Note 12 — Chapter I · THE CHURCHES IN THE WEST.

There is no clearer account of the difference in the reckoning of the days of the moon than that in the letter of Abbot Ceolfrid to Nectan, king of the Picts, given to us by Bede, and probably his own composition (Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 21). The ordinary idea that the British and Irish Churches derived their mode of keeping Easter from the Eastern Church, or from the disciples of St. John, is based upon a mistake, and arises from their being occasionally but erroneously termed quarto-decimans from their celebrating Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon when it fell upon a Sunday; but the Eastern Christians, to whom this name was properly given, differed essentially from them by invariably celebrating Easter on the fourteenth day, whether it fell on a Sunday or not.