Christian theology. By a direct succession, the bishops of Alexandria had inherited the traditions of astronomical science that first appear in the fourteenth century before the Christian era, on the painted ceilings of the temples of Thebes. On them, therefore, was imposed the duty—it had already existed as a custom-of determining the exact day for the celebration of each successive Easter; and of announcing it for each following year, by special messengers, sent immediately after the Feast of Epiphany to all the towns and monasteries within their own jurisdiction, as well as to the Western Church through the Bishop of Rome, and to the Syrian Church through the Bishop of Antioch. "The first result of this arrangement is known to us in the Festal,' or 'Paschal' Letters of Athanasius, who succeeded to the see of Alexandria the year after the decision of the Council. From that year, for a period of thirty years, these Letters (preserved to our day by the most romantic series* of incidents in the history of ancient documents) exhibit to us the activity with which, amidst all his occupations, Athanasius carried out the order which he had heard, as a deacon, enjoined by the Council on his aged master Alexander. The Coptic church still looks back with pride to the age when its jurisdiction was thus acknowledged by all Christian sees." + The decree of the Council of Nicea was not potent enough to compel an absolute uniformity; but those persons who refused to comply with it were accounted as schismatical, and worthy of ecclesiastical censure. Henceforth, they were to be found in the Black-book that registered heretics,' under the names of Quartodecimani, Tessarescadekatitæ, Audiani, Protopaschites, and others. "Besides the difference about keeping Easter on the Lord's-day, there was another, which, though of less *Dr. Cureton's Preface to " The Festal Letters of Athanasius.” + Stanley's Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. DIFFICULTIES OF UNIFORMITY. 199 moment, yet sometimes very much embarrassed and troubled the Church. That was a dispute among those who agreed to observe the festival on no other but the Lord's-day; for though they all unanimously combined in this, yet it was not so easy to determine on what Lord's-day it was to be held, because it was a moveable feast, and because sometimes it happened that the Churches of one country kept it a week or a month sooner than others, by reason of their different calculation."* This difference, as Dean Stanley has just indicated, arose from the employment of different cycles, the number of years in which ranged from eight to eighty-four. And although the greater number of these cycles disappeared after the Council of Nicæa, there yet remained a sufficient ground of diversity in the fact that the Roman Church proceeded by the old Jewish cycle of eighty-four years till A.D. 525, when Dionysius Exiguus brought the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen years into general use in the West. Meanwhile the Churches of France and Britain adhered to the old Roman rule; and it required the lapse of nearly three centuries from the date last mentioned to establish the new canon among them. In the achievement of this there were considerable struggle and difficulty, which were intermittent over about two hundred years. Augustine, in 602, just failed of persuading the British bishops to conform to the Roman practice; and in 628 the Churches of Britain refused to submit their Paschal calculations to the authority of Pope Honorius. At a conference between the English and Scottish bishops, held at Whitby in 664, a decision was arrived at in favour of observing the Roman method in Great Britain; and this method was conformed to by one Church after another, until in the year 800 the uniformity of the observance of the Paschal Feast was completed in these Islands by the winning over of the Welsh to the dominant practice. The * Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church. various anomalies attendant upon diversity thus finally determined; and it could no longer happen, as it had happened formerly, that, of members of the same household, some, through the adoption of one canon, should be celebrating Easter, whilst others, through their adherence to another canon, should have only lately entered upon the penitential austerities of Lent. It was anciently the custom to include fifteen days in the whole solemnity of the Pasch-i.e., the week before Easter Sunday and the week following it, the one of which was called Pascha oravρwouov, the Pasch of the Crucifixion, and the other' Pascha ávaσráoiμov, the Pasch of the Resurrection. The general name Pascha, from the Hebrew Pesach, which signifies the Passover, comprised both these seasons. For the Christian Passover includes as well the Passion as the Resurrection of our Saviour, who is the true Paschal Lamb, or Passover that was sacrificed for us. And therefore, though our English word Easter be generally used only to signify the Resurrection, yet the ancient word Pascha was taken in a larger sense to denote as well the Pasch of the Crucifixion as the Pasch of the Resurrection.