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152-538: The terms anno Domini ( AD ) and before Christ ( BC ) are used when designating years in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord" but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", taken from the full original phrase " anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi ", which translates to "in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ ". The form "BC"

304-700: A hanging of the greens ceremony. In the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Lord's Day (Sunday) was the earliest Christian celebration and included a number of theological themes. In the 2nd century, the Resurrection of Jesus became a separate feast as Easter and in the same century Epiphany began to be celebrated in the Churches of the East on January 6. The celebration of the feast of the Magi on January 6 may relate to

456-642: A leap day being added to February in the leap years . The months and length of months in the Gregorian calendar are the same as for the Julian calendar. The only difference is that the Gregorian reform omitted a leap day in three centurial years every 400 years and left the leap day unchanged. A leap year normally occurs every four years: the leap day, historically, was inserted by doubling 24 February – there were indeed two days dated 24 February . However, for many years it has been customary to put

608-576: A year 0 and instead uses the ordinal numbers 1, 2, ... both for years AD and BC. Thus the traditional time line is 2 BC, 1 BC, AD 1, and AD 2. ISO 8601 uses astronomical year numbering which includes a year 0 and negative numbers before it. Thus the ISO 8601 time line is −0001 , 0000, 0001, and 0002. The Gregorian calendar continued to employ the Julian months, which have Latinate names and irregular numbers of days : Nativity of Jesus The Nativity

760-407: A closely argued, 800-page volume. He would later defend his and Lilius's work against detractors. Clavius's opinion was that the correction should take place in one move, and it was this advice that prevailed with Gregory. The second component consisted of an approximation that would provide an accurate yet simple, rule-based calendar. Lilius's formula was a 10-day correction to revert the drift since

912-623: A computation for the date of Easter that achieved the same result as Gregory's rules, without actually referring to him. Britain and the British Empire (including the eastern part of what is now the United States) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Sweden followed in 1753. Prior to 1917, Turkey used the lunar Islamic calendar with the Hijri era for general purposes and the Julian calendar for fiscal purposes. The start of

1064-451: A curse as inheritance. The birth of Jesus, on the other hand, counterbalanced the fall of Adam, bringing forth redemption and repairing the damage done by Adam. In patristic theology, Paul's contrasting of Jesus as the new man versus Adam provided a framework for discussing the uniqueness of the birth of Jesus and the ensuing events of his life. The Nativity of Jesus thus began to serve as the starting point for "cosmic Christology" in which

1216-505: A feast on January 6 in the year 361. The Chronography of 354 illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome includes an early reference to the celebration of a Nativity feast. In a sermon delivered in Antioch on December 25, c.  386 , John Chrysostom provides specific information about the feast there, stating that the feast had existed for about 10 years. By around 385 the feast for

1368-509: A key element in Christian teachings, from the early Church Fathers to 20th century theologians. The theological issues were addressed as early as Apostle Paul , but continued to be debated and eventually lead to both Christological and Mariological differences among Christians that resulted in early schisms within the Church by the 5th century. He is the image of the invisible God,

1520-633: A pre-Christian celebration for the blessing of the Nile in Egypt on January 5, but this is not historically certain. The festival of the Nativity which later turned into Christmas was a 4th-century feast in the Western Church notably in Rome and North Africa, although it is uncertain exactly where and when it was first celebrated. The earliest source stating December 25 as the date of birth of Jesus

1672-491: A retelling of the Moses story. Luz also points out that in the massacre narrative, once again, a fulfilment quotation is given: Rachel , the ancestral mother of Israel, weeping for her dead children (Matthew 2:18). Scholars who interpret Matthew as casting Jesus in the role of being a second Moses argue that, like Moses, the infant Jesus is saved from a murderous tyrant; and he flees the country of his birth until his persecutor

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1824-415: A savior for all people, tracing a genealogy all the way back to Adam, demonstrating his common humanity, and likewise for the lowly circumstances of his birth. Luke, writing for a gentile audience, portrays the infant Jesus as a savior for gentiles as well as Jews. Matthew uses quotations from Jewish scripture, scenes reminiscent of Moses ' life, and a numerical pattern in his genealogy to identify Jesus as

1976-484: A son of David, of Abraham, and of God. Luke's prelude is much longer, emphasizing the age of the Holy Spirit and the arrival of a savior for all people, both Jew and gentile. Mainstream scholars interpret Matthew's Nativity as depicting Jesus as a new Moses with a genealogy going back to Abraham, while Ulrich Luz views Matthew's depiction of Jesus at once as the new Moses and the inverse of Moses, and not simply

2128-477: A son, and gave him the name Jesus (Matthew 1:18–25). Joseph has been shown to be the descendant of David (the angel addresses him as "son of David") and heir to the kingdom of Judah, but Matthew 1:16 reveals that Jesus is not Joseph's son, and Matthew is careful never to refer to him in this way. The role of Joseph in naming the child indicates that he is being legally adopted, and thus becoming, like his now-legal father, "son of David." The birth took place in

2280-425: Is ⁠365 + 97 / 400 ⁠ days = 365.2425 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. The Gregorian calendar was a reform of the Julian calendar. It was instituted by papal bull Inter gravissimas dated 24 February 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar is named. The motivation for the adjustment was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of year in which it

2432-473: Is 365.2425463 days. As the average length of a Julian year is 365.25 days, the Julian year is almost 11 minutes longer than the mean tropical year. The discrepancy results in a drift of about three days every 400 years. Lilius's proposal resulted in an average year of 365.2425 days (see Accuracy ). At the time of Gregory's reform there had already been a drift of 10 days since the Council of Nicaea, resulting in

2584-573: Is December 25. In the Council of Tours of 567 , the Church, with its desire to be universal, "declared the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany to be one unified festal cycle "; at this time, the disagreement was caused by using lunar calendars in Eastern provinces of the Empire. The liturgical season of Advent precedes, and is used to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Customs of

2736-486: Is also found after the year. In contrast, "BC" is always placed after the year number (for example: 70 BC but AD 70), which preserves syntactic order. The abbreviation "AD" is also widely used after the number of a century or millennium , as in "fourth century AD" or "second millennium AD" (although conservative usage formerly rejected such expressions). Since "BC" is the English abbreviation for Before Christ , it

