5, the full moon fell on a Sunday, and yet the rules
gave _that same Sunday_ for Easter Day. Much discussion was produced by
this circumstance in 1818: but a repetition of it in 1845 was nearly
altogether prevented by a timely[742] reference to the intention of those
who conducted the Gregorian reformation of the Calendar. Nevertheless,
seeing that the apparent error of the Calendar is due to the precept in the
Act of Parliament, which is both erroneous and insufficient, and that the
difficulty will recur so often as Easter Day falls on the day of full moon,
it may be advisable to select from the two articles cited in the note such
of their conclusions and rules, without proof or controversy, as will
enable the reader to understand the main points of the Easter question,
and, should he desire it, to calculate for himself the Easter of the old or
new style, for any given year.

1. In the very earliest age of Christianity, a controversy arose as to the
mode of keeping Easter, some desiring to perpetuate the _Passover_, others
to keep the _festival of the Resurrection_. The first afterwards obtained
the name of _Quartadecimans_, from their Easter being always kept on the
_fourteenth day_ of the moon (Exod. xii. 18, Levit. xxiii. 5.). But though
it is unquestionable that a Judaizing party existed, it is also likely that
many dissented on chronological grounds. It is clear that no _perfect_
anniversary can take place, except when the fourteenth of the moon, and
with it the passover, falls on a Friday. Suppose, for instance, it falls on
a Tuesday: one of three things must be {358} done. Either (which seems
never to have been proposed) the crucifixion and resurrection must be
celebrated on Tuesday and Sunday, with a wrong interval; or the former on
Tuesday, the latter on Thursday, abandoning the first day of the week; or
the former on Friday, and the latter on Sunday, abandoning the paschal
commemoration of the crucifixion.

The last mode has been, as every one knows, finally adopted. The disputes
of the first three centuries did not turn on any _calendar_ questions. The
Easter question was merely the symbol of the struggle between what we may
call the Jewish and Gentile sects of Christians: and it nearly divided the
Christian world, the Easterns, for the most part, being _Quartadecimans_.
It is very important to note that there is no recorded dispute about a
method of predicting the new moon, that is, no general dispute leadin