* The word Pascha is perpetuated in divers forms as the modern name of the Great Festival. In Italian it appears as Pasqua, in Spanish as Pascua, in Portuguese as Pascoa, in French as Pâque, in Swedish and Danish respectively as Paask and Paaske, and in Welsh as Pasg. For our own word Easter, various derivations have been suggested. One writer would refer it to the Anglo-Saxon Yst, a storm; and an antiquary of the last century would, in a kindred spirit, refer it to the seasonable prevalence of Easterly winds. An old medieval book of devotion suggests its derivation from Astur or Astre, the hearth, which at Easter was thoroughly cleansed from smoke stains and the black winter brands, in order to be gaily arrayed with fair flowers and strewn with * Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church. CONJECTURAL ETYMOLOGIES. 201 green rushes. More piously Aster has been deduced from the East, "because as there the sun ariseth-who, as it were, dies in his setting-so here the Sun of Righteousness, which is Christ, who, as it were, sets in His death, and rises again." Other etymologers recognise the "obvious root" of the word in the Anglo-Saxon Ostre, to rise, or the German Erstand, Resurrection, and are content with so "significant and natural a derivation;" whilst others, again, headed by the Venerable Bede, contend that the word comes from the name of the ancient goddess, Eostre (the Ashtaroth, or Astarte, of the Phoenicians), whose feast, falling in April, coincided generally with the Paschal celebration. It happens thus, as in the case of so many of our most familiar names, that a large choice is offered to the discretion of the individual. It is right, in conclusion, to compare Easter with its German cognates. Ostern and Oster-tag. The Fathers of the Church have vied with each other to shower upon this festival the abundance of exulting and affectionate epithet, and to exhaust in its favour the pregnancy of thought, and the vigour, copiousness, and elasticity of language. It is the great day-the day of days-the lady and queen of days; it is the highest of feasts-the chief and sovereign of all festivals. It is the bright Sunday-God's Sunday-Dominica Gaudii, the Lord's day of joy. In the words of Gregory Nazienzen, it is "God's own Easter day, the Easter in honour of the Trinity, feast of feasts, solemnity of all solemnities, so far passing all other feasts holden not only by or for men, but even those held in honour of Christ Himself, as the sun doth surpass and excel the stars."* St. Chrysostom styles it "the desirable feast of our salvation, the day of our Lord's Resurrection, the foundation of our peace, the occasion of our reconciliation, the end of our contentions and enmity with God, the destruction of death, and our victory over the Devil."+ In the * Oratio xlv.; In Sanctum Pascha. † In Sanctum Pascha Concio. fervid hyperbole of our own George Herbert, it is the only day in the calendar: Can there be any day but this, Though many suns to shine endeavour? The primitive Church distinguished Easter by the solemn celebration of the Lord's Supper, and especially by selecting it as the principal season of the three-Epiphany and Pentecost being the other two-which were solemnly dedicated to the baptism of catechumens. The spiritual joy of the season manifested itself in political, civil, and domestic amenities. The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, "in honour of the Paschal feast," enacted the opening of the prisons to all except the vilest and most incorrigible of criminals. This was done, as St. Chrysystom informs us, in order that the Emperors "might imitate as far as in them lay, the example of their Lord and Master. For, as He delivered us from the grievous prison of our sins, and made us capable of enjoying innumerable blessings, so ought we in like manner, as far as possible, to imitate the mercy and kindness of our Lord.” * Easter was one of the times which private Christians in like manner chose for extraordinary efforts of charity and benevolence; for hospitality and alms-giving, and for the manumission of slaves. So that Gregory Nyssen could exclaim-"There is no one so forlorn and miserable as not to find relief by the magnificence of this great festival; for at this time the prisoner is loosed, the debtor is set at liberty, and the slave has his freedom granted him by the kind declaration (ayao kai piλavОρúñų кηρúyuari) of the Church.† Other *Homily xxx.; In Genesim, c. 11. +In Sanctum Pascha. Oratio iii.; De Sacro festo Pascha et de Resurrectione, habita in magna die Dominica. |