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Show WHERE ARE WE IN THE NEW CENTURY? Scotch Iconoclast Discovers a Remarkable Chronological ErrorBirth Year of the Messiih. Glasgow Star. A vast amount of learning was foolishly squandered squan-dered some three years gone by in a ludicrous controversy con-troversy .commonly known as the ''Century question." ques-tion." The point at issue was a momentous one. viz. : the precise time at which the passing of the nineteenth century actually took place. Some held that it passed into history at midnight on the 31st of December, 1899; others were of opinion that we lived in the "Century of Science" until midnight the following 31st of December. Like many other controversies, much was said on both sides without either side being right. It completely escaped the notice of all the "intellectual heavy-weights" who entered the lists on that occasion that the present, or Christian era, contained a fundamental error of, at the very least, four years. The birth of the Savior, as every one is aware, is the great historical landmark from which the Christian era is reckoned. reck-oned. But it is most significant to note that it was not until the sixth century, A. D., that the present sysem of chronology was instituted by the monk, Dionysius, from whom it derives its name. For more than five hundred years after the birth of Christ the old Roman method of computation remained re-mained in use; that is to say, time was still counted count-ed Ab urb'e condita (from the founding of Rome). Dionysius had. therefore, to go back over a period of' five centuries "and locate the exact position of his great starting point as measured from the founding of Rome. To us of the twentieth century the task at first sight would seem a ridiculously easy one, would appear so simple in fact as absolutely abso-lutely to preclude the possibility of error. But we must not overlook the fact that circumstances have changed sinco the sixth century. The world did not then enjoy the blessing, or perhaps, the curse, which accompanied the advent of the printing press. True, there were records of the past, but they were inaccessible so far as the masses were concerned. It was only after the invention of the printing machine that it became possible for those of humble'means to read for themselves the his'tory of the times passed away. Up to that time all rec-ords, rec-ords, including the sacred writings, were kept in' MSS. The latter were very few in number, and proportionately high in price. Indeed,, those who were fortunate enottgh to possess a copy of any of the rare MSS. regarded it as a sort of sacred heirloom, heir-loom, which money could not buy. Thus we see the difficulty which was ever present in the early centuries, when there was a question of acquiring and retaining reliable historical information". But it may be reasonably tirged that the indicated difficulty dif-ficulty could not apply to Dionysius, since, being a monk, he had free access to all the old MSS., the latter being almost invariably preserved in the monasteries, or places of seclusion. Quite so. We must assume that he had abundant mariuserip matter at his disposal ; but when we direct our attention at-tention for a moment to the manner in which the MSS. were produced, we shall see wherein .precisely .pre-cisely lay the possibility of error, even though he had several of them before him during his great work. In the first place, paper as we understand the article did not exist. The writing was executed ex-ecuted upon various substitutes calculated to withstand with-stand the ravages of time, but by no means so easily 'written upon as is the modern production. 'Two of flic substances employed were parchment and what was known as papyrus. The latter was prepared from an Egyptian sedge of that name, and was anything but an ideal paper for writing purposes. With a large roll of parchment or papyrus papy-rus before him the amanuensis unrolled the original MS. and began his laborious work of copying. Before Be-fore proceeding very far he encountered, in all probability, some word or date blurred or illegibly written. The amanuensis has no time to lose, consequently con-sequently he makes a guess at the word, or date, as the case may be, and passes to the next word. He himself, perhaps, leaves some carelessly written writ-ten words and dates which a subsequent copyist in turn will guess at and pass over. Thus as time went on inaccuracies were multiplied. MSS. were hopelessly mixed up; and after the lapse of a few centuries it was next to impossible to distinguish the genuine original from the adulterated and interpolated in-terpolated copies. The only reliable means of extracting ex-tracting historical certitude from such a chaotic mass of frequently contradictory writings vas to gather together as many as possible of these that bore some unmistakable signs of genuineness. and by comparing them one with another discover and eliminate the errors that had cr,ept in. Besides those just mentioned, the historical explorer had other difficulties to surmount and numerous pitfalls to avoid, which lack of space prevents my mentioning. men-tioning. I have written enough, however, to convey con-vey some inadequate idea of the colossal nature of the task Dionysius undertook when he sat down in the sixth century to draw up our present system sys-tem of chronology. Keeping before our minds the well-nigh insurmountable obstacles in his way, we are forced to admit that there was a possibility, nay, a probability of his erring. We have now paved the way for the question do facto, did he err, and if so, what was the nature and extent of his error ? Let us see. The conclusion at which Dionysius arrived, was that, the Sayjor was born in the year 745 Ab urbe condita. 