De Pascha Computus

XV. ON THE COMPUTUS OF EASTER. For a long time, indeed no short time, we were anxious and wavering, seeking not in secular but in holy and divine scriptures to find what was the first day of the new month, in which month the Jews in Egypt were commanded to sacrifice the Passover on the fourteenth moon. And so the most holy one who saw it assented, and we found it. We found it, however, through the immense goodness and justice of Almighty God the Father Himself, and through the incomparable mercy of Christ His Son, our Lord and God, who, obedient to His Father on account of our sins, gave up His own soul; with which soul, rising from the dead on the third day, He promised eternal life to His disciples, and gave the pledge of the grace of the Holy Spirit to those believing in His passion and resurrection. In which Spirit the Lord Himself reveals the high mysteries and manifests the obscure sacraments to those who seek, that is, to His own who seek with all the strength of their faith.

and therefore, believing and knowing for certain that God denies nothing, but grants to each willing and desiring person as he wills, we have committed ourselves to such a laborious task. In this matter, not abandoned but rather inspired by God himself, we wish to show to those who love and seek divine studies that Christians can never stray from the path of truth and, as if ignorant, walk after the blind and dull Jews regarding what day Easter falls. And since we clearly begin from God, we intend to show not only the first day on which the lamb was slain in Egypt, but also the future dates of Easter for both Jews and Christians. Let us therefore begin, most beloved brothers, with the reading of Exodus. In that reading we recognize that God himself and the Lord said to Moses and his brother Aaron in the land of Egypt: "This month shall be for you the beginning of months, the first of the months of the year. Go and say to the whole assembly of the children of Israel: On the tenth day of this month, let each one take, throughout the tribes, a sheep for each household. And if there are few in the household so that they are not sufficient for a sheep, he shall take his nearest neighbor with him. By the number of souls, each shall calculate what will suffice for himself in the sheep. It shall be for you an unblemished, perfect, male yearling. You shall take from the lambs and from the goats.

And it shall be observed by you until the fourteenth day of this month, and the entire multitude of the synagogue of the children of Israel shall kill it at evening: and they shall take of the blood, and place it upon the two doorposts and upon the lintels in the houses in which they shall eat it: and they shall eat these meats roasted by fire that night; they shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs. You shall not eat of them raw nor boiled in water, but only roasted, the head with the feet and entrails; you shall leave nothing of them until morning, and you shall not break any bone from it; but whatever is left of it until morning shall be burned with fire [from its entrails you shall devour after its slaughter]. And thus you shall eat it: your loins girded and your sandals on your feet and your staffs in your hands, and you shall eat it hastily: for it is the Passover of the Lord. Therefore God commanded through Moses to the entire synagogue of the children of Israel in the new month, which is the beginning of months, the first of the months of the year, in what manner they should eat the Passover on the fourteenth moon, to this end assuredly that He might both reveal His divinity to us who believe in Christ and demonstrate their brigandage already then from the beginning of the age, and that those who in Egypt at evening, that is in the last times of the age, girded and shod, went out against the immaculate Lamb of God on the first day of unleavened bread at evening with swords and clubs, and committed against him all that had been foretold by all the prophets.

And therefore we, who now celebrate the Pasch not according to the image, as they did, but according to the truth, in commemoration of the passion of the Son of God, must first of all diligently inquire with all the strength of our faith concerning the new month: what it is, whence it begins, and where it ends. And then we shall find that the Pasch can be observed by the Jews themselves neither before nor after the fourteenth moon is found. Now this very thing will begin to show us clearly the holy and divine scripture of Genesis, saying: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was upon the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. And God said: Let there be light. And light was made. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided between light and between darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And evening was made, and morning was made: one day. Therefore, by referring to and intimating to us that the Lord himself divided between light and darkness, that is, between day and night, the holy scripture clearly shows that this is the first day and its following night, between which the artificer of all things divided equally, that is, irreproachably.

