sometimes and as the occasion presented itself, we have persisted; yet not always, both because these matters demand greater leisure and careful examination (upon which it seemed hardly necessary to dwell, as we thought it sufficient if those items which had been noted down by others regarding this matter were merely indicated, leaving the way otherwise open for others so that they might bring forth unknown things from their own repositories, and especially for those who have devoted their efforts to these studies). But also, to confess the truth, we have not scrupulously recalled to calculation the numbers described so often and here and there, nor have we examined whether the author or his antiquarian erred in them; we have merely reviewed both editions and, having conferred them with each other with all possible fidelity, presented them as they are.
[XLI.] XLVII. Regarding the years from the creation of the world, from the foundation of the city, and from the Nativity of Christ added to the Chronicle. — Furthermore, in order that the indicators of time might be more certain, we have from time to time inscribed in the margins the years from the foundation of the city according to the Varronian Palilia until the Nativity of Christ, and then the Dionysian years from the Nativity along with the pairs of consuls, and also the years of the world according to the Greeks, just as the most learned Antonius Allenus had inscribed them in his own published code. In reviewing the years of kings or emperors, since in the Raderian edition they were placed as subscripts to the indictions, while in the Scaligerian they were placed as superscripts (and I do not know if this is also the case in the manuscript codex), we have followed the Scaligerian in this aspect so that it might be more convenient. Finally, since it is in the interest of the reader to know what method and reason the same author of the Paschal Chronicle employed—which varies among writers of this computational art, and is therefore not uniform in calculating the years of the world or of Christ and the indictions, or in finding the epacts, new moons, Paschal and other feasts, which have been observed in this regard especially by Petavius, who often brought the computations of this same author of the Paschal Chronicle to trial and examination—we have deemed it necessary to subjoin them in selected pieces. Nor only these, but we have also appended to this Preface some chronological observations of a most learned man on the same Chronicle, which arrived in our hands later. For from the writings of these and other chronologers, as from fountains, the disputations and commentaries of all who have subsequently busied themselves with these controversies have flowed; since almost nothing has been brought forward after them that was not drawn and derived from them, so that whoever has read what they touched upon will not greatly feel the lack of the efforts of all these others, as well as our own. We have also added some Selecta which appeared necessary in some measure for the illustration of the Chronicle, partly culled from published works, partly from manuscript codices, or collated with them; concerning almost all of which we have treated either in this our Preface or in the notes to the same Paschal Chronicle. Finally, we have added to these a table of the Macedonian months, which the author of the Chronicle uses constantly, and which he is accustomed to compare almost always with the months accepted by the Latins, with the Ides, Nones, and Kalends added. And these Macedonian months are, for the most part, confused by writers of the middle ages, especially Christians, with the Syro-Macedonian months (which they also call the months of the Asians) (a), whereas in ancient writers the month of the Syro-Macedonians, or the Antiochenes, or finally the Σύροι Ἑλλήνων—whom they sometimes simply call "the Greeks"—was located differently in the year than that of the Macedonians, not only according to the ancients, whose months Petavius opines were lunar (b), but also according to more recent and fixed ones, as was noted long ago by learned men (c). But others have also noted that Scaliger wrongly assumed the Macedonian and Syro-Macedonian months were always Julian, whereas, before this equation was made, a Macedonian month touched upon two Julian months in some part of itself, and was afterwards wholly accommodated to that month which by far the greatest part of it had previously occupied.
CHRONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PASCHAL CHRONICLE
From the observations of Joannes Baptista Hautinus, royal councilor in the prefecture of Paris, a man of great learning and most versed in chronological matters above others, which a man of distinction communicated to me through his son, his grandson.
