The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman BreviaryQuigley, Edward J.
Religion
The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary
Quigley, Edward J.
Catholic Church. Breviary; Divine office
In making calculations the six hours were taken as six complete hours,
and not six hours wanting some minutes. And the aggregate miscalculation
continued until the minutes added yearly, amounted to ten days and
changed the date of the spring equinox. Pope Gregory XIII. (1572-1585)
sought to remedy the error. He re-established the spring equinox to the
place fixed by the Council of Nice (787). The year had fallen ten days
in arrear from the holding of the Council until the year of the
Gregorian correction, 1582. He again fixed it to the day arranged by the
Council, the 14th of the Paschal moon. And he arranged, that such a
time-derangement should not occur again. He omitted ten full days in
October, 1582, so that the fourth day of the month was followed
immediately by the fifteenth. He determined that the secular year must
begin on 1st January, that three leap years should be omitted in every
four centuries, e.g., 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, and his arrangement has
been observed throughout nearly the whole world.
_Quarter Tenses_ fall on the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays after
the third Sunday of Advent, after the first Sunday of Lent; after
Pentecost Sunday, and after the feast of the exaltation of the Cross.
_The Nineteen Years' Course of the Golden Number_. This course or
cycle was invented by an Athenian astronomer about 433 B.C. It was not
exact, but was hailed with delight by the Greeks, who adorned their
temples with the key number, done in gold figures; hence the name. The
cycle of course is the revolution of nineteen years, from 1 to 19. When
this revolution or course of years is run there is a new beginning in
marking, No. 1, e.g., in the year 1577 the nineteenth number, the golden
number, was 1; the following year it was 2, and so on until in 1597 the
golden number again is 2. A table given in the Breviary shows how the
golden number may be found and a short rule for the finding of it in any
year is given. To the number of the year (e.g., 1833) add 1; then divide
the sum thus resulting by 19 and the remainder is the golden number; if
there be no remainder the golden number is 19.
EPACTS AND NEW MOONS.
The Epact (Greek [Greek: epaktos] from [Greek: eapgo] I add) is nothing
more than the number of days by which the common solar year of 365 days
exceeds the common lunar year of 354 days. So that the epact of the
first year is 11, because the common solar year exceeds the common lunar
year by 11 days, and these added to the 11 days of the first, produce 22
as the epact. At the end of the second year the new moon falls 22 days
sooner than in the first year. The epact of the third year is three,
because if 11 be added to the 22, the result is 33, and from this 33 we
subtract 30 days which make up a lunar embolism and the remainder gives
us 3, the epact for the year, and so on.
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