It is now understood to be the eighth day before the Kalends of April, from which day some among us who wished to show this month as new and to demonstrate the fourteenth moon as the day of the Pasch according to the Jews, computing from it, said that the same month begins on the Ides of March and ends on the day of the Ides of April, and thus they stumbled. And therefore, although they correctly divided those thirty days into eleven and nineteen—namely, counting backwards eleven in the common year and arriving at the Ides of March, and inserting nineteen into that prior year in which the embolism occurs and arriving at the Ides of April—they erred in this, as I have said, because they could not truly grasp the first day of the new month. This matter will now be demonstrated as truly shown, when in the table composed by us no year will be found to deceive. Therefore, wishing to show this month truly, where it begins and where it ends, let us return to Genesis, which has reported to us that the Lord Himself divided between the first day and the first night. From this we recognize that between the second and the third day and night no one else but the Lord Himself divided, and thus from the fourth day He entrusted this office to the sun and the moon.

These are themselves the two greater lights, concerning which the Lord said: "Let there be lights in the firmament of the sky, so that they may shine upon the earth, and divide between day and night, and be for signs in the seasons and in the days and in the years, and be for splendor in the solidity of the sky, so that they may shine upon the earth." And thus it was done. And God made two greater lights, the greater light the beginning of day and the lesser light the beginning of night, etc. These, moreover, are the two lights, which received not only this office, to divide between day and night, but also to be for signs and in the seasons and in the days and in the years. For this reason, therefore, the Hebrews, who at that time were worthy and instructed by the Spirit of God, computed each year also according to the course of the moon. And in order to coincide with the course of the sun, over sixteen years they divided the thirty days of the first month into two parts, not equally but according to reason, as we said above: that our predecessors, indeed, according to the Hebrews, correctly divided into 11 and 19, but did not include the first day of the first month and therefore erred. This first day of the new month, according to the course of the moon waning twelve times, is recognized as the 16th day before the Kalends of April: on which day the moon was found at the same hour as it was made on the 5th day before the Kalends of April in the previous year. The days of this year the Hebrews count as 354 up to the 17th day before the Kalends of April. But those who compute according to the course of the sun, after eleven days and a quarter of a day, on the 6th day before the Kalends of April.

they find that the year is completed with 365 days and a quarter of a day, and thus they show the first day of the coming new month as the fifth day before the Kalends of April. And for this reason, reducing the four quarters of the four-year cycle into one day, they insert it not on the fifth day before the Kalends of April in every fifth year, but on the fifth day before the Kalends of March, lest they insert a whole day into the first day of the coming new month and overturn this entire order which the Hebrews, earlier and before Rome itself was founded, attained by sure reasoning. Therefore, the year of the Hebrews, divided into months, makes a month of 29½ days; similarly, the year of the Romans, also divided into twelve parts, makes a month of 30½ days. So between 29½ and 30½ there is a difference which is understood to be 11 hours and a quarter of an hour. In these 11 hours and a quarter of an hour the sun advanced first when the beginning of the day was made. But the moon, having been promised to become the beginning of the night, ought not to have appeared after sunset and thus be seen in the sky, since it had to be seen from the first day and to follow along with that to which such a great office had been assigned. This, therefore, is why through each month the renewed fifteenth moon proceeds ahead of the sun. And thus the sun is found to advance 11 days and a quarter of a day more per year. And so the moon, which on the fourth day before the Kalends of April had been made the fifteenth, was found, after the first year was completed, to be the 26th quarter on the fifth day before the Kalends of April; likewise, in the second year, with 11 days and a quarter added, it was found to be the 7th eighth on the fifth day before the Kalends of April; in the third year, the 18th twelfth on the fifth day before the Kalends of April; in the fourth year, the 30th on the fifth day before the Kalends of April.

