47. The years of the Lord's Incarnation
THE RECKONING OF TIME
Subtract one day for the lunar saltus, and you will see that in one and the same number of days, the 19-year cycle comprises the course of the Sun and of the Moon. Again, the ogdoas has 96 solar months and 99 lunar months; the hendecas /427/ has 132 solar months and 136 lunar months.
The number of days is discussed above.
47. THE YEARS OF THE LORD'S INCARNATION20
In the ¢rst column of the 19-year cycle is a⁄xed the sequence [of years] which the Greek computists designated as beginning from the time of the Emperor Diocletian. But Dionysius, a venerable abbot of Rome, and one endued with no small knowledge of both languages (that is, of Greek and Latin), refused, as he himself attests, in composing his Paschal cycles, to link them to the memory of an impious persecutor, but chose instead to designate the years from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus
Christ, so that the source of our hope might be the more evident to us, and that the cause of man's restoration, that is, our Redeemer's Passion, might be more clearly manifest.21 Placing the 532nd year of our Lord's
Incarnation at the beginning of his ¢rst cycle, he plainly taught that the second year of his cycle was the same as that when the mystery of the same most holy /428/ Incarnation began.22 For the lunar cycle is one of 19 years, but the solar cycle is completed in 28 years; multiplied together, they produce a total of 532 years. When at last it expires, the whole lunisolar sequence, going back to its beginning, revolves along the same track, producing the same years of the 19-year and lunar cycles, the same lunar epacts and also solar concurrents, the same 14th [Paschal]
Moon, the same date for Easter Day, and the same Moon for that day, in sequence. Even Victorius proved this plainly by drawing up a cycle for that number of years, albeit he established Easter according to another doctrine.
Therefore, because the 532nd year from the Lord's Incarnation is complete in the second year of the ¢rst cycle composed by Dionysius, it
20 Main source for this chapter is Dionysius Exiguus, Ep. ad Petronium (Krusch, Studien II, 63^68).
21 The prologue is by the continuator of Dionysius' tables, commonly identi¢ed as Felix Ghyllitanus (ed. Krusch, Studien II, 87).
22 That is, the cycle begins in BC 1. Dionysius' cycle began in 532, so the previous cycle ended in 531, which means that it began in BC 1.Therefore the second year of the cycle corresponds to AD 1, the year of Christ's birth.
TRANSLATION
is without doubt the one in which He deigned to become incarnate, as far as the revolutions of the stars are concerned. For this second year of the 19-year cycle is the 18th year of the lunar cycle, having 11 epacts and 5 concurrent days of the week, and a fourteenth Paschal Moon on the 8th kalends of April [25 March]. All these things were exactly the same then, and had there been an Easter falling upon a Sunday at that time, after the Church's present custom, that day would have come in the way noted here on the 6th kalends of April [27 March], and the Moon would have been /429/ 16 days old. Therefore Dionysius himself in his Easter formulae demonstrates implicitly what we have said: in order to ¢nd the year of the 19-year cycle, take the years of the Lord, and before we divide them by 19, he commands us to add one,23 showing that when He became incarnate, one year of the 19-year cycle was already complete.
Again, in order to know what is the year of the lunar cycle, he tells us to take the years of the Lord, and always subtract two, and then to divide by 19, so that the calculator, with the two years deducted which then remained, and dividing the rest by 19, might arrive at what should be the remainder.24 Then to discover what the lunar epacts are, take in due manner the years of the Lord, divide, and then multiply; again, he bids us divide without adding or subtracting anything, because the epacts, beginning in the second year of the 19-year cycle, never require that anything be added or subtracted from the year of the Lord in order to discover their [present] status, because they began with [the year of the Lord's Incarnation].25 Again, if we wish to know the solar increment, that is, the concurrents of the weekdays, he bids us take the years of the Lord, and having added one fourth, /430/ he teaches us always to add four regulars to these, and then ¢nally to divide by 7.26 For the fact is that the concurrents were 5 in the year in which our Lord was born, and in order to arrive at a ¢xed sequence of computation, the calculator is obliged to add the four that went before.
These things being as they are, diligently seek out the year of the Lord's Passion; nor is the way of seeking it unknown, provided that the computation does not err at any point. If I am not mistaken, the faith of the Church holds that the Lord lived in the £esh, up until the time of the 23 Dionysius Exiguus, Argumenta titulorum paschalium 5 (76.15^18).