[XLII.] In this Chronicle, the computation of the years of the world is not always and everywhere observed the same way. For example, the death of Augustus, or the end of his 56 years, seems to be placed in the year of the world 5521, p. 189 (ed. Reg.). Yet afterwards, the 39th year of the same Augustus is compared with the year of the world 5506, p. 534. Whence it comes about that his 56th, or last year, ends in the year of the world 5523, not 5521; and thus everywhere in the collected years there is a two-year metachronism, while in the expansive years there is a prochronism of the same. But it is to be noted that from that same year 5523, in which he holds the death of Augustus to have occurred, even though he is commonly thought to have reigned for 6 months beyond 56 years, the reign of Tiberius also begins then. For he compares the 15th year of Tiberius with the year of the world 5537, p. 209. And so that this may be done
it is necessary to compare the first year of Tiberius with the year of the world 5523. Indeed, he compares the 18th, and p. 211, A, with the year of the world 5536. Now, it must be said that he fixes the death of Augustus in that first year, which had been marked 5521, and the beginning of Tiberius in 5522, and thus there will be no metachronism thereafter, which was detected in the Nativity of Christ, as I have said. And in truth, that 5536, not 5537, is to be read, appears from the calculation of the years below, p. 215. Next, according to the same calculation, he compares the 19th year of Tiberius with the year of the world 5540, p. 220 D, and 221, even though he refers it under the 18th year of that same Tiberius, p. 217 D. And therefore, he counts his 20th year twice, p. 225 and 229. Caligula, whose death according to this calculation fell upon the year of the world 5547, he attributes to the year of the world 5548, p. 230 B, indiction 8, and thus there is a metachronism of this year and it is continuous, but he confuses the years of Galba and the tyrants with the last year of Nero even to the end: therefore, the 23rd year of Tiberius should be reckoned in this Chronicle, not the 22nd, as I state below.
It is thought in this Chronicle that Christ was born in the 16th year of the lunar cycle 1, p. 199 C. For even if I noted a doubtful reading there, yet this reading is confirmed by the fact that on p. 215 C, the 32nd year of Christ is compared with lunar cycle 9; for it follows from there that the first year should be compared with cycle 16, not 15. It is also thought that Christ was born in solar cycle 19: for the 32nd year of Christ is compared with solar cycle 22, ibid. p. 216 A. But in the 32nd year of that cycle, it was 19 years before.
Although it is not expressed in this Chronicle which years are leap years, it can nevertheless be gathered from the method by which the days are found in it: for to the year whose day is being sought, as many days are added as leap years have passed, which is called the fourth part of the year in question. When, therefore, the fourth part can be exactly removed from that year so that no number remains—of which the fourth part cannot be deduced—it is a leap year in that year, as in the year of Christ 31, which is the year of the world 5536; the fourth part of that number 5536 is 1384, which is the integer and solid fourth part of that number 5536. For from that number 5536 nothing further remains to be divided, but the four numbers of 1384 make up exactly that number 5536. And so that year is without doubt a leap year. But whenever the integer fourth part of the year in question cannot be removed, and some number remains from that year in question which cannot be divided by four, then that year is not a leap year, and the indivisible number indicates what number that year is from the leap year; for if one remains, it is to be understood that that year is the first from the leap year, that is, next succeeding A the leap year; if two remain, it is the second, if three, the third; but four never remain, because four can be divided by four by unity, and then it is a leap year. For example, after that year 5536, which is a leap year, follows the year of the world 5537, the fourth part of which is likewise 1384, as it was for the year 5536. But from 37, one number remains which cannot be divided by four, and for that reason it indicates that year is the first from the leap year. Thus, of the following year 5538, the fourth part is likewise 1384; but from 38, two indivisible remain, which indicate that year to be the second from the leap year, just as 5539. The fourth part is likewise 1384, but from 39, three remain, which indicate that year to be the third from the leap year, and so it is also called here, p. 221, τρίτου ἔτους ὄντος μετὰ τὸ βίσεξτον. That triplet number also indicates that the quadrants of the day had preceded, so that in the following year, the last quadrant, along with those three preceding, makes up one day, for which reason that year is a leap year, since that day is counted as the bis-sexto Kalendas Martias. Therefore, every fourth year from the creation of the world are leap years, these being 4, 8, 12, for example, which Isaac Argyros also confirms in the Paschal computation, cap. 2, p. 10, when he says that the leap years are the fourth, eighth, and those following, and when he says in 16, c. 1, p. 4, that the first day began from the first day of the week, the second from the second, the third from the third, the fourth from the fourth, but the fifth not from the fifth, but because the fourth year was a leap year, it began from the sixth day of the week.
