Appendix to the Dissertations: A Study on the Birth Year of Christ — English

Epiphanius · PG 42 · cols 887–937 · machine translation (AI, from the page scans)

APPENDIX OF DISSERTATIONS

Those things which, on account of their excessive length, could not be included among the notes to the book *Against Heresies*.

DIATRIBE ON THE BIRTH YEAR OF CHRIST

(To Vol. I, col. 927, *Hær.* LI, note 44.)

Those who have attempted to investigate the birth year of Christ the Savior have chiefly relied upon a threefold reckoning of time: the years of the Roman consuls, the years of the Emperor Augustus, and the years of Herod. Epiphanius has illustrated the year set by him with as many notes and, as it were, ensigns, and in arranging the series of consuls he has brought to bear no common diligence. Following his footsteps, even as architects are wont to do—namely, to test the solidity of the soil or the foundation itself before they build—so shall we examine the order and series of the consuls themselves. Since this part of history lies in the greatest obscurity and in the variety of disagreeing writers, we have thought it best to subjoin a list of several consulates, with a few matters added to them which are described in the register of Epiphanius; this is because not all hold that Christ was born under the same consuls as he does. And so that the reader may understand the variety that exists in laying out the consuls, we have woven the register with a triple thread: the first series of consuls has those excerpted from the Capitoline *Fasti*, of the kind exhibited by Sigonius and Onufrius in their *Fasti*; the second is from that of Epiphanius; the third is from the authority of the Sicilian *Fasti* or the Alexandrian Chronicle.

A LIST OF SEVERAL CONSULS, WHICH MAY BE USEFUL FOR DETERMINING THE TIME OF THE BIRTH AND PASSION OF CHRIST.

FIRST YEAR IS OF THE CITY, BY VARRO, 748.

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| 19 ^A C. Visellius Varro. L. Munatius Plancus. Sexti duo Flaccus et Silanus. 20 Sex. Pompejus Nepos. Sext. Apulejus Nepos. Pompejus Magnus et Apulejus. Sextus et Sextus. 21 Drusus Cæsar. C. Norb. Flaccus. Brutus et Flaccus. Pomp. Mag. et Apul. 22 Ti. Statilius Taurus. L. Scribon. Libo. Taurus et Libo. Brutus et Flaecus II. 23 C. Coelius Rufus. L. Pomponius Flaccus. Crassus et Rufus. Taurus et Libo. 24 Tib. Aug. III. Germanicus Cæsar II. Tiberius II et Drusus Germanicus II. Crassus et Rufus.

*Suffecti*. 25 M. Julius Silanus. L. Sejus Tubero. Silanus et Balbus. 26 M. Valerius Messala. C. Norbanus Flaccus. Messala et Gratus. Silanus et Balbus. 27 Tiberius IV. M. Aurelius Cotta. Tiberius III et Drusus Germanicus III. Messala et Gratus. 28 D. Haterius Agrippa. C. Sulpitius Galba. Agrippa et Balbus.

*Suffecti*. 29 C. Asinius Pollio. C. Vibius Rufinus. Pollio et Vetus. Agrippa et Galba. 30 Ser. Cornel. Cethegus. C. Antistius Vetus. Cethegus et Varus. Pullo et Vetus. 31 M. Asinius Agrippa. L. Visellius Varro. Agrippa et Lentulus. Cethegus et Varus. 32 C. Calvisius. Cossus Corn. Lentulus. Getulicus et Sabinus. Agrippa et Lentulus.

*Suffecti*. 33 L. Licinius. Q. Marcius Barea. Crassus et Piso. Getulicus et Sabinus. 34 Ap. Julius Silanus. L. Calpurnius. Silvanus et Nerva. Crassus et Piso. 35 C. Rubellius Geminus. T. Rustius Numius Gallus. Gemini duo. Silanus et Nerva. 36 M. Vinucius. P. Silius Nerva. Rufus et Rubellio. Geminus et Geminus. 37 Tib. V. C. Fusius et Geminus. Vinicius et Longinus Cassius. Rufus et Rubellinus.

NOTES ON THE EXCERPTS OF THE COLLEGES OF CONSULS

In these lists of consuls, there are several things worthy of note. In the VI consulate, Epiphanius ascribes Piso as consul for the second time, which is not added in the Capitoline or the Sicilian Fasti; but this refers only to the consulate of Gnaeus Piso, which corresponds to the year of the City 747, and the error seems to have arisen from the fact that another person of the same name, L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, was consul in the year of the City 739. But he was the son of Lucius; ours, however, is called the son of Gnaeus. In the VII consulate, L. Caesar is wrongly put in Epiphanius instead of Gaius. For Lucius, his brother, died before he could enter upon the magistracy as consul-designate. In the X, the Sicilian Fasti and Epiphanius omitted Aelius Catus and Saturninus; but also, it is in vain that Pompey the Great is coupled with Valerius in Epiphanius. For that [consul] was Cinna Magnus, not Pompey. In the XII, an error crept in partly from the suffect consul Alteius Capito, and partly from the XIX consulate. For since in the year of the City 767 the consuls were Tiberius II and C. Fonteius Capito; but in the year 759 Capito had been suffect: those who compiled the Greek Fasti, counting Capito as an ordinary [consul], coupled him with Tib. Caesar. In the XIX consulate, the Sicilian Fasti join Tiberius Caesar II and Scipio: Epiphanius joins Flaccus and Silanus, which should have been ^B the consulate of the XXVI year, in the year of the City 772. The same Epiphanius, anticipating the college of the two Sexti, and having deleted the names of Silius and Plancus, places that consulate in the fifteenth year after the consuls Augustus XIII and Silanus, although it should have been the XVI. Then he makes the XVI the consulate of Pompey the Great and Apuleius; these seem to be the same as the previous ones. For of the two Sexti, one is called Pompey Nepos, the other Apuleius Nepos. This same error is seen in the Sicilian Fasti. In the XII, for Brutus in Epiphanius and the Sicilian Fasti, write Drusus. From then on, up to the XXXVI consulate, the Sicilian Fasti are one year later than Epiphanius and the Capitoline. For instance, they place Taurus and Libo in our series in the XXIV [place], whereas both of the others place them in the XXIII, and so on. The cause of this is that Epiphanius, having anticipated the consulate of the two Sexti in the year of the City 766 (which belonged to the following year) by striking out one pair of consuls—namely that of the year of the City 765, Tiberius Caesar and Fonteius Capito—accommodates to this very year, 767, Pompey and Apuleius, who are the same as the two Sexti. Thus, he returns to agreement with the Capitoline. But the Sicilians, because they do not omit the consuls of the year 765, and make two from the one college of the year 767, show the remaining ones as later, having introduced that superfluous consulate of Pompey and Apuleius. In the XXIV, in Epiphanius and in the Fasti, for Crassus, read Flaccus, unless there was some suffect. In the XXV, he has Tiberius as consul for the *second* time instead of the *third*. In the XXVI, Flaccus is to be ascribed in place of Balbo, unless some suffect held the place here, which the same

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^A par is to be believed: where Gratus is substituted for Cotta.

In the XXXVI consulate, which is in Epiphanius’s register as the XXXII, there is a greater error. For the Sicilian Fasti, along with Epiphanius, place them after the two twins, Rufus and Rubellius (the Sicilians call him Rubellinus). But the Capitoline Fasti place M. Vinicius and Cassius Longinus there. Moreover, Scaliger and Kepler, in his *Eclogae*, think that Rufus and Rubellius were suffects. I myself suspect that it happened in these consulships in the same way as it did in the year XVI. For just as there, from the college of Sex. Pompeius Nepos and Sex. Apuleius Nepos, two pairs of consuls were made—namely, two Sextuses and Pompeius and Apuleius—so I would believe that Rufus and Rubellius are the names of two Geminuses; except that for Rufus, "Fusius" should be read. For they are called thus: C. Rubellius Geminus, C. Fusius Geminus. Wherefore Onuphrius deservedly omitted both these and those, and did not even consider them in the place of suffects; a thing at which Scaliger ^B wondered in vain, book VI *De Emendatione*, page 571.

From this same confusion of the college, it happened that the consulships of Vinicius and Longinus in Epiphanius were displaced from their proper seat and placed at the XXX position, after the consuls Augustus XIII and Silvanus, when they ought to have been at the XXXII. For the consulship of Vinicius corresponds to the year U.C. 783, Julian 75, and this is according to the Varronian epoch; for the Capitoline Fasti place them in the year 782. In this, Scaliger hallucinated wondrously, while he rebukes Onuphrius, because he placed the consulship of Vinicius in 783 according to the opinion of Varro, although he professes that he follows the Catonian and Capitoline count of the years. Than which nothing more false could have escaped Scaliger. For Onuphrius, in his *Commentary on the 1st Book of the Fasti*, at the end of his dissertation on the year of the City's founding, testifies in the most clear words that he followed Varro. "I confess," he says, "that I follow the opinion of Varro in these Fasti; not because I trust it more than Fabius Pictor, or Verrius Flaccus, or Dionysius; but because I have observed that his opinion has been widely accepted by everyone, and regarded as the most true and certain of all." The fact that there is a difference of one year, by which his Fasti differ from the Capitoline and Sigonian ones, sufficiently shows that this was kept by him. This is, moreover, that same Vinicius to whom Velleius inscribed his historical *Breviarium*: for whose consulship, he had not counted 783 years precisely from the beginning of the City, as Scaliger writes, but it is to be restored. And for the rest, the numbers in Velleius are almost all faulty, or at any rate he is little consistent with himself, while he follows one author after another. Therefore, whether he held the Varronian or the Capitoline (which Scaliger calls the Catonian) system, cannot be stated with certainty. That he wrote either in the very year in which Vinicius was consul, or at least finished it at the beginning of the next, is evident from the fact that he mentions the work of Sejanus, who was still flourishing, at the end—who was overthrown in the V consulship of Tiberius, that is, the year of the City 784. But if this is so, the conjecture of the learned man, who seemed to doubt whether the consulships ^C were transposed, has no place; he [Tiberius] V, and Sejanus in the year 783, agreeing with Julian 75, and Vinicius and Cassius in 784, Julian 76. The consulship of the Geminuses certainly falls into the 15th year of Tiberius, sliding on and begun from August of the previous year. For it began on the Kalends of January of the Julian year 74. But Vinicius and Cassius, as consuls, fall into the Julian 75, with the 16th year of Tiberius already begun.

And concerning Vinicius and Cassius, the final and most difficult question remains: are they the same as those whom Tacitus writes of in book VI of the *Annals* as having been taken by Tiberius as sons-in-law in the year 786, Ser. Galba and L. Sulla being consuls? For he narrates that the daughters of Germanicus were betrothed to L. Cassius and M. Vinicius. "Vinicius," he says, "of a municipal family, born at Cales, his father and grandfather having been consuls, but otherwise of equestrian lineage, mild in temperament and of polished eloquence. Cassius, of a plebeian Roman family, but an ancient and honorable one, and educated by the severe discipline of his father, was commended more for his facility than for his industry." Soon he calls them both "youths." Certainly the very names themselves persuade us that they are those who had been consuls three years before; although the praenomen of Cassius in Dio is Caius, not Lucius: as he is also called by Pomponius in his book *De Origine Juris*; who also confuses that famous jurisconsult C. Cassius Longinus with this one of ours, Cuspinianus approving, but Lipsius reclaiming. In addition to these things, Suetonius in his *Caius* reported that Drusilla had married L. Cassius Longinus. For which reasons no one hitherto has doubted that both of those were the consuls of the year 783 for the son-in-law of Germanicus. Kepler, in his *Eclogae*, was the first to begin to doubt, and indeed with good reason. For who would think that Tacitus would have omitted these things when he was reviewing the ornaments of both? And yet regarding Vinicius he reported only this one thing: that he was sprung from a father and grandfather who had been consuls. But regarding Cassius, that he was of a plebeian family. Wherefore it is certain to me that those are different from the consuls of the year 783, although they had the same name. But it seems that the similarity of names misled Suetonius, so that he called Cassius consular, because another ^D homonym had held the consulship a little earlier. It was worth the effort to follow these things more diligently regarding the consuls recorded by Epiphanius; because from their context the apt and suspended series of the years of Christ may be had; and consequently there is a need for this groundwork for those who study to investigate the true Birth of Christ: which to establish and support, Kepler deservedly deemed [necessary] at the beginning of his dissertation, which he labored over concerning the Birth of Christ some years ago. In which he left, first of all, the perpetual succession of the Roman consuls, from which some thought five consulships should be subtracted, fortified by the firmest arguments. But there is something, however, which I shall note here in passing, which was less noticed by him; so that at the same time I may restore to its integrity the passage of Tacitus which has hitherto been read incorrectly. So, therefore, although Kepler affirms that no pairs of consuls are to be subtracted between Tiberius and Nero, he brings forward, among other testimonies, that of Tacitus. Who, in the *Life of his father-in-law Agricola*, writes that he died in the consulship of Collega and Priscus, in the 56th year of his age, but was born in the II consulship of Caius. From which he gathers thus: the third consulship of Caius in the year of the Dionysian…

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^A era should be attributed to 40, not, as some have opined, 42. However, since the consulship of Caius concurs with the year 793 from the founding of the City; and that of the Colleagues and Priscus, with the year 846; he who was born in the year 793 could not have been more than 54 years of age in the year 846. Wherefore I wonder that no one at Tacitus has noticed that 56 should be read as 54. It was, however, most easy for a defect to be admitted by librarians through an inversion of the notation.

