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I. HERODIAN CHRONOLOGY
In 1982, Ormond Edwards wrote: «More than
a century has passed since the publication of the Lehrbuch (“manual”)
by Emil Schürer, and its recent revision (Schürer 1973) presents,
almost unchanged, a thesis which is now recognised as the classical
expression of Herodian chronology. On the other side, contemporary
critics of this chronology have scarcely been able to improve on the
thesis of Riess (1880) which questions the date of 4 BC for Herod’s
death.3»
We recall that Riess disagreed with
Schurer and had remarked on the impossibility of fitting in all the
events which are supposed to have occurred between 13 March 4 BC – the date of the moon’s
eclipse mentioned by Flavius Josephus – and the Passover of that
same year which fell on 11 April, the day after Herod died, again
according to Flavius Josephus. Since the eclipse did not occur in the
years 3 and 2 BC, but only in 1 BC, Riess concluded that Herod had
died in that year4.
In 1966, W E Filmer confirmed this
conclusion by establishing a rigorous analysis of the years of Herod
the Great’s reign5.
He began by showing that it was in 39 BC, and not in 40 BC, that Herod
left for Rome to pay his respects to Antony and managed to get
himself appointed by the Roman Senate as king in the place of Antigone. A
conclusion which is confirmed by the respective timetables of both Antony and
Herod immediately following the battle of Philippi (42 BC).
Furthermore, Josephus reports that the
year when Jerusalem was under siege was a sabbatical year, and
that the resultant food shortage even continued until after
Herod’s victory. Now, this sabbatical year fell in 36 and not in 37.
Once we accept that Herod became master of Jerusalem in the autumn of
36 BC, the key question is how one should calculate his thirty-four
years of effective reign: by including the year of his accession to
the throne or not? By examining the method of counting employed by
Josephus with regard to the years in office of six high priests
between two well attested dates – from the accession of Simon, «the
high priest, military governor and leader of the Jews» (1 M
13.41-42), in the year 170 of the Seleucid era (142 BC), until
Jerusalem was captured by Pompey in 63 BC – Filmer established
that Josephus only begins to count the years of a reign starting from
the year immediately following the accession to the throne. «It
follows, he writes, that the first year of Herod’s reign, following his
conquest of Jerusalem on 10 Tishri in the year 36 BC, commenced in the
year 35 BC, either in Nisan or in Tishri.6»
Nisan is the first month in the religious
calendar, the seventh in the civil year, and corresponds to
March-April. Tishri is the seventh month in the religious calendar,
the first in the civil year, and corresponds to September-October.
Filmer concludes that the «thirty-fourth and final year of Herod’s
reign began in Nisan (March-April) or in Tishri (September-October) in
the year 2 BC.» Correct! It therefore finished in Nisan or in Tishri
in the year 1 BC.»
More debatable is the conclusion he draws
from this: «His death must have occurred at the end of January 1 BC.»
The same question exists for the end of a reign as for its beginning:
should one include or exclude the year of death from the count of
thirty-four years? If we exclude it, Herod died in the Jewish year
which begins in Nisan or Tishri in the year 1 before Jesus
Christ and ends in Nisan or Tishri in the year 1 after Jesus
Christ.
The answer is not simple. When
Archelaus succeeded his father in Judaea, he was accused by his
enemies before the tribunal of Augustus of «having played king for a
long time»7.
This overlapping of the two reigns makes the calculation of King Herod’s
reign even more uncertain still. Here, perhaps, the data of the Roman
chronology will allow us to be more specific.
In any case, to state that Herod the Great
died in 4 BC, as do nearly all authors today, is no longer
sustainable,
Ormond Edwards wrote confidently in 19828.
We could not agree with him more.
II. ROMAN CHRONOLOGY
In the Dossiers d’archéologie Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères clearly illustrates the
contradiction one is led into if one uncritically accepts that Herod «died
in the year 4 before our era»9.
Since the data of epigraphy obliges us «to recognise Luke’s
stature as an historian, a title to which he lays claim at the beginning of his
Gospel», the author thinks she has succeeded in dating the birth of
Jesus in 2 BC, in happy synchrony with Quirinius’ governorship of
Syria, even though this means «deferring to the time of the ethnarch
Herod Archelaus the episodes which Matthew had situated – for
symbolic reasons (sic!) – in the time of the dynasty’s
founder», Herod the Great.
It is ingenious. But untenable. How
would she explain the fact that Saint Matthew also shows us Joseph, having
taken refuge in Egypt with Jesus and Mary, on the point of returning
to the land of Israel, «on learning that Archelaus was reigning in
Judaea in place of Herod his father» (Mt 2.22)? To place the
events of the Nativity after Herod’s death is a solution quite as
desperate as that of Father Boismard who treats the events reported by
Saint Matthew as no more than legends.
