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Anno domini
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Image:Scriptorium.jpg Dionysius_Exiguus.html" title="Meaning of frame frame|[[Dionysius Exiguus invented ''Anno Domini'' years to
computus date Easter..html" title="Meaning of [[Dionysius Exiguus">frame|[[Dionysius Exiguus invented ''Anno Domini'' years to
computus date Easter.">[[Dionysius Exiguus">frame|[[Dionysius Exiguus invented ''Anno Domini'' years to
computus date Easter.
{{redirect|AD}}
'''''Anno Domini''''' (
Latin: "In the Year of the Lord"), abbreviated as '''AD''' or '''A.D.''', defines an
epoch (reference date) epoch based on the traditionally-reckoned year of the birth of
Jesus Jesus of Nazareth. Similarly, '''Before Christ''', abbreviated as '''BC''' or '''B.C.''', is used in the
English language to denote years before the start of this epoch.
The designation is used to number years in the '''Christian Era''', conventionally used with the
Julian calendar Julian and
Gregorian calendars. More descriptively, years may be also specified as ''Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi'' ("In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ").
This Christian era is currently dominant all around the world in both commercial and scientific use. Presently, it is the common international standard, recognised by international institutions such as the
United Nations and the
Universal Postal Union. This is due both to
tradition and to the fact that the solar
Gregorian calendar has for long time been considered to be astronomically correct.
[The mean year of the Gregorian calendar is 365.2425 days. This approximated the mean tropical year more than five millennia ago. The real (mean) tropical year is now very close to 365.2421875 days i.e. 27s/year shorter. However, relative to the vernal equinox year, important for the determination of the date of Christian Easter, the older Aloysius Lilius Lilius definition of the year is and will be a very good value. The ''vernal equinox year'' and the ''mean tropical year'' have falsely been seen as identical even by many erudite persons of the 20th century.]
In English, usage copies Latin by placing the abbreviation before the year number for AD, but after the year number for BC; for example: 64 BC, but AD 2001.
Synonyms
Common Era
Anno Domini is sometimes referred to as the
Common Era (''CE'') instead. This term is often preferred by those who want to avoid the association with the Christian era. For example, Cunningham and Starr (1998) write that "B.C.E./C.E. ... do not presuppose faith in Christ and hence are more appropriate for interfaith dialog than the conventional B.C./A.D." When the
People's Republic of China abolished the
Republic of China era in
1949, it adopted Western years, calling that era ''gÅ?ngyuán'', 公元, which literally means Common Era.
Anno Salutis
Anno Salutis (often translated from
Latin as ''in the year of salvation'') is a dating style used up until the eighteenth century, which like Anno Domini dates years from the birth of
Christ. It can be explained in the context of Christian belief, where the birth of Jesus saved mankind from
eternal damnation. It is often used in a more elaborate form such as Anno Nostrae Salutis (''in the year of our salvation''), Anno Salutis Humanae (''in the year of human well-being''), Anno Reparatae Salutis (''in the year of accomplished salvation'').
Numbering of years
Historians do not use a
year zero — AD 1 is the first year or epoch of the Anno Domini era, and 1 BC immediately precedes it as the first year before the epoch. This is a problem with some calculations; so in
astronomical year numbering a zero is added, and the 'AD' and 'BC' are dropped. In keeping with 'standard decimal numbering', a negative sign '−' is added for earlier years, so counting down from year 2 would give 2, 1, 0, −1, −2, and so on. This results in a one-year shift between the two systems (eg −1 equals 2 BC). This article, however, is about the civil usage without a year zero.
Earlier calendar epochs
''Anno Domini'' dating was not adopted in Western Europe until the eighth century. Like the other inhabitants of the
Roman Empire, early Christians used one of several methods to indicate a specific year — and it was not uncommon for more than one to be used in the same document. This redundancy allows historians to construct parallel regnal lists for many kingdoms and polities by comparing chronicles from different regions, which include the same rulers.
Consular dating
The earliest and most common practice was Roman '
consular' dating. This involved naming both ''consulares ordinares'' who had been appointed to this office on
January 1 of the civil year. Sometimes one or both consuls might not be appointed until November or December of the previous year, and news of the appointment may not have reached parts of the Roman empire for several months into the current year; thus we find the occasional inscription where the year is defined as "after the consulate" of a pair of consuls.
Dating from the founding of Rome
Another method of dating, rarely used, was to indicate the year ''
ab urbe condita'', or "from the foundation of the City" (abbreviated AUC), where "the City" meant
Rome. Several epochs were in use by Roman historians. Modern historians usually adopt the epoch of
Varro, which we place in 753 BC.
