The Alexandrian Paschal Table Brought to Ireland by Saint Patrick, c. ad 458

Cummian’s Paschal letter of c. ad 632 provides a unique account of a Christian community changing their Paschal tradition. However, while scholars have disagreed upon the tradition adopted by Cummian’s community most have accepted that it related in some way to the 532-year Paschal table compiled by Victorius of Aquitaine in ad 457, but they have been unable to explain the relationship. This article identifies that all the published editions of Victorius’s table preserve substantial redactions transmitted by the manuscripts of the table. When these redactions are corrected Cummian’s account of the table that saint Patrick ‘brought and made’, always observing Paschal luna 14 after 21 March, corresponds to Victorius’s tabulated Paschal criteria when the saltus of each 19-year cycle is retarded by thirteen years. It thus emerges that in c. ad 458 Patrick brought to Ireland a 532-year table that he had adapted so that its Paschal dates and lunae were identical with those of the Alexandrian Paschal table compiled by Annianus in c. ad 412. This was the Alexandrian table endorsed by Cyril, bishop of Alexandria in ad 418, excerpts of which were transmitted subsequently by the Prologus S. Cyrilli of c. ad 456, Dionysius Exiguus in ad 525, Isidore in c. ad 636, and Bede in ad 725. Consequently, in Ireland the disciples of Patrick since c. ad 458, and the southern Irish churches that adopted the decision of Mag Léne in c. ad 632, were celebrating the Paschal criteria that would be declared as canonical for the Roman church by pope Honorius (ad 625–638). Subsequently, in ad 716, Iona and its familia adopted these same Paschal criteria as transmitted by the continuation of Dionysius’s Paschal table.