In the fifth year, the eleventh day of the moon; in the sixth year, the twenty-second day of the moon; in the seventh year, the third day of the moon; but in the eighth year, the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April was found, just as it had been at the beginning. Instructed by this reasoning, not their own but by the wisdom of God, the Hebrews, concerning the course of the moon according to the first rule, after the manner of the Greeks and the Egyptians, and not according to the lunar epacts, could not have erred. And therefore, when first in Egypt on the day before the Ides of April, the second day of the week, the fourteenth moon, they sacrificed the Passover, after the completion of their first year, they could not celebrate the Passover on the day before the Ides of April, because the moon was found by them to be not the fourteenth but the twenty-fifth. And so, seeking the fourteenth, they necessarily had to find the fourteenth moon by inserting eighteen days on the day before the Kalends of May. But lest they begin to celebrate the Passover in the second month and not in the first month, which is from the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April to the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May, counting backwards from the twenty-five days of the moon—that is, deducting eleven days of that same moon—they found the fourteenth moon and the sixth day of the week, the Kalends of April, which was a common year and the first. In the second year, likewise a common year, the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, the third day of the week. But in the third year, not counting backwards, lest they exceed the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, which is the first day of the first month, and fall into the twelfth month of the previous year, they computed differently. For this was the year in which they had to insert not nineteen, but, with one deducted, fifteen days. But what this one day of the nineteen which is deducted is, we shall say by the grace of God.

In the first time, when the Passover was observed in Egypt, in that very year the due quadrant was present: in the first following year, a semis was made: in the second year added, a dodrans was made: but in the third year, an as was made: the third year, therefore, in the table, in which both the bissextile and the embolismic are inserted. In that year, it is shown that the 14th moon was on the 6th day before the Ides of April, and on the second day of the week: the fourth common year, on the 5th day before the Kalends of April, on the sixth day of the week: likewise the fifth common year, the 14th moon on the 16th day before the Kalends of April, on the third day of the week: the sixth embolismic year, on the Nones of April, on the second day of the week: the seventh bissextile year, on the 9th day before the Kalends of April, on the sixth day of the week: the eighth embolismic year, on the day before the Ides of April, on the fifth day of the week. Behold, therefore, how we computed above that after eight years the 15th moon was again found on the 5th day before the Kalends of April. Thus after eight years, the 14th moon was found on the day before the Ides of April, and the day of the week was found not the second, as before, but the fifth. And therefore, according to the same table, we show that it returns to its first day not through eight years but through sixteen years: and in that, we have noted the bissextile years according to the course of the sun or the error of the ignorant. And this, when the sixteen years are completed, although with the inserted embolismic it occurs on its certain day with the 14th moon, yet it does not occur on the second day of the week but on the first. Thus equally, the completed second sixteen-year period occurs on the seventh day of the week, the third on the sixth day of the week, and the fourth on the fifth day of the week.

the fifth sixteen-year period on the fourth feria, the sixth sixteen-year period on the fourth feria, but the seventh, when it has completed 112 years, returns to the day before the Ides of April and finds the 14th moon and the second feria. These therefore are the 112 years in which, revolving and computing from the first day of Passover observed in Egypt, we have arrived at the years up to Christ, and we show the day of his passion and resurrection. It is necessary first, however, that we demonstrate the remaining eight years of the table: for we have computed up to the eighth. In the ninth year, therefore, a common year, the 14th moon and the second feria occur on the Kalends of April; likewise in the tenth year, a common year, on the 12th day before the Kalends of April, the sixth feria; in the eleventh year, a bissextile and embolismic year, on the 6th day before the Ides of April, the fifth feria; in the twelfth year, a common year, on the 5th day before the Kalends of April, the second feria; in the thirteenth year, likewise a common year, on the 16th day before the Kalends of April, the sixth feria; in the fourteenth year, an embolismic year, on the Nones of April, the fifth feria; in the fifteenth year, a bissextile common year, on the 9th day before the Kalends of April, the second feria; in the sixteenth year, after an embolismic year has been made, it is found again at the head, that is, in the first line, the 14th moon and the first feria on the day before the Ides of April, on which day we said the Jews first observed Passover in Egypt.

