himself would have observed it in his time, as opposed to the dates which Jews
in the third and fourth centuries—in their view—erroneously reckoned. It is
on this basis that all Eastern computists, from Dionysius (at least according to
Eusebius) to Anatolius and the Alexandrians, adopted the‘rule of the equi-
nox’, according to which the 14th of the Paschal moon (Passover) must always
occur on or after the vernal equinox—a rule which contemporary Jews
frequently ignored. The rejection of contemporary Jewish practice as errone-
ous can be interpreted, again, as an implicit call for‘parting ways’and for
reckoning Easter independently from the Jews, indeed in many cases on
completely different dates (because of the Christians’distinctive rule of the
equinox). Nevertheless, it is on the authority of ancient Jews such as Philo,
Josephus, and earlier still, Agathobulus and Aristobulus (the latter identified as
one of the seventy-two authors of the Septuagint), that Anatolius defends the
authenticity of the rule of the equinox.^86 In this respect, one might say that the
eastern computists were trying, in their search for the authentic Passover date,
to be more Jewish than the Jews.
Polemical arguments are particularly prominent in Anatolius’ treatise,
which raises the possibility that the date of Easter was becoming, in the later
third century, a more divisive issue than it has previously been. Anatolius
begins his treatise by rejecting Hippolytus’16-year cycle, as well as other cycles
of 25, 30, and 84 years, as untrue methods of computation (De Ratione
Paschali1, ll. 10–12).^87 He then explains the rule of the equinox and accuses
those who assume a Passover date (14th of the moon) before the equinox of
being‘guilty of no small error’(2–3, esp. ll. 43–4). Further on, he rejects the
limits of 16th–22nd of the moon (as the allowable range of lunar dates for
Easter Sunday), which were assumed by the church of Rome (although he does
not mention the latter by name: 4, ll. 80–4); he also attacks‘Gaulish’compu-
tists for assuming a lower lunar limit of 21st (his own limits are 14th–20th of
the moon; 5, ll. 85–90); those who go beyond the 20th, he says near the end of
his work, are committing no small offence (13, ll. 225–7). The Gaulish
computists are also attacked for their early Paschal limit, i.e. for allowing
luna XIVthree days before the equinox (in contravention to the rule of the
(^86) DeRatione Paschali, 2, ll. 44–9 (Mc Carthy and Breen 2003: 64, 85–7). Anatolius does not
mention contemporary Jews by name (he only mentions, more generally,‘those’who ignore the
equinox), but later, 4th-c. sources in a similar context consistently identify the Jews as observing
Passover before the equinox: e.g. Peter (bishop of Alexandria, 300– 11 CE) in his letter to
Tricentius (ap.Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, 1832, p. 7), similarly arguing that the authentic
Passover date of Jesus must be observed (Stern 2001: 66–70). The rule of the equinox was
unknown, in contrast, to the early Roman computists: Hippolytus allowedluna XIVon 18
March, and pseudo-Cyprian on 17; even later, the 4th-c.supputatioRomana(see Ch. 6, near
n. 94) allowedluna XIVbefore the equinox.
(^87) Easter cycles of 25 or 30 years are unknown in the 3rd c., but an 84-year cycle may have
been in existence in Rome already in Anatolius’period: see Ch. 6 n. 93.
Sectarianism andHeresy 393