Talk:Ante Christum natum

message: For lack of a better tag, I am adding the "not verified" tag to the article. The article states that "ante christum natum" is Latin for "before the birth of Christ". Ignoring the lack of the genitive case for "of Christ", the article implies that it was used in Latin to denote what became the English term. I have consulted many Latin texts and have never seen "ante christum natum". Instead, no single term was used in Latin, and of those, the vast majority referred to his incarnation, not his birth. For example, Bede invented the concept of labeling years "before Christ" about AD 731 in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (I.2), where he used ante incarnationis dominicae (before the Incarnation of the Lord). Furthermore, the Latin terms were never abbreviated. I suspect that the original anonymous editor (81.178.127.223) of the article thought that his invented term was obvious. If some proof that this term was actually used in Latin texts is not forthcoming, I will request that the article be deleted. — Joe Kress 21:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a source which uses "ante Christi natum"? Just wondering about this after someone changed the translation; the google hits are pretty minor (14 vs. 25000 for the other form), and seem to be either other wikis or wiki mirrors. Gimmetrow 21:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Bede's exact words are: "Uerum eadem Brittania Romanis usque ad Gaium Iulium Caesarem inaccessa atque incognita fuit; qui anno ab Urbe condita DCXCIII, ante uero incarnationis dominicae tempus anno LXmo, functus gradu consulatus cum Lucio Bibulo, ..." (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, book I, chapter 2) I took the liberty of not mentioning "uero". His usage could be termed "ecclesiastical Latin" which deviated somewhat from classical Latin. Moreover, note that the title of his book in "The Latin Library", Historiam ecclesiasticam gentis Anglorum, deviates from the usual title, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which is the title both I and Wikipedia use. Individual scribes probably used their own version of Latin whenever they copied it. — Joe Kress 00:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the full quote. It looks like good classical Latin to me. The key word that was missing was tempus; you were right to leave out vero. The full grammatical phrase is ante incarnationis dominicae tempus. I'll update the article. Rwflammang 14:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not verified 

message: The sentence, "Most comparable early Latin terms referred to Christ's Incarnation or conception, not his birth nine months later", seems to imply that using a.Ch.n or p.Ch.n would not be accurate. But it seems to me that since the conception and birth occurred during the same year, this distinction is academic. Rwflammang 14:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the distinction is acuurate, and academic.  But we strive to be an accurate, and academic encyclopedia.  The fact that it is inaccurate is significant, because it proves that ACN is a "modern Latin" abbreviation, and not an authentic one. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It would seem to me easier to just state that it is a "modern Latin" phrase. I think we all agree on that. The exact date of the annunciation seems a very tangential piece of information. (Doesn't this article have enough obscure abbreviations without "O.S." too?) The key idea is that early writers used the incarnation as a point of reference, but this phrase came about sometime later (18th century?) when the nativity had become more prominent. Gimmetrow 17:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Birth Vs. Conception