The fact is that Jesus was born at
Bethlehem on 25 December, at the time of the census of Quirinius, before
Herod’s death. Such are the facts of the problem, solidly attested
by Saint Luke and Saint Matthew.
Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères does, however,
have the great merit of establishing the historical fact of the
census, against the majority of authors including Marie-Françoise,
who expresses the general consensus by treating the census of
Quirinius in Saint Luke as a «reconstructed event»10.
Relying on a funerary inscription discovered in 1674 at Venice and
deciphered in 1880, Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères boldly writes: «This
repudiation of Luke may well constitute an historical error, for the
funerary inscription of Aemilius Secundus, a Roman soldier, provides some
powerful supprot for the view that there were two censuses
carried out under two separate mandates by Quirinius in Syria.»
«THIS FIRST CENSUS» (Lk 2.2)
Here is this document. It is not dated,
but one only has to read it to appreciate that it cannot belong to the
year 6 AD, as M-F Baslez incorrectly writes11.
| Quintus
Æmilius Secundus son of Quintus, of the Palatine Tribe (which
served) in the army of the divine Augustus, under P. Sulpicius
Quirinius, Caesar’s legate in Syria, decorated with honours,
prefect of the 1st Augusta cohort and prefect of the 2nd
Classica cohort. Moreover, by order of Quirinius, I carried
out a census of 117 thousand citizens from the city of Apamea.
Moreover, despatched on a mission by Quirinius against the
Ituraeans of Mount Liban, I took their citadel. And before military
service, (I was) prefect of the labourers and seconded by two
consuls to the “aerarium”. And in the colony, questor,
aedile on two occasions, duumvir on two occasions and pontiff.
Here are buried Q. Æmilius Secundus son of Quintus, of the
Palatine tribe (my) son and Æmilia Chia (my) emancipated
slave. This monument is excluded from the inheritance. |
Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères’ demonstration cannot be faulted. «Enrolled
in the army, the soldier Æmilius Secundus undertook his service in
Syria, where he was decorated with honours (honoribus decoratus).»
What does that mean? In Titus Livy, the word “decorated” is
associated with military rewards, which are themselves called “honours”.
These were handed out publicly by the general at the end of battle.
The general in this case is Sulpicius
Quirinius, Caesar’s legate in Syria, who had himself
obtained the emblems of triumph after his victorious campaign against
the Homonades of Taurus, a mountain people who were hampering
communications along the via Sebastia on the borders of Cilicia, a
region administratively attached to Syria.
The Annals of Tacitus lead us to
confirm the title of governor of Syria given to
Quirinius by Saint Luke (Lk 2.2). To combat the Homonades, writes Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères,
«this senior position of command was the only one which met the
required conditions». There were five of these conditions, each of
them «indispensable»:
1. Syria was a province of consular
rank, and Quirinius, in his capacity as consul, was called upon to
exercise an office which corresponded with his rank.
2. As he had received the emblems of triumph, which a simple legate with a special mission would be
unable to obtain, it was appropriate for him to have the title of
governor.
3. To reduce the Homonades, he had
to be able to count on a sufficiently well-armed force, and Syria was
unique in having legions at his disposal, three to be precise.
4. Taurus, where he engaged them in
battle, is a mountainous massif on the borders of Cilicia, the theatre
of other insurrections which had been repressed by the legionaries in
Syria during the 1st century BC.
5. These legionaries, being Roman
citizens, could earn from their general the emblems of triumph, along
with thanksgiving ceremonies in the temples, something which was not
permitted to simple soldiers belonging to auxiliary bodies.
Conclusion: «Quirinius therefore
possessed at this period an imperium that was at one and the
same time military, civil and judicial. He was a sort of
general-in-chief, civil servant and high judge. Through his military
command, his destiny was bound up not only with that of Secundus, but
with that of the armies which he had led to victory in the Taurus and
a little later against the Ituraeans of Liban.»
Now, the funerary inscription teaches us
that between these two military campaigns Secundus, acting on the orders of the
same Quirinius, had carried out a census in the town of Apamea on the Orontes, a free federate town; he arrived at a very
considerable figure for the town and its region, 117,000 citizens to
be precise: «Since his powers of jurisdiction extended over civil and
judicial affairs, Quirinius possessed the necessary authority to register
citizens in free towns like Apamea, and his military powers allowed
him to entrust his soldiers with the responsibility for fulfilling
this task.»
