4.

But another and not a less difficulty arises, which has been already treated of in the Preface to the work, "Against the Jews;" viz. that in a certain discourse against the Jews, held in the month of September of the year 386, Chrysostom in reproving many of the Christians at Antioch who fasted and kept Easter ¹ with the Jews, or at the same time observed by the Jews, "Behold," saith he, "the first day of unleavened bread in this year falls on Sunday, and it is necessary that we should fast throughout the whole week, and after the Passion is past, and the Cross and the Resurrection arrived, ² we should continue fasting; and very often the same thing occurs, that after the Passion has passed away, and the Cross and the Resurrection arrived, we are still keeping the fast, the week being not yet finished." From these words it is further evident, that those Christians, who acted as Jews in keeping the fast and celebrating the Passover, must sometimes have fasted when other Christians were celebrating the Paschal feast, and at other times not so; for example, they fasted on the day of the Resurrection when the Jews celebrated the feast of the Passover later than the rest of the Christians did, but they did not fast when the Jews celebrated the same feast earlier than the Christians. But in the discourse of Chrysostom above mentioned, and held about the month of September of the year 386, he is doubtless treating of Lent and Easter of the year 387. But in that year, according to the Paschal tables, the feast fell on the 25th of April, that is to say, as late as it can possibly occur. How then could these judaizing Christians be fasting this year during the Paschal feast, and celebrate that feast too late, when this could not occur later than on the 25th of April, on which day the other nonjudaizing Christians celebrated it this year, at least if the Paschal tables are to be relied upon? This is certainly a very great difficulty; but one which, as Tillemont himself confesses, is not sufficient to overturn the marks of the period by which we assign the Homily, "Against the Jews," to the month of September, in the year 386. For as we have said in the Preface to the Homilies against the Jews, it has not yet been made out to us so certainly, whether the people of Antioch always followed by an invariable rule the Alexandrian reckoning as to the Feast of the Lord's Passover, and if they had always followed it, can we affirm that they never fell into error in their reckoning? Certainly the persons best skilled in the Paschal reckonings, whom I have consulted, have admitted that an error of this sort sometimes does happen in such reckonings, and did happen not many years since; and that it is not always safe to prefer the Paschal indications to any other notes of time.