2ing 754 A-.U. C. as the year in which Christ was born, I am writing writ-ing on 24th October. 1004, but if I insisted upon historical or chronological accuracy I should set down as the date of this paper, not 1904, but 1911. This is equivalent to saying that, the birth of Christ took place not in 754 A. U. C. but seven years before that time, viz., in 747 A.. LL C. This is a bold assertion, but, happily, the proof is immediately im-mediately forthcoming in -the 'form of three following fol-lowing propositions with their respective 'proofs: ' " A. The Savior' wa not born at'ior Toi) A. 1'. C. ; B. Xot born, before Till A. U. C. : I C. He was born nn,-t probably in 717 A. U. ('. D. St. Matthew says (ii. cha. that the Savior , was born during the reign of Herod-the Givat. i The. -Jewish historian. Joeplm-, fells u-. or I rather gives data, from which, it can be shown that I Herod died in; the- lunar month of Xisan. 7-"i A. U. C. The dates are: hi the "Jewish Aniiqui- j ties" we. read "Herod died five days after he had ; put his son. Ant i pater, to death, thirty-four years after he had caused Antigonus to be slain, and thirty-seven years after he lc-.d been declared' king ' by i lie Romans." We are. furthermore, informed by the same authority that Herod was declared king during the first consulship of Arstoiiius I M- - .. j lio; i. e., m the year 711- A. V. C. and tiiat An-. tigonus was put to death at Ahtioch in 717. Xou by adding thirty-seven to 71t. ami thirty-four to 717, we get, 751, or, making allowance, for the Jewish Jew-ish method of counting part of the year for iim whole, we get 750 A. 1". C. as the year of Herod's death. Again. Josep'ius reeord.s the facr that Herod : died seven days before the feast of the Paseh. Mufc the Pasch was held on the 11th day of Xisan. Herod, therefore, died on the 7th of Xisan. 750. But he was still alive when the Savior was born ' (see St. Matt. ii. chap.).' The inevitable conclusion, consequently, is that Christ was not born hirer ' : than 750 A. U. C. In proof of B. above: It is the unanimous teaching of the early Christian fathers that the Savior was born at a time when Rome was at peace with the whole world. St. Jerome says : "All wars had then ceased," and Sr. Augu-tine "When Herod was reigning in Judea. and Cae-ar ; j Augustus was emperor, the whole world being in a state of peace, Christ was born." Then we learn ; from the writings of the historians, Sentonius and Dio. that there was such a peace throe times dur- : ' ing the reign of Augustus, viz., in 7-'. 7-'.t and 74'k But Christ was not born during the first, or second peace, for the reason that he was still a child (puer) when he returned from Kgypt after the death of Herod, -which event, as we have seen, took , place in 750. It follows, therefore, that he was -born during the peace that began hi 74. Tho : Roman senate, by the way. ordered the Temple of Janus to be closed in 744, but owing to some minor wars having broken out, in that year tho order was i not carried into effect before the middle of 7!'1. Our second conclusion necessarily follows: The Savior was not born before the year 745 A. U. C. . . Lastly, in proof of proposition jC. : Christ, as every one is aware, was born at Bethlehem during the census that had beeen ordered by Caesar An- i gustus. According to Terfuilian this census was r taken by Sentius Sarurnius, the propraetor of ? Syria, who, according to Jo.-ephus, held office from ' 744 to 748. He completed the census before departing de-parting from Syri.i in the year 74. Accordingly the Savior should have been born before that year, ; that is to say, he should have beeen born in the year 747 A. TJ. C. But, as already indicated, Dionysius! : placed the birth of Christ in the year 754 from the. " I founding of Rome, and took that year as his start- . I ing point in the new system of chronology. By so ' I doing, as we have been trying to show, he lapsed, , I through no fault of his. into error of at least four, most probably seven, and possibly eight year. The ; 1 Dionysius anachronism remains in our chronology, and for weighty chronological reasons it is likel.v ,; I not to be tampered with until Gabriel's trumpet , 1 proclaims the passing of time and its measure- j I ments. But while the world will, undoubtedly, ; continue to revolve upon its axis once every tweu- ? f ty-four hours as heretofore, it will be no harm for ' i us to know-that the present, so-called year 1904 is 1 certainly not 1904 at all. but most probably tho f I year of our Lord 1911. In conclusion, I would re- ; I fer those readers of the Star who might, wish to so ; deeper into the study of this interesting question I to Vol. I of Alzog's "Universal Church History." f |