Here we rediscover the data provided
by Saint Luke concerning the governorship of a certain
Quirinius in Syria and a census of persons. Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères
quotes the Gospel text according to the codex of Beza (2nd
century AD):
| «Now
it came to pass in those days that an edict went out from
Caesar Augustus that the whole inhabited world should be
enrolled. This was the first enrolment, Quirinius being governor
of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own
homeland. So Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city
of Nazareth, to the land of Juda, to the city of David, which
is called Bethlehem, to be enrolled with Mary, his spouse, who
was with child, since he was of the house and of the lineage
of David. And when they arrived, the time came for her to give
birth, and she gave birth to her son, her first-born.» (Lk
2.1-6) |
Her commentary on this text is so
remarkable that we must quote it in full. It puts and end to a debate
which has caused much ink to be spilt12,
especially since Alfred Loisy, and it brings out with a rare
penetration the manner in which Saint Luke combines a rigorous
historical exactitude with delicate biblical reminiscences:
«The participle used by the Evangelist [Quirinius
being governor of Syria] is linked to a term which
designates
a governor who holds the full imperium both by title and
possession. When Quirinius held office in Syria, there was carried out
in Judaea and Galilee a first enrolment. By copying the Hebrew
word order, Luke’s ancient formula laid stress on the
position of this operation: conducted under Quirinius, it preceded a
second census mentioned in Acts 5.37.
«Luke was speaking of an official
inscription on a register which each man was required to make about
himself and his family, according to his ancestral origins, by going
to his own homeland. This duty fell on the inhabitants of
Galilee and Judaea who enjoyed their liberty, not on slaves. Joseph,
being of Davidic stock, went up with Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem,
the territory of his ancestors in the land of Juda. He was
conforming to the law that stipulated that the Hebrew people should
return to their homeland in the jubilee year (Lv 25.10) and
that polls should be carried out by tribes (Nb 1.2). Thus, this first
enrolment, which emanated from an imperial decision, was carried out
in the time of the governor Quirinius, in Herod’s ancient kingdom,
in accordance with Hebrew customs.»
How should we date this «first» census?
By distinguishing it from the second one which Saint Luke refers to in the
Acts of the Apostles (Ac 5.37), and which was dated by Josephus Flavius in the year
6 AD. «This enrolment (apographè in Greek) - like the
census (census in Latin) in Apamea - sought to identify the
number of accountable citizens in a given region. It should not be
confused with the census organised in Judaea when Quirinius made a
visit to
ensure that Archelaus’ private property was sold off after his
disgrace. At that time, in fact, a certain Judas from Galilee
was intimidating those who were not averse to being inscribed in the tax register, and,
in this connection, Flavius Josephus spoke
of an enrolment followed by an evaluation (apotimèsis)
of property. This two-part operation had neither the same nature nor
the same objective nor the same geographical scope as the preceding
one: conducted according to the Roman principles of capitation and not
according to Hebrew customs, it sought to bring the population under
the control of the Empire by means of taxation; it did not cover
Galilee, but only Judaea.»
THE SECOND CENSUS (Ac 5.37)
Archelaus was Herod the Great’s
successor in Judaea. It was at his hands that Saint Joseph feared
retribution as he returned to Judaea from Egypt (Mt 2.22). In fact,
writes Father Nodet, «after Herod’s death, the situation became
confused, for his final will and testament, which made Archelaus king of all Judaea,
was vigorously contested and had to be confirmed by Augustus. Given
the seriousness of the accusations, Augustus ended up dividing Herod’s
Judaea into three parts: Antipas and Philip became tetrarchs, and
Archelaus merely received the title of ethnarch of Judaea, until he
should show himself worthy of being appointed king. During this
vacancy of power, various revolts broke out and were repressed by the
Romans.13»
These events, which took place after Herod’s
death, are still present in the minds of Saint Matthew’s
contemporaries less than fifty years later, so much so that a simple
allusion to Saint Joseph’s apprehensions sufficed to recall their
context.
On the other hand, Flavius Josephus, who
wrote from Rome at the end of the century, «knew very little about
the kingdom properly referred to as that of Archelaus, observes Father
Nodet, not even its exact duration: he recalculates it so
that it occupies the interval between Herod and the census»14.
Which tells us how little trust we should place in the “intervals”
thus “recalculated” by this Jewish historian in both of his works,
in The War and the Antiquities, whether it
concerns the thirty-four years of Herod’s reign or the ten years of
that of his son Archelaus!
The truth, acknowledged by Nodet, is that
«Archelaus never really took possession of his domain. It thus
becomes easy to understand why Josephus had nothing noteworthy to say
about his reign»15!
In The War, he writes simply that Archelaus treated the Jews
and the Samaritans with ferocity, and that he exiled them to Vienna in
Gaul in his ninth year; after that his property was confiscated. «No
other details are provided about this affair, which must however have
been fairly serious, as afterwards the monarchy was abolished in Judaea.»
It is in this context that a new census will take place, one which Gamaliel
will allude to, thirty years later, in a dramatic discussion with his
colleagues in the Sanhedrin, on the subject of the Apostles (Ac 5.37).
It is clear that none of this is fiction...