Therefore, up to Jesus son of Nun, with 41 years completed, the children of Israel sacrificed the Passover on the Kalends of April, the Sabbath. But Hezekiah, from the exodus from Egypt up to the first year of his reign, after 867 years, celebrated the Passover on the 6th Ides of April, the fourth feria. Likewise Josiah, in the eighteenth year of his reign, after 970 years, sacrificed the Passover on the 12th Kalends of April, the second feria. But Ezra, at the time when the seven weeks from the restored and completed temple and the restored city of Jerusalem were completed, after 114 years, sacrificed the Passover on the 12th Kalends of April, the Sabbath. But also Jesus himself, our Lord and Savior, after 579 years, ate the Passover with his disciples on the 6th Ides of April, the fifth feria: and he suffered on the next day, the 5th Ides of April, the sixth feria. This is Christ Jesus, who according to the flesh was a son of Abraham, in whose mystery Isaac, born to a hundred-year-old father, carried wood on his shoulders: so that from this it might be shown that adversaries are to be overcome and believers are to obtain salvation through wood, that is, through the sign of the cross. He himself is Abraham, to whom God said: in your seed all nations of the earth will be blessed. Does anyone, then, obtain mercy in Isaac? No, but every man believing in God will be blessed in Christ.

And therefore Abraham, who was called a prophet by the Lord God, since he clearly knew in the sacrament of Christ that a son was born to him at a hundred years of age, who after the third day abolished death and bound that strong one and our enemy: he counted all his servants, and on account of the hundred-year birth he tripled the C and made the sign T, to which he also added XVIQ, that is, in the name of Jesus, and he overcame his adversaries and freed his brother’s son Lot from their captivity. And rightly our Lord and Master himself said to the Jews: if you are sons of Abraham, do the deeds of your father. But those who heard this from Christ chose to do not the deeds of Abraham but the wicked deeds of the devil. And for that reason the Gentiles, doing the deeds of their father Abraham with the sign of the cross and the name of Jesus, daily fight against the apostate angels, armed with the word of God, and free men from the captivity of Satan. This is Abraham who believed when called at seventy-five years of age, and although it was foretold by God himself that he would have many sons, like the stars of the sky, yet through his only son, whose image that immaculate lamb slain in Egypt bore, both the first-formed Adam and every believing man obtained mercy from God.

Finally, let us return to Exodus, that is, to the first day of Passover, and from there let us count the years in order up to Christ. In these years we will find great and wondrous mysteries revealed to us. Counting, therefore, in order: from the day they departed from Egypt up to the day they were to depart from the wilderness, 40 years. Then, departing from the wilderness and entering and taking possession of the land promised to them by the Lord, from Joshua son of Nun up to Samuel, the judge and priest of God, according to the word of the apostle Paul, who, taught by the Spirit of the Lord, reported that they had completed 450 years. This is the same Samuel who, by the command of God, anointed Saul as king, who first reigned over the people of the Jews for 40 years. After him reigned David for 40 years and 6 months. His son Solomon for 40 years. Rehoboam for 17 years. Abijah for 6 years. Asa for 41 years. Jehoshaphat for 25 years. Jehoram for 8 years. Ahaziah for 1 year. Athaliah for 40 years. Joash for 40 years. Amaziah for 29 years. Uzziah for 52 years. Jotham for 16 years. Ahaz for 16 years. Hezekiah for 29 years. Manasseh for 55 years. Amon for 2 years. Josiah for 31 years. Jehoahaz for 3 months. Jehoiakim for 11 years. Jehoiachin his son, who is also called Jeconiah, for 100 days. These are the years of the Kings, 495, but from the Exodus, 995.