2888-463: Is dead and it is safe to return as the savior of his people. In this view, the account in Matthew is based on an earlier narrative patterned on traditions about the birth of Moses. Moses' birth is announced to Pharaoh by Magi; the child is threatened and rescued; the male Israelite children are similarly put to death by an evil king. According to Ulrich Luz, the beginning of the narrative of Matthew

3040-449: Is generally accepted by experts there is a 27-year difference between AP and AD reference. The date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth is not stated in the gospels or in any secular text, but most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC. The historical evidence is too fragmentary to allow a definitive dating, but the date is estimated through two different approaches—one by analyzing references to known historical events mentioned in

3192-496: Is no year zero in this scheme; thus the year AD 1 immediately follows the year 1 BC . This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus but was not widely used until the 9th century. (Modern scholars believe that the actual date of birth of Jesus was about 5 BC.) Terminology that is viewed by some as being more neutral and inclusive of non-Christian people is to call this the Common Era (abbreviated as CE), with

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3344-576: Is similar to earlier biblical stories, e.g., the Annunciation of Jesus' birth (Matthew 1:18–25) is reminiscent of the biblical accounts of the births of Ishmael (Genesis 16:11, Genesis 17), Isaac (Genesis 21:1), Samson (Judges 13:3, 13:5), and recalls the Haggadic traditions of the birth of Moses. Yet in Luz's view, the contours appear, in part, strangely overlapped and inverted: "Egypt, formerly

3496-647: Is sometimes incorrectly concluded that AD means After Death (i.e., after the death of Jesus ), which would mean that the approximately 33 years commonly associated with the life of Jesus would be included in neither the BC nor the AD time scales. The anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to enumerate years in his Easter table . His system was to replace the Diocletian era that had been used in older Easter tables , as he did not wish to continue

3648-464: Is specific to English , and equivalent abbreviations are used in other languages: the Latin form, rarely used in English, is ante Christum natum (ACN) or ante Christum (AC). This calendar era takes as its epoch the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus. Years AD are counted forward since that epoch and years BC are counted backward from the epoch. There

3800-552: Is the basis for the Christian holiday of Christmas and plays a major role in the Christian liturgical year. Many Christians traditionally display small manger scenes depicting the Nativity within or outside of their homes, or attend Nativity plays or Christmas pageants focusing on the Nativity cycle in the Bible. Elaborate Nativity displays featuring life-sized statues are a tradition in many continental European countries during

3952-415: Is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and the early 20th century. In England , Wales , Ireland , and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from Lady Day (25 March) to 1 January (which Scotland had done from 1600), while the second discarded

4104-423: Is the year using astronomical year numbering , that is, use 1 − (year BC) for BC years. ⌊ x ⌋ {\displaystyle \left\lfloor {x}\right\rfloor } means that if the result of the division is not an integer it is rounded down to the nearest integer. The general rule, in years which are leap years in the Julian calendar but not the Gregorian, is: Up to 28 February in

4256-480: The Kyrios image of Jesus also implied his power over all creation. Paul then looked back and reasoned that the final lordship of Jesus was prepared from the very beginning, starting with pre-existence and the Nativity, based on his obedience as the image of God. Over time, based on the influence of Anselm of Canterbury , Bernard of Clairvaux and others, the Kyrios image of Jesus began to be supplemented with

4408-869: The Battle of Agincourt is universally considered to have been fought on 25 October 1415 which is Saint Crispin 's Day. Usually, the mapping of new dates onto old dates with a start of year adjustment works well with little confusion for events that happened before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. But for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in continental western Europe and in British domains in English language histories. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under

4560-656: The Byzantine Era . No single Anno Mundi epoch was dominant throughout the Christian world . Eusebius of Caesarea in his Chronicle used an era beginning with the birth of Abraham , dated in 2016 BC (AD 1 = 2017 Anno Abrahami). Spain and Portugal continued to date by the Spanish Era (also called Era of the Caesars ), which began counting from 38 BC, well into the Middle Ages. In 1422, Portugal became

4712-530: The Byzantine calendar in 1700 when Russia did so, with others adopting it in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although anno Domini was in widespread use by the 9th century, the term "Before Christ" (or its equivalent) did not become common until much later. Bede used the expression "anno [...] ante incarnationem Dominicam" (in the year before the incarnation of the Lord) twice. "Anno ante Christi nativitatem" (in

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4864-669: The Carolingian Empire ultimately lies at the core of the system's prevalence. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia , popes continued to date documents according to regnal years for some time, but usage of AD gradually became more common in Catholic countries from the 11th to the 14th centuries. In 1422, Portugal became the last Western European country to switch to the system begun by Dionysius. Eastern Orthodox countries only began to adopt AD instead of

5016-475: The Christmas season include completing an Advent daily devotional and Advent wreath , carol singing , gift giving, seeing Nativity plays , attending church services , and eating special food, such as Christmas cake . In many countries, such as Sweden, people start to set up their Advent and Christmas decorations on the first day of Advent . Liturgically , this is done in some parishes through

5168-488: The Christmas season . The artistic depiction of the Nativity has been an important subject for Christian artists since the 4th century. Artistic depictions of the Nativity scene since the 13th century have emphasized the humility of Jesus and promoted a more tender image of him, a major change from the early "Lord and Master" image, mirroring changes in the common approaches taken by Christian pastoral ministry during

5320-633: The Codex Sinaiticus do not mention the prophet Isaiah in the statement in Matthew 1:22 : "All this happened to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet", but some copies of Matthew from the 5th–6th centuries, such as the Codex Bezae , read "Isaiah the prophet". The statement in Matthew 1:23 , "Behold the virgin shall be with child", uses the Greek term parthenos ("virgin") as in

5472-501: The Council of Trent authorised Pope Paul III to reform the calendar, requiring that the date of the vernal equinox be restored to that which it held at the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and that an alteration to the calendar be designed to prevent future drift. This would allow for more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. In 1577, a Compendium was sent to expert mathematicians outside

5624-516: The Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th century. In Chalcedon the hypostatic union was decreed, namely that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, making this part of the creed of orthodox Christianity . In the 5th century, leading Church Father Pope Leo I used the Nativity as a key element of his theology. Leo gave 10 sermons on the Nativity and 7 have survived. The one on December 25, 451, demonstrates his concern to increase

5776-735: The Jewish law , his parents presented the infant Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, where two people in the temple, Simeon and Anna the Prophetess , gave thanks to God who had sent his salvation. Joseph and Mary then returned to Nazareth. Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod the Great. In Luke the newborn baby is placed in a manger "because there