Now Nodet stresses that, given the gaps
which exist in Tacitus, Flavius Josephus is the only historian to assign a date to
this census, which he does by associating it with Quirinius in a convoluted sentence
translated by Nodet as follows: «Quirinius having sold off the
possessions of Archelaus – and the censuses being completed,
those that took place in the thirty-seventh year after Antony’s
defeat by Caesar (Octavian) at Actium.» (Antiquities 18.26)
The date of the battle of Actium is 31 AD.
The “thirty-seventh” year therefore takes us to 6 AD. As
Father Nodet remarks, «the sentence is complex, but one immediately
sees that its heaviness is largely due to the fact that it includes a
carefully dated parenthesis concerning the census (6 AD)» – more accurately
on «the censuses» in the plural – which has no grammatical
connection with Quirinius, «which appears strange, remarks Nodet,
since Josephus says that he had a mandate to do this». And what is
more: «Which contradicts the preceding conclusion, according to which
Archelaus’ reign was very short.15»
The aberrant conclusion that Nodet draws
from this is that «the connection between Quirinius and this census
is simply an invention by Josephus» from whom Saint Luke is supposed
to have borrowed! Let us recall once again that the Evangelist wrote
thirty years before the Jewish historian, and that he
distinguishes two censuses! So it is the opposite that is true:
it was the the later writer who “borrowed” from the earlier one
or, to be more exact, who muddled up the clear evangelical data by
deferring to the year 6 AD the census of Quirinius which was
contemporary with the birth of Christ, and by confusing this census –
using a plural which Nodet unwittingly falls into the trap of treating
as a singular – with another which was contemporary with the revolt
of Judas the Galilean (Ac 5.37).
It is not our purpose to
discuss the revolt of Judas the Galilean, which raged around the time
that Archelaus was deposed. So let us return to our Jesus who was born
at Bethlehem during the final days of King Herod and the first
census of Quirinius. Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères writes: «The military
campaign of Quirinius in the Taurus took place between 12 and 1 BC or,
according to the data in Tacitus, between his consulate and the
arrival of Gaius Caesar in the East (Annals III, 48). Between
these two dates, in the list of governors of Syria which the parallel
sources allow us to draw up, there is only one time period available,
the last one. With regard to the succession of senior posts, between
two legates an interlude was generally observed, and the period in
this case had to be sufficiently lengthy to contain two military
campaigns and a census. And in fact, as the successor of P. Q. Varus
who was governor from the summer of 4 BC (Antiquities XVII,
221, 250, 286) until 1 BC, the name of Quirinius may be inserted
without encountering any contradictions. The documented career of this
person allows us to confirm the date of the first census carried out
in Judaea as well as that in Apamea, and to recognise Luke’s
stature as an historian, a title to which he lays claim at the beginning of his
Gospel.16»
Therefore, the calendar of events may be
defined as follows:
– On 5 February of 2 BC (the year 752 after the foundation of
Rome) «Augustus, hailed as Pater Patriae, saw the whole
inhabited world placed under his feet, with all the generations of
both East and West.» He ordered that a census be taken of them (Lk
2.2-3). It is in this year that we can date the census carried out in
Apamea in
Syria by Aemilius Secundus and mandated by Quirinius, as well as the campaign
against the Ituraeans of Liban.
– 25 September: conception of John
the Baptist.
– In the following year, 1 BC, the census of Herod’s kingdom.
– 25 March: Annunciation and conception of Jesus.
– Quirinius meets Tiberius at Rhodes, and becomes proconsul of
Asia.
– 25 December: birth of Jesus at Bethlehem.
– 1 January of year 1 of the era of Jesus Christ: circumcision
of the Child Jesus, followed by His Presentation in the Temple of
Jerusalem.
– In the following days, the visit and adoration of the Magi, and
the flight into Egypt.
– Before Passover: death of Herod, followed by the return
of the Holy Family to Nazareth rather than to Bethlehem.
III. CHRISTIAN CHRONOLOGY
«For a long time Christians conformed to
the calendars used by the countries they found themselves
in. Already, in the 4th century,
several Fathers of the Church felt that the Incarnation
marked the beginning of a new age of the world; but as yet they did
not think of employing their own chronology.17»
It was the monk Denis,
called “the Little” (exiguus) (6th
century AD), a Scythian by birth, but a Roman in his mind and heart, who
took the initiative of counting the years starting from the date of
Christ’s birth, fixed by him on 25 December of the year 753 after
the foundation of Rome, the year 1 of the Christian era, which
therefore began in the year 754.
To understand how he proceeded, we will
follow the remarkable article by J Rambaud Buhot, dedicated to Denis
the Little and his work, in the Dictionary of Canon Law18.
For Denis is first of all a
canonist. In fact, it is to his ability as a translator and
compiler that we owe the first canonical collection truly worthy of
the name: the Dionysiana.
