Damasus: But because, thanks be to God, they are now necessary, just as they were in the primitive Church, on account of the concern that was required for the poor, they are not [in force], etc. They exhibited [this] from the Latin interpretation of the Neocaesarean canon which that Damasus transcribed from Dionysius Exiguus, so that from this very fact you might recognize its antiquity, just as from that manner of speaking: "as in the primitive Church"; and finally also from the fact that at the end of the epistle he speaks of Paul thus: "When even the outstanding preacher says: how does [he] call Paul by name [ἐπωνομαστί]?" — as Gregory calls him in homily 37 in Evang. All of which things, as well as six hundred others, betray the more recent age of the author. Of the "poor funds" [πτῳχικῶν χρημάτων], of certain men who administered those moneys, Synesius makes mention in that brilliant epistle 67: to wit, of Lamponianus the presbyter, and before him of Dioscorus the bishop, of whom he writes thus: "I think that those in Alexandria who are suffering with the poor, whose fields he tills, owe him great gratitude." I would make an end to the disputation about chorepiscopi, were there not a few things remaining to illuminate their function, which I judge it a sin to omit. A In the first place, Basil, in the epistle which Balsamon placed among the Decretals, teaches that this was a most ancient rite in the Church, that those who were to be admitted to the ministry of the Church were before all things approved by presbyters and deacons and commended to the chorepiscopi, "who, having received the votes from those who truly bear witness, and having reminded the bishop, thus enrolled the servant into the order of the clergy." He complains that this custom was derogated by the chorepiscopi, who transferred all authority for accepting ministers of the Church to themselves, and finally permitted the presbyters and deacons to co-opt whomever they wished, even the most unworthy. He speaks here exclusively of subdeacons and other minor clerics who were appointed in country churches. For he adds: "Therefore, many servants are counted in every village." To this, B Gelasius Cyzicenus, book II, De conc. Nicaeno, can. 54, 55, and those that follow, contains many things worthy of knowledge concerning the chorepiscopi, which you should consult.
OF THE DOUBLE CYCLE AND THE REASONING OF THE EMBOLISMS
Ad haer. LXIX, col. 186.A double cycle existed among the masters of computation in ancient times, when golden numbers were inscribed in the calendars: one the nineteen-year cycle, the other the lunar. The nineteen-year cycle, as Bede frequently inculcates, was invented for the method of the Paschal fourteenth days, so that they might return on a set day every year throughout the world. The beginning of this, according to Bede, is from the Paschal month, that is to say from the final limit, which is 11 Kalends of April, March 21. Its first year has the golden number 19, and it begins from the day before the Nones of April, or April 4: to which, in the old Calendar, the golden number 19 is ascribed. Indeed, Petrus Pitatus Veronesis, in Chapter 6 of his Paschal canons, eruditely proves that the nineteen-year cycle did not begin from the golden number 1 and March 23, but from 19, and from April 4; and before him, Paulus Forosempronius taught this in the first part of his sixth book. Nor does Bede think otherwise, in other places as well as in his book De temp. rat., chapter 54, where, proposing the lunar cycle with the nineteen-year one, he joins the first year of the former with the fourth of the nineteen-year cycle, and says it begins from the Kalends of January. Now, the golden number 3 is affixed to the Kalends of January. Therefore the first is 19, from which the fourth is the third. This is what it holds constantly in the subsequent numbers of the cycles. For the sake of example, the year of the lunar cycle 16 is, for Bede, the nineteen-year cycle 19, which begins from 16 Kalends of January, December 17; from which begins the year to which the golden number 18 corresponds. Thus, the golden number 18 is the 19th of the nineteen-year cycle. Finally, when the first year of the nineteen-year cycle is composed with the lunar 17, its C beginning is established on the Nones of December (correct to 8, Id. Decembers. For the error arose from a summary of notes, since it had been written "8, Id.", which the scribe believed to be the Nones of December). But the year that begins from the 8th Id. of December requires the golden number 19. It is therefore sufficiently well established that the nineteen-year cycle takes its beginning from the golden number 19. The reason for this can be brought forward: the Romans received the method of golden numbers and of the nineteen-year cycle from the Alexandrians. Because these calculated their Thoth, and thus the beginning of the year, from August 29, they began their golden numbers from the same point. The Latins, having imitated them later, because they began their sacred year from the Paschal month, that is to say March or April, spun out the golden numbers, which they had held in common with the Alexandrians until the end of August, throughout the whole year. Therefore, in the Dionysian year 284, with the nineteen-year cycle at 19, the Alexandrians began to count the first cycle from the day of August 29: the Romans, however, assigned the whole Julian year the golden number 19. Thereafter, in the year 285, they began the golden number 1 with the Alexandrians. From which it appears to be a fact that the first year of the 19-cycle was of the golden number 19. For that certain most learned men constitute the golden number 1 as the beginning of the nineteen-year cycle, because it is affixed to the Kalends of January, they assert this against the authority of Bede and other ancients; for they do not notice that the beginning of the 19-cycle is not derived from January, but from April, that is to say from that moon which ends in April, according to their opinion. Hence those ancients say the official year of Dionysius's institution [begins] from the day before the Nones
