Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1970, Page 370

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De Temporum Ratione15 where Bede criticizes the Dionysian era.
The Easter of the thirty-third year of the Dionysian era does not
conform at all with the somewhat flexible tradition concerning
the Crucifixion. Bede cites with favor, though he does not state
a direct preference for, the chronological characteristics of the
Crucifixion according to Theophilus. Bede’s source for this is the
treatise known as “the false acts of the synod of Caesarea”, a
forgery of the sixth century which played an important role in
the theological justification for the Easter terms and appears cited
or summarized in many computi or as an independent piece.16
It was from Bede that Gerlandus took his information and he
hased his era on the characteristics of the Crucifixion attributed
to Theophilus. Heriger of Lobbes (bishop of Lobbes from 998 to
1007) came to the same results as Gerlandus but approximately
ninety years sooner.17 He is known to have written on other com-
putistical matters18 but no table or computus is ascribed to him.
Since this information regarding the Incarnation existed long
before Gerlandus wrote his computus, it will be necessary to
consider other material in Rim I before establishing Gerlandus as
the source. Actually there is little in the methodology that is
similar in the two works, but there are two corresponding items
which bear mentioning. A variation which no one has been able
to trace is the placing of the embolismic lunations in the eighth
and nineteenth lunar years in January rather than, as customary,
in March. In the fifth chapter of Gerlandus’ computus, he discusses
the problem at length. At one point he says that in the event of
the eighth or nineteenth lunar year falling in a leap year, the
embolismic lunation is considered to be in January. Another
striking similarity is the use of the word “mentitur” as a synonym
for “non servatur” for the “lying epacts” (translated into Icelandic
16 ed. C. W. Jones, ibid.
16 For a list of some of the manuscripts, see A. Cordoliani, “Les traités de
comput du haut moyen age (526—1003),” Bulletin du Cange XVII (1943), p. 57.
17 Heriger’s letter to Hugo has been reproduced various plaees, among them
Patrologia Latina 139, eols. 1129-1134 and by Cordoliani in Revue d’histoire ecclé-
siastique 44 (1949), p. 480 ff.
18 For example on the length of Advent; cf. Jaffé’s Bibliotheca rerum germanica-
rum III (Berlin 1866), p. 366 ff.