produce uniformity by synodal action. In that year the Council of Aries in its first canon decreed that East- er should be solemnized " uno die et uno tempore per omnem orbem ;" and the bishop of Rome sent forth an encyclical letter to enforce the desired harmony of ac- tion (IMansi, Coll. Cone, ii, 474; Hard, i, 263). But a provincial could speak with no authority to the Church catholic ; neither was the Roman bishop as yet the su- preme pontiff, and practice continued to be discordant. It then became one of the two principal subjects for dis- cussion and arrangement in the Council of Nice. No decree on the subject appears in its canons, and it is dif- ficult to see any reason for the omission, unless it be that the fathers were unable to make up their minds upon a point that could only be settled by the astronomical ex- pert. Thus they delegated to Eusebius of Ciesarea the duty of determining the right rule of Easter, and of rec- ommending the most accurate cycle to be adopted in framing the calendar. The Epistle of Constantine to the churches shows clearly the general points on which the Nicene fathers agreed, viz. : 1. That from henceforth the vernal equinox, and not the Jewish calendar, should determine the incidence of Easter. 2. That when the equinoctial full moon fell on a Sunday, Easter should be celebrated on the Sunday following ; both for the reason already given, and because the Jewish festival would have been celebrated and over. Also, bj' making Easter by necessity subsequent to the vernal equinox, there was no longer danger of a double observance in the same year. But which equinoctial day was adopted, the Roman or the Alexandrian ? The Latin translation of the Prologus Paschalis of Cyril of Alexandria says that the Alexandrian Church, as representing the astro- nomical science of the day, was ordered to announce to the Church of Rome the true incidence of Easter in each year, and that it should be notified from Rome through- out the churches (Petavius. Doct. Temp, ii, App. ; He- fele. Cone, i, 313 ; Ideler, Ilandb. d. Chronol. ii, 258). Leo I repeats the account {Kp. 121 al. 94), and Am- brose virtually says the same thing; the Nicene Council having, according to his statement, adopted the cycle of nineteen j-ears, which, as has been shown, was the Al- exandrian computation (Ambr. Ep. ad Epis. eop. ^Em.'). But, independently of the equinox, the paschal diflicul- ties were not yet foreclosed. The Roman Church still clung to its faulty cycle of eighty-four years, the Alex- andrian to that of nineteen ; and it still continued to be a matter of reproach that the two principal churches of Christendom were often found to celebrate Easter on different days. The Council of Sardica, therefore, as seen bj' the lately discovered Festal Letters of Athana- sius (Cureton, from the Nitriau Syr. MS., A.D. 343), en- deavored to compose a difference by drawing out a pas- chal scheme for half a century. But it onlj' defined the lunations, and (A.D. 387) matters showed worse than ever when Rome celebrated Easter on March 21, but the Alexandrian Church, since the 21st was its equinox, postponed the celebration till after the next full moon, or till late in April. The Quartodeciman party also still survived, the Nicene injunctions notwithstanding, as may be seen by the anathemas against the TtacraptaKai- dtKariTni of the Council of Antioch (A.D. 341), can. 1, and Council of Laodicea (A.D. 381), can. 1. It may be observed here that the Jews learned from the Christian Church to frame a paschal cycle, which was first adopt- ed in the presidency of Ilillel II at Tiberias, A.D. 358.
The paschal difference thus continued to cause more or less inconvenience and heart-burning for another century and a half, till Dionysius Exiguus did good service to
chronology b}' first dating events from the Christian «ra, and b\' giving fixity to the cycle of nineteen years for determining Easter. This he did by adopting the Alexandrian method of calculation, and reforming the Roman calendar accordingly, in which the churches of Italy readily acquiesced ; while those of Gaul and Britain still held to their " old stj'le." When the Heptarchy became Romanized, the Dionysian method was acceptetl in Britain, although in Wales, and in the northern parts of the island, the old eighty-four years' cycle of Rome was still retained. A council was held on the subject, A.D. 664, at Streanechalch (Whitby), king Oswy hav- ing found that his queen and her ladies were fasting in Lent while he indulged in the festivities of Easter. The Roman order was then fully confirmed in Britain. As Jlontalembert has justly observed, this difference had nothing to do with the Quartodeciman practice, which in fact had died away in the 6th century (^Moines de I'Oeeid. iv, 159). In our present calendar, the Prime or Golden Number marks the particular year of the nine- teen years' cycle ; and these golden numbers, added in the margin from March 21 to April 18, indicate the days of the plenilunium on which Easter for each par- ticular year dejjends, and which is the Sunday next fol- lowing, unless Sunday should be the day of full moon, in which case Easter falls on the following Sunday. — Blunt, Diet. Hist. Theol. See also Hefele, Conciliengeseh. vol. i ; Ideler, Handb. d. Chronol. ; Chron. Paschale, in Dindorfs Byzant. Hist. Seript. vol. xvi and xvii ; Gieseler, Eccles, Hist. vol. i: Cureton, Eestal Ep. of Athanasius, transl. from the Syriac ; Killen, Hist, of the Ancient Church, p. 611, 625; Neander, Dor/mas, vol. ii; Riddle, Christian A ntiquities, p. 655 sq., 675, 676 ; Ffoulkes, Divisions in Christendom ; Lond. Quar. Rev. xviii, 496 sq. ; Christian Examiner, xxxviii, 41 sq. ; Jahrb.Jur deutsche Theologie, 1870, No. i. See Eastek.