05 — The Easter Question
Lindisfarne was the stronghold of the Ionan reckoning of Easter, and Aidan kept that reckoning all his life. The same fidelity to Columban tradition that made the Lindisfarne church holy and fruitful also made it the chief Northumbrian centre of a paschal computation the rest of the Western Church had abandoned — and so a seed of the conflict that would come to a head at the Synod of Whitby in 664, after Aidan’s death. These files treat the Easter question both-sides: the Celtic reckoning and why it diverged, and Bede’s insistence that Aidan was holy despite his “error,” which became the model for how the dispute was charitably held.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; apostle of Northumbria)
The Easter controversy is the great fault-line running through Bede’s account of the Irish mission, and Aidan stands on the far side of it from Bede. This section handles the matter according to the methodology’s rule for disputed and sensitive topics (METHODOLOGY §4): both positions are stated without polemic, the diversity is set in its pre-Schism context, and the charity by which the dispute was contained — Bede’s own “holy despite his error” — is given pride of place. Aidan died (651) thirteen years before Whitby; he never faced the synod himself. But Lindisfarne under his successors did, and the seeds of that confrontation were sown in the very fidelity to Iona that Aidan embodied.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Celtic Reckoning at Lindisfarne | Lindisfarne as the stronghold of the Ionan Easter; what the Celtic reckoning was and why it diverged; the tonsure; the seeds of the Whitby conflict that broke out under Aidan’s successor Colmán (cross-link St. Colmán). |
| Holiness Across the Divide | Bede’s insistence that Aidan was holy despite his Easter error; the “holy despite his error” framing as the model for how the dispute was held; both positions stated; the pre-Schism diversity in Orthodox perspective. |
See Also
- Bede’s Portrait — Bede’s statement of the tension between holiness and Easter
- The Line of Bishops — Aidan → Finan → Colmán, the line that carried the dispute to Whitby
- The Orthodox Reception — Aidan as a pre-Schism saint despite the reckoning
- St. Colmán of Lindisfarne — who defended the Ionan Easter at Whitby and withdrew
- The Church Calendar — the Paschalion and the reckoning of the feast
References
- Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People III.3, III.17, III.25–26. Ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
- Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
- Ward, Benedicta. The Venerable Bede. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990.