EARLY EASTER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1706, 25 March 1913, Page 7

EARLY EASTER.

, THE IMAGINARY MOON AND ; ' . ITS USES.

(From the London "Observer.") Tho exceptionally early happening of Easter Sunday this year—tho festival falling on March 23, or only ono day later than tho earliest possible date—has' directed attention to tlio Prayer Book "rules" by which tho event is fixed, and the moon has been unjustly blamed for compelling us to take tho first of tho year's holidays in bleak aud windy March. But tho real moon is blameless in ithis matter, as the date of Easter is dependent 011 an imaginary moon, , tho phases of which ocour in obedience to a set of tables drawn up by order of Popo Gregory XIII, and on which the Prayer 800k s rules for finding Easter aro based. 'A study of these complicated rules induces a. feeling of amazement that so much ingenuity should have been expended to orrango for a constantly , varying festival whiou, being a celobration of an historical event, seems to demand a fixed deto for its observance. TIIO explanation is that tlio Christian festival of Easter, though instituted by tho early Christians —mainly Jewish converts—as a commemoration of tho Resurrection, was purposely made by thorn to correspond in point of time. with tlio Passover, and tlio Passover depended on the moon from its Association with tlio fourteenth day cf the ...lunar mon'th Nisan, whicli was also, on the authority of threo of tho four 'Gospels, tho date of the Last Supper. — Evolution of Easter. In course of itimo a dispute aroso as to the date of Easter between Jewish and Gentile Christians, which resulted in the Council, of Nico deciding, in a.d. 325, .that all- Christians should keep ISaster on fthe . Sunday following the fourteenth day of the Passover moon. The Bishop of Alexandria, being . something of . an astronomer, was deputed by tho Council to deyiso rules in harmony with this decision. .. . Unfortunately this Bishop failed to enforce uniformity by'his treatment'of the moon, and, in «i few years Easter was being kept in different places in itlie same year on elates varying between March 21 and April 25. Even in the same place uncertainty prevailed, and it is recorded that in a.d. Gsl a ICing of Northumbria cejebraitcd Easter_ Sunday simultaneously with the celebration of Palm Sunday by his Quean. , It was left for Pope Gregory to end this confusion by adopting an artificial moon, the phases of which are made to recur on tile same day of the year after n cycle of nineteen years, and which is full, according to the tables, on its fourteenth (lay, wlucli never happens ,in the c::s& cf the ± real moon. It is this artificial moon of the Gregorian tables which is reared to in tho Prayer Boole rule for. finding Easter.

A Prayer Book Error. The English Prayer Book, omits to explain that the moon of the jSaster rulo ■vis an imaginary body, but the Church of Ireland Prflyer .Book has a brief "jioto on the _ Golden Numbers" which makes thi? quite clear. A still moro Eerious error was inserted in the rule as minted in illn Prayer Book of. Charles XI," v,l.icli laid it down that Easter Sunday was the Sunday following the "full moon which happens next after ;March 21," instead cf "upon or. next after March 2J." This would prevent Easter ever falling on March 22, ■ and.-misplace-the festival a whole month'whencver the Golden Numbra is 16. -Por nearly a century this doubly erroneous rulo remained in the Prayer Book—from 1662 to 1752—but on ■the five occasions the error, would have' operated- the rule .was ignored-and the correct Easter observed. . The Teal moon is> full at a particular Instant of time, and the calendar date of this happening uefljssarily' varies with longitude.. There-is no;attempt,., hewevet 1 , made'' to 1 'iubdi'vide I ,the'' day ,'cl "the Easter imaginary Ml moon,' which has , one definite day assigned to it for the \ whole world. It, is this' fact which makes the; fictitious moon' ideally suitable / for; firing Easter, inasmuch as it ensures that in every-part of the world' Easter shall .l)B;kept on tho same day. "

Why the Moon Must be Fictitious. In 1905 the'real moon was-full according to Greenwich mean time less than five hours after midnight on March 21, so that in America, where civil timo is from five to eight, hours slow of Greenwich, it was full oil March' 20. ' Had the real moon been _the. deciding factor in that year America would have had to wait for tho next full moon on April 18—the full moon happening upon or next after March 21 of the Prayer Book rule—and EaSter in Amerioa would have fallen a month liter than in Europe. In 1803 the real moon was full, in Great Britain just after midnight on. Easter Sunday, April 12 (which the Prayer. Book rulo says miist never ocCux) and a few minutes before midnight tm April 11 by Irish time. In that year the real moon would' have given Ireland Easter on April .12 and' Great Britain on April-19. In 1900, too,- the moon of the heavens was full \on Easter Sunday, as iu 1903. !'

The Golden Number of the Prayer -Rook Easter tables is the number of the year in the nineteen-year cycle of the imaginary moon, the cycle being reckoned from the year prior to the year 1 of thb a.d. era' (in which year the moon was full on January 1), which is why-.tlie rulo tays: "Add one to the year of our Lord." At the end of 1912, 100 of such cycles and 13 years of the 101 st cycle had elapsed; 11 is year's Golden Number. The 1 'Epact" is thq ago of the imaginary moon of this cycle on January 1, which this yearIs 22 days; the Epact as, therefore, 22. A fixed Easter late in. April has been suggested, which would need no moon, leal or artificial. But the religious difficulty is a big obstacle: For any Church to abandon a custom hallowed by centuries .would bo a severe wrench; to get all the divisions of the Eastern and Western branches ofj the early ChurCh to agree on such a matter.seems an almost impossible task.