As a translator, Denis was led to involve
himself in date computation, that is to say in fixing the calendar of
moveable feasts. The East and the West had been divided for a long
time over the question of determining the date of Easter. As this
feast depended on the Spring full moon, the Alexandrians had from
around 277 calculated its date according to a lunar cycle of nineteen
years. The Council of Nicaea (325) had given the East instructions to
adopt not the Jewish custom but rather the Alexandrian rule, founded
on the lunar cycle of nineteen years. Theophilus of Alexandria made
use of this method to draw up a table of Easter dates, a table which
was continued by Saint Cyril († 444) and only ceased to be used in
the year 247 of Diocletian, that is 531 AD.
But, at Rome, they did not conform to the
ordinances of Nicaea on this point. On several occasions during the 5th
century there were differences of a week or even of a month between
the Eastern Easter and the Western Easter. In 525, prompted by a concern to reach
full agreement with the East, Denis appeared to
be the only one capable of finding a solution. He provided this
solution in a series of texts which were gathered together in the Liber
de Paschate. This work contains, among other things, the Cyclus
decemnovemnalis: a table of Easter dates covering a period of
ninety-five years, which was a continuation of the table used by Cyril of
Alexandria. We have already mentioned that this latter table went up
to the year 247 of Diocletian, that is to say to 531 AD. Denis’ table
contains ninety-five years, in other words five cycles of nineteen
years each.
Believing that the name of Diocletian, the
persecuting emperor, did not deserve to be perpetuated, Denis wished
to count the years from the birth of Christ. So he gave the following
year, the year 247 of Diocletian and 1285 of Rome, not the number 248
after Diocletian, but that of 532 after Jesus Christ, corresponding
with the number of years which had elapsed since the Incarnation.
«The number 532 had a quality which drew
the attention of the calendarists, writes Auguste Dumas. It is the
product of the lunar cycle of nineteen years multiplied by the solar
cycle of twenty-eight years, at the end of which the days of the week
once again correspond to the same days of the months. In a period of
five hundred and thirty-two years calculated according to the Julian
Calendar, the feasts of Easter follow each other in the same order and
on the same dates. It is what we call the paschal cycle. Denis
was convinced that Jesus was born on 25 December of the first year of
this paschal cycle, so he made the second year the year 1 of the
Christian era.19»
THE DAY: 25 DECEMBER
The calendar discovered in cave 4 at
Qumrân (4 Q 321) confirms Denis’ conviction that «Jesus was born
on 25 December». He also had the support of a very solid
tradition, which Saint John Chrysostom records in «a
remarkable homily whose authenticity people have tried in vain to
contest», writes Dom Henri Leclercq. In this sermon, which was
pronounced at Antioch for Christmas, 25 December 386, the holy bishop
declares: «I have been looking forward to this day for a long time.
It is only ten years ago that we became aware of the precise day of
this solemnity; but thanks to your zeal, here we are celebrating it
with as much excitement as if we had known about it for many a long
year. The peoples of the East, from Thrace to Gadesh, have known about
it for much longer.20»
In the East, the Nativity was celebrated
on 6 January. Foreseeing the opposition of certain members of his
audience to the “novelty” of fixing the feast on 25 December,
Saint John Chrysostom insists: «All we have done is to refer in this
matter to the testimony of people who possess an exact knowledge of
it, and who lived in Rome; it is through the faithful in Rome
that this information has been passed down to us.»
Dom Leclercq recalls that in 378, less
than ten years beforehand, Saint Jerome, on his way from Rome,
arrived at Antioch and there received the priesthood at the hands of
Bishop Paulinus: «Clearly he was sufficiently up to date with the
question to have been able to have been the principal instigator of
the liturgical innovation.»
In Palestine, the custom at that time was
to celebrate the holy king David, the ancestor of the Lord, and Saint
James, the brother of the Lord, on 25 December: «The whole world now
declares its opposition to the practice of this province», states
Saint Jerome.
In a sermon pronounced on 25 December,
between 401 and 410, to defend the legitimacy of the Western custom
and to uphold its superiority over the alleged tradition of the Church
of Jerusalem which celebrated the Nativity of the Lord on 6 January,
he adds: «You will tell me: “It is here that Christ was born! We
live in the very same places, so our witness has greater value than
that of more distant nations.”» The reply to this objection is
scathing and unanswerable. It has even more value today: «But who
instructed you, if not those who lived in this province (Palestine),
Peter, Paul and the other apostles? Now, you chased them out and we
received them into our homes; Peter, who was here with John, who was
here with James, taught us these things in the West. Moreover, ever
since the wars of extermination of which it was the theatre, this
province can no longer be considered the representative of an unbroken
and trustworthy tradition... All this is intended
for those who say to us: “It is here that the apostles lived; it is
here that the true tradition was preserved.” As for us, we
affirm that Christ is born today, and that he was only baptised
several days later, on the Epiphany...»
