Calendars in Antiquity. Empires, States, and Societies

There is little evidence, however, to support the common scholarly view that the prime motivation behind thefirst Easter cycles ...

his‘predecessors’, in whichluna XIVwas allowed to occur two days too early.^81 But although this scheme is referred to as an err ...

19-year cycle in the form of two tables, thefirst containing a full lunar calendar, and the second (derived from thefirst) conta ...

himself would have observed it in his time, as opposed to the dates which Jews in the third and fourth centuries—in their view—e ...

equinox: 5, ll. 107–10). Anatolius also opposes the longer cycles of the African rimarii, who assume different limits again (12, ...

Julian calendar, the calendar of the Roman Empire, as the underlying structure of his cycle, rather than (for example) the local ...

drawn into the post-Constantinian discourse of orthodoxy and heresy and occupied so much importance within it, when it could equ ...

The purpose of observing Easter‘on one day throughout the whole world’is purportedly only that the devotion of Easter be not dis ...

bishop of Rome at Arles) to which the Council as a whole could have deferred to. Before examining how thisfirst resolution is pr ...

Eusebius cites afterwardsin extenso, and to which we now turn; there, the notion of calendrical unity receives its most complete ...

is possible, now that their nation has been rejected, by a truer arrangement which we have kept from the day of the Passion to t ...

fourth century, to mean Asia) is explicitly stated in another Nicene synodal letter, not authored by Constantine, which Socrates ...

on or near the full moons before and after the equinox). Constantine’s argument was that if Christians followed the Jews for det ...

conclusive. Athanasius was bishop of Alexandria at various times between 328 and 373CE; his Festal Letters were written and diss ...

Nevertheless, Athanasius’ability to determine the dates of Easter well in advance—at least before the beginning of the 40-day fa ...

any date before 25 March.^120 If, as is generally assumed, section IX of the Codex represents the dates of Easter that were actu ...

could sometimes lead to situations where no Easter date would be accept- able.^124 The limits of Easter were different in Alexan ...

compromise, by yielding on several occasions to the Roman date; but in some cases, Rome may have also compromised.^129 Thefirst ...

in advance is suggested at least in Athanasius’festal letter for 346CE, in which he announces the date of Easter as Sunday 30 Ma ...

Compromise between Alexandria and Rome remained a policy through most of the fourth century, but after the death of Athanasius i ...