5928-500: The Julian or Gregorian calendars , AD 1 is immediately preceded by 1 BC, with nothing in between them (there was no year zero ). There are debates as to whether a new decade, century, or millennium begins on a year ending in zero or one. For computational reasons, astronomical year numbering and the ISO 8601 standard designate years so that AD 1 = year 1, 1 BC = year 0, 2 BC = year −1, etc. In common usage, ancient dates are expressed in

6080-605: The Old Testament attributes of an omnipotent God. The use of the term Kyrios , and hence the Lordship of Jesus, pre-dated the Pauline epistles , but Paul expanded and elaborated on the topic. Pauline writings established among early Christians the Kyrios image, and attributes of Jesus as not only referring to his eschatological victory, but to him as the "divine image" ( Greek εἰκών , eikōn ) in whose face

6232-537: The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office—probably 1 May before 222 BC, 15 March from 222 BC and 1 January from 153 BC. The Julian calendar, which began in 45 BC, continued to use 1 January as the first day of the new year . Even though the year used for dates changed, the civil year always displayed its months in

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6384-642: The Septuagint Isaiah, while the Book of Isaiah 7:14 uses the Hebrew almah , which may mean "maiden", "young woman", or "virgin". Raymond E. Brown states that the 3rd century BC translators of the Septuagint may have understood the Hebrew word almah to mean "virgin" in this context. The statement in Matthew 2:23 that "he will be called a Nazarene" does not mention a specific passage in

6536-454: The papal bull Inter gravissimas issued by Pope Gregory XIII , which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar . The principal change was to space leap years differently so as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long, more closely approximating the 365.2422-day 'tropical' or 'solar' year that is determined by the Earth's revolution around

6688-638: The 13th century, Thomas Aquinas addressed the Christologocal attribution of the Nativity: if it should be attributed to the person ( the Word ) or only to the assumed human nature of that person. Aquinas treated Nativity in 8 separate articles in Summa Theologica , each posing a separate question: To deal with this issue, Aquinas distinguishes between the person born and the nature in which

6840-468: The 4th and 5th centuries to deal with these issues. The Council of Ephesus debated hypostasis (co-existing natures) versus Monophysitism (only one nature) versus Miaphysitism (two natures united as one) versus Nestorianism (disunion of two natures). The 451 Council of Chalcedon was highly influential and marked a key turning point in the Christological debates that divided the church of

6992-415: The 5th century, in effect as the first formal feast for the Nativity of Jesus. Pope Sixtus III then instituted the practice of Midnight Mass just before that feast. The feast was celebrated in Jerusalem by the 6th century, when Emperor Justinian declared Christmas to be a legal holiday. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the theological importance of the Nativity of Jesus was coupled with an emphasis on

7144-460: The Council of Nicaea was corrected by a deletion of 10 days. The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected). A month after having decreed the reform, the pope (with a brief of 3 April 1582) granted to one Antoni Lilio the exclusive right to publish the calendar for a period of ten years. The Lunario Novo secondo la nuova riforma

7296-401: The Council of Nicaea, and the imposition of a leap day in only 97 years in 400 rather than in 1 year in 4. The proposed rule was that "years divisible by 100 would be leap years only if they were divisible by 400 as well". The 19-year cycle used for the lunar calendar required revision because the astronomical new moon was, at the time of the reform, four days before the calculated new moon. It

7448-496: The Gregorian calendar, but Britain used the Julian calendar). This coincidence encouraged UNESCO to make 23 April the World Book and Copyright Day . Astronomers avoid this ambiguity by the use of the Julian day number . For dates before the year 1, unlike the proleptic Gregorian calendar used in the international standard ISO 8601 , the traditional proleptic Gregorian calendar (like the older Julian calendar) does not have

7600-409: The Gregorian calendar. D = ⌊ Y / 100 ⌋ − ⌊ Y / 400 ⌋ − 2 , {\displaystyle D=\left\lfloor {Y/100}\right\rfloor -\left\lfloor {Y/400}\right\rfloor -2,} where D {\displaystyle D} is the secular difference and Y {\displaystyle Y}

7752-606: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. Confusion occurs when an event affects both. For example, William III of England set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November 1688 (Gregorian calendar) and arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November 1688 (Julian calendar). Shakespeare and Cervantes seemingly died on exactly the same date (23 April 1616), but Cervantes predeceased Shakespeare by ten days in real time (as Spain used

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7904-457: The Julian algorithm had caused the calendar to drift such that the March equinox was occurring well before its nominal 21 March date. This date was important to the Christian churches because it is fundamental to the calculation of the date of Easter . To reinstate the association, the reform advanced the date by 10 days: Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15 October 1582. In addition,

8056-520: The Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, removing 11 days from the September 1752 calendar to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start of year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate the Julian and Gregorian dating systems. Many Eastern Orthodox countries continue to use

8208-466: The Julian calendar, but ISO 8601 uses the Gregorian calendar and astronomers may use a variety of time scales depending on the application. Thus dates using the year 0 or negative years may require further investigation before being converted to BC or AD. Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following

8360-631: The Magi had tricked him, he was infuriated and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem under the age of two (the Massacre of the Innocents ). This was in fulfilment of the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more." But an angel had appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to take

8512-405: The Nativity inside the town, built by St. Helena , contains the cave-manger site traditionally venerated as the birthplace of Jesus, which may have originally been a site of the cult of the god Tammuz . In his Contra Celsum (1.51), Origen , who travelled throughout Palestine beginning in around 215, wrote of the "manger of Jesus". The date of birth for Jesus of Nazareth is not stated in

8664-644: The Nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and the second by working backwards from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus . The Anglo-Saxon historian Bede , who was familiar with the work of Dionysius Exiguus, used anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , which he completed in AD 731. In the History he also used the Latin phrase ante [...] incarnationis dominicae tempus anno sexagesimo ("in

8816-538: The Nativity of Jesus on Christmas , which is marked on December 25 by the Western Christian Churches , while many Eastern Christian Churches celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord on January 7 (in 20th and 21st century). This is not a disagreement over the date of Christmas as such, but rather a preference of which calendar ( Gregorian or Julian ) should be used to determine the day that

