christian era

8/6/2019 Christian Era

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Christian era

The Christian era, sometimes called the Era of the

Incarnation, was first used by Dionysius Exiguus (literally, Denis

the Little, a name he gave himself), a Scythian monk (some say

an abbot) living in Rome in the 6thcentury. Abbreviation, AD, for

anno Domini, year of the Lord, which appears before the

numerals.

At that time, to determine the date of Easter the Church

relied on a table prepared by Cyril of Alexander (376444 CE),showing the date of Easter. This table used the Diocletian Era,

numbering years from the year that the Roman emperor

Diocletian came to power (284 CE).

Pope John I asked Dionysius to extend this table. In doing so,

Dionysius felt it was wrong to date the festival from the accession

of a persecutor of the faithful, and so decided to number the

years in his table from the time of Christs birth.1 Dionysius

submitted his table in 525CE.

It is pretty universally acknowledged that Dionysius did not

manage to select the right year for Christs birth, which was

probably in 4 or 5BCE.

Dionysius table fixed the date of the beginning of the

Christian era that we still use, but it did not immediately lead to

general use of the erain fact, the oldest surviving historical work

in which dates are given using the Christian era is

the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, written early in

the 8th century by the Venerable Bede (672?735), a learned English

priest.

English missionaries carried the use of the Christian era to the

Franks (in present day France), where the court adopted it for

certain purposes by the end of the 9th century.2 From there it

reached Italy, and was first used by the Papacy under John XIII

(elected 965CE). By the 11th century it was familiar in most of
http://www.sizes.com/time/dionysius.htm


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Europe, but not until the14th century was it common in Spain.

Greek-speaking Europe did not adopt it until the 15th century, and

Russia not until 29 December 1699.

Its use in non-Christian countries only occurred with the

adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Today it is frequentlystyled CE (for common era), but is numerically the same.

Bede also used BC (before Christ), but that didn't come into

general use until the end of the 17th century.

1. G. Teres.

Time computations and Dionysius Exiguus.

Journal for the History of Astronomy, volume 15, pages 177-188 (1984).

See also source note 1, below.

2. R. L. Poole.

Imperial influences on the forms of Papal documents.

In Studies in Chronology and History.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934.

Page 178.

FORFURTHERREADING

Georges Declercq.

Anno Domini. The Origins of the Christian Era.

Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000.

SOURCES1

Quia vero Sanctus Cyrillus primum cyclum ab anno

Diocletiani 153 coepit et ultimum in 247 terminavit; Nos a

248 anno ejusdem tyranni potius quam principis inchoantes

noluimus circulis nostris memoriam impii et persecutoris

innectere; sed magis elegimus ab incarnatione Domini Nostri

Jesu Christi annorum tempora praenotare; quatenus

exordium Spei nostrae notius nobis existeret, et causa

reparationis humanae, id est passion Redemptoris nostri

evidentius eluceret.Because however St. Cyril began the first cycle from the year 153

of Diocletian, and concluded the final cycle in 247, I was unwilling, by

beginning from the year 248 of that same emperor, or rather tyrant,to link the memory of that wicked man and persecutor to my own

cycles. Rather than do this I chose to indicate the years from theincarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the beginning of our Hope

might become better known to us, and the reason for the renewal of


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mankind, that is, the passion of our Redeemer, might be more clearlyevident.

A letter from Dionysius Exiguus to Bishop Petronius, quoted inDenis Petau (Petavius).Dionysii Petavii Aurelianensis e Societate Jesu De doctrinatemporum. Accesserunt notae et emendationes quamplurimae,

quas codici propria manu auctor adscripsit, et Joannis Harduini

praefatio ac dissertation de LXX. hebdomadibus. Juxta editionemAntuerpiensem anno 1703.Verona: P. A. Berno, 1734-1736.

Vol 2, App. p 498. (translated for Sizes by John Holland)

christian era

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