The years of the world of this Chronicle begin from the 21st day of March, as here, p. 72. Therefore, the first year of the world, running for the first ten months from the creation of the world, ends on the 20th day of the third month of the following year, that is, of the month of March of the second year. And thus, here, Christ is also said to have been conceived on the 8th of the Kalends of April in the year of the world 5507, p. 199 C, and received in the temple by Simeon on the 2nd day of February of the following year, which at that time was the same year of the world 5507, p. 205 C. However, what is written here under the year of the world 3839, p. 75 C, contradicts this. For the author of this Chronicle says that that year was 3838 of the world; but that the year of the world 3839 began from the 21st day of March; which if it is so, it follows that the first year of the world lasted for only two months and 20 days, namely from the first day of January to the 21st day of March. Nor should it be said that that year was therefore called 3838 because two months, or almost three, still remained of it—of which 10 months had elapsed in the preceding year—until the 21st of March. For thus the year would be named from the lesser part, and another absurdity would follow, that the second year of the world would have to be named the first, the second indeed the third, and so on; and the first ten months could not be attributed to any year at all, since the first year would then be called that which began from January after those first ten months had elapsed. But it is more customary for that to be called the first year which consists of those first ten months, the second that which consists of the last ten months of the following year, so it is more convenient to call that year from whose 21st day of March the beginning of the year of the world is taken 3839, rather than 3838, because
the second year of the world did not have its origin in the first, but rather the first year placed its end in the second.
Something different must be said about the years of Christ, because they do not have their origin from themselves as the years of the world do, but are deduced from the years of the world themselves, and derive their origin from them; just as in the year of Christ 619, p. 388 b, it is said that the year of Christ 620 had already begun, because in this Chronicle that is not considered the first year of Christ in which he was either conceived or born. Thus, the years of Christ do not have their origin from themselves, but only that one which, the first after the nativity of Christ, began to be counted and named; just as in this Chronicle, Christ is thought to have been born on December 25th of the year of the world 5306, which for me is 5505. Yet that is not called the first year of Christ, but the following one, having its origin from the next January, namely the year 5507. Therefore, the second year of Christ will also have its origin in that same year of the world 5507, namely from the 25th day of December of the same year 5507. Likewise, the year of Christ 5620 also has its origin from the 25th day of December of the year of the world 6125—which for me is 6124—wherein the year of Christ 619 also ends.
But these things being omitted, another more difficult doubt arises to be solved concerning the year that has crept into this Chronicle gradually and imperceptibly. For by the deduction of the years from the very origin of the world, I find that the year in which the birthday of Christ is marked falls in the year of the world 5505, p. 196. Yet this year is named 5507, ibid. 199, c., as if two years were missing, which, whether by imprudence they were omitted or were fictitiously added, are certainly completely absent from this Chronicle. The following year is likewise named 5507, p. 205 c., which for me is only 5506; thus, only one year seems to be missing. Nevertheless, p. 209 c. and 210 d., he names the year of the world 5536, which is the same for me as well, and so it truly is; it must also be that Christ was born in the year of the world 5506, which is the opinion of Cedrenus and Nicetas in Paul of Middelburg, lib. IV, *De die passionis Domini*, p. 381, but not in the year of the world 5507. But the author of this Chronicle varies; for shortly after the same year which he claimed to be 5536, he names 5537, p. 215 c., and the following one 5538, and thus in succession he always runs ahead by one year until the end. This, perhaps, happened because the years of Tiberius are reckoned at only 22, whereas he ruled for six months besides, which, joined to the six months that also apply to Augustus [XLIV], beyond the 56 years—of which no account is taken here—make up one solid year, so that Tiberius can be said to have ruled for 23 years. But if that 23rd year, which is not noted here, is admitted, Caligula’s murder will correctly fall in the year of the world 5548; otherwise, one year would be redundant in the reign of Caligula, as I have said elsewhere. Since, therefore, the year that is missing here must nevertheless be added to the end of Tiberius, it must be said that Christ was born on December 25th in the year of the world 5503; and that the first year of Christ is commonly called and reckoned as 5506, but he was baptized in the year of the world 5536, and affixed to the cross in the year of the world 5539. But Tiberius the emperor died in the year of the world 5544, not 5543 as here; and thus Caligula’s murder correctly falls in the year of the world 5548, as it is noted here, and the following years will therefore be correctly noted until the end.
The author, however, says that the 20th year of Constantine, according to the earlier computation, is 5833, p. 283 c., whereas if the first year of Tiberius 33 is admitted, it is 5834. But now I have finally discovered that that year is truly 5833, not 5834: which is clear from the solar cycles 5, and from the weekdays of the weeks which are noted below, as in the year of the world which I have written 5839, p. 285 a: while the 2nd day of May is said to be the second feria, it did not happen in this year, but in the preceding one, namely the world 5838, as I have also noted, and the same I have performed everywhere later, when the solar cycle was 14 and the Dominical letter D; likewise in the year of the world 5846, p. 286 d., where the 22nd day of May is said to be the first feria and Pentecost, it is more true and should have been written 5845, when the solar cycle was 21 and the Dominical letter B, as also below in the year of the world which is noted 6118, pag. 381 c: where it is said that the 1st of April was the 3rd feria, it must be drawn back upward to the preceding year, namely the world 6117. For in that year, 6117, the solar cycle was 13 and the Dominical letter E, which indicates that the first day of April, marked with the letter G, is the 3rd feria or Tuesday, and so in the following ones. Therefore, from the year of the world 5588, page 249 a, where I warned that these numbers are to be amended, every year of the world or of the lunar and solar cycle must be diminished by one unit until the end of the Chronicle.
