Sardica paschal table

The Sardica paschal table or Sardica document is a document from a Latin manuscript of the 7th/8th century A.D. It is a copy in Latin translation of the creed of the Eastern Christian bishops attending the Council of Sardica who, fearing that their deliberations would be dominated by Western bishops, met separately at Philippopolis. Appended to the creed and anathemas is a table of Paschal full moon dates, given as dates in the Julian calendar, for the years 328 to 357, together with a list of dates of 14 Nisan in the Jewish calendar, also referred to the Julian calendar, for the years 328 to 343, the year of the Council. The calendrical information contained in the document has been used by scholars in tracing the history of the computus and of the Hebrew calendar.

The manuscript and the contents of the document

The Sardica paschal table is a part of Codex Verona LX(58), or, more fully, MS Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare LX(58). It was first published by Eduard Schwartz in his "Christliche und jüdische Ostertafeln" (Berlin, 1905) [Eduard Schwartz, "Christliche und jüdische Ostertafeln, (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse. Neue Folge, Band viii", Berlin, 1905.] , where the manuscript in which it occurs was called Codex Verona 60. The manuscript has 126 leaves of vellum measuring 27 cm by 20 cm. It is written in Latin uncial script that paleographers have dated to about A.D. 700. [W. Telfer, "The Codex Verona LX(58)", "Harvard Theological Review", 36(3), (July, 1943), pages 169-246.] The Sardica document occurs on folios 79 verso to 80 verso. [Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE - Tenth Century CE, Oxford, 2001, p. 74.] [Telfer, "Codex Verona LX(58)", pp. 181-182.] It is apparently a copy of a Christian document written at the time of the Council of Sardica (A.D. 343). It contains the creed and anathemas drawn up by the eastern bishops meeting at the council, followed by a list of Christian "Passovers", that is, Julian calendar dates of the 14th day (the Paschal full moon) of the Paschal lunar month, the Sunday following which is Easter. This table is preceded by a list of Julian calendar dates of 14 Nisan observed by the Jewish community in some eastern Mediterranean city (possibly Antioch). The Jewish dates are captioned" Quibus supputationibus faciant Iudei pascha". The Christian dates are captioned "Quo numero faciamus nos Christiani".

The dates as they stand are somewhat garbled. Schwartz proposed emendations [E. Schwartz, "Ostertafeln", pp. 121-125.] , and these emendations have been reviewed and criticized recently by Sacha Stern [Sacha Stern, "Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE - Tenth Century CE", Oxford, 2001, pp. 127-129.] of University College London.

A striking feature of the Jewish dates is that, for the 16 years listed, all the Passovers are in the Julian month of March. This is clearly inconsistent with the modern Hebrew calendar. It also corroborates the complaints of third and fourth-century Christian computists that some Jews held Passover before the spring equinox.

The text of the document

The document, as published and emended by Schwartz in 1905 here follows. Schwartz's emendations are shown in square and angle brackets. In the numerals, a square bracket emendation indicates a character or characters that Schwartz thought should be deleted, while an angle bracket emendation indicates where Schwartz thought characters should be added. A note in square brackets with the letters MS indicate that the entire preceding word is Schwartz's emendation, and the word in brackets is the original.

De pascha autem scribsimus nobis XXX annos, quoniam XXX annos fecit dominus noster in carne super terram, pascha autem facta est XXX anno XXV die Martii mensis, computatur autem primus primus ["sic"] [Schwartz used the German word "so" instead of the Latin word "sic".] annus triginta annorum scriptorum in comptationibus in quibus faciunt Iudei phascha ["sic"] a prima indictione que facta est sub Constantino [328] , quo tempore conveni magna synodus in civitate Nicaea, cum diu quaererent episcopi de phascha ut computetur. prima indictio ["indici" MS] [Schwartz used "Hs" ("Handschrift") instead of "MS".] a primo anno computationis, et prima indictio inputata post quintam decimam est XVI anno positus in conputatione annorum pasche. a primo [must mean "ab undecimo". A and IA were reversed in the original] [Schwartz: muss heissen ab undecimo, im Original waren A und IA verwechselt. It is unclear what Schwartz means by this comment. Stern ignores it.] anno computatur numerus iste usque ad XXX annum qui est primus mensis Aprilis. possiti [sic] "' autem sunt distinctiones numeri Iudeorum nobis sic:"'

Quibus supputationibus faciant Iudei pascha

Quo numero facimus nos Christiani

Calibration of the document

Since the document clearly states that the years run "from the first indiction that was under Constantine" [327-328] , Schwartz's assignment of the years seems valid. Sacha Stern has analyzed the Jewish dates, and found that nine of the sixteen dates coincide with the 14th day of a lunar month if the first day of the month is taken to be the day of the lunar conjunction. [Sacha Stern," Calendar and Community", pp. 124-132.]

=Significance for the history of the Rabbinic calendar=

Sacha Stern takes the Sardica document as evidence that the Jews referred to in the document (which he tentatively identifies as those of Antioch) used a computed, or partially computed, calendar with system of intercalations that kept 14 Nisan with the limits of Julian March. Since this differs from what can be known of the Jewish calendar in other cities, he concludes "the Jewish calendar could vary significantly from one community to the next." [Sacha Stern, "Calendar and Community", p. 79.]

ignificance for the history of the computus

The Sardica document, if it is accurate in its report of the dates of 14 Nisan for the Jewish community in some eastern Mediterranean city, corroborates the complaints of Christian writers of the third and fourth centuries A.D. that some Jews set 14 Nisan before the spring equinox. This was one of the chief reasons given by Christians for their attempts to develop an independent calculation to determine the date of the Easter festival--to compute, in effect, a "Christian Nisan", and set Easter accordingly--rather than relying on information from Jewish neighbors about when Jewish Nisan would fall.

Notes

References

*Schwartz, Eduard, "Christliche und jüdische Ostertafeln, (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesselschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse. Neue Folge, Band viii," Berlin, 1905.
*Stern, Sacha, "Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE - Tenth Century CE", Oxford, 2001.
*Telfer, W., "The Codex Verona LX(58)", "Harvard Theological Review", 36(3), (July, 1943), pages 169-246.

External links

* [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hebrew-jewish/aboutus/stern.php Sacha Stern's web site]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=Sn8TAAAAYAAJ Schwartz's "Christlice und jüdische Ostertafeln" (1905) at Google Books]