30. Equinoxes and solstices
THE RECKONING OF TIME
30. EQUINOXES AND SOLSTICES
On the subject of the equinoxes and solstices, the opinion of many learned men, both worldly [philosophers] and Christians, is straightforward: the equinoxes are to be observed on the 8th kalends of April [25
March] and the 8th kalends of October [24 September], the solstices on the 8th kalends of July [24 June] and the 8th kalends of January [25
December].265 Thus Pliny, who was both an orator and a philosopher, says in the second book of his /372/ Natural History: Now the Sun itself has four turning-points: twice when the night is equal to the day, in spring and autumn, when he arrives at the mid-point of the Earth in the eighth degree of Aries or Libra, and twice when the proportions [of day and night] are reversed: in winter, in the eighth degree of Capricorn, when the days grow longer, and in summer, in the eighth degree of Cancer when the nights grow longer. Since an equal part of the universe is above and below the Earth at all times, it is the angle of the zodiac which is the cause of this inequality. The signs which are upright when they rise hold their light for a longer time; those which rise at an angle, pass on in a briefer period oftime.266 Hippocrates the premier physician,writing to King Antigonus on how he should should watch over himself during the course of the year in order to prevent illness, says this: Let us begin therefore with the solstice, that is, with the 8th kalends of January [25 December]. From this day forward up until the spring equinox, a period of 90 days, moisture
[humor] increases in bodies. This season activates a man's phlegm, / 373/ so that people frequently catch catarrh, [su¡er from] dripping of the uvula, pain in the side, weakness of vision, and ringing in the ears, and cannot smell anything. At such a season, take high-quality food, hot and seasoned with assafoetida, with pepper and mustard. Wash your head seldom. However, purge without ceasing. Indulge in wine and do not stint on sex for the ¢rst forty days. Ninety days follow from the abovementioned day until the vernal equinox. From the above-mentioned 8th kalends of April [25 March], until the 8th ides of May [8 May], there
265 Cf. Isidore, DNR 8 (205.1^5); Etym. 5.34; Bede himself held this opinion when he wrote On Times 7.
266 Pliny, HN 2.17.81 (1.224). Because of variations in the angle formed by the intersection of the ecliptic and the horizon (see Commentary on ch. 25), some zodiac signs will rise more or less ''upright'', i.e. perpendicular to the horizon, while others will rise at an angle to the horizon. The former will require less time to clear the horizon than the latter, and thus will ''hold their light for a longer time''.
TRANSLATION
are 45 days. In these days the sweet humours (that is, blood) increase in man. Eat food that is fragrant and very pungent. Again, from the 8th ides of May [8 May] until the 8th kalends of July [24 June] are 45 days. In these days the bitter bile (that is, red choler) increases. Eat sweet foods, indulge in wine, abstain from sex, and fast very little. The summer season begins on the 8th kalends of July [24 June]. At that time, the increase of red bile falls o¡, and black bile waxes; it is held that this occurs until the autumn equinox, that is, until the cold season. For ninety days, use all such foods as are sweet, fragrant and somewhat cold, and which act gently upon the stomach. From the autumn equinox, which is from the 8th kalends of October [24 September], until the 8th kalends of January [25
December], the bitterness of the black bile wanes and the density of the [phlegmatic] humour increases. Use all such foods as are hot and very pungent, abstain from sex and wash little. From the above-mentioned
[date] /374/ until the Vergiliae [=Pleiades] set (that is, until the 6th ides of February [8 February]) there are 96 days, and then the Pleiades set. From that hour blood increases in men. It behoves one, therefore, to eat food that is very pleasant, and to indulge in wine and sex. There are 97 days in winter.267
This is what some of the pagans say; and very many of the Church's teachers recount things which are not dissimilar268 to these about time, saying that our Lord was conceived and su¡ered on the 8th kalends of April [25 March], at the spring equinox, and that he was born at the winter solstice on the 8th kalends of January [25 December]. And again, that the Lord's blessed precursor and Baptist was conceived at the autumn equinox on the 8th kalends of October [24 September] and born at the summer solstice on the 8th kalends of July [24 June]. To this they add the explanation that it was ¢tting that the Creator of eternal light should be conceived and born along with the increase of temporal light, and that the herald of penance,who must decrease, should be engendered and born at a time when the light is diminishing.269 But because, as we have learned in connection with the calculation of Easter, the judgment
267 Ps.-Hippocrates, Ad Antigonum regem 8^9, ed. E. Liechtenhan, J. Kollesch and D. Nickel, in Marcelli de medicamentis liber, ed. M. Niedermann, 2nd ed. Corpus medicorum latinorum 5 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968):1.18^25.
268 For examples of such statements in the works of the Fathers, see Jones, BOT 366.
269 See BOT 366; for John the Baptist's statement ''he must increase, but I must decrease'', see John 3.30.
THE RECKONING OF TIME
of all the men of the East (and especially of the Egyptians, who, it is agreed, were the most skilled in calculation) is in particular agreement that the spring equinox is on the 12th kalends of April [21 March], we think that the three other turning-points of the seasons ought to be observed a little before [the date] given in the popular treatises.270
So let us speak brie£y about the spring equinox, which is the chief of the four annual changes we mentioned, as the Creation of the world indicates.271 The rule of the Church's observance, con¢rmed at the Council of Nicaea, holds that Easter Day /375/ is to be sought between the 11th kalends of April [22 March] and the 7th kalends of May [25
April]. Again, the rule of catholic teaching commands that Easter is not to be celebrated before the passing of the spring equinox.272 Therefore he who thinks that the 8th kalends of April [25 March] is the equinox is obliged either to declare that it is licit to celebrate Easter before the equinox, or to deny that it is licit to celebrate Easter before the 7th kalends of April [26 March], and also to con¢rm that the Pasch which our Lord kept with his disciples on the night before he su¡ered was either not on the 9th kalends of April [24 March] or was before the equinox.273
For a doctrine not only of our own day but also of the Mosaic law decrees that the day of the Paschal feast cannot be celebrated before this equinox has passed. Anatolius declares: ItisplainthatPhiloandJosephus teach thus; thus did their elders Agathabolus, and Aristobolus of Panaeda his student, who was one of the seventy elders sent by the priests to King
Ptolemy to translate the Hebrew books into the Greek tongue, and who answered many [questions] about the traditions of Moses which the king proposed and asked particularly. So these men, when they explained the questions about Exodus, said that the Pasch could not be sacri¢ced before the spring equinox had passed.274
270 Bede is not interested in ¢xing the dates of the autumn equinox or the solstices, as they are of no computistical consequence. For a signal exception, see LettertoWicthed 6.
271 See above, ch. 6.
272 Cf. Dionysius Exiguus, Ep. ad Petronium (65.13^27); Prologus Cyrilli 4 (339^
340).
273 The traditional ''historic''date of the Passionwas 25 March (see above); therefore Christ's Last Supper could not have been a Passover meal (as the Synoptics indicate) if the equinox were on the 25th, since Passover must follow the equinox. Cf. Letter toWicthed
12.
274 Anatolius 2 as recorded in Ru¢nus' trans. of Eusebius, HE 7.32.16^17 (725.1^8).