8968-537: The New Testament, but Matthew builds on it in Matthew 28:20 ("I am with you always, even unto the end of the world") to indicate that Jesus will be with the faithful to the end of the age. According to Ulrich Luz , the Emmanuel motif brackets the entire Gospel of Matthew between 1:23 and 28:20, appearing explicitly and implicitly in several other passages. A number of ecumenical councils were convened in

9120-597: The Old Testament, and there are multiple scholarly interpretations as to what it may refer to. Barbara Aland and other scholars consider the Greek Ναζωραίος , Nazoréos used for 'Nazarene' of uncertain etymology and meaning, but M. J. J. Menken states that it is a demonym that refers to an "inhabitant of Nazareth". Menken also states that it may be referring to Judges 13:5 and 13:7. Gary Smith states that Nazirite may mean one consecrated to God, i.e. an ascetic; or may refer to Isaiah 11:1 . The Oxford Bible Commentary states that it may be word-play on

9272-495: The Pauline perspective emphasizes the birth of a new man and a new world in the birth of Jesus. Paul's eschatological view of Jesus counter-positions him as a new man of morality and obedience, in contrast to Adam . Unlike Adam, the new man born in Jesus obeys God and ushers in a world of morality and salvation. In the Pauline view, Adam is positioned as the first man and Jesus as the second: Adam, having corrupted himself by his disobedience, also infected humanity and left it with

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9424-431: The Sun. The rule for leap years is: Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is. There were two reasons to establish the Gregorian calendar. First, the Julian calendar assumed incorrectly that

9576-422: The West celebrated a Nativity feast on December 25 (perhaps influenced by the Winter solstice ); and that by the last quarter of the 4th century, the calendars of both churches included both feasts. The earliest suggestions of a feast of the Baptism of Jesus on January 6 during the 2nd century comes from Clement of Alexandria , but there is no further mention of such a feast until 361 when Emperor Julian attended

9728-489: The alternative abbreviations CE and BCE (sometimes written C.E. and B.C.E.) are sometimes used in place of AD and BC. The "Common/Current Era" ("CE") terminology is often preferred by those who desire a term that does not explicitly make religious references but still uses the same epoch as the anno Domini notation. 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

9880-427: The architect of the Gregorian calendar, noted that the tables agreed neither on the time when the Sun passed through the vernal equinox nor on the length of the mean tropical year. Tycho Brahe also noticed discrepancies. The Gregorian leap year rule (97 leap years in 400 years) was put forward by Petrus Pitatus of Verona in 1560. He noted that it is consistent with the tropical year of the Alfonsine tables and with

10032-405: The author and exemplar of a new humanity. In the 2nd century Church Father Irenaeus writes: When He became incarnate and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam – namely to be according to the image and likeness of God – that we might recover in Christ Jesus. Irenaeus

10184-413: The average solar year is exactly 365.25 days long, an overestimate of a little under one day per century, and thus has a leap year every four years without exception. The Gregorian reform shortened the average (calendar) year by 0.0075 days to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes . Second, in the years since the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the excess leap days introduced by

10336-401: The beginning of the 21st century these countries began to pay more attention to the sensitivities of non-Christians during the festivities at the end of the calendar year. Early Christians viewed Jesus as "the Lord" and the word Kyrios appears over 700 times in the New Testament , referring to him as such. The use of the word Kyrios in the Septuagint Bible also assigned to Jesus

10488-403: The birth of Jesus was distinct from that of the Baptism and was held on December 25 in Constantinople, Nyssa and Amaseia. In a sermon in 386, Gregory of Nyssa specifically related the feast of Nativity with that of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen , celebrated a day later. By 390 the feast was also held in Iconium on that day. Pope Leo I established a feast of the "Mystery of Incarnation" in

10640-433: The birth of a new man who succeeded Adam. In Barth's theology, in contrast to Adam, Jesus acted as an obedient Son in the fulfilment of the divine will and was therefore free from sin and could hence reveal the righteousness of God the Father and bring about salvation. The Nativity of Jesus impacted the Christological issues about the Person of Christ from the earliest days of Christianity. Luke's Christology centers on

10792-414: The birth takes place. Aquinas thus resolved the question by arguing that in the hypostatic union Christ has two natures, one received from the Father from eternity, the other from his mother in time. This approach also resolved the Mariological problem of Mary receiving the title of Theotokos for under this scenario she is the " Mother of God ". During the Reformation , John Calvin argued that Jesus

10944-465: The birth, and settles in Nazareth, while according to Luke they begin in Nazareth, journey to Bethlehem for the birth, and immediately return to Nazareth. The two accounts cannot be harmonised into a single coherent narrative or traced to the same Q source , leading scholars to classify them as "special Matthew" (or simply the M source ) and "special Luke" (the L source ). Mary the mother of Jesus

11096-457: The birth, life and Resurrection of Jesus have universal implications. The concept of Jesus as the "new man" repeats in the cycle of birth and rebirth of Jesus from his Nativity to his resurrection : following his birth, through his morality and obedience to the Father, Jesus began a new harmony in the relationship between God the Father and man. The Nativity and resurrection of Jesus thus created

11248-594: The bonds of an earthly nativity". He also liked to quote: "Just as in Adam all of us died, so too in Christ all of us will be brought to life". The theology persisted into the Protestant Reformation , and second Adam was one of the six modes of atonement discussed by John Calvin . In the 20th century, leading theologian Karl Barth continued the same line of reasoning and viewed the Nativity of Jesus as

11400-430: The calendar being converted from , add one day less or subtract one day more than the calculated value. Give February the appropriate number of days for the calendar being converted into . When subtracting days to calculate the Gregorian equivalent of 29 February (Julian), 29 February is discounted. Thus if the calculated value is −4 the Gregorian equivalent of this date is 24 February. The year used in dates during

11552-462: The change a few months later: 9 December was followed by 20 December. Many Protestant countries initially objected to adopting a Catholic innovation; some Protestants feared the new calendar was part of a plot to return them to the Catholic fold. For example, the British could not bring themselves to adopt the Catholic system explicitly: the Annexe to their Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 established

11704-466: The chief priests and scribes that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem according to prophecy, sent the Magi there with instructions to return and tell him when they had found him. The Magi worshipped the child in Bethlehem and gave him gifts of gold , frankincense , and myrrh , but an angel warned them in a dream not to return to Herod, and they returned home by another way. When Herod learned that