About AD 400 the Iberian historian
Orosius used the ''ab urbe condita'' era. Pope
Boniface IV (about AD 600) may have been the first to use both the ''ab urbe condita'' era and the ''Anno Domini'' era (he put AD 607 = AUC 1360).
Regnal years of Roman emperors
Another system that is less commonly found than thought was to use the
regnal year of the
Roman emperor. At first,
Caesar Augustus Augustus would indicate the year of his rule by counting how many times he had held the office of consul, and how many times the
Roman Senate had granted him
Tribune Tribunican powers, carefully observing the fiction that his powers came from these offices granted to him, rather than from his own person or the many
Roman legion legions under his control. His successors followed his practice until the memory of the
Roman Republic faded (late in the second century or early in the third century), when they openly began to use their regnal year.
Indiction cycles
Another common system was to use the
indiction cycle (15 indictions made up an agricultural tax cycle, an indiction being a year in duration). Documents and events began to be dated by the year of the cycle (e.g., "fifth indiction", "tenth indiction") in the fourth century, and was used long after the tax was no longer collected. This system was used in
Gaul, in
Egypt until the
History of early Arab Egypt Islamic conquest, and in the
Eastern Roman Empire until its conquest in
1453.
Other dating systems
A great many local systems or
eras were also important, for example the year from the foundation of one particular city, the regnal year of the neighboring
History of Persia Persian emperor, and eventually even the year of the reigning
Caliph. The beginning of the numbered year also varied from place to place, and was not largely standardized in
Europe (except
England) as
January 1 until the sixteenth century. The most important of these include the
Seleucid era (in use until the eighth century), and the
Spanish era (in use in official documents in
Aragon,
Valencia, and in
Castile, into the fourteenth century. In 1422,
Portugal became the last country of
western Europe to adopt the ''Anno Domini'' era).
History of ''Anno Domini''
Early Christians designated the year via a combination of consular dating, imperial regnal year dating, and Creation dating. Use of consular dating ended when the emperor
Justinian I discontinued appointing consuls in the mid sixth century, shortly after he required that the use of imperial regnal dating. The last consul nominated was
Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius in 541. The
papacy was in regular contact throughout the
Middle Ages with envoys of the
Byzantine Empire Byzantine world, and had a clear idea — sudden deaths and deposals notwithstanding — of who was the
Byzantine emperor at any one time.
The ''Anno Domini'' system was developed by a
Scythian monk named
Dionysius Exiguus in Rome in 525, as an outcome of his work on calculating the
computus date of Easter. Byzantine chroniclers like
Theophanes the Confessor Theophanes continued to date each year in their world chronicles on a different Judaeo-Christian basis — from the notional
Creation (theology) creation of the World as calculated by Christian scholars in the first five centuries of the Christian era. These eras, sometimes called ''
Anno Mundi'', "year of the world" (abbreviated AM), by modern scholars, had their own disagreements. No single Anno Mundi epoch was dominant. One popular formulation was that established by
Eusebius of Caesarea, a historian at the time of
Constantine I of the Roman Empire Constantine I. The
Latin translator
Jerome helped popularize Eusebius's AM count in the West. Another formulation, dominant in the East during the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire, was developed by the
Alexandrian monk
Anninus of Alexandria Anninus.
Accuracy
Almost all
Biblical scholars believe that Dionysius was incorrect in his calculation, and that the date claimed for Jesus' birth was between 8 BC and 4 BC. The
Chronology of Jesus birth of Christ is known to have preceded the death of
Herod the Great which occurred in 4 BC according to
Johannes Kepler Kepler.
Popularization
The first historian or chronicler to use Anno Domini as his primary dating mechanism was
Victor of Tonnenna, an African chronicler of the seventh century. A few generations later, the
Anglo-Saxon historian
Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius, also used Anno Domini dating in his ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People,'' finished in 731. In this same history, he was the first to use the Latin equivalent of ''before Christ'' and established the standard for historians of no
year zero, even though he used zero in his
computus. Both Dionysius and Bede regarded Anno Domini as beginning at the incarnation, or conception, of Jesus, not his birth approximately nine months later (''
Annunciation style'').
On the continent of
Europe, Anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the
Carolingian Renaissance by
Alcuin. This endorsement by
Charlemagne and
List of Frankish Kings his successors popularizing the usage of the epoch and spreading it throughout the
Carolingian Empire ultimately lies at the core of the system's prevalence until present times.