and Judea was captured by King Nebuchadnezzar, who, after transporting Jeconiah to Babylon, set up Zedekiah as king of Judah in Jerusalem. After eleven years he besieged him, and killed his sons before his own eyes; and thus he blinded Zedekiah himself and ordered him to be led in chains to Babylon, and set him in a mill, where he also died. Then was fulfilled concerning him what the Lord had said through the prophet Ezekiel: "And I will spread my net over him, and he will be caught in the conclusion, and I will lead him to Babylon in the land of the Chaldeans, and he will not see that land, and he will die there." Likewise the prophet Jeremiah prophesied concerning him and his whole people, saying: "Thus says the Lord: I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes and the remnant in Jerusalem who are left in that land, and those who dwell in Egypt; and I will give them over to dispersion in all the kingdoms of the earth, and to reproach, and to a byword, and to hatred, and to execration, in every place to which I drive them out; and I will send upon them famine and death and the sword, until they vanish from the land which I gave them.

Therefore, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, one thousand and six years from the Exodus were completed. And then the Jewish people, who had not observed the law but rather, against the will of God, had sacrificed their own sons to idols, were themselves led into captivity; and their city, which bore the type of the synagogue, was burned by the enemies and uprooted, and that temple, which had been built in the mystery of Adam, was itself razed to its foundations and leveled to the ground. And thus, for us who were foreseen to believe in the last days, a great sacrament, as I have said, was being demonstrated. For if the people themselves and the city deserved to be destroyed, what had the temple of God done to suffer this? Unless it is truly established that it was made, as I have said, in the mystery of the one who first transgressed the law of God and was the father of all sinners: and therefore it was necessary not only for Adam to be succored, but also for all sinners who were foreseen to be future sons of Abraham; and deservedly, for that city and temple, before they were overthrown, it was promised that they would be restored after seventy years. And this was what was already being demonstrated from the beginning of the world in Abraham, the father of the faith: who, when he had completed seventy years from the day of his birth, could not depart from his land unless, in the likeness of the Pentateuch, whose entire commandments the people of Israel were not to observe, five years were added, and thus, believing in God, it was accounted to him for righteousness. This, therefore, is Abraham, of whom we spoke above, that he believed when called at seventy-five years of age.

To which seventy-five years one year is added, and they become seventy-six. But who is this one that is added? That one, of course, who from his seed is called the one-year-old immaculate lamb. Therefore, from one thousand and six let us subtract seventy-six, and nine hundred and thirty years remain, upon the completion of which Adam ended his life. After this, however, let us demonstrate the time of the captivity of seventy years. For when nine hundred and ninety-five years from the Exodus up to Jeconiah are completed, let us add the eleven of Zedekiah, which eleven years are counted within the body of the seventy years. But let us see in what manner. From the time Jerusalem was captured, Zedekiah himself reigned eleven years. After him, Nebuchadnezzar, who led him in chains into the land of the Chaldeans, reigned twenty-five years. Evil-Merodach reigned twelve years. Belshazzar reigned four years. And Darius, son of Cyrus, reigned eighteen years. These are in themselves seventy years. And thus Cyrus received the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. He is that Cyrus at the beginning of whose reign, with the treasures of the house of God, the people of the Jews returned to their land. From which time we must compute the weeks. For concerning these, we recall that the angel of God said to Daniel: Seventy weeks are shortened for your people and for that holy city, so that sin may be consumed and so that sins may be sealed and injustices be wiped away and injustices be expiated and so that eternal justice may be brought back and so that the vision and prophecy may be sealed and so that the holy of holies may be anointed.