With which consuls is the Birthday of Christ commonly assigned: where also the correction of the leap year is accurately discussed.

Epiphanius constantly affirms that Christ was born in the consulship of Augustus XIII and Silvanus. But since he defines the birthday as the 6th day before the Ides of January, the writer of the Ecclesiastical Annals rightly thinks that Epiphanius should be joined to the group of those who suppose that Christ was born in the preceding year—that is, in the consulship of Lentulus and Messalinum—rather than those ^B who assign the birthday to those very consuls whom Epiphanius names. This is because, had he embraced the common consensus regarding the month and day of the Birth, he would have preferred those former consuls by all means. Whence it should not be thought that Cassiodorus, whom Baronius follows, supports the decree and opinion of Onuphrius. Therefore, that Christ was born in the consulship of Lentulus and Messalinum, in the 43rd Julian year, is zealously demonstrated in the Annals, and this is placed as a foundation; should this totter, as they themselves say, the entire context of the Annals must necessarily collapse and fall apart. Consequently, the first year from the Birth of Christ, or the year of the Dionysian and vulgar era, begins from the Kalends of January of the 44th Julian year: 752 by the Varronian calculation of the City, whose Palilia followed immediately in the month of April; so that the beginning of the vulgar era falls into the 751st year of the City; the 2nd year of the 194th Olympiad. This is indeed the opinion of Cassiodorus and others, both ancient and modern; and, as far as the Birth itself is concerned, it is surely plausible. But that this same year is linked to the Dionysian era—that is, that the first Julian year of the Christian era is asserted to be 44, the second 194 of the Olympiad—that does not proceed at all. For it is off by two years, as most have noticed up to now; but as I believe, it even differs by three years from the mind and era of Dionysius, as will be demonstrated a little later. In the meantime, we thought that what is discussed subtly and exquisitely in the Appendix to the Annals concerning this year should be weighed.

Since therefore he saw his own opinion concerning the Birth of Christ being disapproved by some, for that one reason above all—that the leap day did not fall at all in the 43rd Julian year, which has Lentulus and Marcellinus as consuls—he declares to the contrary: So far is it from the case that the leap day does not fall in that year, that it can fit in no other year except in the fourth from it, whether before or after it. ^C For in this whole dispute he assumes as confessed and by no means doubtful that that year in which Christ was born was a leap year: because those years which were successively propagated from it, divided by four, occur as leap years.

Now the year 364 from the birth of the Lord, in which Valentinianus attained the empire, had a leap day, just as Ammianus writes in 376. Therefore 365 before it is likewise ^A a leap year. Yet that is the very one which presents Lentulus and Marcellinus as consuls, in which month of December Christ was born. Rightly, therefore, is this established here in the Annals.

He proceeds in the same argument by explaining more fully, and discusses the disposition of the Julian leap year and the correction of Augustus; so that it may appear that that year, which is the 43rd Julian, had a leap day. For Julius Caesar, in the 708th year from the founding of the City by the Varronian count, in which he himself was consul for the third time with Lepidus, approached the reform of the Roman year in such a way that he decreed that thereafter also a full day should be intercalated every fourth year. And if in that year of correction, which Macrobius calls the year of Confusion, he had intercalated nothing beyond months and days, the beginning of the leap years should have been reckoned from that very year, so that the first would correspond to the 4th year after, in the consulship of Lepidus II and Plancus: in which manner, by descending through four-year periods, the eleventh leap year would not fall in the 43rd year from the correction, but in the 44th, that is, it would not fall in the consulship of Lentulus and Messalinum, but in that of Augustus XII and Plautius, to which Onuphrius assigned the birth of Christ. But matters stood otherwise. For besides the intercalation of the full days, a quarter of a day was added by Caesar as well, as Solinus teaches. And in order to intercalate this, because it could not be added alone, it was necessary that it be deferred ^B until the 4th year; until, that is, a day should arise from that quarter and three others from as many subsequent years. And so he ordered the first leap year to be observed not in the fifth year after the correction, as it might otherwise have been said, but in the 4th, which corresponded to the year preceding the correction, or after the completion of the third year, in the consulship of Pansa and Hirtius: and the rest thereafter after every 4th year from this first one. Although the priests, with whom was the care of intercalating, perhaps led by the error of seeing the first leap year placed after the 3rd year, used similar cycles after every third year, and so corrupted the Roman year in the space of 36 years, that they inserted twelve days instead of nine. Which Augustus, intending to correct, and to excise those three superfluous days, ordered that the 12 following years be passed without leap-year intercalation, in the consulship of C. Censorinus and Asinius Gallus. These things are in the Annals. So that these might be clearly perceived as if subjected to the eyes themselves, he attached a list of several consulships; with the beginning drawn from that year in which the Julian edition began. Since this may bring not a little utility to the understanding of the things which are to be proposed hereafter, we shall transcribe that same index, having first premised a few things which serve the purpose. For it must be known that not only the reason and form of the leap year ordered by Julius Caesar, but also its corruption; and finally that Augustan correction and restoration, are explained quite variously. For there are those who are pleased that Julius Caesar intercalated nothing in the year of Confusion beyond the full months and days;

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and therefore that those years—5, 9, 13, etc., 37, 41, 45, 49, 53—were the legitimate and ordinary leap years ^A. So says Scaliger in book IV, *De Emendatione*. Others, who think that a quarter of a day was intercalated beyond the full days, establish the third year of the Julian edition as the legitimate leap year, and from it, successively, years 7, 11, 15, etc. A third method can be added to these, namely, that the year of Confusion itself served as a leap year, and subsequently the years 4, 8, 12, etc., then 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, claimed the leap day for themselves from the construction of Julius Caesar. It is difficult to affirm which of these methods of ordering Caesar followed, just as it is not at all certain what the nature of the corruption was. For he could have intercalated in the third Julian year against the prescription of Caesar; and he could have done so in the fourth, when he had ordered it for the fifth: whence year 36 or 37 turned out to be faulty. Nor is it less obscure ^B by what path they set out to correct that error, Augustus entering. For either he ordered the first of the twelve non-intercalary years [to be] the 38th Julian, at which he turned his attention to the correction; if the last faulty leap year was 37: so that the twelfth of the non-intercalated years of the Julian edition was 49: from which point the years were subsequently reduced to order, and in the year 53 a legitimate leap year fell. Or, if 36 was the last leap year, twelve years entirely free of leap years must be traversed from 36 to 48; so that the first leap year in order fell into the Julian 52. But Paul of Middelburg in book X, when he had said that a faulty leap day was intercalated in years 3, 6, 9, and finally 36, and that those twelve years were common and ended at 48: so that 49 required a leap day, asserts that a new fault was offered by the priests; so that he made 49 a leap year: whence the rest from that time have been propagated as leap years to our own age.

INDEX OF CERTAIN CONSULS

| Olympiads | Julian Years | Years of the City | Consuls | Year of Confusion | Leap years and letters vitiated from Mittelb. | Leap years and letters D. vitiated from Scal. | Letters of correction from August. | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | | 707 | Q. Calenus. P. Vatinius. | | | | | | | | 708 | C. Julius Caesar III. M. Aemilius Lepidus. | | | | | | | 1 | 709 | C. Julius Caesar IV, sine collega. | | C B | C B | C B | | 184 | 2 | 710 | C. Julius Caesar V. M. Antonius. | | B | A | A | | | 3 | 711 | C. Vibius Pansa. A. Hirtius. | | A G | G | G | | | 4 | 712 | M. Aemilius Lepidus II. L. Munatius Plancus. | | F | FE | F | | | 5 | 713 | L. Antonius. P. Servilius Isauricus. | | E | D | E D | | 185 | 6 | 714 | C. Domitius Calvinus. C. Asinius Pollio. | | D C | C | C | | | 7 | 715 | L. Martinus Censorinus. C. Calvisius Sabinus. | | B | B A | B | | | 8 | 716 | Ap. Claudius Pulcher. C. Norbanus Flaccus. | | A | G | A | | | 9 | 717 | M. Agrippa. L. Caninius Gallus. | | G F | F | G F | | 186 | 10 | 718 | L. Gellius Poplicola. M. Coccejus Nerva. | | E | E D | E | | | 11 | 719 | L. Cornificius. Sex. Pompejus. | | D | C | D | | | 12 | 720 | M. Antonius II. L. Scribonius Libo. | | C B | B | C | | | 13 | 721 | C. Caesar Octavianus II. L. Volcatius Tullus. | | A | A B | B A | | 187 | 14 | 722 | Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. C. Sosius Nepos. | | G | F | G | | | 15 | 723 | C. Caesar Octavianus III. M. Valerius Messala. | | F E | E | F | | | 16 | 724 | C. Caesar Octavianus IV. M. Licinius Crassus. | | D | D C | E | | | 17 | 725 | Imp. Caesar Octavianus V. Sex. Apulejus Nepos. | | C | B | D C | | 188 | 18 | 726 | Imp. Caesar Octavianus VI. M. Agrippa II. | | B A | A | B |

897

| 19 727 Imp. Caesar Octavianus VII. M. Agrippa III. G GF A 20 728 Imp. Caesar August. VIII. T. Statilius Taurus II. F E G 21 729 Imp. Caesar August. IX. M. Junius Silanus. ED D FE 189 22 730 Imp. Caesar Augustus X. C. Norbanus Flaccus. C CB D 23 731 Imp. Caesar Augustus XI. Cn. Calpurnius Piso. B A C 24 732 M. Claudius Marcellus. L. Aruntius. AG G B 25 733 M. Lollius. Q. Aemilius Lepidus. F FE AG 190 26 734 M. Apulejus. P. Silius Nerva. E D F 27 735 C. Sentius Saturninus. Q. Lucretius Vespillo. DC C E 28 736 P. Lentulus Marcellinus. Cn. Cornelius Lentulus. B BA D 29 737 C. Furnius. C. Junius Silanus. A G CB 191 30 738 L. Domitius. P. Cornelius Scipio. GF F A 31 739 M. Livius Drusus Libo. L. Calpurnius Piso. E ED G 32 740 Cn. Lentulus. M. Licinius Crassus. D C F 33 741 Tib. Claudius Nero. P. Quinctilius Varus. CB B ED 192 34 742 M. Valerius Messala. P. Sulpitius Quirinus. A AG C 35 743 Paulus Fabius. Q. Aelius Tubero. G F B 36 744 Julius Antonius. Q. Fabius Maximus. FE E A 37 745 Nero Claudius Drusus. T. Quintius Crispinus. D DC GF 193 38 746 C. Martius Censorinus. C. Asinius Gallus. C B E 39 747 Ti. Claudius Nero II. Cn. Calpur. Piso II. B A D 40 748 D. Laelius Balbus. C. Antistius Vetus. A G C 41 749 Imp. Caesar Augustus XII. L. Corn. Sulla. G F BA 194 42 750 C. Calvisius Sabinus. L. Passienus Rufinus. F E G 43 751 L. Lentulus. M. Messalinus. E D F 44 752 Imp. Caesar Aug. XIII. M. Plautius Silvanus. D C E 45 753 Cossus Corn. Lentulus. L. Calpur. Piso Augur. C B DC 195 46 754 Imp. Caesar Aug. XIV. L. Aemilius Paulus. B A B 47 755 P. Vinicius Nepos. P. Alfinius Varus. A G A 48 756 L. Aelius Lamia. M. Servilius Geminus. G F G 49 757 Sex. Aelius Catus. C. Sentius Saturninus. FE E FE 196 50 758 L. Valerius Messala. C. Corn. Cinna. D D D 51 759 M. Aemilius Lepidus. L. Aruntius Nepos. C C C