A of May, in which the golden numbers 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 in the Calendar correspond to 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, since, as we have often taught, the number 19 led the cycle, from which the second was the third. But it pleased the distinguished mathematician that this order of embolismic months should be 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 19, to which he attributes those golden numbers 2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 19, since the nineteen-year cycle is to be repeated from April, not from January, according to the prescription of the ancients. And that very order of the embolismic months which we have proposed relies upon the authority of Bede, Pitatus, Paul of Forosempronium, and other masters of computation. See chapter 43, *De temp. ratione*, in Bede, vol. II. The same is also gathered by a most certain reason in this manner: the embolismic year, I think, is understood by all who handle the Paschal cycle as that which, so that the first month of the following year may be restrained within the Paschal limits, becomes one month longer. And those such years are the seven we have enumerated, that is, the golden numbers in the Calendar 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, and not 8, 11, 19. For since the golden number 8 is in use, which we wish to be the eighth of the nineteen-year cycle, the first month begins on March 22: and therefore it ought to be embolismic; otherwise the following year will have to begin from March 6, to which the golden number 6 is affixed, in the ninth year of the nineteen-year cycle. But this is repugnant to the Paschal canon and the Nicene decrees; and that was the peculiar error of the Latins, that is, those who Judaize: which, so that we may avoid it, it is necessary that the thirteenth month, namely, be added to the eighth year, just as the ninth, to which the golden number 8 is attributed, is pushed back into April 5, so that the first Paschal month may begin. The same is the reason for the eleventh, to which the golden number 10 corresponds. For since this starts from March 14, it will bring the new moon of the thirteenth month to March 3. Wherefore this will have to be intercalated, so that the twelfth year may begin on April 2.
Furthermore, this lunar cycle takes its beginning from the month of January, as Bede testifies in more than one place. In his book *De temp. rat.*, chapter 54, he explains all its years. Of which the first is not joined to the fourth of the nineteen-year [cycle], which is the golden number 19 affixed to January 1. The second [starts] from December 21, and so on; the remaining [years], almost all, are begun from that conjunction which ends in January. Therefore it is evident that in the lunar cycle, just as in the nineteen-year [cycle], the first year is the number, if I may say so, 19, which is noted at January 1.
These things D having been observed, we defend that the eighth year of the enneadecaeteris was the intercalary one, which had the golden number 8: which is the eighth from the first, or 19, as has been said: which we affirm most especially concerning the nineteen-year cycle which is under discussion. For there were those seven embolismic years of the enneadecaeteris.
Finally, since the nineteenth year begins from the fourth day of April, it does not contain an embolismic month, but follows it. For the golden number 18, which we have established as the nineteenth of the nineteen-year cycle, corresponds to March 16, from which the starting year necessarily claims for itself a thirteenth month, whose new moon on March 5 is by no means Paschal, and therefore the new moon of the first month and of the year will be spread into April 4. For thus it must be thought: that the embolismic months in the Paschal cycle are those which, cast at the end of the year, precede the new moon of the following year most closely, as Pitatus also observes for the same business in chapter 6. Although we have learned from Bede, in that same chapter 43 of the book *De ratione temporum*, that embolismic months are dispensed differently by masters of computation, and are spread throughout various months of the Julian year. But in this Paschal institution, that embolismic month is without doubt to be considered that which immediately precedes the first month of the cycle. By which rule, indeed, there is now no doubt that the series of embolisms is such as we have received from the ancient computists, in which the eighth year, not the ninth,