PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^7 



days, and so do 76 Julian years. About 3 centuries and a half after Caesar, the 

 council of Nice first, and about 2 centuries after that, Dionysius Exiguus again 

 introduced the decennoval cycle, called the golden number, for the celebration 

 of Easter; following Meton, the first and least exact of the 3 ; or rather follow- 

 ing both Meton and Caesar; two masters who were neither of them the best, 

 and who would after some time disagree and remove farther and farther from 

 each other; though both Caesar and the church might have had much better 

 pattern in Hipparchus : which mistakes of theirs have occasioned those antici- 

 pations and differences that have embarrassed the accounts of time. And, 

 though many have proposed laudable methods of rectifying these accounts, yet 

 still building on the old foundations, which were infirm. Pope Gregory XIII, 

 in his Reformation of the Calendar, about 100 years since, was obliged to wave 

 the golden number; and yet he has only palliated the disease; so hard it is to 

 cure an error in the first concoction. 



The council of Nice appointed Easter to be kept the first Sunday after the 

 first full moon after the 21st of March; because the vernal equinox, which was 

 on the 25th in our Saviour's time, was then come to be on the said 21st day; 

 and therefore the Gregorian reformation has reduced the vernal equinox back 

 to that day, or brought that day to it again, by losing 10 days, and must omit 

 another day within 20 years : but in this garter-year, Easter will always be the 

 first Sunday after the first full moon of the new year, that is, after the vernal 

 equinox, according to the true intent and meaning of the Nicene council, or as 

 it was in the primitive times ; and be but a week moveable, or a month less 

 moveable than now, either after the old or new stile: which might perhaps 

 have prevented the difference, or served as an expedient for reconciling the 

 western and eastern churches. 



The 3 cycles of Meton, Calippus, and Hipparchus, were all of them too 

 large for the sun, and primarily intended for the moon, or for a luni-solar year; 

 however that of Hipparchus was nearest to both, and very near the moon's 

 period. 



Perhaps at first view, my 38 years period may be considered only as a double 

 Metonic, or semi-Calippic one, &c. ; but on farther consideration, it will be 

 found otherwise; for the periods of Meton and Calippus, as also that of Hip- 

 parchus, were all of them too great, not only for the circuit of the sun, but for 

 that of the moon also ; whereas mine, on the other hand, is too little for either, 

 and requires one additional day almost every 100 years : 



Meton's ig years cycle had 6940 days, its double is 13880 



Calippus's period, or 76 years, had 27759 days, its half is ....... . 138794- 



VOL. II. 3 S ■ 



