COMPUTUS DE PASCHA. - This is a short work attributed by a manuscript to St. Cyprian of Carthage, but certainly apocryphal, because it was written, as the unknown author declares, in the 5th year of Gordian (243), when Cyprian must still have been a pagan, whereas the treatise shows the hand of a highly learned Christian. Its purpose is to establish the date of Easter, correcting the error of three days too few into which poolito had fallen in his sixteen-year Paschal cycle; rather than astronomical calculations, the writer, who attributes his predecessor’s mistake to an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, employs biblical quotations and appeals to divine inspiration. From the biblical text used, the author appears to have been African.
BIBL.: Editions: PL 4, 939-74; Hartel, in CSEL, III, part 3, Vienna 1871, pp. 284-71. Studies: P. Hufmayr, Die pseudorophrinische Schrift De pascha computus, Augsburg 1896; P. Monceaux, Hist. litt. de l'Afrique chrétienne, II, Parigi 1902, pp. 79-102; Schanz - Krüger, pp. 379-81; Moricca, I, pp. 512-16.