EASTER
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EASTER
Law, particularly in the paschal lamb, which was
eaten towards evening of the 14th of Nisan. In fact,
the Jewish feast was taken over into the Christian
Easter celebration; the liturgy (Exullel) sings of the
passiug of Israel through the Red Sea, the paschal
lamb, the column of fire, etc. Apart, however, from
the Jewish feast, the Cliristians would have celebrated
the anniversary of the deatli and the Resurrection of
Christ. But for such a feast it was necessary to know
the exact calendar date of Christ's death. To know
this day was very simple for the Jews; it was the day
after tlio 14th of the first month, the 15th of Nisan of
their calendar. But in other countries of the vast
Roman Empire there were other systems of chronol-
ogy. The Romans from 45 b. c. had used the re-
formed Julian calendar; there were also the Egyptian
and the Syro-Macedonian calendar (see Calendar).
The foundation of the Jewish calendar was the lunar
year of 354 days, whilst the other systems depended on
the solar year. In consequence the first days of the
Jewish months and years did not coincide with any
fixed days of the Roman solar year. Every fourth
year of the Jewish system had an intercalary month.
Since this month was inserted, not according to some
scientific method or some definite rule, but arbitrarily,
by command of the Sanhedrin, a distant Jewish date
can never with certainty be transposed into the cor-
responding Julian or Gregorian date (Ideler, Clironolo-
gie, I, 570 sq.). The connexion between the Jewish
and the Christian Pasch explains the movable char-
acter of this feast. Easter has no fixed date, like
Christmas, because the 15th of Nisan of the Semitic
calendar was shifting from date to date on the Julian
calendar. Since Christ, the true Paschal Lamb, had
been slain on the very day when the Jews, in celebra-
tion of their Passover, immolated the figurative lamb,
the Jewish Christians in the Orient followed the Jew-
ish method, and commemorated the death of Christ
on the loth of Nisan and His Resurrection on the
17th of Nisan, no matter on what day of the week
they fell. For this observance they claimed theauthor-
ity of St. John and St. Philip.
In the rest of the empire another consideration pre- dominated. Every Sunday of the year was a com- memoration of the Resurrection of Christ, which had occurred on a Sunday. Because the Sunday after 14 Nisan was the historical day of the Resurrection, at Rome this Sunday ijecame the Christian feast of Easter. Easter was celebrated in Rome and Alexandria on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, and the Roman Church claimed for this ob- servance the authority of Sts. Peter and Paul. The spring equinox in Rome fell on 25 March; in Alex- andria on 21 March. At Antioch Easter was kept on the Sunday after the Jewish Passover. (See Easter Controversy.) In Gaul a number of bishop.s, wishing to escape the difficulties of the paschal computation, seem to have assigned Easter to a fixed date of the Roman calendar, celebrating the death of Christ on 25 March, His Resurrection on 27 March (Marinus Dumiensis in P. L., LXXII, 47-51), since already in the third century 25 March was considered the day of the Crucifixion (Computus Pseudocyprianus, ed. Lersch, Chronologic, II, 61). This practice was of short duration. Many calendars in the Middle Ages contain these same dates (25 March, 27 March) for purely historical, not liturgical, reasons (Grotefend, Zeitrechnung, II, 46, 60, 72, 106, 110, etc.). The Montanists in .\sia Minor kept Easter on the Sunday after 6 April (Schmid, Osterfestberechnung in der abendlandischen Kirche). The First Council of Nicsea (325) decreed that the Roman practice should be observed throughout the Church. But even at Rome the Easter term was changed repeatedly. Those who continued to keep Easter with the Jews were called Quart odecimans (14 Nisan) and were excluded from the Church (see Quartgdecimans). The v.— 15
computus paschalis, the method of determining the
date of Easter and the dependent feasts, was of old
considered so important that Durandus (Rit. div.
off., 8, c. i) declares a priest unworthy of the
name who does not know the computus paschalis.
The movable character of Easter (22 March to 25
April) gives rise to inconveniences, especially in mod-
ern times. For decades scientists and other people
have worked in vain for a simplification of the com-
putus, assigning Easter to the first Sunday in April
or to the Sunday nearest to the 7th of April. Some
even wish to put every Sunday to a certain date of
the month, e. g. beginning with New Year's always
on a Sunday, etc. [See L. Gimther, "Zeitschrift
Weltall" (1903); Sandhage and P. Dueren in "Pastor
bonus" (Trier, 1906); C. Tondini, "L'ltaUa e la
questione del Calendario " (Florence, 1905).]
The Easter Office and Mass.— The first Vespers of Easter are connected now with the Mass of Holy Saturday, because that Mass was formerly celebrated in the evening (see Holy Saturday) ; they consist of only one psalm (cxvi) and the Magnificat. The Matins have only one Nocturn; the Office is short, because the clergy were busy with catechumens, the reconciliation of sinners, and the distribution of alms, which were given plentifully by the rich on Easter Day. This peculiarity of reciting only one Nocturn was extended by some churches from the octave of Easter to the entire paschal time, and soon to all the feasts of the Apostles and similar high feasts of the entire ecclesiastical year. This observance is found in the German Breviaries far up into the nineteenth cen- tury ("Brev. Monaster.", 1830; Baumer, "Brevier", 312). The octave of Easter ceases with None of Sat- urday and on Sunday the three Nocturns with the eighteen psalms of the ordinary Sunday Office are re- cited. Many churches, however, during the Middle Ages and later (Brev. Monaster., 1830), on Low Sun- day {Dominica in Albis) repeated the short Nocturn of Easter Week. Before the usus Romano: Curice (Baumer, Brev., 319) was spread by the Franciscans over the entire Church the eighteen (or twenty-four) psalms of the regular Sunday Matins were, three by three, distributed over the Matins of Easter Week (Baumer, 301). This observance is still one of the peculiarities of the Carmelite Breviary. The simpli- fied Breviary of the Roman Curia (twelfth century) estabUshed the custom of repeating Psalms i, ii, iii, every day of the octave. From the ninth to the thir- teenth century, in most dioceses, during the entire Easter Week the two precepts of hearing Mass and of abstaining from servile work were observed (Kell- ner, Heortologie, 17); later on this law was limited to two days (Monday and Tuesday), and, since the end of the eighteenth century, to Monday only. In the United States even Monday is no holiday of obliga- tion. The first three days of Easter Week are doubles of the first class, the other days semi-doubles. During this week, in the Roman Office, through immemorial custom the hymns are omitted, or rather were never inserted. The ancient ecclesiastical Office contained no hymns, and out of respect for the great solemnity of Easter and the ancient jubilus " Ha>c Dies", the Roman Church did not touch the old Easter Office by introducing hymns. Therefore to the present day the Office of Easter consists only of psalms, antiphons, and the great lessons of Matins. Only the " Victima; Paschali " was adopted in most of the churches antl religious orders in the Second Vespers. The Mozara- bic and Ambrosian Offices use the Ambrosian hymn " Hie est dies verus Dei " in Lauds and Vespers, the Monastic Breviary, " Ad ccenam Agni providi " at Vespers, "Chorus novae Jerusalem" at Matins, and "Aurora lucis rutilat" at Lauds. The Monastic Breviary has also three Nocturns on Easter Day. Be- sides the hymns the chapter is omitted and the Little Hours have no antiphons; the place of the hymns.
