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At 06:07 PM 3/29/00 -0600, you wrote: >Dear Colleagues: > >I am working on a paper concerning Matthew Paris and the Parisian monastic >colleges and need your help in understanding the significance of a certain >passage. Matthew Paris writes (in Richard Vaughan's translation): > > From the incarnation of the Lord twenty-five half-centuries have >elapsed. Nor does it seem that Easter has fallen on its own day, namely the >sixth of the kalends of April [27 March], in any jubilee year, namely >the fiftieth, except in this last year. > >I am interested in the notion of Easter falling on its own day. since easter is a moveable feast, it only occasionally falls on Suinday March 27 (and, correspondingly, the annunciation (fixed) and good friday (moveable) fall on March 25, which is the sixth day of creation, when adam was formed, the jews crossed the red sea, jesus was incarnated, and was crucified (not possible), and the battle of armaggedon will take place. the earliest signs of this apoc tradition show up in the 9th cn, appear sharply at the turn of the millennium (970, 981, 992, 1056, 1067), and continue to produce unusual events right up to matthew paris laying down his pen because -- that's all folks. what matthew seems to be saying here (i think he is, but i want to be modest in my claims) is that the reason why the end never occurred in the past on a year when march 27 was the date of easter (about 40 occasions since the crucifixion), is that it had never before happened in a jubilee year. this is good evidence that some kind of jubilee thinking preceeded 1300 by at least 50 years (i think it was probably felt in 1200 in rome). >What does >this mean and what is its signficance? I thought for a moment it meant that >Easter and the feast of the Annunciation [25 March] fell on the same day in >1250, which conjunction would presage the end of the world. But this does >not seem to be the case in this passage. no good friday and annunciation. but the rest of your reconstruction is exactly right. >Also, I have lost from my favorites the wonderful calendar programs >developed by members of the group. If the URLs could be sent, I'd be very >appreciative. > >Thomas Sullivan, OSB Richard Landes Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University Department of History 704 Commonwealth Ave. Suite 205 226 Bay State Road Boston MA 02215 Boston MA 02215 617-358-0226 of 358-0225 fax 617-353-2558 of 353-2556 fax http://www.mille.org [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%