drawn into the post-Constantinian discourse of orthodoxy and heresy and
occupied so much importance within it, when it could equally have been
assigned, in this context, a status of far lesser importance.
At the Council of Arles in August 314CE, convened by Constantine soon
after his conversion and while he was still ruling only the western half of the
Roman Empire, Church leaders resolved—for thefirst time in history—that
Easter should be observed by all Christians on the same date.^92 This resolu-
tion, listed infirst position in the Council’s Canons (which immediately
indicates the importance this matter was given), has been transmitted in two
different recensions of the Canons (Gaudemet 1977: 42–3, 46–7). Thefirst,
known as‘Canons of the Council of Arles’, reads as follows:
- In thefirst place, concerning the celebration of the Lord’s Easter. That it is to be
observed by us on one day and at one time in all the earth, and that you should
send out letters to all as is the custom.
The addressee, as indicated in the introduction to the Canons, is Sylvester,
bishop of Rome (who was absent at the Council): it was he whom the Council
expected to implement their decision, through the custom of circulating
annual letters with the dates of Easter to all the churches under his authority.
The Council of Arles was attended exclusively by western bishops, and as has
been noted, it is only in the RomanWest that the bishop of Rome could have
been invested with this authority (Gaudemet 1977: 17). The custom of sending
Easter letters, which was already in existence but may be attested elsewhere
already in the late second century,^93 was to become in the fourth century an
important vehicle for the enforcement of calendar unity.^94
The second recension, a synodal letter addressed to Sylvester, offers a
certain rationale for the Council’s decision:
- In thefirst place this was being considered concerning our life and usefulness,
since one person has died for all and is risen again, that this same time is to be
observed with a devout mind (religiosa mente) by all people, lest divisions and
dissensions be allowed to rise up in so great an allegiance of devotion (in tanto
obsequio devotionis).We have proposed therefore that the Easter of our Lord be
observed on one day throughout the whole world.
(^92) One of Constantine’s letters of summons to the Council is in EusebiusHE10. 5. 21–4; the
letter stresses the need to unify the Church, although it does not mention the question of the date
of Easter. 93
According to EusebiusHE5. 25, although the meaning of this passage is not entirely clear
(see above, after n. 80). On a traditionfirst reported by Eutychius (10th c.), see Ch. 6 n. 89. The
practice of sending letters to convey calendrical decisions is also attributed to some leading
Palestinian rabbis in early-3rd-c. rabbinic sources (e.g.tSanh.2: 5–6, ed. Zuckermandel,
pp. 416–17: see Goodblatt 1994: 211, Stern 2001: 162 and n. 27).
(^94) In the 4th and 5th cc., indeed, it remained the responsibility of the bishop of Rome to
announce the date of Easter on an annual basis, in spite of the increasing availability offixed
Easter cycles (Mosshammer 2008: 60–1).
396 Calendars in Antiquity