The Golden Number

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 27, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 21.

The Golden Number

THE golden number in the almanac is the number which indicates the place of a year in the Metonic cycle. Meton, a Greek astronomer, about 400 years before Christ, found that 235 lunar months almost exactly equal 19 years of 365¼ days each, the duration of a year as measured by the apparent motion of the sun. This 19-year period is the Metonic cycle, in which the phases of the moon are always the same for years occupying the same place in the cycle. This place is called the golden number; and by its aid, through a complicated system of computation, the date of the paschal moon, which determines Easter, can be calculated for any number of years ahead. The golden number for any year is the remainder obtained by dividing the number of the year plus 1 by 19. The unit is added because the ecclesiastical calendar reckons the cycles from 1 B.C.—Christian Herald.