and you will know and understand from the end of the discourse, that it may be answered and that Jerusalem may be built up until the leader Christ, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks: and the street and the wall will be turned and built, and the times will be emptied! and after these sixty-two weeks the anointing will perish and there is no judgment in him: and he will corrupt the city and that holy one with that leader who will come, and they will be cut off in the cataclysm, and until the end of the shortened war of destruction. And he will confirm the testament for many with one week: and in the middle of the week my sacrifice and libation will be taken away, and upon that holy one the curse of devastations, and until the consummation of time a consummation will be given upon this devastation. "And he will confirm," it says, "the testament for many with one week." This, therefore, is the one week which the angel separated from the seventy and placed in the last times of the age. Which week we recognize to have seven years: in which first Enoch and Elijah must come, and through their prophecy confirm the gospel, that is the new testament, to a great multitude. For thus we have heard the angel say to Daniel: "He will confirm the testament for many with one week." "And in the middle," it says, "of the week my sacrifice and libation will be taken away." But the middle of the week shows a time and times and half a time: which is three years and six months, which are, according to the Apocalypse, one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

During those days the Antichrist will cause great devastation; and therefore at that time none of the Christians will be able to offer sacrifice to God, because the Antichrist himself will begin to sit in the temple of God and, to those who are ignorant, to affirm himself as God: as it is necessary that he kill the Law, the Lord, and our Saviour by the breath of his mouth and empty the presence of his coming and consummate the world in him, as it is written: "and upon that holy place, an abomination of desolations, and until the consummation of time, a consummation will be given upon this desolation." After these things, let us return to the seven and thus to the sixty-two weeks. Those seven weeks contain forty-six years; when these are completed, at that time Jerusalem was known to be restored, and the street through its middle was seen to be built, and the wall around the city itself was erected, which strongly protected all those things that were within. In that city, that temple which had been destroyed in the likeness of Adam was again built in his name over forty-six years and was anointed with the oil of the mystery of the Holy Spirit, as had been said by the angel, so that the vision and prophecy might be fulfilled and the holy of holies be anointed. That itself was the holy of holies anointed in the image of man, which, together with the city, was again destroyed by our Lord himself in the time of Vespasian on account of the faithlessness of the Jews.

For thus it was written in the same chapter which we are expounding: "And after sixty-two weeks the anointing will perish, and there is no judgment in it, and the city and that holy place will be corrupted with that leader who will come, and they will be cut off in the cataclysm, and until the end of the shortened war of destruction." "They will be cut off," it says, "in the cataclysm." Of whom is this said? Surely of the Jews themselves, who after the coming of Christ in that siege and assault of Vespasian were cut off and cast out of their city, into which they do not return even at the very end of the shortened war. But what is this shortened war, if not the kingdom of the Antichrist which is to rise up against the people of Christians? These are the days of which the Lord says in the Gospel: "And unless those days were shortened, not every flesh would be saved." The temple was therefore restored in the name of the first-formed, who is called Adam, as we said above, after forty-six years. But this is shown in the name Adam, since among the Greeks the first letter of his name is called alpha, the second delta, the third again alpha, and the fourth mi, and thus the number forty-six is made. Which number of years is understood thus: from that day on which the people of the Jews returned to their land, Cyrus reigned over the Persians for thirty-one years; after him Cambyses for nine years, and forty were completed. But after forty years, Smerdis the Magus reigned for seven months, which months are not counted by us. Why?

For in the seventh month of Cyrus they laid the foundations of the temple, and from then until the second year of Darius they did not complete the work on it. Then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied, through whom the Lord exhorted them, and they came together with one mind and in a four-year period finished the remaining work of the temple. This itself is clearly shown in the first book of Ezra, that in the sixth year of Darius the temple of God was completed in all respects. To the 40 we add the 6 of Darius, and they become 40 and 6. To these years three are added in the mystery of the passion and resurrection of Christ, and the seventh week is fulfilled. And then the square, the temple, the wall, and the city itself, with the forty-ninth year completed, were shown to be perfected and protected in all respects. But this whole work was being accomplished in the sacrament of the Church. Finally, let us see what the 49 years themselves signify. For not without cause did God wish so great, that is, a prophetic work to be completed in seven weeks. Moreover, it is understood to have been prophetic in this way, when from the 49 years eighteen are separated in the name of Jesus Christ and 31 remain: when these are completed, Christ Jesus suffered and rose again for the salvation of believers, and through himself showed all things perfected: and the temple, which he fashioned not with human hands but with his own sacred hands by the command of his father, he anointed not with oil but with the Spirit of God, and he built the city, that is, the Church, with sanctified stones, and established the square in it.