The feria is also correctly noted in the year M. 5490, p. 193 c., where the 8th day of September is said to be the day of the moon [Monday]: for the cycle of the sun was 2, and the Dominical letter E. But this rule of the feriae does not proceed in all cases, nor does it remain consistent with itself, but usually fails. For p. 307 d., in the year of the world 5912, when the cycle of the sun is 4, and the Dominical letter B, the 26th of June is said to be the 2nd feria of the week, when it is, however, the first: a mistake which was admitted by the fault of the copyists. For in the same year, the day before the Nones of October, or the 6th of October, is correctly called the 5th feria; and in the same place, the 12th of October is correctly called the 4th feria; also, in the same place, the 13th indiction, p. 309 b., the 1st of the Kalends of August, or the 30th of July, is said to be the 6th feria with the solar cycle 15, Dominical letter C, and the 24th of September the 6th feria, ibid. From which it is learned that the Dominical letter or the cycle of the sun is not changed at the beginning of September, which Scaliger nevertheless thinks, lib. VII *De emendat. temp.*, p. 711 a. But the name of the month is sometimes put one for another, μηνὶ Γορπιαίῳ πρὸ ς' εἰδῶν Ὀκτωβρίων ἡμέρᾳ Κυριακῇ: *Gorpiaeo*, let it be September, not October. The feria, however, is correctly noted according to October, and the author here seems everywhere to take *Gorpiaeus* for October; for example, ibid. p. 310 d, μηνὶ Γορπιαίῳ πρὸ ς' Νοννῶν Σεπτεμβρίων ἡμέρᾳ Σαββάτῳ; for in September there is no day VI Nones of September, but in October it is the VI Nones, or the 2nd day is the 7th feria in that year of the sun 13. But p. 313 c, ind. 4, *Gorpiaeus* is taken for September, and according to...
the same reasoning, since the 6th day is the 3rd feria, it is correctly noted as the 3rd feria, VIII Id. Septemb., in the cycle of the sun 21, with the Dominical letter B. But there is an error in the same place, when the 6th day VI Id. Jul. or July 10 is called the 7th feria; for it should have been the Lord's day, unless the cycle is changed before September, and for 3, 21, it is still 20, as I said above from Scaliger: for then, being the Dominical letter C, the 10th of July was the 7th feria. But I do not think, as I said above, that the change of the cycle occurs except in the month of January, which, besides the example cited above, appears in ind. 14, p. 310 b, and ind. 2, p. 310 c, and also appears p. 384 b, in l. 15. For when there, both the 3rd day of May is rightly said to have been the 4th feria, and the 13th day of August is the 1st feria, in the cycle of the sun 16, with the Dominical letter A: so also after the month of September it is observed, the same Dominical letter and the same cycle, when the 5th day of December is said to have been the 3rd feria. And so, in the place cited from p. 313 c, I rather think there is an error, so that VI Idus Jul. was written instead of VIII Idus. For in many other places the feriae are faultily corrupted, as p. 313 d, ind. 6, VII Id. April. or April 7 is said to have been the 2nd feria, when it was 7, with letter G; and ind. 3, p. 319 b, August 25 is said to have been the 5th feria, when it was 6, cycle of the sun 22; Dominical letter A, and p. 322, ind. 3, September 2 is called the 4th feria, when it is 5, cycle of the sun 9, Dominical letter C. And p. 385 b, ind. 2, October 28 is called the 7th feria, when it is 2, cycle of the sun 18, letter F; and p. 390 a, ind. 9, June 5 is called the 1st feria, when it is 6, cycle of the sun 25, letter D. And because in this Chronicle the beginning of the year is frequently placed on the 21st of March, on which day the equinox was established by the Fathers, as below p. 72 b, where it must be absolutely understood that no change of the solar cycle or letter occurs after the 21st of March, as is evident p. 382 b, ind. 13, where the 20th of March is correctly called the 6th feria, cycle of the sun 14, letter D, and consequently the 22nd day is called the 16th [feria] the 1st feria, and consequently also the 3rd of October is the 7th feria, so that in that year from the 20th of March to the 3rd of October there is no doubt that there is the same Dominical letter. For the beginning of the year according to the Romans is from January, as is evident from p. 379. Yet almost all solar and lunar cycles are written one year before they occur, as in the year of the world 5504, p. 194 c, it is called cycle 14, when it is only 13, because it is certainly thought to be the year 5505, not 5504. So also in the year of the world 5305, the lunar cycle is said to be 16, when it is only 14: because it is obviously thought to be the year of the world 5307, not 5305, p. 199 c. So also p. 215 b, year of the world 5537, the lunar cycle is said to be 9, and the solar 22, because it is thought to be the year of the world 5538, when it is only 5537, and the cycle of the moon 8, and the sun 21; and the year of the world 5539, p. 220 d, when it is the 10th lunar year, it is indeed called the *tenth* (decimus), yet in truth the eleventh, which I do not yet grasp; and consequently the year of the world 5540, p. 220 c, is said to be the lunar cycle 11, *by nature* (κατὰ φύσιν), when according to the sequence of the preceding it should have been 12, but it is only...
