38 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1750. 



moon, would with equal certainty point out the 14th, 15th, or any other: and 

 thus the times of the oppositions, or the full moons, might be as well marked 

 out, as those of the conjunctions or the new moons. 



The method now used in England, for finding the 14th day of the moon, or 

 the ecclesiastical full moon, on which Easter depends, is by process of time be- 

 come considerably erroneous : as the golden numbers, which were placed in the 

 calendar to point out the days on which the new moons fall in those years of 

 which they are respectively the golden numbers, now stand several days later in 

 the same than those new moons really happen. Which error, as before ob- 

 served, arises from the anticipation of the moons since the time of the council of 

 Nice: and as the vernal equinox has also anticipated 11 days since that time; 

 neither that equinox, nor the new moons, now happen on those days on which 

 the church of England supposes them so to happen. 



When pope Gregory the 13th reformed the Julian solar year, he also made a 

 correction as to the time of celebrating the feast of Easter, by placing the epacts 

 (which he directed to be used for the future instead of the golden numbers) 

 much nearer to the true times of the new moons, than the golden numbers then 

 stood in the old calendar : he says, much nearer to the true times ; because in 

 fact the epacts, as placed by him, were not prefixed to the exact days on which 

 the new moons then truly fell. And this was done with design, and for a reason 

 which it is not material to the purpose of this paper to mention. 



But the church of England, and that of Rome or the Gregorians, still agree 

 in this ; that both of them mark (the former by the golden numbers, and the 

 latter by the epacts corresponding to them) the days on which their ecclesiastical 

 new moons are supposed to happen: and that 14 th day of the moon inclusive, 

 or that full moon, which falls upon, or next after, the 1 1 st day of March, is the 

 Paschal limit or full moon to both : and the Sunday next following that limit, or 

 fiill moon, is by both churches celebrated as Easter-day. But the 21st of March 

 being reckoned, according to the Gregorian account or the new style, 1 1 days 

 sooner than by the Julian account or the old style, which is still in use among 

 us ; and their ecclesiastical new moons being 3 days earlier than those of the 

 church of England; it happens that though the church of England and that of 

 Rome often do, yet more frequently they do not, celebrate the feast of Easter 

 on the same natural day. 



It might however be easier for both, and could occasion no inconvenience, 

 now that almanacs, which tell the exact times of the new moons, are in most 

 people's hands; if all the golden numbers and epacts now prefixed to those days 

 of the calendar, in our book of Common Prayer, and in the Roman breviary, on 

 which the respective ecclesiastical new moons happen, were omitted in the places 

 where they now stand; and were set only against those I4th days of the moon. 



