This had likewise reached our apostolic
ears that many in that country have fallen into folly and distraction of mind and
dare to reject the instructions and admonitions both of our predecessors the
holy pontiffs and of ourselves on what was laid down by the venerable Council
of Nicaea about the feast of Easter. For they state that if the full moon, that
is, the fourteenth day of the moon, falls on a Saturday, then holy Eater should
not be celebrated on the Sunday that follows immediately, the fifteenth day of
the moon, but the joy of the paschal feast, missing out this fifteenth day,
should be celebrated on the Sunday of the following week, which is the
twenty-second day of the moon. Yet if the reckoning of the Easter festival
promulgated at the great and venerable Council of Nicaea by the 318 fathers who
convened together was carefully weighed by the mind, every error and every uncertainty
would most certainly depart from the minds of waverers. But when many who are
acute and perceptive and versed in knowledge of the world but uneducated in
spiritual matters uphold their own fancies, they pass over the ancient tradition
of the fathers, in slothful ignorance and obscure the truth with falsehood. At
the same great Council of Nicaea the judgement of the fathers confirmed the
nineteen0yera cycle, and among other things the following was promulgated: that
the solemnity of this sacred feast should never be postponed beyond the
twenty-first day of the moon. This reckoning of Easter was later confirmed by
the venerable Council of Antioch, where among other things the first article
states the following: ‘We decree that all those who have dared to reject the
decree of the holy and great Council of Nicaea, convened in the presence of the
most pious and most devout emperor Constantine, about the salvific solemnity of
holy Easter, are to be excommunicated and expelled from the Church; if,
however, they continue to contrast what had been well laid down,’ then (they
decreed) that they are to be subjected to yet more severe penalties. For the
most blessed Dionysius, in the letter he wrote about the reckoning of Easter,
says: ‘In the judgment of all the Easterners the vernal equinox occurs on 21
March. They have decreed that the great expertise of the Egyptians, who are
knowledgeable and learned in these calculations, is especially to be consulted and
the holy Council of Nicaea confirmed without any ambiguity that, if the
fourteenth day of the moon falls on a Saturday. Easter should be celebrated on
the following day—the Saturday of the fifteenth day of the moon.’ Note also our
most beloved, what the blessed Proterius, bishop of the Church of Alexandria,
wrote to our predecessor the most blessed Pope Leo at the command of the
emperor Marcian of pious memory. After many other things he speaks as follows: ‘Of
old, the Lord gave directions by saying through Moses, “This month is for you
the beginning of the months; it will be the first of the months of the year,”
and you will celebrate Passover for your Lord God on the fourteenth day of the
first month.” A little further on he added: ‘Whenever the fourteenth day of the
moon falls on a Sunday, the feast is to be postponed till the following week.
As our fathers of old did, Easter, when occurring on the fourteenth day of the
moon, is to be transferred to the following Sunday.’
It is therefore settled most beloved,
that the venerable solemnity of this feast is never to be any later than the
twenty-first day of the moon, if we duly observe the number of days in the
week, while the course of the sun is in no agreement with that of the moon. For
the Lord the creator of all things made in six days the firmament of heaven and
all its reddish adornment, the creatures of earth and sea, the material of the
elements and all the living reptiles; last of all he made man from clay, and ‘on
the seventh day he rested from all the work that he had done’. When these seven
days are inserted, starting with the fourteenth day of the moon (which is full
moon)—of this is a Sunday, which is the first and holy day, because one cannot
fast on it—the method of reckoning requires that Christians celebrate holy
Easter on the next Sunday, which is the first and holy day on the twenty-first day
of the moon. For if the fourteenth moon precedes it on the Saturday, the
following Sunday, which is then of course the fifteenth day of the moon, is now
to be omitted: we venerate this same Sunday, which is the first day of the
week, on which the true light, our Saviour, rose in the flesh from the underworld.
For if eight days are inserted from the fourteenth day of the moon, when the
fast ends, so that the feast of Easter is deferred until the twenty-second day
of the moon, then what Is announced and observed is not a week (that is, seven
days) but eight days, according to the profane practice of stupid and foolish
people. It is to be observed—and reason urges this also—that seven weeks and
not eight comes between the feast of Easter and holy Pentecost, when our redeemer,
the Son of the living God, after his glorious resurrection sent the Spirit, the
Paraclete, from the Father to his holy apostles. Let us therefore tread the
royal road and not wander off it along a tortuous path full of thorns and
brambles. Let us leave the latter to those who wish to concoct new fictions and
memorials of crimes, so that thistles and thorns may grow for them as they deserve.
Already a long time ago our predecessors the holy pontiffs, sending warning and
admonition to that country on this question and this heresy, circulated
relevant chapters that country on this question and this heresy, circulated
relevant chapters of the blessed Cyril and Theophilius and other holy fathers,
whom it would be too long to enumerate, and of which your love is doubtless cognizant.
On this matter we cannot be silent, most dear ones, or cease from earnestly
urging you to beware of false brethren. In the same way as our holy Roan
church, the head of all God’s churches, celebrates the solemnity of Easter and
maintains the traditions of the correct faith, so beyond doubt should you also celebrate
it, so that, just as the religion of the Christian faith establishes uniformity,
it may also make us uniform as regards feast-days. (Codex Epistolaris Carolinus:
Letters from the Popes to the Frankish Rulers, 739-791 [trans. Richard
Price; Translated Texts for Historians 77; Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 2021], 421-23; Hadrian is repeating what he wrote previously to Bishop Egila
and the presbyter John in a letter c. 772-791; see ibid., 405-8)