11856-535: The child and his mother and flee to Egypt , and the Holy Family remained there until Herod died to fulfil the words of the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." On the death of Herod an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to return with the child and its mother to Israel, but Herod's son was now ruler of Judea, and after being warned in a dream Joseph went instead to Galilee, where he made his home in Nazareth "so that what had been spoken through

12008-452: The conception, as divinely effected. Beyond this, they agree on very little. Joseph dominates Matthew's and Mary dominates Luke's, although the suggestion that one derives from Joseph and the other from Mary is no more than a pious deduction. Matthew implies that Joseph already has his home in Bethlehem, while Luke states that he lived in Nazareth. In Matthew the angel speaks to Joseph, while Luke has one speaking to Mary . Only Luke has

12160-639: The conventional B.C./A.D." Upon its foundation, the Republic of China adopted the Minguo Era but used the Western calendar for international purposes. The translated term was 西 元 ( xī yuán ; 'Western Era'). Later, in 1949, the People's Republic of China adopted 公元 ( gōngyuán ; 'Common Era') for all purposes domestic and foreign. In the AD year numbering system, whether applied to

12312-517: The damage of Adam. In the 4th century, this uniqueness of the circumstances related to the Nativity of Jesus, and their interplay with the mystery of the incarnation, became a central element in both the theology and hymnody of Ephrem the Syrian . For him, the uniqueness of the Nativity of Jesus was supplemented with the sign of the majesty of the Creator through the ability of a powerful God to enter

12464-457: The dead and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus. The old Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the world based on information in the Old Testament . It was believed that, based on the Anno Mundi calendar, Jesus was born in the year 5500 (5500 years after the world was created) with the year 6000 of the Anno Mundi calendar marking

12616-430: The dialectics of the dual natures of the earthly and heavenly manifestations of existence of the Christ, while Matthew's Christology focuses on the mission of Jesus and his role as the savior. The belief in the divinity of Jesus leads to the question: "was Jesus a man to be born of a woman or was he God born of a woman?" A wide range of hypotheses and beliefs regarding the nature of the Nativity of Jesus were presented in

12768-499: The end of the world. Anno Mundi 6000 (approximately AD 500) was thus equated with the end of the world but this date had already passed in the time of Dionysius. The " Historia Brittonum " attributed to Nennius written in the 9th century makes extensive use of the Anno Passionis (AP) dating system which was in common use as well as the newer AD dating system. The AP dating system took its start from 'The Year of The Passion'. It

12920-482: The extra day at the end of the month of February, adding a 29 February for the leap day. Before the 1969 revision of its General Roman Calendar , the Catholic Church delayed February feasts after the 23rd by one day in leap years; masses celebrated according to the previous calendar still reflect this delay. Gregorian years are identified by consecutive year numbers. A calendar date is fully specified by

13072-458: The first four centuries of Christianity. Some of the debates involved the title Theotokos (God bearer) for the Virgin Mary and began to illustrate the impact of Mariology on Christology . Some of these viewpoints were eventually declared as heresies , others led to schisms and the formation of new branches of the Church. The salvific emphasis of Matthew 1:21 later impacted

13224-514: The firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Paul the Apostle viewed the birth of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which brought forth a "new man" who undid the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam . Just as the Johannine view of Jesus as the incarnate Logos proclaims the universal relevance of his birth,

13376-419: The fiscal year was eventually fixed at 1 March and the year number was roughly equivalent to the Hijri year (see Rumi calendar ). As the solar year is longer than the lunar year this originally entailed the use of "escape years" every so often when the number of the fiscal year would jump. From 1 March 1917 the fiscal year became Gregorian, rather than Julian. On 1 January 1926, the use of the Gregorian calendar

13528-438: The glory of God shines forth. This image persisted among Christians as the predominant perception of Jesus for a number of centuries. More than any other title, Kyrios defined the relationship between Jesus and those who believed in him as Christ: Jesus was their Lord and Master who was to be served with all their hearts and who would one day judge their actions throughout their lives. The lordship attributes associated with

13680-564: The gospels or in any secular text, but basing it on the death of Herod would place the date between 6 BC and 4 BC. The historical evidence is too ambiguous to allow a definitive date to be determined, but dates have been estimated through known historical events mentioned in the Nativity accounts, by working backwards from the estimated start of the ministry of Jesus , or by associating the claimed astrological portents mentioned with actual historical astronomical alignments and phenomena. Helmut Koester writes that while Matthew's narrative

13832-429: The importance of the feast of Nativity and along with it emphasize the two natures of Christ in defense of the Christological doctrine of hypostatic union. Leo often used his Nativity sermons as an occasion to attack opposing viewpoints, without naming the opposition. Thus Leo used the occasion of the Nativity feast to establish boundaries for what could be considered a heresy regarding the birth and nature of Christ. In

13984-528: The increasing divergence between the canonical date of the equinox and observed reality. Easter is celebrated on the Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, which was adopted as an approximation to the March equinox. European scholars had been well aware of the calendar drift since the early medieval period. Bede , writing in the 8th century, showed that the accumulated error in his time

14136-475: The land of suppression becomes a place of refuge and it is the King of Israel who now takes on the role of Pharaoh . Yet Matthew is not simply retelling the Moses story. Instead, the story of Jesus really is a new story: Jesus is at once the new Moses and the inverse of Moses." Scholars have debated whether Matthew 1:22 and Matthew 2:23 refer to specific Old Testament passages. Fourth century documents such as

14288-578: The last Catholic country to adopt the anno Domini system. The Era of Martyrs , which numbered years from the accession of Diocletian in 284, who launched the most severe persecution of Christians , was used by the Church of Alexandria and is still officially used by the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic churches. It was also used by the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches. Another system

14440-419: The last non-imperial consul, Basilius , was appointed in 541 by Emperor Justinian I , later emperors through to Constans II (641–668) were appointed consuls on the first of January after their accession. All of these emperors, except Justinian, used imperial post-consular years for the years of their reign, along with their regnal years. Long unused, this practice was not formally abolished until Novell XCIV of

14592-711: The law code of Leo VI did so in 888. Another calculation had been developed by the Alexandrian monk Annianus around the year AD 400, placing the Annunciation on 25 March AD 9 (Julian)—eight to ten years after the date that Dionysius was to imply. Although this incarnation was popular during the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire , years numbered from it, an Era of Incarnation , were exclusively used and are still used in Ethiopia . This accounts for