899

^A Now it is appropriate to observe the point on which the whole sum of the matter turns, namely, that any year in the Julian series is called bissextile for a twofold reason. For it is either bissextile because of the succession of preceding years according to Caesar's ordinance; or else it is considered with respect to the first Augustan amendment, whose disposition even redounds and turns back to earlier times. (For we are accustomed, for the sake of method, to adapt the Julian form, as revised by Augustus, to earlier years and even to the very creation of the world.) As an example: the 45th Julian year, in which the Dionysian Nativity falls, if that Julian bissextile description which the *Annales* exhibit is true, had no bissextile day, but rather the 43rd did. But according to the Augustan correction, whether the one asserts that Paulus of Forum Sempronii makes, ^B or the one that assigns the legitimate bissextile to the 53rd year, that same 45th Julian year will be bissextile. For thus the first Julian year, even though in the mind of its author it was not bissextile, is nonetheless considered to have been such according to the Augustan amendment, as the Forosemproniensis notes. Now, whoever wishes the year of the Nativity of Christ to have been bissextile and uses that as a kind of character of the time, it is not enough for him to demonstrate that the bissextile day fell in that very year by Julian institution, which, as can be understood from the foregoing, is doubtful and uncertain: but greatest account must be taken of the subsequent bissextile years, such as they are observed in modern usage after the Augustan correction. That which was less noted in the *Annales* finally reduced the reasoning to the point that they established the 51st Julian year as bissextile; ^C concerning which more a little later. In the meantime, let us more attentively examine that quarter-day which Solinus recorded as having been intercalated along with the whole days. The words of Solinus are: *And so that the past error might receive a certain state, he intercalated 21 days and a quarter simultaneously, etc.* That year, therefore, alone had 344 days; others thereafter had 365 and a quarter. This passage of Solinus has been badly handled, either through the ignorance of copyists or the hallucination of the writer. The year of the Confusion, besides the ordinary 355 days, which were the mode of the Roman year, had 67 intercalated days, as Dio testifies. If you add to these the intercalary month Mercedonius, which had conveniently fallen into that year, the sum of added days is 90, if Mercedonius had 23: or 89, if it obtained only 22. Wherefore the year of the Confusion demands 344 or 345 days, ^D as Censorinus writes on page 46. And indeed those days were so dispensed such that when the intercalary month, or Mercedonius, had taken its place in February according to custom, two other months were inserted between November and December, both together comprising 67 days, so that the adjustment itself fell at the end of the year. Hence that very true suspicion that Solinus wrote 444, not 344. For what he says, that twenty-one days with a quarter were added, could refer to the Mercedonius, which consisted of 22 or 23 days. Although he seems to have written rather inconveniently concerning the intercalated quarter. For hourly appendices are not called "intercalary" in the civil year. Which, in that sense, we grant to have been intercalated, because when they ran over the months and full days, since this equation squares with the exit of the year of the Confusion, Caesar could not have appointed the next bissextile for the 3rd Julian year, but for the beginning of the 4th; namely, at that time when the day collected from the quarters became a whole: although that hourly quarter cannot be said to be fixed not with the two remaining months, but with the Mercedonius, so that it could have been another space provided for collecting the quarter at the beginning of the first Julian year. Nevertheless, I consider that there is more to be thought about this Solinus passage.

Having necessarily established these things, we deny that the year in which Lentulus and Messalinus were consuls was bissextile. It would be, according to the ordinance of Julius Caesar, which we have shown thus far to be very uncertain; indeed, after the year was corrected by Augustus, if you count backward from any of those whom both he and all posterity held to be bissextile, we consistently deny that it is the bissextile year in which the *Annales ecclesiastici* confirm that Christ was brought into the light. This was Julian year 43, which began in the first passing year of the 194th Olympiad, from the building of the City 751 according to the Varronian calculation. Furthermore, in the Julian period, than which nothing is more expedient for disentangling chronology, it occupies no year other than 4711, cycle of the sun 7, moon 18, indiction 4, from January, but from September 2. This surely rests not on conjecture, but on demonstration. Augustus died in the consulship of the two Sexti, as is most thoroughly explored by the consensus of all, in the year of the City 763. Before the consulship of the Sexti, if you count backward, there are exactly 16 consulships; therefore, Lentulus and Marcellinus occupy the 16th year antecedent. Furthermore, that notable year of the death of Augustus had an eclipse of the moon, which is agreed among chronologers to have occurred 40 days after his death, and that is the 14th year of the Dionysian era, cycle of the sun 23, moon 15, Sept. 27, feria 5, dominical letter G, of the Julian period 4727. But if you subtract 16 years from that, there will remain 4711, in which Lentulus and Marcellinus were consuls. If this had been a bissextile year, the year 16 years from it would likewise have had a bissextile. But it is the 14th of our era, and the second after a bissextile; therefore the year in which Marcellus and Lentulus were consuls was not bissextile. The same is deduced from the series of Olympiads and Julian years. For since the consulship of Lentulus and Marcellinus is Julian 43; and that of the two Sexti is Julian 59, which is the same as our era 14: it is necessary that Julian year 283 be the 238th of the Dionysian era, in which also the 254th Olympiad ends in its first year, that is, Iphitus 1014. If indeed, as the *Annales* also agree, the 2nd year of the 194th Olympiad, or Iphitus 774, began in Julian 45. Yet this very Julian year 283, Iphitus 1014, is that memorable year of Censorinus, which he notes as being in the consulship of Ulpius and Pontianus, 991 from the building of the City: which, since it is the 238th of the Dionysian era, is not bissextile, but second after a bissextile. Therefore, also the two hundred and eighty-third before it, that is, the first Julian bissextile

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^A, through counting backwards, and by our usage, is bissextile, as Paul of Forosempronium also taught. But in establishing bissextile years, one must use the system not of the Julian edition, but of the Augustan and our own: a point which the *Annals* seem to have missed. In that work, having demonstrated from the institution of Julius Caesar that the year in which Lentulus and Marcellinus were consuls was bissextile, the author thought the matter settled; as if Augustus had retained the selfsame series of bissextile years which he affirms were proposed by Julius Caesar. From which error also flowed the fact that, ^B *enslaved to his hypothesis*, he said the 51st Julian year was the legitimate bissextile year according to the Augustan correction. For whether you recur from it to 43, or descend from the first Julian to that same 18, you fall into a bissextile year. But it is false that the Julian year after the Augustan reformation was bissextile: especially if we attribute the faulty twelfth bissextile to Julian year 36, as the *Annals* do, such that Augustus determined those twelve years were to be passed without a bissextile. For if the first of those twelve *ἐνεμβολίμων* [intercalary] years began from Julian year 37, the twelfth will be Julian year 48: which being completed, and the three superfluous bissextiles abolished, the year was brought back to the correct path. Now, in order to proceed subsequently by regular order and method, the bissextile year had to be placed in the fourth year after 48; namely, in Julian 52, as we showed above from Paul of Middelburg. But in truth, if Augustus willed the 51st year to be bissextile, he fell into the same error that was committed at the beginning of the Julian edition; namely, that in the third year after a bissextile, a bissextile should be placed differently. Finally, no one yet has been found who would make the Julian year 51 bissextile after the Augustan amendment.

But the three hundred and sixty-fourth year after that is the bissextile one, or else it must be taught that an error has crept into the enumeration of the consuls. For these are the words of the *Annals*. But that also is no less false, that the year 364 of the Christian era, after the consulship of Lentulus and Marcellinus, is the three hundred and sixty-fourth, when in truth it is 366 from their consulship; for it must be known that two pairs of consuls were removed in the *Annals*, by the removal of which in order, the Christian era, which had been anticipated by two years until now, returned at last to agreement with the common one: which same thing happened in Onuphrius' *Fasti*, with one equal consulship suppressed, a matter which will be discussed more opportunely elsewhere.

Now indeed, because that common era, which we reckon from the Nativity of Christ, places that same Nativity at the end of Julian year 45, it is gathered from what has been discussed so far as follows: Augustus the Emperor departed in Julian year ^C and a method, known even to children, forces faith in this matter from even the unwilling. For if in this year, in which we write these things, which is commonly numbered as the 1621st cycle of the Dionysian era, the sun is 6, the moon 7, indiction 4, it is necessary that the first year of the era had the cycles of sun 10, moon 2, indiction 4; but the Nativity of Christ, sun 9, moon 1, indiction 3 from the Kalends of January. And this triple character at the end cannot be attributed to any other than Julian year 45, in the 4th year of Olympiad 194: 753 years from the founding of Rome by the Varronian Palilia: which, if the preceding points have been set down correctly, follows necessarily. I omit the eclipses of either luminary and the remaining characters and marks of the years: by which, as by most firm bulwarks, this doctrine of times is fortified, about which many in this age have written learnedly and acutely.

And I would not have mentioned cycles and other things of that kind in this place, had I not seen this whole business being disapproved by some, and ridiculed as empty and idle. I saw an individual recently who was stripping this method of its weight and authority by such reasonings. First, he said the arrangement of the cycles was uncertain, and that no one agreed with another: because some want the universe fashioned by one cycle of sun and moon, others by another. But this is easily refuted by us. For there is no one who can count two and three who calculates cycles in the Dionysian and common form differently than any person on the street. Indeed, one might differ from another in the number of years that have flowed since the creation of the world. But those who have agreed among themselves on the years must necessarily agree on the cycles, unless they be cattle. Yet this matter has great utility and advantage for unfolding the years: so that you do not contradict yourself, so that you may direct the varieties of years, which are manifold according to the diversity of nations, to a certain rule and standard, so that you do not shrink from astronomical observations in pursuing a description of the times. For if the form of the Julian year, which was adopted after some thousands of years, is today recalled by all chronologists to earlier times as well for convenience, and other years are rightly referred to it, why will it not be permissible to use the same in cycles? The question is asked in what year Cyrus began to reign in Persia. You will hear from chronologists that he began his empire in the first year of Olympiad 55. But since Olympiads begin from the summer solstice, you will not be able to recognize any better whether they speak of the earlier months of that year, or the later ones, that is, of the year 4154 or 4155 of the Julian period. But if that chronologist, whoever he may be, had added the cycles, we would necessarily be taught immediately in which year he said it happened.

But the first cycles must be fixed in some year, from which year the cycles of the rest depend. This, however, cannot be gathered from Scripture, nor from elsewhere. Is that so? There is no agreement among Christians today about cycles, who yet retain the common usage of the mother Church, that is, the Roman? Do not all retain the year of Christ's Nativity in the cycle of the sun 9,

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and the moon? Who is there who, if he were to refute others in this method, would not then be refuted by logistics? We possess, therefore, in the Dionysian era, established and fixed cycles of years, from which it is permitted to progress to infinity both toward earlier and later times; nor is it necessary that this be consistent with the testimony of any writer or any eclipse, since this method has been established by the consensus of all and brought into use. Finally, that objection is raised which pertains to weakening the faith in cycles and all celestial [phenomena]. For when Tacitus, for instance, or Dio relate that some eclipse happened in a certain year, the testimony of these writers does not produce a faith greater than human. Wherefore, what is elicited from that same source has as much certainty as the authority of that historian can have who affirms it. From which facts he contends that all those who promise demonstrations from such matters err not insignificantly, and pronounce upon days and hours quite confidently, as if they had just descended from the council of the gods or the intermundia of Epicurus. For so he wished to joke, which was not necessary. But what is this, I ask, which I hear there? Do not the observations of mathematicians have greater than human faith? That this eclipse happened in this or that year of an emperor rests upon historical faith, which, although it be human, still for a man to depart from it seems difficult at times. But when the matter has been brought down to the Julian years in particular, which all chronologists propose for themselves, in what year that eclipse occurred stands not now upon human faith—that is, upon the sole authority of a writer—but upon most certain demonstration, concerning which no one will be able to doubt, unless he be led astray first by ignorance of counting or by a fault in the tables. Behold for yourself in this argument, which we are treating, how great is the utility of these characters, which you can discern. That the moon was eclipsed a little after the death of Augustus, although we believe it from the testimony of historians, yet it is a constant opinion, concerning the truth of which not even the slightest doubt is entertained. Now it is asked which year of the Christian era this is. Those who condemn the method of cycles and eclipses are accustomed to attribute it to the Dionysian year 16. But it is the 14th, nor will any astronomy ever define another year for this eclipse, which happened in the month of September, a few days after the death of Augustus. Who, therefore, will not think it necessarily concluded from this that Augustus died in the 14th year of the Christian era, not the 16th? You see a faith greater than human, yet entangled and connected with human [faith]: which, although it were similar to human, that is, to another, upon which alone they rely, should not therefore be rejected because it is human; but rather, for that very reason, it should be commended, because the human was joined to the human, so that it might produce not a faith greater than human, but a simpler one, and one more certain ^D than that with which they are content.

