Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1898 — THE DATE OF EASTER. [ARTICLE]

THE DATE OF EASTER.

Why It Is Sometimes Barly and at Olher Times Late. The date of Easter is determined by the ecclesiastical calendar of the Catholic Church. It is a very complicated and laborious affair invented by Lilius, a Neapolitan astronomer and sage, under Pope Gregory XIII., at the close of the sixteenth century. It would be preposterous to tax the brains of modern readers with the abstrusce calculations by which the date of Easter is determined, but a few general rnles might be given for their enlightenment. The regulations of the council pf Nice are fouri First, Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday; second, this Sunday must follow the fourteenth of the paschal moon; third, the paschal moon is that moon whose fourteenth day falls on or next follows the day of the vernal equinox; fourth, the equinox is fixed invariably in the calendar on the 21st day of Maxeh. This calendar moon, it should be remembered, is not the moon of the heavens nor yet the moon of the astronomers, but it is an imaginary moon created for ecclesiastical convenience. From these conditions it follows that Easter Sunday cannot happen earlier than the 223 of March or later than the"2sth of April.