Gunnison Gazette | 1918-02-01 | Page 3 | Years of Christ's Birth

Year of Christ's Birth. History tells us that for 500 years the Christians had no calendar of their own, but reckoned the years according to the customs of the nations to which they belonged. The Roman Christians used the "Anna Urbis Conditiae" or year of the founding of Rome, to count from; others counted from the reign of Diocletian, calling it "the Era of the Martyrs ;" and still others used the calendar of the Copts of Egypt. In the sixth century, Denis the Little, a Greek monk living in Rome, made a calendar counting from the Incarnation, the date of which he fixed at 753 A. U. C. So we commonly say that Rome was founded in 753 B. C. At the beginning of the eighth century, the venerable Bede pointed out that this was an historical his-torical blunder. But no general notice no-tice was taken of his criticism, and the error has continued to this day. Historic His-toric facts have enabled modern scholars schol-ars to determine, without much possibility pos-sibility of doubt, the exact year of the birth of Jesus, and to place it at what we call 5 B. C.