14744-455: The law of the Catholic Church in 1582, but it was not recognised by Protestant Churches , Eastern Orthodox Churches , Oriental Orthodox Churches , and a few others. Consequently, the days on which Easter and related holidays were celebrated by different Christian Churches again diverged. On 29 September 1582, Philip II of Spain decreed the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This affected much of Roman Catholic Europe, as Philip

14896-499: The loving nature of the child Jesus in sermons by figures such as Jean Gerson . In his sermons Gerson emphasized the loving nature of Jesus at his Nativity, as well as his cosmic plan for the salvation of mankind. By the early part of the 20th century, Christmas had become a "cultural signature" of Christianity and indeed of the Western culture even in countries such as the United States which are officially non-religious. By

15048-524: The mean tropical year of Copernicus ( De revolutionibus ) and Erasmus Reinhold ( Prutenic tables ). The three mean tropical years in Babylonian sexagesimals as the excess over 365 days (the way they would have been extracted from the tables of mean longitude) were 0;14,33,9,57 (Alfonsine), 0;14,33,11,12 (Copernicus) and 0;14,33,9,24 (Reinhold). In decimal notation, these are equal to 0.24254606, 0.24255185, and 0.24254352, respectively. All values are

15200-411: The memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians . The last year of the old table, Diocletian Anno Martyrium 247, was immediately followed by the first year of his table, anno Domini 532. When Dionysius devised his table, Julian calendar years were identified by naming the consuls who held office that year— Dionysius himself stated that the "present year" was "the consulship of Probus Junior ", which

15352-462: The most solemn of forms available to the Church, the bull had no authority beyond the Catholic Church (of which he was the supreme religious authority) and the Papal States (which he personally ruled). The changes that he was proposing were changes to the civil calendar, which required adoption by the civil authorities in each country to have legal effect. The bull Inter gravissimas became

15504-475: The new year was moved to 1 September. In common usage, 1 January was regarded as New Year's Day and celebrated as such, but from the 12th century until 1751 the legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ). So, for example, the Parliamentary record lists the execution of Charles I on 30 January as occurring in 1648 (as the year did not end until 24 March), although later histories adjust

15656-458: The next three centuries, the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries also gradually moved to what they called the " Improved calendar ", with Greece being the last European country to adopt the calendar (for civil use only) in 1923. However, many Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian calendar for religious rites and the dating of major feasts. To unambiguously specify a date during

15808-524: The norm, can be identified. In other countries, the customs varied, and the start of the year moved back and forth as fashion and influence from other countries dictated various customs. Neither the papal bull nor its attached canons explicitly fix such a date, though the latter states that the " Golden number " of 1752 ends in December and a new year (and new Golden number) begins in January 1753. During

15960-519: The number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97, by making three out of four centurial years common instead of leap years. He also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the Moon when calculating the annual date of Easter, solving a long-standing obstacle to calendar reform. Ancient tables provided the Sun's mean longitude. The German mathematician Christopher Clavius ,

16112-451: The older Julian calendar for religious purposes. Extending the Gregorian calendar backwards to dates preceding its official introduction produces a proleptic calendar , which should be used with some caution. For ordinary purposes, the dates of events occurring prior to 15 October 1582 are generally shown as they appeared in the Julian calendar, with the year starting on 1 January, and no conversion to their Gregorian equivalents. For example,

16264-561: The order January to December from the Roman Republican period until the present. During the Middle Ages, under the influence of the Catholic Church, many Western European countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals—25 December ( Christmas ), 25 March ( Annunciation ), or Easter, while the Byzantine Empire began its year on 1 September and Russia did so on 1 March until 1492 when

16416-454: The period between 1582, when the first countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, and 1923, when the last European country adopted it, it was often necessary to indicate the date of some event in both the Julian calendar and in the Gregorian calendar, for example, "10/21 February 1750/51", where the dual year accounts for some countries already beginning their numbered year on 1 January while others were still using some other date. Even before 1582,

16568-470: The preceding years referred to as Before the Common Era (BCE). Astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 avoid words or abbreviations related to Christianity, but use the same numbers for AD years (but not for BC years in the case of astronomical years; e.g., 1 BC is year 0, 45 BC is year −44). Traditionally, English follows Latin usage by placing the "AD" abbreviation before the year number, though it

16720-512: The precision of observations towards the end of the 15th century made the question more pressing. Numerous publications over the following decades called for a calendar reform, among them two papers sent to the Vatican by the University of Salamanca in 1515 and 1578, but the project was not taken up again until the 1540s, and implemented only under Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–1585). In 1545,

16872-471: The prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."" In this chapter, the author of Matthew needs to establish that "Jesus of Nazareth" was in fact born in Bethlehem, the town where David was born, for the "son of David" born there will be "King of the Jews" (a designation that does not reappear in Matthew until the crucifixion). Herod's fear and the visit of the Magi underline the royal birth, as do

17024-488: The reform also altered the lunar cycle used by the Church to calculate the date for Easter, because astronomical new moons were occurring four days before the calculated dates. Whilst the reform introduced minor changes, the calendar continued to be fundamentally based on the same geocentric theory as its predecessor. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe and their overseas possessions. Over

17176-485: The reform commission for comments. Some of these experts, including Giambattista Benedetti and Giuseppe Moleto , believed Easter should be computed from the true motions of the Sun and Moon, rather than using a tabular method, but these recommendations were not adopted. The reform adopted was a modification of a proposal made by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio). Lilius's proposal included reducing

17328-410: The same basis, for years before 1582), and the difference between Gregorian and Julian calendar dates increases by three days every four centuries (all date ranges are inclusive). The following equation gives the number of days that the Gregorian calendar is ahead of the Julian calendar, called the "secular difference" between the two calendars. A negative difference means the Julian calendar is ahead of

17480-463: The same day, it took almost five centuries before virtually all Christians achieved that objective by adopting the rules of the Church of Alexandria (see Easter for the issues which arose). Because the date of Easter is a function – the computus  – of the date of the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the Catholic Church considered unacceptable

17632-408: The same era. Only the Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer narratives regarding the birth of Jesus. Both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the reign of King Herod, that his mother was named Mary and that her husband Joseph was descended from King David (although they disagree on details of the line of descent), and both deny Joseph's biological parenthood while treating the birth, or rather