24 Ibid. 6 (76.19^22).
25 Ibid. 3 (75.9^12).
26 Ibid. 4 (76.4^10).
THE RECKONING OF TIME
Passion, a little more than 33 years, /431/ for he was baptized at the age of 30, as the evangelist Luke attests,27 and preached for three and a half years after his baptism, as John teaches not only by reminding us of the time of the returning Paschal season in his Gospel,28 but also in his Apocalypse,29 and as Daniel also indicates in his visions.30 That the holy
Roman apostolic Church holds this belief is testi¢ed by the legends that it customarily inscribes, year by year, upon its [Paschal] candles. Recalling the time of the Lord's Passion to the memory of the people, it records a number of years which is always 33 less than what Dionysius laid down [as having passed] since the Incarnation. Hence, in the 701st year of His Incarnation (according to Dionysius), in the 14th indiction, our brothers who were then in Rome related that they saw, and copied down, the following inscription from the candles in St Mary's: ''From the Passion of our Lord there are 668 years''.31 Therefore, since the Paschal cycle revolves in 532 years, as we said above, add 33 to these, or rather 34, so that you may arrive at the very year in which the Lord su¡ered, and it will make 566. This is the [year corresponding to the] year of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection from the dead. For just as the 533rd year corresponds to the ¢rst, so the 566th year corresponds to the 34th year of the luni-solar cycle. And so, with the cycles of Dionysius open before you, should you ¢nd in the 566th year from the Incarnation of the Lord that the 14th moon falls on Friday the 8th kalends of April
[25 March], /432/ and Easter on Sunday the 6th kalends of April [27 March], then give thanks to God, for He has granted that you ¢nd what you were looking for, just as He promised! For no catholic may doubt that the Lord mounted the Cross on Friday, on the 15th day of the Moon, and rose from the dead on the ¢rst day of the week, that is, on 27 Luke 3.23.
28 John 13.1.
29 Apocalypse 12.6 and 14; cf. 11.3.
30 Daniel 7.25, 12.7.
31 This visit took place during the abbacy of Ceolfrid, when monks were sent to Rome to petition Pope Sergius for letters of privilege for Wearmouth-Jarrow; cf. Bede, Historia abbatum 2.15, ed. C. Plummer, Baedae opera historica (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1896):1.380; anon. Historia abbatum 20, in ibid. 1.394^5. The 14th indiction begins in September 700 and ends in August 701: Ginzel 3.148 sq. Since it is evidently a Paschal candle which is being described, this event must have taken place in the spring of 701. Bede probably assigned the indictional date on the basis of the date on the papal letters, which would therefore have been issued before September 701. For an alternative explanation, see Jones,
BOT 381.
TRANSLATION
Sunday, lest he appear not to believe in the Law which stipulates that the Paschal lamb be sacri¢ced on the 14th day of the ¢rst month in the evening, nor in the Gospel which asserts that the Lord, taken captive by the Jews on that same evening and cruci¢ed in the morning, it being
Friday, and buried, rose on the ¢rst day of the week.
The opinion of many doctors of the Church that He was cruci¢ed on the 8th kalends of April [25 March] and rose on the 6th kalends of the same [27 April] is widely agreed upon as common knowledge. However,
Theophilus of Caesarea, an ancient doctor, and one who lived close to apostolic times, in the synodical letter which he composed together with the other bishops of Palestine against those who celebrate with the Jews on the 14th day of the Moon, speaks as follows: And is it not impious that such a great sacramental mystery as our Lord's Passion should be celebrated outside the terminus? For our Lord su¡ered on the 11th kalends of April [22 March], on which night he was handed over by the Jews, and he rose on the 8th kalends of April [25 March]. How can the three days be placed outside the terminus? It was decided in that /433/ synod that Easter ought to be observed from the 11th kalends of April [22
March] to the 11th kalends of May [21 April].32 And earlier on in the same book it is written: For the inhabitants of Gaul always celebrate
Easter on whatever day is the 8th kalends of April [25 March], when Christ's Resurrection is said to have taken place.33 But if you are looking for such a year, and you are unable to ¢nd it in that place you thought [it would be], blame the carelessness of the chronographers, or better yet, your own slowness, being very wary lest in defending the text of the chronicles you do not appear boldly to impugn the testimony of the Law and the Gospel by saying that our Lord and Saviour underwent the most holy mystery of the Cross in either the 15th or the 16th year of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar, or in either the 29th or 30th year of his age, when the Gospels plainly indicate that the forerunner of our Lord began to preach in the 15th year of Tiberius, and that this same [forerunner] subsequently baptized (amongst others) Jesus, who was then at about the beginning of his 30th year.34
32 (Spurious) Acts of the Synod of Caesarea 3^4 (ed. Krusch, Studien I, 310).
33 Ibid. 1 (307).
34 Luke 3.23.