But the street is a straight and level way, in which those who walk arrive at eternal life. For this city He established a strong and impregnable wall, that is, His holy name, through which name He subdues all adversaries beneath its feet. And behold, the grace of God, how splendid and admirable things have been shown to us through the thirty-nine years, which years, on the contrary, demonstrate a great calamity about to come upon the unfaithful and those who persecute the servants of God. But let us see by what reasoning: for this world, in which the just and the unjust have dwelt from the beginning of the age, was completed in six days, upon the completion of which the blessed seventh day, that coming eternal Sabbath, is to follow. In these days, therefore, from the beginning, not only for the devil and his angels but also for all sinners, fire has been prepared by God. In whose flame that rich Phineas was shown by the Son of God Himself to be burned. This is the fire of Gehenna, in the likeness of which the furnace, by command of the king, was kindled seven times as much and grew by forty-nine cubits, and consumed the adversaries of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, and did not harm the three youths themselves, protected by the Son of God (in our mystery, who are the third kind of men). Therefore, upon the completion of forty-nine years after the seventy of the captivity, there came to be one hundred and nineteen years. These one hundred and nineteen years are joined to those which were counted from the Exodus to Jeconiah, nine hundred and ninety-five years, and together they become years up to the restoration of Jerusalem, upon the completion of the seventh week, one thousand one hundred and fourteen.

When the seventh week is completed, it is necessary for us to turn to the sixty-two weeks, which contain 434 years. When these were completed, it was necessary for Christ to be born according to the flesh. Concerning this, Simeon, a just man, holding him in his hands, said to Mary his mother: Behold, this one is placed for the fall and resurrection of many in Israel and for a sign which will be contradicted. But not only Simeon, but also those 434 years themselves, and the sign of the cross, and the time of the passion, and the third day of his resurrection demonstrated this. But let us see in what manner: for we said above that a son was born to Abraham when he was a hundred years old in the mystery of Christ, and we demonstrated that no one in Israel received a blessing, or can now receive a blessing, except in the seed of Abraham himself, which is Christ. And therefore, in the sacrament of Christ, from the 434 years, first one hundred are separated, and 344 remain. The 300 years, of course, showed the sign of the cross, and 34 remained: from these, three are deducted on account of the day of his resurrection, and 31 years remained, upon the completion of which it was necessary for Christ to suffer on account of the sins of the believers. Therefore, let us add these same 434 years to the previous total, and let us find the years from the Exodus to the birth of Christ to be 1548. Desiring to know the time of this birth, let us carefully count these 1548 years from the Exodus, that is, from the first verse of the tablet, and we will arrive at the day of his birth.

This day, the sixth of the sixteen-year cycle, is found in the thirteenth verse on the fifth day before the Kalends of April, a Wednesday. How splendid and divine is the providence of the Lord, that on that day on which the sun was made, on that same day Christ would be born, on the fifth day before the Kalends of April, a Wednesday. And therefore concerning him, the prophet Malachi rightly said to the people: "The sun of justice will rise for you, and healing is in its wings." This is the sun of justice, in whose wings healing was prefigured. Concerning this, Moses is also recognized in the canticle, saying: "And he yearned over his young, and spread his wings." He is the Lord, in whose likeness this annual sun completes its course through 365 days and a quarter part of a day. This quarter part of a day itself has three hours. Three hours, moreover, bear the image of those three days which at the beginning of the world were without sun and moon. And therefore, just as three hours, counted four times in a four-year period, made one day of twelve hours, so also those three days, claiming three months for themselves through each of the four seasons, showed that the year was completed after twelve months. And thus, through this multiform trinity, the twelve hours themselves showed the one Gospel divided into four parts, and the three months through the four seasons, that is, through the four evangelists chosen by Christ, revealed to us the twelve apostles.