Outside the Carolingian Empire, Spain continued to date by the
Era of the Caesars, or
Spanish Era, well into the Middle Ages, which counted beginning with 38 BC. The
Era of Martyrs, which numbered years from the accession of
Diocletian in
284, who launched the last yet most severe persecution of Christians, prevailed in the East and is still used officially by the
Coptic Christianity Coptic and used to be used by the
Tewahedo Church Ethiopian church. Another system was to date from the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which as early as
Hippolytus (writer) Hippolytus and
Tertullian was believed to have occurred in the consulate of the Gemini (AD 29), which appears in the occasional medieval manuscript.
Even though Anno Domini was in widespread use by the ninth century, Before Christ (or its equivalent) did not become widespread until the late fifteenth century.
Other eras in official use
Some other eras were in official use in
Modern Europe modern times or are still in use in several countries alongside the current international Anno Domini era.
European attempts
* The
French Revolution seriously attempted to displace the Anno Domini system by instead dating from 22 September 1792 = 1 ''vendémiaire an I'' of the
First French Republic. (''see''
French Revolutionary Calendar). Napoléon finally abolished the calendar effective
1 January 1806, the day after 10 nivôse an XIV.
* The
Fascism Italian Fascists used the standard system along with
Roman numerals to denote the number of years since the establishment of the Fascist government in
1922. Therefore, 1934, for example, was Year XII. This era was abolished with the fall of fascism in Italy on
July 25,
1943.
''Both attempts ultimately failed to replace the standard calendar.''
Asian national eras
* The official
Japanese era name Japanese system numbers years from the accession of the current
Emperor of Japan emperor, regarding the calendar year during which the accession occurred as the first year.
* It is still very common in
Taiwan to date events via the
Republic of China era, whose first year is
1912.
*
North Korea uses a system that starts in 1912 (=
Juche 1), the year of the birth of their founder
Kim Il-Sung. The year 2004 was "Juche 93". ''Juche'' means ''"
autarchy, self-reliance"''.
* In
Thailand in 1888 King
Chulalongkorn decreed a National Thai Era since founding of
Bangkok on 1782, April 6. In 1912 the New Year's Day was shifted to April 1. In
1941, the Prime Ministre
Phibunsongkhram decided to count the years since B.C. 543. This is the so-called
Thai solar calendar or Thailand Buddhist Era clearly relied on the western solar calendar. This is one of the versions of the
Buddhist calendar.
Religious eras
* In
Israel, the traditional
Hebrew calendar, using an era
Anno mundi dating from Creation, is in official use.
* In the
Islamic world, traditional
Islamic calendar Islamic dating according to the ''Anno Hegiræ'' (in the year of the ''
Hijra (Islam) hijra'') era remains in use to a varying extent, especially for religious purposes.
See also
{{wiktionarypar2|AD|Anno Domini}}
*
Calendar
*
Calendar era
*
Chronology
References
* {{cite book
| last = Declercq | first = Georges
| title = Anno Domini: The origins of the Christian era
| location = Turnhout
| publisher = Brepols
| year = 2000
| id = ISBN 2503510507
}} (despite beginning with 2, it is English)
* ———. "Dionysius Exiguus and the Introduction of the Christian Era". ''Sacris Erudiri'' 41 (2002): 165–246. An annotated version of part of ''Anno Domini''.
* {{cite book
| last = Richards | first = E. G.
| title = Mapping Time
| location = Oxford
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| year = 2000
| id = ISBN 0192862057
}}
* {{cite web
| author = John Riggs
| year = January-February 2003
| url = http://www.ucc.org/ucnews/jan03/asiseeit.htm
| title = Whatever happened to B.C. and A.D., and why?
| publisher =United Church News
| accessdate = December 19
| accessyear = 2005
}}
* {{cite book
| author = Philip A Cunningham
| coauthors = Arthur F Starr
| year = 1998
| title = Sharing Shalom: A Process for Local Interfaith Dialogue Between Christians and Jews
| publisher = Paulist Press
| id = ISBN 0809138352
}}
Note
* The approximation of the year in the old
Persian calendar attributed to
Omar Khayyám is 365.24
24 days, which is very close to the vernal equinox year, but requires a 33-year cycle.
* The definition of
Milutin Milanković, used in the "
revised Julian calendar", is 365.24
22 days, which is very close to the mean tropical year, but uses unequal long-period cycles.
External links
-
''The Catholic Encyclopedia,'' s.v. "General Chronology"
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