Dom Leclercq returns to Saint John
Chrysostom: «The authority of the West was insufficient to persuade
the Greeks to adopt the new institution; good arguments were needed.
Saint John Chrysostom tried to get them to believe [sic!] that
the Romans had been able to base their custom on the information
provided in the calendar annals of Augustus.» Which is tantamount to
insinuating that this Father of the Church was a liar when he went on
to declare, further on in his sermon, that the Roman Church possessed all
the necessary means of knowing the true date of the Saviour’s birth, as
the calendar regulations executed in Judaea by order of Augustus were
preserved in the public archives at Rome. Well before Saint
John Chrysostom, Tertullian, at the beginning of the 3rd
century, put forward as an argument against Marcion «the census taken under
Augustus, of which the Roman archives faithfully preserve the evidence
of the Lord’s Nativity» (IV 7.7).
But there is more. Saint John Chrysostom
observes that it must have been during the fast in September
that the priest Zechariah had had the vision in the Temple following which
his wife Elizabeth conceived Saint John the Baptist; from whence it
follows that the Virgin Mary, having Herself conceived in the sixth
month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that is to say in March, had to
have given birth in the month of December, and not in January.
Dom Leclercq, stirring things up as ever,
comments: «This line of reasoning is largely fanciful.» The 4 Q 321
allows us today to confound this presumptuous judgement. Imagine what
we would have heard from Saint John Chrysostom if it had occurred to
him «to get the Greeks to believe» that he was basing his arguments
on the «annals» of the priestly classes, in which he had discovered the table of their rounds of service in the Temple of Jerusalem! And
yet, it is just such a document, discovered in cave 4 at Qumrân, that permits us today to rehabilitate the Roman tradition against
modern incredulity and modernist denigration. Such is the striking
victory of our faith, on the threshold of the third millennium...
THE YEAR: 753-754 OF ROME
In the article quoted above, Auguste Dumas
writes: «In this system, the year 1 of Christ coincides with year 754
of Rome. Unfortunately, the calculations made by Denis do not
correspond to the data of history. According to the Gospel of Saint
Matthew, Jesus was born in the days of Herod; now, we know that Herod
died before the Passover of the Roman year of 750. It is therefore
some time before this date that one must place the birth of Christ,
although it is impossible to be more specific.»
Father Holzmeister counted no less than
eighteen different years put forward for the date of Christ’s birth
by numerous modern authors21,
not to mention ancient ones22.
One could say that all the moderns since the time of the Renaissance
have claimed to correct the “error of Denis” in the light of the
assertions made by Flavius Josephus who alone is considered
infallible.
This study of the Herodian and Roman
chronologies has shown us that neither the death of Herod nor the
census of Quirinius constitutes any serious objection to the date
calculations made by Denis. The “error” – or worse, the
lie! – is not to be found with Denis, but with Flavius Josephus.
Three hundred years before Denis, the paschal
tables engraved in the files of the see of Hippolytus of Rome,
dated by Margherita Guarducci to the first half of the 3rd
century23,
have already allowed us to establish this.
It is astonishing to see how authors
neglect this convergence between Denis and Hippolytus, despite the
clear demonstrations of Father Holzmeister in his survey of the dates
proposed by tradition. For the year 753, year 1 before Christ, he
cites «the Paschal Canon of Hippolytus where a note has been
made against the second year: “γενεςις
Хριστου” (birth of Christ). In
fact, the appendix embraces a period made up of two sets of 112 years
each, of which the final year is 222 after Christ. Therefore, the
final year of the first period is year 110 after Christ and the
second year of the first period is year 1 before Christ: 753.24»
The same date results from the information
provided by Apollinarius of Laodicaea. To quote Saint Jerome,
he counted 49 years between the nativity of Christ and the eighth year
of the Emperor Claudius, which is 48 AD. Therefore, Apollinarius dated
the birth of Christ in year 753 of Rome, 1 BC.
There is more. Around the year 200, Clement
of Alexandria wrote: «Our Lord was born in year XXVIII of
the Emperor Augustus, when the first census was imposed.»
Father Boismard comments: «The twenty-eight years of the Emperor
Augustus must obviously [sic!] be counted from the time
of his reign over Egypt, therefore after his victory over Antony and
Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, which took place in 31 BC. So from
this we obtain the date of 3 BC for the birth of Christ.25»
Father Boismard is quick to «obtain»
in his conclusion what he has already posited in his premisses as
something «obvious». Unfortunately for him, Clement does not say
that one should count the twenty-eight years from the battle of Actium.
There is every reason to think that he is counting from the dies
imperii of Augustus, dated 13 January 727, in other words
from 27 BC. In this case, «the year XXVIII of the Emperor Augustus»
presupposes twenty-seven years of his reign already completed:
727 + 27 = 754, date of the birth of
Christ.