These are the apostles, by whose discourses we, being edified, have recognized that our Lord suffered in the sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when he himself was thirty-one years of age. Therefore, to the sixteenth year and the thirty-first we add eighteen in the name of Jesus himself, and the number becomes sixty-five: to which three hundred are lacking to complete the year according to the course of the sun. Three hundred, however, among the Greeks is denoted by a single letter which is called tau, and it clearly shows to all the sign of the cross of tau. Behold, again, let us now truly believe that on the fifth day before the Kalends of April Christ was born in the flesh: on which day we have proved the sun was made. We must show that this very thing was not empty, but was pre-shown for our salvation. For on the fourth day, when the sun was made, on that same day the moon was also made on the fifteenth; on the next day, however, it was the sixteenth; on the third, indeed, the seventeenth: and thus Adam was formed from the earth, who through his disobedience brought not only upon himself but also upon us an unjust death: which death our Lord Jesus, trampling it, suffered on the fifteenth moon, and rested in the heart of the earth on the sixteenth; on the third day, however, on the seventeenth moon, he returned from the dead from the foundations of the earth: and thus to Adam himself and to all believing in him he restored eternal life. Just as through the course of the sun the sign of tau and the time of the passion was demonstrated, so also through the course of the moon the third day of his resurrection was clearly shown. For from the first day on which the fifth moon was made.

Then, from that point, for fifteen days it was seen in the sky; but on the sixteenth day, just as in the sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, it was not seen by men, as if dead; likewise on the seventeenth day it was not seen; but on the eighteenth day, in the likeness and in the name of Jesus himself, after the third day it was restored and rose again toward evening, and it demonstrated our own future resurrection toward evening, that is, in the last hour of the age. Behold, therefore, how much the day of the Lord’s nativity reveals to us. That day of nativity was found from Exodus, as we have said, after 1,548 years. We show that these years from Exodus have been truly collected by us, since we also demonstrate that the reckoning of those years is not empty. For the holy and divine Lord, in order to show us that he is prescient of future things, also revealed in those very years the time in which the water that washes away sins was to be sanctified by his son in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

And therefore, just as Abraham, when he wished to attack those who had led away his brother’s son Lot captive, first counted his servants 18 in the name of Jesus, and others, on account of the hundred-year generation, tripling in the sacrament of three days, he counted 300 and made the sign of the cross, the letter T: so also let us subtract fifteen times one hundred from the 1,548 years, and 48 remain; from these, after subtracting 18 in the name of Jesus, 30 years are found; when these are completed, the Lord Jesus, from his birth, was baptized by John in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar; in whose sixteenth year he suffered and rose again. Let us therefore add again 31 years to the total, and all together from the Exodus to the Passion become 579 years. From that time, that is, from the Passion to the fifth year of Gordian, with Arrianus and Papus as consuls, 215 years are completed; from the Exodus, however, all years are 794. Now let us count all these years from the Exodus, that is, from the first line of the table, through those seven sixteen-year periods, until we have completed all the aforementioned years, and then, arriving at the third line of the first sixteen-year period, we will find that, according to the Jews, Passover falls on the 12th day before the Kalends of April, on the third day of the week; according to us, however, on the third line of the first sixteen-year period, the 7th day before the Kalends of April falls on the Lord’s day. Thus, by proceeding in that same order, if we wish to find the Passover days of the Jews and Christians all the way to the end of the world, we have not erred.

And therefore let us always without ceasing give thanks to God the Father Almighty, who has called us to such great grace and has revealed the divine sacraments, through Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord and Savior. [For those wishing to find it: om. c hac c et om c. — At the foot of the Reims codex this table is found: Table composed by Wallis according to the author’s intention: The next following Lord’s Day is the Passover of the Christians.]