65. The Great Paschal Cycle
TRANSLATION
men, shows us the symbol of the active life, and when turned back towards the heavens, of the speculative life. Or else it shows us in this phase love of our neighbour, and in that phase love of our Maker. Or else the increase of its light, turned in this direction, admonishes us to practice good works before others; turned in the other direction, it admonishes us to do the same good works solely in view of a heavenly reward. In this direction, it is so that our light may so shine before men that they may see our good works; in the other direction so that they might glorify our Father who is in heaven.107
By the ¢rst day of the week, which is the proper solemnity of the New Testament, we are taught to bear patiently every adversity, and even death itself, in this present time for Christ's sake, and in the hope of our future resurrection in Christ. For we hear from the Apostle: For if His
Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, He who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies as well, by the indwelling of His Spirit in us.108 Because the gift of this Spirit is sevenfold, it can, not inappropriately, be understood by the number of the seven lunar days through which this aforementioned ¢rst day of the week ^ that is,
Sunday ^ circulates. But if anyone wishes to know more about the mystery of the Paschal season, let him read the letter of St Augustine to Januarius on the calculation of Easter.109 /460/
65. THE GREAT PASCHAL CYCLE
When the lunar and solar cycles are multiplied together, a Great Paschal Cycle is completed in 532 years. For whether you multiply 19 by 28, or 28 by 19, it makes 532. Hence this cycle has 28 19-year lunar cycles and 19 solar [cycles] (which are completed in 28 years); 19 times 7 leap-year days, that is, 133; 28 times 228 solar months, that is 6,384; 28 times 235 lunar months, that is 6,580;110 28 times 6,935 days (leap-year days excluded), that is 194,180; with the leap-year days added, 194,313. When it has completed this total through the sequence of months and days, it immediately returns upon itself, and recommences everything pertaining to the course of the Sun and Moon in exactly the same fashion as it
107 Matthew 5.16.
108 Romans 8.11.
109 I.e. Augustine, Ep. 55.
110 Jones' ed. reads ''vdlxxx'' here, but this is evidently a typographical error. The medieval codices furnish the correct ¢gure: cf. Oxford, St John's College 17, fol. 103rb.
THE RECKONING OF TIME
happened before. But the years of our Lord's Incarnation continue to increase in their particular column, and the indictions in the rank in which they are conveyed [i.e. the column in which they are listed] do not a¡ect in any way the course of the stars [i.e. Sun and Moon], and hence do not a¡ect the order of the calculation of Easter. To make this clearer, it has pleased us to present this cycle, fully worked out, at the front of this present work.111 It takes its beginning from the 532nd year of the Lord's Incarnation, where Dionysius began his ¢rst cycle,112 and extends up to the year 1063 of this most holy Incarnation. Thus whoever reads them can, with unerring gaze, not only look forward to the present and future, but can also look back at each and every date of Easter in the past; and in order to clarify an ancient text, he can clearly identify all the years, since it sometimes is doubtful when and of what sort they were. /463/ 111 For a transcription of Bede's 532-year great cycle, see Appendix 2.
112 It should be pointed out that the fact that Dionysius began his cycle in AD 532 has nothing to do with the 532-year Great Paschal Cycle. To begin with, Dionysius did not know about this cycle; secondly, he seems to have taken over his chronology from accepted
Roman sources, without much critical attention (cf. Introduction, section 3). Bede seems to have known better than to make anything of this coincidence.