Of the vulgar method, by which the year of Christ's Nativity is investigated: where also of the Dionysian era.

I seem to have spoken too many words, and yet not to have touched upon the head of the matter itself. For I have not yet explained in what year, or by which consuls, Christ was born. Whoever, therefore, have tried to investigate this by a certain rule, although they have not agreed among themselves, yet, relying upon the one and the same testimony of Luke, they have departed into different parts. The evangelist had written that the Lord was baptized in the 15th year of Tiberius, when He was about thirty years of age. *And Jesus himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, etc.* Which words signify this one thing: that He was not far from the thirtieth year of His age; but whether it happened after the thirtieth year was completed and the thirty-first was beginning, or after the 29th, in the beginning of the 30th, they do not explicitly explain. Nay, truly, although someone were to say that Christ was baptized in the year 28 or 33, it would not, in my judgment, oppose the authority of the Gospel, of which it will be seen later. But those who have circumscribed the words of Luke within more narrow spaces have opined—some, that thirty years were then completed; others, that there were only twenty-nine. Both parties, however, wish Christ to have been baptized under the two consuls Gemini, in the Julian year 74, which falls into the 15th year of Tiberius, which began in the previous year on the 14th day before the Kalends of September. Whence, since they agree on the year of the baptism, they disagree on the Nativity itself by one year. The Ecclesiastical Annals follow the former sect and opinion concerning the thirtieth year being completed, and Scaliger defends the same most fiercely in his [work] *De emendatione temporum*. But with great effort, as is his wont, he proves it very lightly. For thus he discourses: The Lord Christ had completed 30 years: for he is said to be of 30 years who has completed the thirtieth year, as he is a year-old who has reached the 365th day. *Read "Anniculus" in "De verborum significatione."* But that which Luke wrote, *ὡσεὶ τριάκοντα*, that particle *caph* is not ^C an interrogative particle, but a true one; like that in John 1:14, *as of the Only-begotten of the Father*. But let it be, he says, interrogative: therefore a few days were lacking to complete the 30th year; suppose twenty, or a month, although not even a month would seem to be lacking if we take *ὡσεὶ* as interrogative. But let a month, or two months, be lacking to complete the thirtieth year; and let the day of the baptism be the 6th of January. Therefore, in the same year, a little after the baptism, suppose in February, the 31st year would have begun. Now, however, [Scaliger] takes the words of Luke as if it were written: *And Jesus himself was beginning, being of thirty years, the son, as was supposed*. But this Scaligerian exposition of that place, that I may start from this point, is absurd and barbarous. For who would bear anyone speaking Greek thus: *Jesus was being beginning*, for that which is *he was beginning*? Is it not ridiculous and putrid: *I am being beginning*, for *I begin*? And yet he prefers this very interpretation to the other, which has less absurdity, although not even that one pleases; as if Luke had intended: *he was beginning, being of thirty years, the son, as was supposed*. Wherefore that sense is much more apt, so that *ὢν* is referred to what follows: *ἀρχόμενος* to what precedes. *And Jesus was beginning about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son*, etc. Epiphanius certainly in *Heresy LXXXVIII*, no. 7, taught that *ὢν* perturbs to *υἱός*, not to *ἀρχόμενος*, when he quoted that place thus: *that being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph*. Furthermore, in *Heresy XXX*, no. 30, *And Jesus...*

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beginning to be about thirty years of age. But a controversy, or the head of the question, is placed in the particle *ὡσεί*, which for the most part is wont to be *ἀπορητικόν* (dubitative), and takes something away from the perfect and absolute state of a thing. Here, however, Scaliger, and many with him, think it is not *ἀπορητικόν*, but *ἀληθινόν* (truth-bearing), and strictly affirmative. They seem to me not to have sufficiently noticed the force and use of this little word among the Greeks. We have observed a triple power of it among the Greeks. The first is when it is taken *ἐνδοιαστικῶς* (hesitantly), or *ἀπορητικῶς* (doubtfully); as in Luke 22:41: *And he himself was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast*; and ch. 1:56: *And Mary abode with her about three months*. The second force is *συγκριτική* (comparative). Thus Luke 3:22: *And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, as a dove*. Although this latter notion can be referred to the former, for that which is said to be like to another is not altogether the same. Finally, the third is *αἰτιολογικόν* (causative) of *ὡσεί*. For if anyone shall look diligently, he will find that the particle *ὡς* or *ὡσεί*, unless it be used in those two ways, contains the cause on account of which that which is narrated happened. Thus in Homer, *Odyssey* Ε: *We sailed with a goodly blowing North wind,* *Easily, as if with the current.* Why it sailed easily, the word *ὡσεί* contains the cause, namely, because it was carried by the sea running followingly, *as in water* flowing downward, *and not standing by the equality of the surface*, says Eustathius. Similarly in that place of John, *seeing his glory, as of the Only-begotten*, the *ὡς* is *ἐμφατικόν* (emphatic) and *αἰτιολογικόν* (causative). For why such glory should be, it ought to be ascribed to his condition and dignity. Wherefore it is the same as *inasmuch as*. But that signification is more fitting for the particle *ὡς* than for *ὡσεί*: nay, as Stephanus notes in his *Thesaurus*, *ὡσεί* is used more frequently for *approximately* or *about*, and is perhaps never taken otherwise, especially in prose speech. Whence you may gather that the passage of John is incorrectly brought to that matter, so that the thirtieth year might seem to have been solid and complete at the time of the baptism. Firstly, it is *ὡς* there, not *ὡσεί*, and to our interpreter it is almost the same as *like as*. Secondly, it is used *αἰτιολογικῶς* and *ἐμφατικῶς*. But in that other passage of Luke, *ὡσεί* has no causality or emphasis, nor indeed a comparison. It is not correctly compared, therefore, with the former. Regarding the notion of a one-year-old that Scaliger proposes, it is nothing to the point. For one thing is a one-year-old, and another is *as it were* a one-year-old, of which we are speaking. The rest of Scaliger's collection is tangled and empty. For who could understand these things? If *ὡσεί* were *ἀπορητικόν*, the days would have been only twenty, or at most a month, that were wanting for a round number. Wherefore, as if he were baptized on January 6th, he would have completed the thirtieth in the month of February. As if those who wished *ὡσεί* in Luke to be taken *ἀπορητικῶς* believed that Christ was born in the month of February, as does Onufrius, who thinks that thirty years were finally completed in the twelfth month after the baptism. Nor indeed, when *ὡσεί* is taken *ἀπορητικῶς*, does it signify only a few days or one month, but rather it makes a difference of years. But he who is a few years below or above the number, can be called *about thirty years of age*, as Epiphanius argues somewhere. Kepler clearly declares this very thing by comparison with another passage. For although it is written in Matt. 17:1, after the discourse instituted by the Lord, *after six days* he was transfigured; yet Luke, expounding the same history, ch. 9:28, narrates that it was done *about eight days* after that same discourse: where he used the same little word *ὡσεί*, when he had added two days, that is, a third part, to the true number. But Scaliger insists, and says, No Grecism allows: *I begin of thirty years*, for *I begin of the thirtieth year*. *Jesus was about thirty years of age* in his thirty-first year; but having completed the thirtieth, was immediately said *to be about to begin thirty years*. For they do not understand the participle *ὢν* (being) which is silent, because it was omitted that it might not be repeated, *ἦν ἀρχόμενος*, that is, *was beginning*. Such is his view. All the force, therefore, is placed in this word *ἀρχόμενος*: which all refer to the beginning of the thirtieth year of age. But Onufrius thinks twenty-nine years were completed, and a few days of the thirtieth tasted, as if that were *to be about the age of 30*. Scaliger denies that this is a proper expression, unless thirty years are already completed. But for my part, to say honestly what I think, the force of that participle seems to me to be other than to demonstrate a thirtieth year begun or finished. For since the particle *ὡσεί*, as was declared above, has a notion of diminishing or doubting, who is there who would think that Luke wrote: *Jesus was beginning to be about thirty years of age*? For this would be adding an infinite word to an infinite particle, since both *ὡσεί*, as well as *ἀρχόμενος*, have an infinite and not at all determined signification. It pleases me, therefore, to refer the word *ἄρχεσθαι* to the beginning of the preaching, the dispensation, or the epiphany, because after the baptism, who until that point had been hidden, he began to come forth into the open and into the light. Which interpretation of this passage I found later in the very learned writer Jansenius; who prefers it to all others. Especially since in Acts 1:22, that word was used in the same sense: *In which he went in and out among us, the Lord Jesus, beginning from the baptism of John*, and ch. 10:37: *Beginning from Galilee, after the baptism*. Which things, if they be true, it is apparent from those words of Luke that an exact time of Christ's age cannot be defined. Nor is there any reason why the authority of certain Fathers should be opposed, who can affirm nothing else than what they learned from Luke; nor is there any reason why we should interpret Luke from their words rather than from what in Luke seems to be asserted by them. Although even if not only the Fathers, but Luke himself, were to say solid and fulfilled thirty years, nothing would stand in the way but that, if it were less in harmony with history, we would accept it in the same sense in which, in ch. 2:21, the same Luke said: *After eight days were accomplished, when the child was circumcised in the eighth day itself*, as Jansenius observes. In vain, therefore, is that passage of Ignatius from the *Epistle to the Trallians* as if...

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where "three decades of years were occupied" is objected: ^A against which no one has the right to mutter, much less to resist. For is it worth more to say, "He walked for three decades," than "the days were completed [to] eight," or what is read elsewhere concerning the Transfiguration, "after about eight days," when only six are counted solidly by Matthew? I am surprised that some suppose there is any weight in those words of Ignatius for that opinion. And if the matter is conducted by authority, we have the most ancient and most serious Fathers who, not obscurely like Ignatius, but openly, have taught by their own opinion how the words of Luke were to be interpreted by us. Justin Martyr, *Dial. with Trypho*, pg. 92, edit. Rob. Steph.: "He remained for thirty years, or more, or even fewer, until John came forth as his herald." He doubts whether Christ had exceeded thirty years, or had remained under them, when he approached John. Why so? Is it not because Luke seemed to speak with hesitation ^B when he wrote "about thirty years"? But Irenæus is so far from those rigid and stiff interpreters of words that, in book II, chapter 39, he considers that at the time of his baptism Christ had not yet completed his thirtieth year. I omit more recent Fathers after those apostolic times, and other grave and learned men, who do not doubt that the testimony of Luke signifies the age of Christ indeterminately and broadly. Nor were there wanting those who read *archomenos* instead of *archomenos* [beginning instead of coming], such as Epiphanius and Euthymius; so much so that the participle *archomenos* is recalled by their opinion to the beginning of his office and preaching, not to his entering upon that age. ^C

But there is another thing which the ancients, just as all the moderns who have disputed about the natal year of Christ, have commonly assumed as most certain: namely, that Christ was baptized in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. Whence, since the fifteenth year of Tiberius began in the Julian year 73, in the consulship of Silanus and Nerva, from the 14th day before the Kalends of September, and the baptism of Christ fell on the 6th of January, it agrees with the Julian year 74, in the consulship of the two Gemini, which is the almost common opinion of all. If anyone should shake that pillar of theirs, the entire method of investigating Christ's birthday falls ruined. And yet, whence did they finally get that Christ was baptized in the very fifteenth year of Tiberius? For Luke, chapter III, 1, 2, ^D relates that in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, John, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, went forth to preach repentance, but not that Christ was baptized by John in that very same fifteenth year of Tiberius. For it may be that in the Julian year 74, at the end of the fifteenth year of Tiberius, as the year of Augustus was beginning, John emerged from the wilderness into public life, and in the Julian year 75 Christ was baptized by him, in the sixteenth year of Tiberius. This, as far as I know, has been observed by no one until now, and it contributes greatly to the defense of the common and Dionysian era. For there is no one so little instructed, I will not say in mathematical arts, but in that common skill of calculating times, who does not notice that all those fight against themselves who dissent from the Dionysian institution of the year of the Lord’s Nativity.