17784-525: The same to two sexagesimal places (0;14,33, equal to decimal 0.2425) and this is also the mean length of the Gregorian year. Thus Pitatus's solution would have commended itself to the astronomers. Lilius's proposals had two components. First, he proposed a correction to the length of the year. The mean tropical year is 365.24219 days long. A commonly used value in Lilius's time, from the Alfonsine tables,

17936-504: The seven- or eight-year discrepancy between the Gregorian and Ethiopian calendars . Byzantine chroniclers like Maximus the Confessor , George Syncellus , and Theophanes dated their years from Annianus' creation of the world. This era, called Anno Mundi , "year of the world" (abbreviated AM), by modern scholars, began its first year on 25 March 5492 BC. Later Byzantine chroniclers used Anno Mundi years from 1 September 5509 BC,

18088-463: The sixtieth year before the time of the Lord's incarnation"), which is equivalent to the English "before Christ", to identify years before the first year of this era. Both Dionysius and Bede regarded anno Domini as beginning at the incarnation of Jesus Christ , but "the distinction between Incarnation and Nativity was not drawn until the late 9th century, when in some places the Incarnation epoch

18240-505: The start of the year to 1 January and record the execution as occurring in 1649. Most Western European countries changed the start of the year to 1 January before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to 1 January in 1600 (this means that 1599 was a short year). England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to 1 January in 1752 (so 1751

18392-547: The stories surrounding the birth of John the Baptist , the census of Quirinius , the adoration of the shepherds and the presentation in the Temple on the eighth day; only Matthew has the wise men , the star of Bethlehem , Herod's plot, the massacre of the innocents , and the flight into Egypt . The two itineraries are quite different. According to Matthew, the Holy Family begins in Bethlehem, moves to Egypt following

18544-540: The theological issues and the devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus . Matthew 1:23 provides the only key to the Emmanuel Christology in the New Testament. Beginning with 1:23, Matthew shows a clear interest in identifying Jesus as "God with us" and in later developing the Emmanuel characterization of Jesus at key points throughout the rest of his Gospel. The name 'Emmanuel' does not appear elsewhere in

18696-472: The time of the birth drew near, Caesar Augustus commanded a census of Roman domains, and Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem, the ancient city of David, as he was of the House of David . Jesus was born in Bethlehem; since there was nowhere for them to stay in the town, the infant was laid in a manger while angels announced his birth to a group of shepherds who worshipped him as Messiah and Lord . In accordance with

18848-580: The town of Bethlehem in the region known as Judea to the Romans and Palestine to the Assyrians, in the time of King Herod ( Herod the Great ). Wise men from the East (the Magi) came to Jerusalem, asking where they could find the child born king of the Jews , for they had seen his star at its rising, and wished to pay him homage. Herod and all Jerusalem were afraid when they heard this, but Herod, learning from

19000-431: The transition period (in contemporary documents or in history texts), both notations were given , tagged as 'Old Style' or 'New Style' as appropriate. During the 20th century, most non- Western countries also adopted the calendar, at least for civil purposes . The Gregorian calendar, like the Julian calendar , is a solar calendar with 12 months of 28–31 days each. The year in both calendars consists of 365 days, with

19152-460: The underlying date." Bonnie J. Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens briefly present arguments for 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1 as the year Dionysius intended for the Nativity or incarnation . Among the sources of confusion are: It is not known how Dionysius established the year of Jesus's birth. One major theory is that Dionysius based his calculation on the Gospel of Luke , which states that Jesus

19304-744: The use of nazirite , "Holy One of God," in Isaiah 4:3, meant to identify Jesus with the Nazarenes , a Jewish sect who differed from the Pharisees only in that they regarded Jesus as the Messiah. The Swiss theologian Ulrich Luz , who locates the Matthean community in Syria, has noted that Syrian Christians also called themselves Nazarenes. The theological significance of the Nativity of Jesus has been

19456-523: The various prophetic texts quoted or referenced in this chapter. In the Gospel of Luke, when Herod was king of Judea, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth in Galilee to announce to a virgin named Mary , who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, that a child would be born to her. The angel Gabriel announced that she was to name him Jesus, for he would be the son of God and rule over Israel forever. When

19608-427: The vernal equinox falling on 10 or 11 March instead of the ecclesiastically fixed date of 21 March, and if unreformed it would have drifted further. Lilius proposed that the 10-day drift should be corrected by deleting the Julian leap day on each of its ten occurrences over a period of forty years, thereby providing for a gradual return of the equinox to 21 March. Lilius's work was expanded upon by Christopher Clavius in

19760-486: The world as a small newborn. In the Middle Ages the birth of Jesus as the second Adam came to be seen in the context of Saint Augustine 's Felix culpa ("happy fall") and was intertwined with the popular teachings on the fall from grace of Adam and Eve . Augustine was fond of a statement on the Nativity by Gregory of Nyssa and he quoted it five times: "Venerate the Nativity, through which you are freed from

19912-612: The year (numbered according to a calendar era , in this case Anno Domini or Common Era ), the month (identified by name or number), and the day of the month (numbered sequentially starting from 1). Although the calendar year currently runs from 1 January to 31 December, at previous times year numbers were based on a different starting point within the calendar (see the "beginning of the year" section below). Calendar cycles repeat completely every 400 years, which equals 146,097 days. Of these 400 years, 303 are regular years of 365 days and 97 are leap years of 366 days. A mean calendar year

20064-581: The year before the birth of Christ) is found in 1474 in a work by a German monk. In 1627, the French Jesuit theologian Denis Pétau (Dionysius Petavius in Latin), with his work De doctrina temporum , popularized the usage ante Christum (Latin for "Before Christ") to mark years prior to AD. When the reckoning from Jesus' incarnation began replacing the previous dating systems in western Europe, various people chose different Christian feast days to begin

20216-432: The year sometimes had to be double-dated because of the different beginnings of the year in various countries. Woolley, writing in his biography of John Dee (1527–1608/9), notes that immediately after 1582 English letter writers "customarily" used "two dates" on their letters, one OS and one NS. "Old Style" (O.S.) and "New Style" (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this

20368-542: The year: Christmas, Annunciation , or Easter. Thus, depending on the time and place, the year number changed on different days in the year, which created slightly different styles in chronology: With these various styles, the same day could, in some cases, be dated in 1099, 1100 or 1101. During the first six centuries of what would come to be known as the Christian era, European countries used various systems to count years. Systems in use included consular dating , imperial regnal year dating, and Creation dating . Although