Clement bases himself on the third Gospel:
«The exact nature of this fact is guaranteed by the following terms
in Luke’s Gospel of: “In the year 15 of Tiberius Caesar, the
Lord spoke to John, son of Zechariah”, and again in the same
Gospel: “Jesus presented Himself for baptism when He was about
thirty”. His preaching was to last no more than a year, as is
also written in these words: “He sent me to preach a year of the
Lord’s grace”. Thus speak the Prophet and the Gospel at one
and the same time.26»
Saint Clement continues: «Therefore,
fifteen years under Tiberius, fifteen years under Augustus, that makes
thirty years which passed until His Passion. From His Passion to the
fall of Jerusalem there are 42 years and 3 months.» Let us note that
at this point Clement makes «an error of two years in relation to the
historical reality, the Temple having been set alight in 70, forty
years after the Passion»27.
Clement then counts «from the fall of
Jerusalem to the death of Commodus, 122 years, 10 months and 13 days.»
This is correct, as the Emperor Commodus died on 31 December 192.
«Therefore, from the birth of the Lord until the death of Commodus,
he concluded, there were in all 194 years, 1 month and 13 days.» And
Boismard is jubilant: if the emperor Commodus died 194 years after the
birth of Christ, «one still obtains the year -3 for this
birth». Commodus is so accommodating! [an attempt to reproduce
the French pun on the emperor's name: “C'est trop commode!”].
But there is the error of two years, which Boismard has overlooked. If
this is corrected, «one obtains» for the birth of Jesus Christ: 25
December of the year 1 before the Christian era. It is Denis the Little
who has got it right.
Boismard adds: «One will note that on
Clement’s own evidence, the twenty-eight year dating of Augustus’
reign seems to have been the common belief in Egypt, independently of
the calculations which Clement used to obtain it.» Clement therefore
relied not only on the Gospel of Saint Luke but also on an oral
tradition. In his turn, Denis the Little, who would best be named
Denis the Roman, conformed to this tradition.
There is little point in listing the
authors who date Christ’s birth in the year 752 of Rome, a year
before the date maintained by Denis. This choice of the year 752
cannot prevail against the traditional date maintained by Denis, for
it would appear to rest solely on certain arithmetical considerations.
Their reasoning is as follows: on the
evidence of the four Evangelists, Jesus commenced His ministry after
His baptism. Jesus’ entry into public life follows the same
chronology as His entry into the world in the wonderful days of His
Nativity. His Precursor opens the way before Him, as Saint Matthew
emphasises: «In those days comes forth John the Baptist» (Mt
3.1); «Then Jesus comes forth...» (Mt 3.13) The same verb is
used, only a few
verses apart, to express the entrance on stage of both the
Precursor and the Messiah. Now, Saint Luke dates this event very
precisely: «In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of
Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and
Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood
of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God was addressed to John the son
of Zechariah in the wilderness.» (Lk 3.1-2) Further on Saint Luke
writes: «When he began His ministry, Jesus was about thirty years
of age.» (Lk 3.23)
The calculations employed by Saint
Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian and Orosius rely on taking this
information to the letter. According to the Latin way of reckoning,
the first anniversary of the reign of a sovereign commemorated the
exact dates of his accession. Since Augustus died on 19 August 14,
the years of Tiberius ran from 20 August to the following 19 August.
Thus, the fifteenth year of his reign extended from August 28 to
August 29, straddling the years 781-782 of the era of Rome. If Jesus
was baptised in 782, at the age of thirty, the date of His birth,
according to their calculations, results from a simple substraction:
782 - 30 = 752.
Denis the Little, on the other hand,
was an archivist and he reasoned as an historian, as his agreement with
the 4 Q 321 regarding the date of 25 December proves today in a
striking fashion.
However, the Dionysian era did not
suddenly rise up from the paschal tables to enter mainstream life and
become the Christian era: «In the first years of the 7th
century, the paschal calendar of Denis the Little was taken to Great
Britain by Saint Augustine and his companions from Rome. It was among
the Anglo-Saxons that the Dionysian calendar first began to be used to
date acts.28»
And it was owing to the Venerable Bede that it was imposed throughout
the West. In the East, the Greeks did not adopt it before the 15th
century. It was necessary to wait till the 19th
century to see the Christian era – referred to as the “common
era” by those who are so hostile to Jesus Christ that they cannot
bear to write or pronounce His Name – extended back into the past to
encompass the times before the Christian era, counted as years
“before Jesus Christ”. This chronology does not include a year
“0”. The actual year of Jesus’ birth is therefore year 1
“before Jesus Christ”. It comes immediately before the year 1
“after Jesus Christ”.
