Section 505
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COUNCIL OF NICE. 23 faith, we believe," &c., in order to show that it was no new de termination, but an apostolic tradition. Accordingly, no date is given to this decision, neither the day nor the year being men tioned. But with regard to Easter, it is said, " we have resolved as follows," in order to show that all were expected to obey.* Easter clay was^ fixed on the Sundayjmmediately followingLthe jiew moonjvhich wasjiearest after thermal equinox, because it is certain that our Saviour rose from the dead "orT'the Sunday which next succeeded the passover of the Jews. In order to find more readily the first day of the moon, and consequently the four teenth, the council ordained that the cycle of nineteen years should be made use of, because at the end of this period, the new moons return very nearly to the same days of the solar year. This cycle, which is denominated, in Greek, EvvsaKaideKaeTqpie, had been discovered about seven hundred and fifty years before, by Meto, a mathematician of Athens, and it has since been term ed the golden number, because it was customary to mark in the calendar with letters of gold, the days of the new moon. It has been thought that the synod assigned the task of this calculation to Eusebius of Cesarea. It is certain, however, that he had com posed a paschal canon of nineteen years, and that he had explain ed the nature and origin of this question in a treatise dedicated to the emperor Constantine, who gave him thanks for it in a letter. But notwithstanding the decision of the council there were some quartodecimans, as they were termed, who remained pertina ciously attached to the celebration of Easter on the fourteenth of the moon, and among others the Audeans, schismatics of Meso potamia. They found fault with the council, reproachfully re marking, that this was the first time that the ancient tradition, through complaisance for Constantine, had been departed from. The Synod was also desirous of applying a remedy to the schism of the Meletians, who had occasioned a division in Egypt for twenty-four years, and who encouraged the Arians by their union with the party. Meletius was treated with considerable lenity — more, it was thought, than he deserved. He was per* Synod. Arim. et Seleuc. Epist. p. 873.