20520-464: Was Hippolytus of Rome (170–236), written very early in the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox which he placed on March 25, and then added nine months. There is historical evidence that by the middle of the 4th century the Christian churches of the East celebrated the birth and Baptism of Jesus on the same day, on January 6, while those in

20672-583: Was "about thirty years old" shortly after "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar", and hence subtracted thirty years from that date, or that Dionysius counted back 532 years from the first year of his new table. This method was probably the one used by ancient historians such as Tertullian , Eusebius or Epiphanius , all of whom agree that Jesus was born in 2 BC, probably following this statement of Jesus' age (i.e. subtracting thirty years from AD 29). Alternatively, Dionysius may have used an earlier unknown source. The Chronograph of 354 states that Jesus

20824-450: Was 525 years "since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ". Thus, Dionysius implied that Jesus' incarnation occurred 525 years earlier, without stating the specific year during which his birth or conception occurred. "However, nowhere in his exposition of his table does Dionysius relate his epoch to any other dating system, whether consulate, Olympiad , year of the world , or regnal year of Augustus; much less does he explain or justify

20976-479: Was a short year with only 282 days). Later in 1752 in September the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies (see the section Adoption ). These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 . In some countries, an official decree or law specified that the start of the year should be 1 January. For such countries, a specific date when a "1 January year" became

21128-586: Was also one of the early theologians to use the analogy of "second Adam and second Eve". He suggested the Virgin Mary as the "second Eve" and wrote that the Mary had "untied the knot of sin bound up by the virgin Eve" and that just as Eve had tempted Adam to disobey God, Mary had set a path of obedience for the second Adam (i.e. Jesus) from the Annunciation to Calvary so that Jesus could bring about salvation, undoing

21280-642: Was at the time ruler over Spain and Portugal as well as much of Italy . In these territories, as well as in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the Papal States, the new calendar was implemented on the date specified by the bull, with Julian Thursday, 4 October 1582, being followed by Gregorian Friday, 15 October. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies followed somewhat later de facto because of delay in communication. The other major Catholic power of Western Europe, France, adopted

21432-511: Was betrothed to Joseph, but was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit . Joseph intended to divorce her quietly, but an angel told him in a dream that he should take her as his wife and name the child Jesus, "because it is he who will save his people from their sins". This would fulfil the prophecy that a virgin would give birth to a son, who would be known as Emmanuel , meaning "God is with us". Joseph awoke, took Mary for his wife, did not have intercourse with her until she had given birth to

21584-401: Was born during the consulship of Caesar and Paullus (AD 1), but the logic behind this is also unknown. It has also been speculated by Georges Declercq that Dionysius' desire to replace Diocletian years with a calendar based on the incarnation of Christ was intended to prevent people from believing the imminent end of the world . At the time, it was believed by some that the resurrection of

21736-457: Was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. The error in the Julian calendar (its assumption that there are exactly 365.25 days in a year) had led to the date of the equinox according to the calendar drifting from the observed reality, and thus an error had been introduced into the calculation of the date of Easter . Although a recommendation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 specified that all Christians should celebrate Easter on

21888-404: Was extended to include use for general purposes and the number of the year became the same as in most other countries. This section always places the intercalary day on 29 February even though it was always obtained by doubling 24 February (the bissextum (twice sixth) or bissextile day) until the late Middle Ages . The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (calculated backwards on

22040-651: Was formed in a Jewish environment, Luke's was modeled to appeal to the Greco-Roman world . In particular, while shepherds were regarded negatively by Jews in Jesus' time, they were seen in Greco-Roman culture as "symbols of a golden age when gods and humans lived in peace and nature was at harmony". C. T. Ruddick Jr. writes that Luke's birth narratives of Jesus and John were modeled on passages from Genesis , chapters 27–43. Regardless, Luke's Nativity depicts Jesus as

22192-493: Was identified with Christ's conception, i. e., the Annunciation on March 25" ("Annunciation style" dating). On the continent of Europe, anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the Carolingian Renaissance by the English cleric and scholar Alcuin in the late eighth century. Its endorsement by Emperor Charlemagne and his successors popularizing the use of the epoch and spreading it throughout

22344-482: Was more than three days. Roger Bacon in c.  1200 estimated the error at seven or eight days. Dante , writing c.  1300 , was aware of the need for calendar reform. An attempt to go forward with such a reform was undertaken by Pope Sixtus IV , who in 1475 invited Regiomontanus to the Vatican for this purpose. However, the project was interrupted by the death of Regiomontanus shortly after his arrival in Rome. The increase of astronomical knowledge and

22496-524: Was no place in the katalyma . Katalyma might mean a private home (this has little support among scholars), or a room in a private home, or an inn, but it is impossible to be certain which is meant. In the 2nd century, Justin Martyr stated that Jesus had been born in a cave outside the town, while the Protoevangelium of James described a legendary birth in a cave nearby. The Church of

22648-492: Was not sanctified to be "God manifested as Incarnate" ( Deus manifestatus in carne ) only due to his virgin birth, but through the action of the Holy Spirit at the instant of his birth. Thus Calvin argued that Jesus was exempt from original sin because he was sanctified at the moment of birth so that his generation was without blemish; as generation was blemishless before the fall of Adam . Christian Churches celebrate

22800-404: Was printed by Vincenzo Accolti, one of the first calendars printed in Rome after the reform, notes at the bottom that it was signed with papal authorization and by Lilio ( Con licentia delli Superiori... et permissu Ant(onii) Lilij ). The papal brief was revoked on 20 September 1582, because Antonio Lilio proved unable to keep up with the demand for copies. Although Gregory's reform was enacted in

22952-412: Was to be corrected by one day every 300 or 400 years (8 times in 2500 years) along with corrections for the years that are no longer leap years (i.e. 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, etc.) In fact, a new method for computing the date of Easter was introduced. The method proposed by Lilius was revised somewhat in the final reform. When the new calendar was put in use, the error accumulated in the 13 centuries since

23104-505: Was to date from the crucifixion of Jesus , which as early as Hippolytus and Tertullian was believed to have occurred in the consulate of the Gemini (AD 29), which appears in some medieval manuscripts. Alternative names for the anno Domini era include vulgaris aerae (found 1615 in Latin), "Vulgar Era" (in English, as early as 1635), "Christian Era" (in English, in 1652), " Common Era " (in English, 1708), and "Current Era". Since 1856,

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