sover, and if they had always followed it, can we affirm that they never fell into error in their
reckoning? Certainly the persons best skilled in the Paschal reckonings, whom I have con-
sulted, have admitted that an error of this sort sometimes does happen in such reckonings,
and did happen not many years since; and that it is not always safe to prefer the Paschal
indications to any other notes of time.
5. Tillemont, however, who notices this kind of difficulty, and discusses it in his notes
to the Life of Chrysostom, where he treats of the Homilies against the Jews, has not mentioned
it in the notes to the Life of the Emperor Theodosius, where he arranges these Homilies of
Chrysostom to the people of Antioch as if the Feast of Easter had fallen on the 25th of April,
as the Paschal tables have it. The first Homily therefore he places a little before the sedition;
but the sedition on the 26th of February, ten days before Lent, which at Antioch began on
the Monday of our Quinquagesima, falling that year on the 8th of March. The second Homily
either on the Thursday, or the Saturday before Lent; viz. on the 6th of March, the eighth
day after the sedition. The third on the following Sunday, the 7th of March, or thereabout.
The fourth, on the Monday following, March 8. The fifth, on Tuesday, March 9. The sixth,
about the next Wednesday, on March 10. The seventh, on Thursday, March 11. The eighth,
on Friday, March 12. The ninth on the Monday of the second week in Lent, March 15. The
tenth, after the lapse of a few days. The eleventh, (considering it transposed,) on the Monday
of the fourth week in Lent, March 29. The twelfth, on the following Tuesday, March 30. The
thirteenth, on the following Wednesday, March 31. The fourteenth, a little after that one
which is numbered the eighteenth, which was delivered on the fifth Sunday in Lent, April
5. The fifteenth, on the Saturday of the second week in Lent, or March 20. The sixteenth,
on the third Saturday in Lent, March 21. The seventeenth, about the end of the fourth week
in Lent. The eighteenth, Sunday, April 5, or thereabout. The nineteenth, after the fourteenth,
about April 11. The twentieth, on Easter Day, April 25. The twenty-first, about the same
time as the twenty-second following it, which was delivered on the Friday after Passion
Sunday, April 16.977 Thus does Tillemont endeavour to restore with the utmost accuracy
the deranged order of these Homilies. Whilst however we agree with him in many things,
we are compelled to differ from him in others. The order of the Homilies, as he lays it down,
we may here further represent in one tabular view.
320
Tillemont’s 1st is placed in Edition of Fronto Ducæus First
2d........... Second
3d........... Third
4th........... Fourth
977 The second before Easter. It has lately become common to call the week immediately before Easter
“Passion Week,” but this name belongs to the week before it. The proper title of the last is the “Great” or “Holy”
Week.
442
Preface to the Benedictine Edition.