*How the vulgar era of Christ disagrees with the institution of its author Dionysius.*

For it must be known that the very year which we make the first of the vulgar era, and which we begin very close to the Nativity of the Savior itself, was established by its first author as the year of the Incarnation and Nativity: which I shall make plain from the testimony of Dionysius himself and of Bede. For Dionysius, as Bede is the author in *De temporum ratione*, cap. 45, and elsewhere often, began his cycle of 532 years from the year that preceded the Incarnation and Nativity. Therefore, he wanted the first year of his cycle to be the one that is 532 of the common era; but the second to be that which is 533. Whence it happens that if you wish to go backward, the first year of the Dionysian cycle precedes the year of the Incarnation and Nativity by the closest proximity. Bede repeats the same in his *Computus*, cap. 17: and that no doubt may exist, he adds certain characters by which that second year of the cycle is distinguished from others: for example, that it had epacts 11; concurrents 5; likewise the moon 14 on the 8th day before the Kalends of April. And the Paschal Sunday on the 6th day before the Kalends of April, the moon 16. For this is the first year of the common era, with cycle of the sun 10, moon 11, epacts 11, concurrents 5. The mean new moon from the Frisian tables of Muller, March 11, hour 7, 59, 39, after midnight, moon 14, March 26: but on account of the *proegnosis* in the Nicene times, to which Dionysius directs his cycle, the new moon of March 12, moon 14, March 25, or the 8th day before the Kalends of April, with the Dominical letter B. Hence it is that, as Bede writes, Dionysius orders one to be added to the method of the nineteen-year cycle of the years of the Lord; signifying that in that year of the Incarnation, one year of the nineteen-year cycle had already been completed. From which words of Bede and Dionysius, it is clear that the faulty description of the Dionysian cycles, which is found in the same Bede in volume I, is manifest. For there, in the first year, the letter E is set: in the second, DC. But the first year of the Dionysian cycle is a leap year, not the second, which has the letter B, as the former does DC. Therefore Bede rightly corrects it, and wished the leap year to be the first year of the cycle. Although it is permissible to suspect that Dionysius [intended] the first year...

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of the cycle ^A to be the one before the leap year, and therefore assigned the letter E to it: yet he hallucinated later, having moved the Nativity to the fifth year of the same Olympiad, or at least having ascribed some other letter E, which he knew to correspond to the third year of Olympiad 194, to which Dionysius had assigned the Nativity, without noticing that this squared less well with his own undertaking. However, as it may have happened, we anticipate the Dionysian era by one year: and the year which he intended to be the year of the Incarnation and Nativity, we constitute as the one immediately after the Nativity, something that crept upon us unaware. For when our ancestors were numbering the years from the Incarnation, it later happened that those who wished to take the start rather from the Nativity, since they ought to have deducted nine months, preferred to anticipate by three [months], and took the principle of numbering from that Nativity which precedes the epoch of the Incarnation, not from that which follows it. Although this error is very old, belonging to Dionysius himself, and to Bede. Hence that sentence uttered as if from a tripod: For the faith of the Church has, if I am not mistaken, that the Lord lived in the flesh until the time of His passion for little more than thirty-three years: because evidently He was baptized at thirty years of age; just as the evangelist Luke testifies, and He preached for three and a half years after His baptism. There is no reason why Bede, in that chapter, should think otherwise than against the common faith of the Church. For he delivers that Christ suffered in the year of our era 34. Whence, just as he thinks that the year of our era 533, which is the second year of the second Dionysian cycle, corresponds to that year in which Christ was incarnate: so he orders 34 to be added to 532, so that they might become 566, the year which corresponds to that other year in which the Lord suffered, which is year 34 of the era. It appears, therefore, in Bede and Dionysius, that in the year which is 34 of the common era, and 35 of the Dionysian cycle, Christ suffered. Wherefore, ^B since, as they determine, the Lord was incarnate and born in the second year of the cycle, and the first of the era: when He suffered, He had completed only thirty-two years and some months. Unless perhaps we count that the first year of His age in which He was carried in the womb of His mother; which is most absurd.

And yet Campanus, a noteworthy master of computations, fell into that [error]. For in *Computus*, chapters 24 and 52, he asserts that Christ the Lord was born in the second year of the decemnovennal cycle, but the third year of the cycle of epacts, having begun two months before, on the twenty-fourth day of the embolismic lunation, which began on the second of December; [in the year of the] cycle of the sun 10, dominical letter B. This year is none other than the first of the Dionysian era, the second of the Dionysian cycle, which we are accustomed to count as the first from the Nativity; in which [year] the third cycle of epacts, which is the same as the Alexandrian, began from the month of September, with the golden number 11 current. Again, he teaches that Christ suffered in the 54th year of His age, in which Easter fell on the 4th of the Ides of April. This is the 35th year of the Dionysian era, in which year of the cycle the moon is 17, and the New Moon of Nisan, according to the Nicene [rule], falls on the 27th of March, feria 1, [in the year of the] cycle of the sun 16, ^C dominical letter B. Wherefore the fourteenth day of Easter falls on the 9th of April, feria 7. Therefore, the following day, Sunday, is the Paschal [Sunday]. But even if Christ was born at the end of the second Dionysian year, with the year 34 ending, He would have completed no more than 33 solid years; but at the beginning of the 35th, he was entering his thirty-third year. Therefore, Campanus counts as the first year of His age that in which He was carried in the womb of His mother.

Concerning the hallucination of Sigebert, Marianus, and other chronologists regarding the anticipation of the era.

That which was discussed by us just now—that the Dionysian era, since it ought to begin from the year of the Incarnation, is repeated by modern custom from the one which follows the Nativity—Sigebert may appear to have noted at first glance. For he notes this for the year 532: Dionysius the abbot begins his cycle of five decemnovennal cycles from this year. And because the second year of this work ought to harmonize in the ratio of the computation with the first year of the Nativity of Christ, the 35th year of the Dionysian cycle ought to harmonize in the ratio of the computation with the thirty-third year of the Nativity of Christ: namely, so that the 14th moon of April might occur on the 9th of the Kalends of April, ^D on the 5th feria: the Passion of Christ on the 10th of the Kalends of April, on the 6th feria: the Resurrection on the 6th of the Kalends of April, on Sunday. But because it does not occur thus, but the 14th moon of April occurs in that year on the 11th of the Kalends of April, on the 1st feria: and the Sunday of Easter on the 5th of the Kalends of April, therefore it is disapproved, because it is repugnant to evangelical truth. This is Sigebert. These things, as they are very obscure: yet specifically when he says that the 35th year of the Dionysian cycle corresponds to the 33rd of the Nativity, he seems to affirm that very thing which has been observed by us. For if the Dionysian cycle precedes the Incarnation by one year, it is necessary that its third year be the first after the Nativity, and thus the 35th year of the cycle be 33 from the Nativity. Thus, years of the Nativity will appear to some to begin after the Nativity itself. But that character which he adds forces us to think otherwise. For he damns the Dionysian era, because when the 35th year of the cycle ought to correspond with the 33rd year of the Nativity—because the second of the cycle is the first of the Nativity—that it nevertheless does not at all agree: for the reason that the 35th of the cycle has the moon 14 on the 10th of the Kalends of April, feria 1, that is, the 21st of March, but Easter [is] on the 5th of the Kalends of April, whereas the 33rd year of the Nativity would have had the moon 14 on the 9th of the Kalends of April, feria 5, and Easter on the 6th of the Kalends of April. Therefore 35 does not correspond with 33, as it ought. Thus Sigebert. The same writes these things for the year 1076: In this year, which is the 13th year of the first decemnovennal cycle in the repeated great year of Dionysius, with two great years having revolved from the Passion of the Lord, everything which pertains to the course of the sun and moon corresponds to the year of the Lord’s Passion. Whence it appears that Dionysius did not correctly annotate the years of the Lord to his cycle; for because he started his cycle from the year of the Lord 532, he doubtless intended Christ to have been born in the second year of the previous great year; and through this, this year, harmonizing with the year of the Lord’s Passion, ought to have been not the 13th, but the 33rd year of the great cycle.

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^A Indeed, as for it having been the 27th of March, on the first day of the week, which they postulated as if it were a demand, and relying on that axiom, they preferred to accommodate history and the series of times and years to that very preconception of theirs, rather than diligently inquire into what sort of reality it itself was. And so, since in the whole Dionysian cycle there are only three years that can possess this character—namely, the 13th, which is the 11th year of the era, to which the lunar cycle 13 corresponds, the solar 21, and the Dominical letter CB; likewise the year 260, the 259th of the era, with solar cycle 16, Dominical letter B, and lunar 13; and finally 450, the 449th of the era, the solar cycle 10, Dominical letter B, and lunar 13—because the others were further removed, they seized upon the first year, which is the 13th of the Dionysian cycle, the 12th of the era; and they said that by a *metachronism* of Dionysius there was an error of 22 years, to such an extent that one who is numbered as the 12th of the Incarnation, 13th of the cycle, ought to have been the 34th of the Incarnation, 35th of the cycle. ^B Marianus Scotus bears witness to this besides Sigebert, ^C who at the year 552 notes that this very same year is the first of the great Dionysian cycle, in the 13th year of which the Lord rose again, on the 8th of the Kalends of April, on the 17th day of the moon (but for the 8th of the Kalends one must emend to the 6th of the Kalends: otherwise the lunar cycle would be 5, not 12); this is the 12th year of the Incarnation, according to Dionysius. But when he cites the passage of Bede for the year 534, as if it were the 248th year of Diocletian, know that it was done by the error of the copyists, so that this note, which ought to have been ascribed to the year 532, was cast into 534, lest anyone perchance think that Marianus acknowledged that difference of a biennium which began to be urged some years ago, along with Scaliger. For the latter, in Book VI, p. 513, 2nd edition, of *De emendatione temporum*, confirms that the Dionysian era is said by Marianus to be shorter by a biennium than it ought to be, and commemorates these words of his: "In the year according to the truth of the Gospel, 1076; but according to the cycle of Dionysius, 1074, Hillebrand, who is also Gregory, etc." Which words, in the Frankfort edition by Pistorius, which I had at hand while I was writing these things, I nowhere found. But even if they were read somewhere, who does not see that the numerical notations are to be emended? For the cycle of Dionysius precedes the common era by one year; and it is the second of the cycle, the first of the era. Whence if one were to advance the era by a biennium, he would fall into the 19th year of the nineteen-year cycle, the last of the great Dionysian cycle 552; that is, the last of the other cycle, which is postulated and proleptic. And therefore the year of the truer era, 1076, will be the 1075th of the Dionysian cycle, not 1074. Marianus ought to have spoken not of the cycle of Dionysius, but of the era: for neither Marianus nor Sigebert disapprove of the Dionysian cycle, but they mistakenly think it is merely bound to the years of the Incarnation; in which they determine that one has erred not by a biennium, but by two solid years. And since they so constantly ascribe this error to the common calculation of years, it is surprising that they have adhered in their chronicles to that very era which they had condemned, and have arranged the times no otherwise than according to the Dionysian prescription. For Marianus, at that year which precedes the Incarnation and the Nativity of the Lord immediately, observes these things: "The great Paschal cycle begins from here: in the second year of which, according to Dionysius, in the third indiction, the Lord was born."

