we

Published by The National Herald, December 31, 2004

Are we actually in the Year 2011?

By Prof. D. G. Kousoulas
Special to The National Herald

Two thousand and four years ago, the Year One arrived, but no one knew about it. The 12 months we call 1 AD passed like those of any other year. The Dominus (Lord), for which the "D" stands, was already a little boy of six years in age, and no one knew that, one day, He would be called the Son of God.

To the Romans of that time, the year was 754 AUC (i.e., Ab Urba Condita, from the "Founding of Rome"). For the Romans, 754 years had passed since Romulus is said to have founded the city of Rome. It was a numerical designation of years based on mythology, but it had been accepted and served the Romans’ need to keep track of time.

For the Greeks, however, what we call Year One was the first quarter of the 195th Olympiad. They marked time in four-year blocks between successive Olympics. If we multiply 195 by 4, it comes to 780, which means that the first Olympic Games had presumably started 26 years before the founding of Rome.

For the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, it was the year 3760 from the founding of the world (apo ktiseos kosmou), a calculation which traced its beginning to the first passage in Genesis.

In far away China, it was nothing more than the second year of the reign of Ping-Ti, a boy emperor who died five years later at the age of 13.

When and how did we start numbering our years the way we do today? It was in the year which today we refer to as 526 AD. In that year, or a little earlier, Pope John I asked a monk who had a reputation of being a good mathematician and astronomer to calculate how many years had passed since the birth of Christ. The monk’s name was Dionysus Exiguus, but he was best known as "Denis the Little."

What the Pope had asked Denis to do was no easy task. Until then, the day of Christ’s Incarnation was considered less important than His Resurrection. Even the Resurrection was not used to identify the years, and the celebration of Pascha (Easter) was a matter of dispute for centuries.

In fact, the Pope John I’s sought to develop a more rational method to annually set the proper day to celebrate Easter. Constantine the Great and the Council of Nicaea had established a neat formula: the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, but even that formula was not observed faithfully.

Denis the Little thought that the numbering of the years should start from the Incarnation of Our Lord. He knew from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, while Octavius Augustus was the first emperor of Rome.

In the year 1071 AUC (318 AD), Constantine the Great had his astronomers and mathematicians calculate, and they came up with the date of December 25, in the Roman year 753 AUC. Denis took made this his starting point and went back to number the years the prior emperors had reigned. After a great deal of work, he accepted Constantine’s calculation as correct and termed as "Anno Domini Nostri Jesus Christi," the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Year One.

The Roman year 753 AUC became what we now call the year 1 BC, with the year 1 AD beginning one week after December 25 of 1 BC, on January 1, 754 AUC. There was no Year Zero.

Denis had done his calculations before the Arabic Numerals system was in existence. At the time, the Western system of numbering did not include the concept "zero," or the quantity of nothing.

This numbering system appears to have originated with the Hindus in India around the Fourth Century (which commenced in 300 AD). Zero came into wider use in the Middle East around 600 AD. This system eventually reached Spain, and by the year 1000 AD, it was in use in all of Europe, so when the time came, there was officially a year 1000 AD.

This was not the only problem. Denis the Little miscalculated the time of Jesus’ birth by at least six years. In the forthcoming book, The Life and Times of Jesus and Paul, this writer points out that in their Gospels, both Matthew and Luke state that Jesus was born "in the days of Herod the King." Herod died in the year 747 AUC, however, which corresponds to the year 4 BC, four years before the year set by Dennis as the year Jesus was born.

Moreover, Matthew records the slaughter of infants by Herod and states that those killed were two years of age and under. This implies that Jesus was already at least two years old at the time. This would make him six years old in the Year One, thereby making this new year, in actuality, 2011 AD.

Luke, apparently realizing that he had to explain why Joseph would take his pregnant wife to Bethlehem, a distance of more than 60 miles over difficult terrain, added another story: "Joseph, being of the house and the lineage of David, had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to register for the taxing census."

At this point, however, Luke adds one more detail: He writes: "And the taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria."

This is troubling information. There was indeed a census, but it took place for the first time in 6 AD, ten years after the death of Herod, when Jesus was already 12 years old. The census had been ordered by Augustus after he had deposed and exiled Herod’s son Archelaus to Gaul in 6 A.D. By then, Judea had become a Roman province attached to Syria. Cyrenius, a Roman senator, was sent to the area by Augustus "to take an account of their substance (properties)," to quote Josephus.

Before 6 AD, The area was not administratively part of the Roman Empire. We also know from Josephus that Cyrenius did not come to the area until 6 AD. Evidently, Jesus could not have been born in Bethlehem in the year 6 AD. At that time, he had to already be 12 years of age.

At the time Denis the Little made his calculations, the Christian world still used the calendar established by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.

By then, the calendar instituted by Romulus was way off in terms of the seasons, because the Romulus year initially had only 304 days.

Caesar established a year of 365 days, very close to the correct length but still six hours longer than the true solar year. It served the needs of the people quite well for more than 15 centuries.

By the 16th Century, however, the accumulation of surplus time had moved the Vernal Equinox from March 21 back to March 11. The date for the Spring had been set at the time of Constantine the Great.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, in order to correct this discrepancy and better match the solar year, ordained that the ten days between October 5 and October 14 should be removed from the year 1582, moving the calendar ahead by nine days. Leap years were also to have an extra day in the month of February to match the calendar with the actual solar year as much as possible.

The Gregorian calendar, a modified Julian calendar, was accepted almost immediately in most Roman Catholic countries, and more gradually in Protestant countries.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, however, the old Julian calendar was kept into the 20th Century. In Greece, it was officially changed in 1923, when it differed from the Gregorian calendar by thirteen days.

In England and in the British colonies in America, the Gregorian calendar was not introduced until 1752. By that time, the English calendar was 11 days different from the rest of continental Europe. Therefore, by royal decree, 11 days were omitted in 1752 – September 2 was followed immediately by September 14.

The Gregorian calendar which was determined by scientific astronomical calculations, was viewed by the non-Catholic churches and governments as a religious issue, and even to this day, a sect of Greek Orthodox believers follow the Julian calendar, some designating themselves as "Genuine Orthodox Christians," although they follow the calendar instituted by a pagan Roman leader.

Dr. Kousoulas is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books, notably "The Life and Times of Constantine the Great" (1999), and numerous scholarly articles.



Volume 7 Number 1 - Tuesday, January 4th, 2004	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY