What is Time? Part 2
What is Time?
Part 2
Sunday December 4 2016
We are continuing to look at time as in days, years, months, and
centuries as well as specific calendar dates for Christian feasts and fasts.
This is in fact a personal issue with me because much of the church is split
simply over calendar dates. The Body of Christ can scream as much as it wants
about truth but there is much of the argument that is nothing more than ego and
pride.
In part 1 We took a quick look at the date of Christmas, the celebration
of the birth of our Lord and learned that it was initially not something the
church concerned herself with. The resurrection was the day to celebrate
because this was of course the whole reason Christianity exists. Jesus rose
from the dead and ascended into heaven to the right hand of God the Father.
This date became important to the whole of Christianity. Eventually the church
began to study the date of the birth because she wanted to celebrate it, Two
dates were settled on; one Eastern and one Western. It was determined that the
two would agree to disagree and left it at that. (for the time). Actually
January 7 in Orthodoxy is the same as December 25 in the Western world. This is
the difference in time between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar.
We’ll look at this later.
Pascha or Easter or the Resurrection date had similar issues between East
and West. The Easter/Pascha problem actually begins in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke identifies the Lord’s
Last Supper with His disciples as a Passover meal. This would place the death
of our Lord on the day after Passover. On the other hand, the tradition of the
Gospel of John situates the death of our Lord at the very hour the paschal
lambs were sacrificed on the day of Passover itself. This variation in the
interpretation of the Scriptures led to two different practices. The one
observed Pascha/Easter on the day of Passover, regardless of the day of the
week and so it is a fixed date. The other observed it on the Sunday following
Passover. By the time of the fourth century, the Sunday practice prevailed
throughout the Church universally; yet, there were still differences.
So a council was convened; the First Ecumenical Council, convened at
Nicaea in 325 A.D., took up the issue. It determined that Pascha/Easter should
be celebrated on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal
equinox – the actual beginning of spring. If the full moon happens to fall on a
Sunday, Pascha/Easter is observed the following Sunday. The day taken to be the
invariable date of the vernal equinox is March 21. So, the determination of the
date of Pascha/Easter is governed by a process dependent on the vernal equinox
and the phase of the moon.
So far so good right? A church council agreed on a method of dating the
celebration of the risen Lord. Ooops, hold on, the Jews used this same method
to calculate Passover and so Pascha/Easter was originally celebrated on the
same day as Passover. This itself wasn’t a problem, but then something else
happened; When the Jews became dispersed there was a departure from the way
Passover was reckoned at the time of our Lord’s death and resurrection. This
caused the Passover to precede the vernal equinox in some years. It was, in
fact, this very thing that led to the condemnation reflected in Canon 1 of
Antioch (ca. 330 A.D.) and Canon 7 of the Holy Apostles (late 4th century) of
those who celebrate Pascha/Easter “with the Jews.” The purpose of this
condemnation was to prevent Christians from taking into account the calculation
of Passover in determining the date of Pascha/Easter. This date had already
been fixed by the church universally.
There were some more issues back and forth but by the sixth century, a
more secure mode of calculation based on astronomical data was universally
accepted. This was an alternative to calculating Pascha/Easter by the Passover date
and consisted in the creation of so-called “paschal cycles.” Each paschal cycle
corresponded to a certain number of years. Depending upon the number of years
in the cycle, the full moon occurred on the same day of the year as at the beginning
of the cycle with some exceptions. The more accurate the cycle, the less
frequent were the exceptions.
In the East, a nineteen-year cycle was eventually adopted, but in the West an eighty-four-year cycle was
used. The use of two different paschal cycles inevitably gave way to
differences between the Eastern and Western Churches regarding the observance
of Pascha/Easter.
So, we then have another change that was made
by the church in the calendar; the western church adopted the Gregorian
Calendar in 1582 to replace the Julian Calendar. This was done to adjust the
discrepancy between the paschal cycle approach to calculating Pascha and the
available astronomical data. The church was trying to get closer to accurate
time according to the astronomical data. The Orthodox Church continues to base
its calculations for the date of Pascha on the Julian Calendar, which was in
use at the time of the First Ecumenical Council. And so it does not take into
account the thirteen-day difference between the Julian and Gregorian Calendars.
What this means is
that Pascha/Easter may not be celebrated before April 3, which was March 21,
the date of the vernal equinox, at the time of the First Ecumenical Council. In
other words, a difference of thirteen days exists between the accepted date
for the vernal equinox then and now. But understand; time and the moon cycle
did not change, only a date on a calendar attempting to get closer to real time
changed.
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Now Rome, (who was now the world power) had a lot of
difficulties in
making their calendar because of their
superstition that even numbers were
unlucky. So because of that
their months were 29 or 31 days long,
with the exception of
February, which had 28 days. But four months of 31
and seven months of 29 days, and one month of 28.
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So the
Romans invented an extra month called
Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days. It was
added every
second year.
The
Roman calendar eventually became
so far off that Julius Caesar, advised by
the astronomer
Sosigenes, ordered a major reform. The year of 46
B.C. was
made 445 days long by his decree, bringing
the calendar back in step with the
seasons.
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Then the calendar became based on
solar time (with the value of 365 days and 6 hours). The months were 30 or 31
days in length, and to take care of the 6 hours, every fourth year was made a
366-day year or a leap year. Caesar then decreed the year begin with the first day
of January, not with the vernal equinox in late March. This calendar was named
the Julian calendar, after Julius Caesar, and the Eastern Orthodox churches continue
to use it to this day for holiday calculations. However, despite the
correction, the Julian calendar is still 11 1/2 minutes longer than the actual solar
year, and after a number of centuries, even 11 1/2 minutes adds up.
So to help everyone understand my frustration when those who are
determined to attack any and all who do not use the so-called church calendar,
the church calendar was created by a
pagan empire and named after a pagan emperor, this church calendar is nothing more than the pagan calendar in use at
the time of the first ecumenical council. Those who continue to use it I do not
speak against. However those who continue to use it and call everyone else a
heretic and attack those who use the Gregorian calendar need to re-examine
their Christian conscious. Now let’s take a look at the Gregorian calendar in
use today.
Before we begin looking at the next calendar; the Gregorian calendar, I
have a question; the church is ever consumed with time, if a monastic was or is
late for liturgy/mass or late for or misses the hours there is a great penalty
given, the same for the laity except not so much in the modern times. If one is
late for liturgy/mass/worship it is frowned upon. Every minute of every day is
given by Almighty God and we are not to abuse these minutes but each minute
serves a purpose. It has even been said that there will be enough time for rest
in the grave we do not need the sleep that we crave because there is so much
work to do.
Considering the above statements wouldn’t you think that if we can get
closer to actual time within creation then we should do so? Should we cling to
something simply because it existed at some point even if it is proven to be
inaccurate? How are we so concerned over every minute and yet completely ignore
time itself? Think about this.
This article will
continue next time.
In Christ
Member of the Autocephalous
Orthodox Catholic Church of the Americas
Web Page;http://www.monkmichael.com
For Monk Michael's
videos; http://www.youtube.com/user/HieroMonkMichael
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Monk Michael's 'Spiritual Christianity for Today! on Kindle; http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZCIF4M
Monk Michael's 'Spiritual Christianity for Today! paperback; http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Rev.%20Fr.%20Michael%20Valentine%20Sweet&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ARev.%20Fr.%20Michael%20Valentine%20Sweet
Many Blessings!
