On the Computation of Easter 17–23

Next let us see what these forty-nine years signify. For not without cause did God wish so great, that is, so prophetic, a work to be completed in seven weeks. It is understood to have been prophetic in this way: when from the forty-nine years eighteen are set apart in the name of Jesus Christ, thirty-one remain; when these were completed, Christ Jesus suffered and rose for the salvation of believers, and through himself showed all things perfected: the temple, which he formed not with human hands but with his own sacred hands at his Father's command, he anointed not with oil but with the Spirit of God; he built the city, that is, the church, with sanctified stones, and set a street in it. The street is the straight and level way on which those who walk come to eternal life. For this city he set up a strong and impregnable wall, that is, his holy name, through which name he puts all adversaries under his feet. And see, by God's grace, how splendid and wonderful things have been shown us through these forty-nine years, which years, on the contrary, show that a great calamity will come upon the unbelievers and those who persecute the servants of God. Let us see by what reasoning. This world, in which the righteous and the unrighteous have lived from the beginning of the world, was completed in six days; when these were completed, the seventh day, that coming day of the eternal Sabbath, was blessed. In these days, then, from the beginning, fire was prepared by God not only for the devil and his angels but also for all sinners. In its flame that rich man Finaeus was shown by the Son of God himself to be burning. This is the fire of Gehenna, in whose likeness the furnace, heated seven times by the king's command, rose forty-nine cubits and consumed the adversaries of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, and did not harm the three young men themselves, protected by the Son of God (in the mystery of us, who are the third race of human beings). When the forty-nine years were completed after the seventy of the captivity, then, there were 119 years. These 119 years are joined to the 995 years counted from the exodus to Jeconiah, and together they make, up to the restoration of Jerusalem at the completion of the seventh week, 1,114 years.

When the seventh week was completed, we must turn to the sixty-two weeks, which contain 434 years. When these were completed, Christ had to be born according to the flesh. Of him Simeon, a righteous man, holding him in his hands, said at once to Mary his mother: “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that will be spoken against.” And not only Simeon, but the 434 years themselves also showed both the sign of the cross and the time of the passion and the third day of his resurrection. Let us see how. We said above that a son was born to Abraham at a hundred years in the mystery of Christ, and showed that no one in Israel obtained blessing, or can now obtain blessing, except in the seed of Abraham himself, which is Christ. And therefore, in the sacrament of Christ, from the 434 years a hundred are first set apart, and 334 remain. The three hundred years, of course, showed the sign of the cross, T, and thirty-four remained; from these, when three were subtracted for the day of his resurrection, thirty-one years remained, at the completion of which Christ had to suffer for the sins of believers. Let us add these 434 years to the sum above, and we find 1,548 years from the exodus to the birth of Christ. Wishing to know the time of this birth, let us carefully count these 1,548 years from the exodus, that is, from the first line of the table, and we shall arrive at the day of his birth. This day is found in the sixth sixteen-year cycle, in the thirteenth line, on Wednesday 28 March.

O how splendid and divine is the providence of the Lord, that Christ should be born on the very day on which the sun was made, Wednesday 28 March! And therefore the prophet Malachi rightly said of him to the people: “The sun of righteousness shall rise for you, and healing is in his wings.” This is the sun of righteousness, in whose wings healing was foreshown. Moses too is recognized as speaking of him in his song: “And over his young he longed, spreading out his wings.” He is the Lord in whose likeness this yearly sun completes its course through 365 days and a quarter of a day. This quarter of a day has three hours. The three hours bear the image of those three days at the beginning of the world which were without sun and moon. And therefore, as three hours counted four times in four years make one day of twelve hours, so those three days, each of the four seasons claiming three months for itself, showed a year completed after twelve months. And so, through this manifold trinity, the twelve hours too showed one gospel divided into four parts, and the three months through the four seasons, that is, through the four evangelists, made known to us the twelve apostles chosen by Christ.

These are the apostles, built up by whose words we have learned that our Lord suffered in the sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when he was thirty-one years old. To the sixteenth year and the thirty-one, then, let us add eighteen in the name of Jesus himself, and the number sixty-five results; three hundred are lacking from these to complete the year according to the course of the sun. Three hundred among the Greeks is marked by a single letter called tau, and it plainly shows to all the sign of the cross, T. See, again, let us now truly believe that Christ was born according to the flesh on 28 March, the day on which we have proved that the sun was made.

We must also show that this itself was not empty, but was foreshown for our salvation. For on the fourth day, when the sun was made, on that same day the moon also was made fifteen days old; on the next day it was sixteen, and on the third, seventeen; and so Adam was formed from the earth, who by his disobedience brought unjust death not only on himself but also on us. Trampling on this death, our Lord Jesus suffered on the fifteenth of the moon, rested in the heart of the earth on the sixteenth, and on the third day, with the moon found seventeen, returned from the underworld, from the foundations of the earth; and so he restored eternal life to Adam himself and to all who believe in him. And as the sign tau and the time of the passion were shown by the course of the sun, so the third day of his resurrection was plainly shown by the course of the moon. For from the first day on which the moon was made fifteen days old, it was then seen in the sky for fifteen days; but on the sixteenth day, as in the sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, it was not seen by people, as though dead; likewise on the seventeenth day it was not seen; but on the eighteenth, in the likeness and in the name of Jesus himself, it too, restored after the third day at evening, rose again, and showed that our resurrection, of all of us, will be at evening, that is, at the last hour of the world.

See, then, how much the day of the Lord's birth shows us. This day of his birth was found, as we said, to be 1,548 years after the exodus. We show that these years from the exodus have been truly gathered by us in this way, since we also show that the reckoning of these years is not empty. For the holy and divine Lord, to show us that he foreknows the future, revealed in these 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, as Abraham, when he wished to overcome those who had led Lot, his brother's son, captive, first numbered his servants as eighteen in the name of Jesus, and then, tripling the others because of the birth at a hundred, in the sacrament of the three days, numbered three hundred and made T, the sign of the cross: so let us too subtract fifteen hundreds from the 1,548 years, and forty-eight remain; when eighteen are taken away from these in the name of Jesus, thirty years are found, at the completion of which 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. Let us add again to the sum, then, thirty-one years, and all the years from the exodus to the passion together make 1,579. From that time, that is, from the passion, to the fifth year of Gordian, in the consulship of Arrianus and Papus, 215 years have been completed, and from the exodus all the years are 1,794.

Counting all these years from the exodus, that is, from the first line of the table, through those seven sixteen-year cycles, let us complete all the years mentioned above; and then, coming to the third line of the first cycle, we shall find the Passover according to the Jews on Tuesday 21 March, while according to us, in the third line of the first cycle, the Lord's day falls on 26 March. Proceeding in this order to the future, then, until the end of the world, wishing to find the days of the Passover of the Jews and of the Christians, we have not erred. And therefore let us give thanks always and without ceasing to God the almighty Father, who has called us to so great a grace and revealed divine sacraments, through Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord and Savior.