message: I wrote the bulk of Dionysius Exiguus. His actual words and an English translation are at Cyclus Decemnovennalis Dionysii - Nineteen year cycle of Dionysius, which I referred to in the article. Here is Dionysius' statement:
First Argumentum. On the years of Christ.
If you want to find out which year it is since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, compute fifteen times 34, yielding 510; to these always add the correction 12, yielding 522; also add the indiction of the year you want, say, in the consulship of Probus Junior, the third, yielding 525 years altogether. These are the years since the incarnation of the Lord. 
From 153 BC until AD 541 consuls took office on 1 January, so here Dionysius refered to the 1 January to 31 December consular year, which is a named, not numbered, year. Dionysius bases his calculation exclusively on the indiction (I also wrote that article), a cycle of fifteen years, referring to the consulship of Probus Junior as the third indiction. This implies that he regarded the indiction as coincident with the consular year. The year of the indiction began on several different dates depending on who was writing. But the papal indiction did begin on 1 January, although I'm not sure whether that was true as early as the time of Dionysius. Dionysius' calculation is utterly useless for determining the year of the incarnation relative to any other calendar.
He only used his numbered years to tabulate and calculate Easter. He never used them for any historical purpose, except for his tangential reference to the incarnation, so their limits are somewhat unknown. This vagueness allows the possibility that his numbered years also coincided with consular years. Nevertheless, both Easter and the incarnation occurred in spring, so it can be argued that his numbered years began in spring. By using 'spring' I avoid the 'awkward' fact that Easter can be as early as 22 March, yet the incarnation had occurred on 25 March ever since 25 December was chosen as his nativity in the fourth century. Dionysius never mentioned AUC years, which were only used by a few Roman historians and on at least one monument (Julian calendar#Year numbering). Most Romans used the consular year. Georges Declercq in his book Anno Domini severely criticized Gustav Teres for interjecting AUC years into his argument. 
I have already cited Georges Declercq as the one and only scholar I am aware of who argued that Dionysius placed the incarnation on 25 March AD 1. He did that by ignoring the above statement of Dionysius, instead basing his argument on the structure of Dionysius' Easter tables. In particular, AD 1, like AD 533, had luna XIIII (Nisan 14) on 25 March. Nisan 14 is the date of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John (18:28, 19:14). Early Christian writers believed that the creation, the incarnation, and the crucifixion all occurred on 25 March. Most scholars have argued for 25 March 1 BC based on Dionysius' use of "years since the incarnation of the Lord". Given that he wrote that the consulship of Probus Junior was 525 years since the incarnation, then 524 years earlier would still be 1 year since the incarnation, inevitably placing the incarnation one year earlier, which we now identify as 1 BC. Scholars making similar arguments include Theodor Mommsen (writing in German during the late nineteenth century), Charles W. Jones in "Development of the Latin ecclesiastical calendar" within Bedae Opera de Temporibus (1943), and Gustave Teres, "Time computations and Dionysius Exiguus", Journal for the history of astronomy, 15 (1984): 177-188 (the last two already referenced in Dionysius Exiguus). 
Dionysius did not number or otherwise identify the year of the incarnation. AD 1 is a modern designation for one possible year. If he had wanted to, he could have called the year before year 1 as year zero because he did state that the first epact was nulla or zero, contrary to 'common knowledge' that the number zero was unknown to any European before the eleventh century, when its symbol (0) was introduced. 
It doesn't matter to me whether or not the year of the incarnation is in this article. I only insist that if it is, that both possible years for the incarnation be given.
— Joe Kress 02:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A nice clean overview of a messy issue, Joe. Thank you. I do take issue with your statement that Declercq ignored Dionysius' statement regarding the 524 years. I simply don't think that the Latin word abs carries the same force or exactness as the English since, and Declercq realized this. And while Dionysius used zero as an epact in his tables, I see no reason to assume that he started counting years at zero, which would be an unusual practice (I think) in the 6th century. Obviously, there are plenty of people who disagree with me, or think it irrelevant. Anyone interested in seeing how murky this issue realy is need only google "1 ad" "1 bc" born to see a whole mess of complicated arguments. It's too bad Dionysius never really spelled out what he meant. But I suspect he did not because he saw no need to; he, like me, thought the right answer was "obvious". Rwflammang 14:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is very interesting, and I don't feel qualified to speak on every aspect of it.  The quote that Joe gave on what Dionysius himself actually said is especially useful.  Note that D. explicitly stated it was 525 years after the Annunciation, not 526.  That's about the only definite statement. One would think that this would at least nail down how he calculated AD in relation to the Annunciation.  But, we have just seen it demonstrated that with a little magic, we can take that as a starting point, then add a number here, substract a number there, and come to the conclusion that he also calculated that the Annunciation was 526 years before that same point.  Amazing. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Joe Kress wrote "Given that he wrote that the consulship of Probus Junior was 525 years since the incarnation...." The problem is that consulships started in January and ran through at least December 31, if not a few days into January of the next year. So even if "since" is an appropriate translation of the Latin, it could mean 525 complete years plus some days from the Annunciation on March 25 until the beginning of Probus Junior's consulship, or exactly 525 years from the Annunciation until the March 25 that occurred during Probus Junior's consulship, or 525 years from the Annunciation until the unstated date that Dionysius sent his letter. A messy issue indeed. --Gerry Ashton 17:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1 AD vs. 1 BC 

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