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^A Dionysiana from remaining the same, and [maintains] that he held the first of the cycle according to Dionysius, in which Christ was incarnate and born. But he incorrectly combines this year, as well as the Dionysian era, with the years of the City and of the Olympiads, as has hitherto clearly appeared. Nay, he even asserts that Christ was baptized in the 31st year of the era, at the beginning of his 30th year, that is, when 29 were completed: from which you may gather that, in the opinion of these men, Christ was born in the first year of the Dionysian era. And in the same way, he is said to have suffered in the 34th year of the era, which must have happened at the beginning of his 33rd year, when 32 were completed: so that what we taught a little earlier about the anticipation of the era might be true. He also asserts ^A in the following year, the 752nd of the City, under the consulship of Lentulus and Messalinus, in the 194th Olympiad, the 3rd year, in the 4th indiction, on a Sunday, that Christ was born. He therefore began the Christian era from the 2nd Dionysian cycle, in the 10th year of the cycle of the sun, with B as the Sunday letter, as much in the corrected calculation of the leap year as in that faulty one which we proposed above from Paul of Middelburg. But since the same Marianus says that Christ was born in the 3rd indiction according to Dionysius, through the fault of the copyists, a 1 has crept in instead of a 5. For immediately afterward, he is said to have been born in the 4th indiction. Although not even this is true, that he was born in the 4th indiction, but in the 5th: since we wish for the indictions to begin from September, as Bede teaches. For since the first year of the Dionysian cycle began in the 1st indiction, which began its 4th indiction from September, it follows that the second year of the same cycle, which began in the 5th indiction, had at the end—that is, from September—the fifth indiction: and since Christ, as Marianus so often repeats, was born in the second year of the cycle, he was undoubtedly born in the fifth indiction.

But in order that no hiding place may remain for the Scaligerian suspicion, by which he conjectures that the two-year *prochronismos* which he attributes to the Dionysian era had occurred to Marianus, the reader should be admonished that in Marianus, the scholia which are ascribed to the years often seem displaced from their own position and set in another; and the numerical notations are not rarely erroneous. For example, he composes the first year of the Dionysian cycle with the 719th year of the City, under the consulship of Sabinus and Passienus. Then, in the following year, under the consulship of Lentulus and Messalinus, the first year of Christ, he numbered it as the 752nd of the City, but the 3rd year of the 194th Olympiad. And yet it should have been the 750th year of the City, as it is in the Fasti of Cassiodorus and Cuspinianus. There is, therefore, a mistake by the copyist, who wrote 752 instead of 750. And consequently, three years are not missing, as he who presided over the edition noted; nor, if any were missing, would more than two need to be inserted. For he did not observe that the Christian era is reckoned by Marianus, and the chronologists of the middle ages, not from the Nativity, as is done today, but from the very year of the Incarnation. Nor is it a wonder if Marianus himself, or the copyist, should fail in the notes of the remaining years, although he more often follows the right path. For instance, in the 57th year of Christ, he places the beginning of the fourth nineteen-year cycle in the 15th indiction. Correct; for the 1st cycle began in this year; whether from the Kalends of January or from the Paschal month, the indiction is 15: but in September, the indiction is 16. From which it follows that the first year began in the 4th indiction. But this is the 2nd year of the Dionysian cycle, in which Christ was born as it was ending. Therefore, he was born in the 5th indiction according to Dionysius. Thus in the year 314, he notes the first year of the seventeenth cycle, in the 7th indiction. Likewise correctly in the year 341 he notes the 1st cycle, in the 14th indiction. But in the year 361, the 1st cycle, in the 3rd indiction, where 4th should be read. He also placed the 1st cycle incorrectly in the year 398, in the 11th indiction, which agrees with the year 399. But in the year 418, the 1st cycle is correct; but the 15th indiction is wrongly ascribed instead of 1, since in the year 398 the indiction was 11. It is idle and superfluous to pursue the rest of this author or of others. That, indeed, appears evidently, that Marianus ^C led away from the era. ^D Wherefore it is false that Marianus thought the Dionysian era should be anticipated by two years. But so far as concerns the 22 or 21 years which he, as well as Sigebert, thinks were omitted by Dionysius, we shall treat of those in the following Diatribe on the Passion of the Lord. This same sum of 22 years being missing, Paul of Forlì had learned from a certain revelation. Truly ridiculous. For he neglects his own revelation; and at last he acquiesces in this, that he imputes the two-year defect to the Dionysian era: but converse to what the moderns do. For he does not set the error as a *metachronismos*, but as a *prochronismos*: and therefore he contends that it must be two years later than it really is. Everyone who has read this author, who is indeed very rare to be found today, knows how huge a commentary he wrote on that matter, filled with learning by no means vulgar, and useful above all for the method of cycles and years. In the 10th and 11th books of this Work, therefore, after he had explained in the 10th book that former truly insipid revelation about the 22 years, as if his opinion had changed, he defines the era as having begun two years earlier by Dionysius, in the 46th Julian year, when it should have been inaugurated from the 48th. He demonstrates this in this way: Eusebius in his Chronicles notes that in the 15th year of Christ, the 56th and last of Augustus, an eclipse of the sun occurred, and in the same year Augustus died. But truly no eclipse occurred in the 15th year of Christ or any other, except in the 17th; in which at Rome the whole sun was obscured, on the 15th of February, at truly midday hour, with the sun placed in the 26th degree of Aquarius: in which same year, on the 14th day before the Calends of September, Augustus died. Wherefore the Dionysian era precedes the true Nativity of Christ by two whole years. Besides Eusebius, Dio also mentions this eclipse of the sun in book 56, and recounts it among those portents which announced the death of Augustus. We, comparing it with the tables of Müller, which are the most convenient, found that it happened at the Frisian meridian in the 17th year of Christ, February 15, hour 9.57 before noon; according to the true motions of the moon. The mean new moon was February 14, hour 8.11. But that eclipse can in no way fit the year in which Augustus died: but [it fits] to the time of Tiberius, as Lucidus and others demonstrate: who further confirm this; nor in the year in which Augustus died, nor in the following, did any solar eclipse occur. I would indeed believe that Dio [took] the defect of the sun for a lunar

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^A eclipse, if the accounts of the ancients [the woɛt – note: Greek text ends here as per scan] and their reasoning were not such; but I stoutly deny that the Church opposes any decree or authority. For the Church does not worry about these trifles of times and years, or the exactness of intervals and epochs, but is content with the received and popular method of calculating time. For who would think that that ancient sum of years from the foundation of the world, drawn from Greek sources, which most ancient councils often used and which the Church today still retains in her Menologies, was established by the authority of them or of this [Church]? So much so that anyone who holds a system different and dissenting from the Latin and Hebrew calculations opposes its decree. But who is there, in this century, who touches on chronology and does not prioritize the Latin and Hebrew reckoning over the one that the Church has adopted, as an institution of the Church ^B, in order to transfer it to use, given that it has prevailed among all Christians? Whether indeed it is accurately traced from the actual Nativity of Christ, he does not inquire so much; nor does he allow such lesser things to interfere with its gravity and authority, which must be sacrosanct. On which matter it is, above all, valuable that Paul of Middelburg [c/o book 13, cap. 6] left it in writing. For when Dionysius had shown that the two-year period, which we spoke of above, was missing from the era, he at once objects to himself: that it seems to follow from this that the Church errs in her bulls and her rescripts. He meets this objection thus: that the Church does indeed use this subtraction of times, but does not approve it; rather, she adapts it to her use, borrowed from chronologists. Whatever error exists therein, however, should be attributed to them, not the Church. Moreover, this method of counting did not exist perpetually in the Church, but was admitted only ^C a few years ago, under Eugene IV, at the urging of Blondus of Forlì, who was a notary in the papal college of secretaries. He adds also that Dionysius Exiguus, the founder of this era, acknowledged his own error, and, consumed by shame, as Sigebert writes, branded his forehead with the cautery of shame. These things Paul wrote concerning the Dionysian era, in which he himself is to be reproved much more than the one he is reproving, as we trust has been made plain to everyone in what precedes. Nor is there anything at all that has been brought against this by Scaliger, Calvisius, and others, that has any weight, except those things which are sought from Josephus; which indeed do not even support their two-year period; for they show that the Nativity of Christ should be anticipated not by two years only, but by four or ^D five full years. Which matter moved certain pious and learned men in no small degree against that most noble historian, in such a way that, thinking him to be convicted of a lie, they allowed no authority or faith to be attributed to him; especially in those things that pertain to the years of Herod, in which the ecclesiastical annals affirm that absurd and monstrous falsehoods exist, along with the greatest inconsistency and an ignorance of Roman annals. We are not those who would wish to disparage the memory and reputation of great men, especially Catholic ones; so that if anything has been stumbled upon or committed by them...

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we may examine it with appropriate severity; nor are we at all delighted by that churlish eloquence which has occupied many minds. But we do not wish to be denied that which is permitted to everyone in this kind of literature: namely, that if things have appeared to us otherwise than they thought, we may profess it ingenuously and freely, so that the authority and commendation of men—which ought to serve the truth—does not hinder the truth itself. That this should not happen in the present business is much to be feared. We do not in this place undertake the patronage of Josephus; nor do we deny that he erred; nor, finally, do we attribute to any writer of these letters the least bit against the certainty of the Sacred Scriptures. But neither do we believe everything that is brought forward to diminish his reputation; and as far as the later times of the Jews are concerned, we have no one more certain or constant than that author. And so far is this constant and acrid expostulation of the Annals with Josephus from having lessened his credibility in my eyes even by a little, that for this very reason that accusation began to be suspect to me, because they fell into it with such vehemence and so often. Then when I examined these things more attentively, which were believed to be most valid for the overturning of Josephus, nothing appeared more inequitable than that harsh castigation. Although these things were long ago noted by me, and afterwards disputed and explained by others, I think it permissible for me to propose what I had attained by inquiring just as they had, not as if received from them, but as also thought out by myself. ^A

Therefore, if we give ear to Josephus, those things which were written by Luke and Matthew concerning Herod necessarily lack certainty. He did not say enough. For he does not anticipate the vulgar Natal of Christ by two years, but by four, or indeed by five in the Dionysian reckoning. But that this is the true Natal, we steadfastly deny that it can be gathered from Matthew or Luke.

The fourth specimen of inconsistency is that he narrates in book xv, c. 13, that in the 16th year of King Herod, Varus was president of Syria. Afterwards, however, he says that he succeeded Sentius Saturninus a year before the death of Herod: although at least twenty years intervened between the two. Yet it is not Varus who is called governor in that place by Josephus, but Varro. Wherefore αὕτη ἡ μῑρινθος οὐδὲν ἔσπασε (this thread has drawn nothing). Finally, he says, he passed over nine years of Herod. For since he reigned thirty-seven years, he ought to have reckoned the beginning of these from that very year in which Antony was defeated in the naval battle, in the 15th year of the Julian era, not from the 6th, in which he obtained the kingdom by senatorial decree. Therefore, the Annals place the death of Herod in the eighth year of Christ, during the consulship of Lepidus and Arruntius. It was the year of the City 759, Julian 51, which should have been the sixth of the common era, had there not been an error of two years. ^B

But how far that reasoning escaped him will appear shortly, when we have briefly touched upon the things that Josephus inserts sporadically concerning the years and history of Herod. The first mention of Herod in this eminent writer occurs in book xiv, c. 12. There he writes that Antipater, the parent of Herod, begot five children by a Cypros, an Arab princess: Phasaelus, Herod, Joseph, Pheroras, and Salome. He also records that when he was waging war against Aristobulus, he deposited his children with the prince of the Arabs. That Aristobulean war was ended in that year in which Pompey took Jerusalem, in the consulship of Cicero and Antonius, as Josephus is the author in book xiv, c. 5, and also Dio: the year of the City being 691 according to Varro. It is necessary, therefore, that Herod was born before this year, whom his father deposited with the Arab. ^C

Therefore, to weigh the credibility of Josephus, these are counted among his errors as if they were notable and principal ones. First, because it is said that after Archelaus was put away, Quirinus was sent into Syria and Judea, in the 37th year after the Actian battle. But he says, if you refer these to an exact reckoning of times, you will find them to be false without a doubt. For if you count the years that intervene from the Actian battle, which happened in the consulship of Augustus III and Messala, you will gather that they are 40 years. But this is a hallucination. For the Actian battle fell in the year of the City 725, Julian 15. But Archelaus was proscribed in the year of the City 759, Julian 51. Indeed, Dio is the author for this year, that Herod having been accused by his brothers, Palestine was relegated across the Alps, and his territory reduced to a province. Furthermore, the 51st Julian year is the thirty-seventh from the 15th. Rightly, therefore, did Josephus note the thirty-seventh year. ^D

Secondly, in the same places, Josephus mentions the consulship of Quirinus as if the matter were very recent: from which it is certain that he was ignorant of the consular Fasti. For it is most certain that he held the consulship together with his colleague Aemilianus twenty-two years earlier. Josephus did not signify anything of the sort, even in the slightest. He designates him merely as consular, that is, ὑπατικόν, in the last book of the XVII. It is constant, however, that those who have held the consulship once in their life are thereafter called consulars, just as those who had sometimes triumphed were called triumphals.

