Dionysius Exiguus, On Easter, or, the Paschal Cycle (2003) - Preface to the online edition

This preface was written in 2024, eighteen years after the translation was placed online.  An email through my contact form enquired about the translation.  Remembering nothing of it, I searched my old emails, and recalled its origins.

The story begins with a man named Rodolphe Audette, who was at the University of Laval in Canada.  At some period of time prior to August 2000, he created a website of material relating to the origins of the Gregorian calendar.  This has long since vanished, but the Internet Archive holds a copy made on 23 August 2000, archived here.  As part of this work he placed online a number of primary texts, many with his own French translation, listed in the archive here.  Modestly he explained:  "J'en ai traduit quelques-uns, poussé par je ne sais trop quelle maladie"; "I have translated some of them, under the influence of I don't know what madness." 

One of the texts that he placed online was the Latin text of something that he called the "Liber de Paschate" of Dionysius Exiguus.  His electronic text may be found archived here, but I have today placed a copy here.

The next stage of the story is in 2006, when I discovered on a now-vanished Russian site (archived here) an English translation of the tables in this text.  The translation had been made from Audette's text by a mathematician named Michael Deckers. 

How the Deckers text came to be in Russia I do not know.  But I found an email address for Dr Deckers, and obtained his permission to reproduce his work here.  He told me that it was merely a draft; but I don't know of any subsequent version. 

Deckers also advised me that 'Argumenta 1 and 15 were translated in [Gustav Teres: "Time computations and Dionysius Exiguus", Journal for the History of Astronomy vol 15 p 178..181. 1984] (neither of which I used for my translation). The JHA paper may even be online.' 

The Russian site linked to Audette's Latin text.  This was the text that Deckers had translated from, which he believed to be the text printed by Migne in the Patrologia Graeca 67, col. 483 ff.  He was uncertain whether Audette had edited the text in some way, but I have not seen anything suggesting that it is anything but a faithful transcription.

The Migne text of Dionysius Exiguus' work, which was transcribed completely by Audette, contained four linked texts:

1. His praefatio, dedicated to a bishop Petronius.

2. His tables of a 19-year cycle of Easter calculations (Cyclus Decemnovennalis Dionysii).  The first two are CPL 2284, Libellus de cyclo magno Paschae.

3. Sixteen argumenta discussing the details.  This is CPL 2285, Argumenta paschalia.

4. The letter of Proterius, Bishop of Alexandria, to Pope Leo. This is letter 133 of the collection of the letters of Leo I (CPL 1656).

Deckers translated the tables, and also the argumenta, which he interleaved with the tables.

On seeing this, I attempted a translation of the preface.  Unfortunately my Latin was not equal to the  task, but I uploaded whatever I could understand.  A much better version may be found in the Teres paper in the JHA.

Roger Pearse
Ipswich
September 2024

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2013. This file and all material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.