That the birth of Christ according to this Chronicle is to be deduced from the year of the world 5507, as I have said, not 5506, is confirmed first by the fact that the year which is for me the 619th of Christ, of which I spoke above, is for them without doubt 620. Next, the 35th year of Herod, in which he says Christ was born, p. 191 b, accurately falls into the year of the world 5507, because he deduces the years of Herod from the year of the world 5473. Therefore, I will compare the first year of Christ in my chronology with the year of the world 5507, not as in this Chronicle with the year of the world 5506. For the true meaning of this Chronicle is that Christ was born on December 25th in the year of the world 5506, and that the first year of Christ is to be combined with the year of the world 5507.
Furthermore, a most learned man had added to the margins of his Raderian codex an accurate series not only of the years from the creation of the world, but also from the birth of Christ and the resurrection, and even of the Antiochians, with the addition besides of the lunar and solar cycles of each year: which are indeed found elsewhere in many places in such writers of Annals and Ephemerides. But he had also written from time to time in the same margins some shorter notes and comparisons of passages, from which we have excerpted some, which we exhibit here, lest the reader be cheated of them.
Page 65 B. *Μετὰ δὲ τὰς ἡμέρας*] It should be the first. For Exodus occurred in the 81st year of Moses, p. 91 B, year 2; as he himself thinks p. 72 B. Therefore he marks the beginning in Exodus here. Page 138 B. *Ἡ ταγὴ*] As if *τεταγμένον ᾆδον*, as in Plutarch in Lycurgus, vol. I, p. 82 d. Page 142 A. Of the following Roman kings, namely Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus, neither the names nor the years are expressed. But also more than 60 consulships are missing. Therefore it will suffice henceforth to compute the years from the founding of the city (U.C.), and the number of consulships where we have encountered them. Page 165 D. *Ῥωμαῖοι Ἄρχοντες*] He understands the military tribunes who began to be created in the year U.C. 310, of the olympiad... Page 166 B. *Ξέρξης*] It pertains to the first Xerxes. Then, that Sogdianus reigned for months only, not years, and is placed here in another location, when he succeeded not Darius Nothus, but Xerxes II, the son of Artaxerxes Longimanus, his brother. Page 170 B. *Ἀρσίωχος*] One should read *Ἀρσὴς Ὤχου*. Page 171 D. *Ψηφίζονται, etc.*] Below p. 320 A. Ibid. *Ἀπαμέων*] For Seleucus founded three Apameas, from whose first year this epoch is believed to be derived. In the Syriacs, p. 66 and 12, Syncellus, who is the twelfth from the death of Alexander, notes that he founded it in the year of his reign. Page 180 A. *Ἔτη λ΄.*] One should read *λγ'*, as below p. 488 C. Page 182 D. *Ἰωνάθης*] All others have *Ἰωνᾶς*. Eusebius, however, in only one place calls him Jonathan, an. 1913, p. 149. (1st ed.) Page 183 D. *Ὁ νέος*] Scaliger's barbarous Latin Chronicle, p. 283 c, and Diodorus Siculus, book II of the Historical Library, p. [not legible], and Velleius Paterculus, On Antonius, p. 47; and Athenaeus, book IV, p. 148 d. Page 187 A. *Πρώτης ἐπινεμήσεως*] Below on the same page 6.