Thirdly, he reviews the death of Herod two years before the birth of Christ. And it is gathered from Josephus that the Alexandrian war was finished in that year, as is collected from him.

Afterwards, in book xiv, cap. 15, when Antipater had rendered strenuous service to Julius Caesar in Egypt, he was made Ἐπίτροπος (procurator) of Judea by him, and the high-priesthood was decreed to Hyrcanus. This is the year of the City 707.

In the same year, as Josephus writes in section 117, Antipater appointed Phasaelus to Jerusalem, and committed Galilee to Herod, νέῳ πάντα πᾶσιν ὄντι· ιε' γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐγεγόνει μόνα ἔτη (being young to all men; for only 15 years had passed for him). There is a manifest error in the number; which occurred to learned men; and that we must write κe' (25th) for ιε' (15th). Certainly, since it is constant that Herod was born before the year of the City 691, he had reached at least his eighteenth year in that year 707. But indeed, the things that are recorded in that whole chapter XVI to have been done by Herod, present not a boy Herod, but a young man. And there is no doubt that the word νέου (young man) signifies even virile age, and much more so youth. For which reason Saul, in Acts vii, 57, is called νεανίας (a young man), not that this word signifies a fierce man in that...

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place, and declares him bold. For this interpretation is spiritless. Indeed, although the word *neanias* is sometimes used in that sense, it is never used without some substantive, such as *andros* (of a man) or *logou* (of a word), etc. In Luke vii, 14, however, where it is used absolutely, it is the very thing which our interpreter has expressed: "a youth." According to Censorinus, Varro divides a man’s life into four stages; he defines childhood up to the fifteenth year, and then adolescence up to the thirtieth.

After these events, Herod was appointed prefect of Coelesyria by Sextus Caesar in the same year. I believe that the Roman emperor made the fifteen-year-old boy a strategist; granted that in the former example this might be attributed to paternal love and indulgence. Again, as chapter 19 reports, he was created strategist of the same Coelesyria by Brutus and Cassius, with orders to raise an army against Augustus and Antony; having done so in the hope of obtaining the kingdom, after victory was obtained. At which time Malchus the Arab killed Antipater by poison; and therefore, at the command of Cassius, Malchus was killed by Herod. These things coincide with the year of the City 712, the fourth Julian year. After the battle of Philippi, Antony departed for Syria, and appointed Phasael and Herod as tetrarchs, "and entrusted the affairs of the Jews to them," Josephus, book xiv, chapter 25. This occurred in the year of the City 713, the fifth Julian year.

After the Parthians had restored Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, to the kingdom, Herod, driven out by them, fled to Rome to Antony and Caesar: by whom he was received with great humanity, and being reconciled to the senate, he obtained the kingdom by decree of the senate, in the 184th Olympiad, during the consulship of Domitius Calvinus and Asinius Pollio, in the year of the City 714, the sixth Julian year; at which time the fourth year of the 184th Olympiad ended, and the 185th Olympiad began. Returning from Rome to Palestine, Herod waged war with Antigonus: until, with the help of Sosius, the city was captured, and Antigonus was slain, in a sabbatical year; Agrippa and Canidius Gallus being consuls, in the 185th Olympiad, in the third month, at the feast of the cleansing. This is the year of the City 717, the ninth Julian year; the third year of the 185th Olympiad ending, as the fourth begins, of the Julian period 4677, in which the sabbatical year was running, of the lunar cycle 3. However, Dio in book XLIX writes that Jerusalem was captured in the preceding year, during the consulship of Claudius and Norbanus, the eighth Julian year. But the character of the sabbatical year supports Josephus.

Next, some years of Herod are reckoned by name by Josephus. For instance, in book xv, chapter 7, the year of the Actian battle, which is the 15th Julian year, is called the seventh year of Herod’s reign. Item, in book xv, chapter 12, mention is made of the 13th year of Herod: which Kepler proves to have been the 21st Julian year, of the City 729. But in chapter 13, he mentions the seventeenth or eighteenth, "the seventeenth year of his reign having passed," that is, with the seventeenth having begun. At which time he obtained the tetrarchy of Zenodorus. According to Dio, this happened during the consulship of Apuleius and Silius; the year of the City 754, the 26th Julian year. Kepler assigns it to the 17th year of Herod; and therefore before Nisan; hence he thinks that Josephus begins Herod’s years [there]. Which is by no means necessary. For Josephus wrote "having passed" ^A namely in the seventeenth year itself. In the same eighteenth year (says Josephus, chapter 14) he undertook to restore the temple; which year he calls the fifteenth in book 1 of the *Antiquities*, by a mistake of the scribes, as Kepler thinks: which you may consult. Furthermore, in book xvi, chapter 9, he writes that the building of Caesarea was completed in the 28th year of Herod; in the 192nd Olympiad. If you subtract the beginning of Herod from the 9th Julian year, of the City 717, the 28th year will be the 36th Julian year, of the City 745; in which the 767th year of Iphitus began, or the third year of the 192nd Olympiad. Finally, in book xvii, chapter 12, Herod died, "having reigned after he had killed Antigonus, thirty-four years; and after he had been appointed by the Romans, thirty-seven years." Since he had reigned thirty-four years after the slaughter of Antigonus. But from the time he was created king by the Romans, thirty-seven: a little before Passover, as is clear from the chapter: when previously the moon had suffered an eclipse: "in the seventieth year of his life": chapter 8. Therefore, if Herod obtained the kingdom by senatusconsultum in the 6th Julian year: in the 42nd Julian year, he began his 37th. But if you prefer to start from the 9th Julian year, in the same 42nd Julian year, he began his 34th year: which point we shall discuss a little later.

Now whereas Herod had reached his thirty-seventh year, the *Annales* cause great reproach to Josephus for this reason; because he wrongly shifted the beginning of these years into the sixth Julian year: and especially because in the year of the City 702, during the consulship of Galenus and Vatinius, Herod is said to have been fifteen years old, and to have died at the age of nearly seventy. For if you add 54 to 707, the 71st year of Herod ^B began in the year of the City 761, the 53rd Julian year, of the Christian era 8. Therefore, those thirty-seven years must be deduced from elsewhere: namely, from that year in which Antony was defeated in the Actian battle; during the consulship of Augustus III and Messala, the 187th Olympiad, the 2nd year: From which time the years of Herod began to be counted; because when Augustus, by senatusconsultum, had rescinded and made void those things which had been done by Antony, it was not permitted for Herod to count his years from the time when he received the kingdom from Antony: but rather from the time when he again obtained that same kingdom from Augustus, and by senatusconsultum. These are the *Annales*. Which conflict no less with themselves than with the truth of history. For these things are not consistent: to deduce Herod's beginning from the time when he was received into favor by Augustus, when he had sailed to him in Rhodes: and to assert that this year is the very year in which Antony was defeated at Actium, during the consulship of Augustus III and Messala. Not, I say, in the same year in which the Actian victory happened, the year of the City 723, but in the following, 724, was Herod reconciled to Augustus. For after the Actian slaughter he did not at all forsake Antony; but remained in his allegiance: and he even boasted of this before Augustus, "that he had not abandoned him even when he was not defeated in the Battle of Actium, nor had he changed his hopes, while fortune was already openly shifting," says Josephus, book xv, chapter 10. Wherefore only in the year of the City 724, the 16th Julian year, was the kingdom unexpectedly confirmed to him by Augustus, and corroborated by decree of the senate: yet not so that a new beginning of Herod's reign was reckoned from then; which Augustus never took away from him. But if those thirty-seven years are to be counted from the year of the Actian slaughter ^C ^D

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^A they would have to start from the year of the Julian calendar following Ijar. But if this were true, it could be applied also to the years of Tiberius and Philip; and therefore the first year of Tiberius, according to the opinion of Josephus, would have to be reckoned from Ijar of the 60th Julian year, and the twentieth year from Ijar of the 79th Julian year; and finally the twenty-first from Ijar of the 80th Julian year: before which the death of Philip would have to be conjectured, with the 37th year of the same having already been completed, whose first year would have had to be begun from Ijar of the 43rd Julian year: even though Herod died in the previous year, that is, 42; because the greatest part of the 42nd year was already spent, and Philip took up the tetrarchy after Ijar, and therefore the first year began to be numbered from the following Ijar.

But that method of calculating, which Scaliger attributes to Josephus, lacks authority; and it is much more likely that the beginning of the reckoning is derived in Josephus from that Nisan which preceded Herod's beginning, than from the month which followed. And although we concede everything to Scaliger, he has nevertheless reasoned very poorly regarding Herod's years in this way: Although Herod was made king by the senate in the 19th cycle, that is, the 6th Julian year, 4674 of the Julian period, nevertheless Josephus does not start Herod's years until the Nisan or Ijar of the following year, the 1st cycle. But since, as Josephus testifies, he reigned for 37 full years from the time he was declared king; and 34, and those full years, from the taking of Jerusalem by Sosius; but since he died before Passover, while Ijar had not yet arrived, which was the first of the months in Josephus’s time: it is manifestly gathered that in the next Ijar the 38th year of Herod would have begun, which was in reality the 39th from the summer days. And so, in this way, Herod would have died in the year of the 19th cycle completed, and the first beginning. He subsequently adds: Altogether, therefore, Herod died in the 45th Julian year before Nisan, with the first year of the moon beginning, the first of the sun, 4713 of the Julian period. In which year also the lunar eclipse occurred on January 8th in the corrected cycle, and January 6th in the faulty cycle. But that eclipse of January 10th fits the ^B corrected cycle. But all this collection by Scaliger is involved and most false. For although we grant that which we by no means concede, that the first year of Herod is to be numbered from Ijar of the 7th Julian year; and that the same king completed 37 full years, which Josephus does not assert, and is gratuitously posited by Scaliger, but [even if] we believe it to be so, still his 37th year ending and his 38th beginning will never fall into the 45th Julian year; but into the 44th: if, that is, you add 37 to 7. For the 38th will begin in the Julian ^C year. [This is] the smaller [number] by which he writes that Archelaus, son of Herod, was exiled in the 53rd Julian year, after he had reigned for 9 full years. For Archelaus was stripped of his kingdom, in the consulship of Lepidus and Arruntius, as Dio is the author, in the 51st Julian year. He began, therefore, in the 42nd Julian year. But if Archelaus had commenced his reign in the 45th Julian year, in which Scaliger thinks Herod died, and he had completed 9 full years, he would not have been exiled in the 53rd [Julian year], but in the 54th. There is equal carelessness when he adds that the year in which Archelaus was driven out is from the Actian victory ^D

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^A to the 12th or 13th number, from which to the 16th—which followed the Actian victory—there are four years.

Let it be concluded from the opinion of Josephus and Dio that Herod seems to have died in the 42nd Julian year. If this is true, the birthday of Christ must be assigned to the year 41 with Decker, or 40 with Kepler, not to the year 45 as is commonly held. I believe this should be considered more carefully; and the supporters of that opinion should not be accused or condemned before their arguments are debated and refuted, and the era of Dionysius more certainly established: which I see has been done by no one to this day, nor, I frankly and willingly admit, can it be performed by me.

The opinion of Epiphanius is explained

Now the opinion of Epiphanius, for the sake of understanding which this disputation was instituted by us, seems to be set forth. For he declares this very obscurely and confusedly indeed. In truth, in section 22 of this heresy, he asserts that Christ was born in the 42nd year of Augustus, in the 23rd [year] of Herod. Therefore, Augustus preceded Herod by nine years. But it is astonishing how perplexedly he demonstrates this. He thinks that Augustus had ruled for 13 years before Judea had passed completely to the Romans: and that after the beginning of Augustus, four years more or less having elapsed, a friendship and alliance intervened between the Jews and the Romans: then indeed a procurator was imposed, and some tribute was levied, until Judea was completely reduced to Roman dominion and became tributary, when those princes of the tribe of Judah had already ceased to exist, and Herod, a foreigner and alien, had occupied the throne. All of which things (he says a little later) were completed when they had begun from the birth of Christ, in the 41st year of Augustus, which was also the ninth from the procuratorship of Antipater, when there was peace and alliance ^B between the Jews and the Romans, and Herod had already reigned for four years. Finally, after the four years of Herod and the five procuratorships of Antipater, Judea was at last completely subjected to the Romans, up to the 33rd year of Herod, which is the 42nd of Augustus, when it had been altogether 29 years under tribute.