« I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA » (Ap 1.8)
It was surely in accordance with the
wishes of Divine Providence that Denis the Little was inspired to
create the Christian era beginning with the paschal calendar and
going so far as to supplant all the other eras. It is in fact through
His glorious Cross that the resurrected Christ takes His place at the
centre of history, as Saint Irenaeus says: «The Word of God, who
holds all creation in being, hung on the wood of the Cross in order to
sum up all things in Himself.» (Adv. Haer. 5.19)
Denis thus introduced into the daily
course of human affairs the great thought inspiring the Fathers of the
Church, who saw the Cross «as the axis of transmission and the pillar
of consolidation established by God between the immutable sphere of
Heaven and our changeable sphere, all too changeable since the sin of
Adam»29.
For this reason, the Fathers imposed «the idea of a regulation and
moderation of an unstable universe running adrift, exercised by the
powerful restraining influence of the Cross. It is the Axis of our
Wheel and holds it united to the immutable sphere of Heaven wherein God
dwells. All our labours, all our works come under His Empire». From
the 2nd century AD, this idea acted
as the
antidote to Gnosticism, «the first of the heresies which will attempt
to absorb the orthodox faith by corrupting it from inside».
In fact, continues the Abbé de Nantes, this heresy «prefigures
the most dangerous forms of these new visions, these universal
religions, which may well succeed today in deceiving the elect themselves,
if that were possible. Gnosticism was already presenting itself as a kind
of
“metachristianity”, superior to Catholic dogma but hidden in the
Scriptures, revealed only to the initiated and in wondrous harmony
with the profound riches of other religions.»
Today, in the midst of the great apostasy
predicted by Saint Paul, we rediscover, thanks to scientific
discoveries, the same truth: the era of Christ, who was born in
Bethlehem, died and rose in Jerusalem, gives the world created by God
its Axis, forbidding any other anthropocentric, atheist system or
false religion, and stamping its motion on all spheres and societies,
from the depths of hell to the very heights of heaven.
Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard
(1)
Marie-Christine Ceruti-Cendrier, Les Évangiles, témoignages
directs ou écrits tardifs? in the Dossiers d’archéologie,
no 249, Dec 99-Jan 00, p. 82-91. The author, from the University of
Minsk, seems to be a good example herself of this «exception for Orthodoxy». –
(2) L Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien, Paris
1898, quoted by Dom Henri Leclercq, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie
chrétienne et de Liturgie, article Nativité de Jésus,
XII 908 and 918. – (3) Ormond Edwards, Herodian
chronology, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly,
January-June 1982, p. 29. – (4) English CRC no
325, December 1999, p. 10. – (5) W E Filmer, The
chronology of the reign of Herod the Great, in The Journal of
Theological Studies XVII (1966), p. 283-298. – (6)
Filmer, op. cit., p. 292. – (7) Étienne
Nodet, Flavius Josèphe, baptême et résurrection, Cerf 1999,
p. 144. – (8) Edwards, op. cit., p.
38. – (9) S Chabert d’Hyères, L’année de
la Nativité, in the Dossiers d’archéologie
no 249, p. 92-99. – (10) M-F Baslez, Bible et
Histoire, Fayard 1998, p. 189-190. – (11) Ibid., p.
190. – (12) For example, Claude Nicolet who speaks
of the «certain error committed by Luke» in his L’inventaire
de monde, Arthème Fayard 1988, p. 196. – (13) Étienne
Nodet, op. cit., p. 142. – (14) Ibid.,
p. 143. – (15) Ibid., p. 146. –
(16) S Chabert d’Hyères, op. cit., p. 97-98. –
(17) Catholicisme, article “ère”, IV 379. –
(18) R Naz, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, IV
1131-1152. – (19) Auguste Dumas, article “ère”
in Catholicisme, IV 380. – (20) H Leclerq,
op. cit., XII 918-919. – (21) Urbanus
Holzmeister, Chronologia vita Christi, Rome 1933, p.
15-17. – (22) Ibid., p. 31-34. –
(23) M Guarducci, La statua di Sant’Ippolito in Vaticano,
in Acti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, vol.
XLVII (1974-1975), p. 175-190. – (24) Holzmeister,
op. cit., p. 33. – (25) M.-É. Boismard, L’évangile
de l’enfance (Luke 1-2) selon le proto-Luc, Gabalda 1997, p.
251. – (26) Quoted by Boismard, op. cit.,
p. 250-251. God willing, we shall return to this literal application
of Isaiah’s prophecy to the time of Our Lord’s public life.
According to Saint Clement, this filled the space of one year: not two
or three years, but one year. Sylvie Chabert d’Hyères strives to
rehabilitate this truncated chronology, against the longer chronology of
the three years of public life. – (27) S Chabert d’Hyères,
Des jours de lumière, I, Chronologie de la vie de Jésus en
Luc, Anne Sigier 1998, p. 99, n. 289. – (28) Catholicisme,
IV 381. – (29) Georges de Nantes, Lettres à
mes Amis, vol. III, no 226, 7 April 1966, p. 5.
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THE SIGN OF JONAH