Pascha / Easter Dating
The Church's oldest calendar quarrel: when exactly does Easter fall?
This concerns how the date of Pascha, the feast of Christ's resurrection, is fixed each year. The early Quartodeciman controversy debated whether to keep it on a set day tied to the Jewish reckoning, and the Council of Nicaea in 325 established a common method, or computus, decoupling the feast from that reckoning. The traditions still differ today, as the Western (Gregorian) and most Orthodox (Julian) calculations often place Easter on different dates.
How it traveled
- The First Ecumenical Council: The First Council of NiceNicaea · c. 325 CEapplies
- The Church History of EusebiusCaesarea · c. 339 CEexplains
- The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and EusebiusCaesarea · c. 339 CEexplains
- Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His LifeAlexandria · c. 373 CEexplains
- Select Orations of Saint Gregory NazianzenNazianzus · c. 390 CEexplains
- Jerome and Gennadius. Lives of Illustrious MenBethlehem · c. 420 CEexplains
- Letters of St. AugustinHippo Regius · c. 430 CEexplains
- The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates ScholasticusConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 439 CEexplains
- The Ecclesiastical History of SozomenConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 450 CEexplains
- The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of TheodoretCyrrhus · c. 458 CEexplains
- The Letters and Sermons of Leo the GreatRome · c. 461 CEexplains
- Selected Epistles of Gregory the GreatRome · c. 604 CEapplies
- The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. NiceConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 692 CEapplies
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
Jerome and Gennadius. Lives of Illustrious Men · Jerome
Chapter LXXXVIII. Victorius the Aquitanian, a carefulPaschal cycle with the most careful investigation following his four predecessors, that is Hippolytus, Eusebius, Theophilus and Prosper, and exten
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Jerome and Gennadius. Lives of Illustrious Men · Jerome
Chapter LXI. Hippolytus,A reckoning of the Paschal feast and chronological tables which he worked out up to the first year of the Emperor Alexander. He also discussed the cycle of sixteen years, whic
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Jerome and Gennadius. Lives of Illustrious Men · Jerome
Chapter XLV. Polycrates bishop of the Ephesians with other bishops of Asia who in accordance with some ancient custom celebrated the passover with the Jews on the fourteenth of the month, wrote a syn
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
Again, my brethren, is Easter come and gladness; again the Lord hath brought us to this season; so that when, according to custom, we have been nourished with His words, we may duly keep the feast. Le
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Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus. · Remains of the Second and Third Centuries
Polycrates, [a.d. 130–196.] This author Our author belonged to a family in which he was the eighth Christian bishop; and he presided over the church of Ephesus, in which the traditions of St. John w
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Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
Epistle CXXVII. From S. Columbanus to Pope Gregory This epistle of the Irish saint Columbanus to Gregory was added to the Registrum Epistolarum by the Benedictine editors, having been first publishe
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Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
Theoria utpote divina castulitatis potito. The wordcastulitas may possibly have been in use among the Irish monks as an endearing diminutive of castitas(i.e. chastity or purity), regarded as the objec
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Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
Pope Leo I. referred the question between the Roman and Alexandrian Churches as to the computation of Easter to his archdeacon (afterwards pope) Hilarius for investigation; and he referred it to Victo
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The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods · The Ecumenical Councils
The Canons of the Blessed and Holy Fathers Assembled at Antioch in Syria. This is the title in the codices of Zonaras; the Parisian edition of Balsamon simply reads “The Synod at Antioch.” The Bodlei
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The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
Here the bishops meet to choose a new one, and it is evident by the foregoing canon, that they met not in the vacant church, but in that of the Primate; and that therefore not the people, but the bish
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Chapter XXV.—How All came to an Agreement respecting the Passover. 1. Those in Palestine whom we have recently mentioned, Narcissus and Theophilus, In chaps. 22 and 23. For particulars in regard to
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Chapter XXIV.—The Disagreement in Asia. 1. But the bishops of Asia, led by Polycrates, decided to hold to the old custom handed down to them. For a general account of the paschal controversy, see th
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
This epistle is no longer extant, but in addition to the fragments given in this chapter by Eusebius, a few other extracts from it are found in other writers; thus, in the Pseudo-Justinian Quæstiones
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Chapter XXIII.—The Question then agitated concerning the Passover. 1. A question of no small importance arose at that time. For the parishes of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fou
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Although other synods are mentioned by the Libellus synodicus (of the ninth century), the only ones which we have good reason for accepting are those mentioned by Eusebius in this chapter and the next
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Chapter XX.—The Festal Epistles of Dionysius, in which he also gives a Paschal Canon. Dionysius, besides his epistles already mentioned, Upon Dionysius of Alexandria, see Bk. VI. chap. 40, note 1, a
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The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus · Socrates Scholasticus
As the Jewish Passover month was a lunar month and began on the fifth day of March and ended on the third of April, it happened sometimes that their Passover began before the equinox (the beginning of
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The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus · Socrates Scholasticus
Chapter XXII.—The Author’s Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites. As we have touched the subject I deem it not unreason
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The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus · Socrates Scholasticus
These things indeed pleased God: for the letter expressly says, ‘It seemed good to the Holy Ghost to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.’ There are nevertheless some persons wh
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The First Ecumenical Council: The First Council of Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
On the Keeping of Easter. From the Letter of the Emperor to all those not present at the Council. (Found in Eusebius, Vita Const., Lib. iii., 18–20.) When the question relative to the sacred festiv
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