I think no riddle of the Sphinx to be more perplexing than this speech of Epiphanius. Yet this, nevertheless, he seems to have intended: that Augustus first ruled for 13 years, during which Judea had not yet yielded entirely to the Roman empire; and that after the first four years of Augustus, Antipater was procurator for five years; and that Herod ^C then, after he obtained the kingdom from Augustus, ruled for four years. Thus from the beginning of Augustus there result 13 years: there remain 29, in which the Romans completely occupied Judea, down to the 42nd year of Augustus and the 33rd of Herod, in which the Lord was born. For the 29 added to the 13 make 42: and likewise if you add 29 to the four, there will be 33. These 29 years, however, he deduces from the one that followed the Actian victory, namely Julian 16, from which the 29th is Julian 44, in which Christ is placed by Epiphanius as being born, in the consulship of Augustus and Silanus. Thus, indeed, Epiphanius mixes everything, not being sufficiently consulted of history. For it is false, in the first place, that Antipater was procurator ^D

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of Judea appointed by the Romans, and that he never ceased ^A afterward. There is nothing more alien from the meaning of Epiphanius, nor from the truth itself, that can be said. In the year of the City 691, when Cicero and Antonius were consuls, tribute was first imposed upon the Jews by Pompeius: from which time until the procuratorship of Antipater, which began in the year 707, there are not more than seventeen years, let alone twenty-nine. That any tribute, at least an ordinary one, was exacted while Herod was in power, I consider to be neither true, nor has even one letter of Luke touched upon its mention. For *ἀπογράφεσθαι* [to be enrolled] does not mean the same thing as paying a census or tribute; or, if it did signify that very thing, it would seem to be understood immediately as an ordinary payment rather than to be referred to an extraordinary one. But neither do I approve of what is disputed in the same place: that it is said that the first assessment by Quirinus was instituted on that account, because according to Roman custom a census was held every five years. For neither did it hold true perpetually that a census was conducted every five years, and it is manifest that there is another reason why this first one was called the description, namely, that the second occurred after the relegation of Archelaus and was committed to the same Quirinus. Concerning this matter, see what our Dekher and Kepler have eruditely commented. For Epiphanius does not mention this census, so that it is not necessary for us to explain the question. ^B And so that I may finally conclude this dispute concerning the years of Herod: if, as is pleasing to Epiphanius, on the Ides of January, the day on which Christ was born, in the year of the Julian era 44, Herod was passing the thirty-third year of his reign, its beginning falls in the Julian year 11—two years later than history requires, which confirms that the other beginning of Herod occurred in the Julian year 9, from which time

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^A Josephus relates that Herod lived only thirty-four years, but Epiphanius, in book 1, no. 2, deduces thirty-seven years, during all of which he is said to have reigned after his first decree, although the beginning of these should be reckoned from the sixth Julian year. Wherefore he assigns the death of Herod to the 47th Julian year, when the Lord had already reached the fourth year of His age. But if those things which Josephus wrote concerning Herod are true, it is necessary that he died in the 42nd Julian year: whence also the Nativity of the Lord, as we have said, must be set back four or five years. These things, indeed, we do not wish to be considered as already settled by our own opinion, but as derived from the mind and history of Josephus, for the readers to weigh. It remains that I should touch upon the year of Augustus, which is another mark of the Lord’s Nativity cited by Epiphanius.

In what year of Augustus was Christ born?

Epiphanius judges that Christ was born in the forty-second year of the Emperor Augustus, which year he says was the twenty-ninth from the time when the Jews were subjected to the Roman empire. Three primary beginnings of Augustus are established. The first is from the very year in which Julius Caesar was slain, which is the year 710 of the City, the 2nd Julian; the second, from the following year, 711 of the City; the third, from the Actian victory, or from September 2 of the year 723 of the City, as Dio testifies in the beginning of book LI. Hence, a different number of the years of Augustus is determined for the Nativity of Christ. But the Fathers commonly affirm that He was born in his forty-second year, following Eusebius, who wrote this same thing in *Ecclesiastical History*, book 1, ch. 6, and in the *Chronicles*. However, the assertion of the *Ecclesiastical Annals*—that those who place the Nativity of Christ in the forty-second year of Augustus begin the years from that very year in which Julius Caesar was killed, and that it happened through the fault of librarians that, although Eusebius had placed the beginning of Augustus in the year of the Julian slaughter, which is the first of Olympiad 184, it was transferred to the following year, just as the Nativity of Christ was transferred to the third year of Olympiad 194, when according to the mind of Eusebius it belongs to the second—does not please me at all. For in the first place, in the edition of Pontacus, the beginning of Octavian is fixed at the year immediately following the slaughter of Caesar, the second of the Olympiad: yet the Nativity of Christ is fixed in the third year of Olympiad 194, which ^C had begun to be calculated. So it is; but he began the forty-second year from the Kalends of January, which is familiar to most other writers. For the fact that he calculates the years of Augustus from year 711 of the City, the 3rd Julian, is proof of the time in which he reigned; that partition, whereby he writes that he reigned for thirteen years first, *πρὶν τὴν Ἰουδαίαν συναφθῆναι τελείως Ῥωμαίοις* [before Judea was completely annexed to the Romans], which accords with that year which followed the Actian victory, namely the 16th Julian. Wherefore from the 3rd Julian to the 15th, thirteen years exist: to which 29 being added, they make the sum of 42, the last of which begins in the 44th Julian, and indeed from the Kalends of January, as has been said. For which reason the Nativity of Christ should have been assigned to the 41st year of Augustus rather than the 42nd, with Irenaeus, Tertullian, and many others. Moreover, that same year is the 28th after the Actian victory; for the Egyptians began to count the Actian years from the 16th Julian, 724 of the City. Therefore, the twenty-eighth began in the 43rd Julian, and the same was still in progress in the following Julian year—in which Christ was born according to the opinion of Epiphanius, on January 6—which he nevertheless calls the twenty-ninth, because, if I am not mistaken, contrary to what the Alexandrians were accustomed to, he begins the year from the Kalends of January. Nor was there any reason why it should seem strange in the *Ecclesiastical Annals* that Clement and Eusebius computed twenty-eight years from the Actian battle to the Nativity of the Lord, or that Eusebius in the *Chronicles* wrote that Antony and Cleopatra were defeated in the third year of Olympiad 187, since that victory occurred in the year 723 of the City, under the consulship of Augustus and Messala, in the third year of the Olympiad: for the Actian years which Clement and Eusebius used do not begin from the very year in which the battle and victory fell, but from the following one, the third of Olympiad 187, after the death of Antony and Cleopatra. From which most have started the years of Augustus, who therefore said that Christ was born in the 28th year of Augustus. Although in that matter, one must diligently consider what the writers intended in commemorating the epoch of the Actian victory. For when they express the Actian years, they begin from the 16th Julian, which is later than the Actian victory. If, however, they say that so many years have elapsed since the Actian victory, they lead the beginning from the very year of the naval battle. Regarding which, the most learned Onuphrius is undeservedly criticized ^D by Scaliger: because when he had asserted that Christ was born in the consulship of Augustus (XIII) and Silvanus (this year is the 44th Julian, the third of the 194th Olympiad), he had established that it was the year 752 of the City, and the 30th Actian. Scaliger's words are in book VI *De emendatione*: "For it is most true that the thirteenth consulship of Augustus coincided with the third year of Olympiad 194. But that he thought that year was the 752nd of the Varronian era, and the 30th Actian: this indeed is false. For he says one year more." But Scaliger was dreaming while he wrote these things. For nothing is more certain than that, according to the reckoning of Varro, and indeed of Scaliger himself, the consulship of Augustus (XIII) and Silvanus pertains to the year 752 of the City, the 44th Julian, per. Jul. 4712, cycle of the sun 19, moon 8, indiction 11. There is also

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a thirty-year interval since the Actian battle, if you count the year of the battle itself as the first. Onufrius, however, did not say that the Actian year was 30, but rather that it was 29 after the Actian victory. Finally, in the Dionysian era, it is beyond doubt that Christ was born in the 42nd year of Augustus, but the 30th within the Actian. If, according to the opinion of others, He had been born in the 40th or 41st Julian year, this would correspond to the 38th or 39th Julian, and the 25th or 26th Actian.

Col. 932 ^B. *When He was born, around the month of January.* This is a most brilliant passage, in which he circumscribes the day of Christ's nativity most accurately. And indeed, he asserts that He was born on the sixth day before the Ides of January, that is, January 6, on which the feast of the Epiphany falls, according to the common opinion of the Egyptians, about which we shall discourse at length hereafter. But first, the individual notations of time must be briefly traversed and clarified. He writes, therefore, that this day is primarily the 11th of Tybi, that is, in the Actian or Egyptian Julian year, whose Thoth is fixed at August 29, and the New Moon of Tybi at December 27.

*Ibid.* *According to the Syrians, that is, the Greeks.* He understands the Syromacedonians, or the Antiochenes, who adopted the Julian form of the year; although their era precedes the Julian year by three years: and it is called the *chrematismos* of Antioch, because in that year ^C the autonomy was granted to the Antiochenes, and Julius Caesar was declared dictator at Antioch, on Artemisius, or May 23. Chron. Alex., p. 438. This is the year 706 of the City, in which Caesar, having conquered Pompey, took control of the state, per. Jul. 4666, 48 years before the Dionysian era, three before the first Julian; as Scaliger gathers from Evagrius, *Isag. can. LIII*, p. 295; more correctly than in *lib. IV De emend. temp.*, p. 226, where he thinks the era of the Antiochenes should begin from the Julian edition, 45 years before the Christian era, on the authority of Eusebius, who likens the 325th year of the Antiochenes to the Christian year [of the Eusebian Chronicon]. In the second year of Probus, he says, according to the Antiochenes, it was the year 325. But the second year of Probus corresponds to the year 278 of the Christian era, in which year began the 325th year of the *chrematismos* of the Antiochenes. For thus the first year of the Antiochene era preceded the Dionysian era by exactly 48 years. It is necessary, therefore, that the 324th year of the Antiochene era, ending and the 325th beginning, be compared with the second year of Probus and the year 277 of the Dionysian, with the cycle of the sun at 6, and the moon at 12. Concerning the beginning of the reign of Probus, I shall speak in the book *On Weights and Measures*. The form of the years, as has been said, was Julian; the description of the months the same as that of the Romans: which we have thought fitting to set forth in the following table.

Table of the Antiochene or Syromacedonian months.

Audynaios: January. Peritios: February. Dystros: March. Xanthikos: April. Artemisios: May. Daisios: June. Panemos: July. Loos: August. Gorpiaios: September. Hyperberetaios: October. Dios: November. Apellaios: December.

This concordance of months merits belief from Socrates, Evagrius, Suidas, the inscriptions of ancient councils, and infinite other testimonies. But this is certain, that Epiphanius understands simple Julian months. For he compares the 6th of Audynaios (though "6th" is written erroneously) with January 6. For again, the reading *pempte* (fifth) of January is a corrupt reading for *hekste* (sixth). Even though Cornarius translated it as "the fifth of January," which led some into error: for they seem to have accepted these words of Epiphanius, "before the eighth of the Ides," as if it were the day before the sixth of the Ides, that is, the Nones of January itself. But the formula *pro okto Eidon* and similar expressions correspond to the Latin *a. d. VIII Id.*, etc., that is, the very day of the 8th of the Ides, as we have written elsewhere. Wherefore, from the prior notation of the day, that is, the 8th of the Ides of January, the word *pempte* (fifth) must be corrected and changed to *hekste* (sixth). Which the very day of the Actian or Diocletian Tybi also demonstrates, the 11th of which falls on January 6. And it seems that in his taking the fifth day of January for the sixth, there is some mystery. Since even the Constantinopolitans later celebrated the baptism of Christ on the fifth of January, which is commonly assigned to the sixth, as is gathered from the Novella I of Manuel on holidays and from Curopalates.

*Ibid.* *According to the Cypriots, that is, the Salaminians.* It is not, as some think, that this passage of Epiphanius is corrupt in the naming of the month. For January is called by them "Quintus," just as by the Romans Quintilis, Sextilis, September, etc. But I believe there is an error in the word *pempte* (fifth); unless the Salaminians commenced from the second January, *Pempton*. But it is more likely that Epiphanius, or his copyist, when he had inadvertently written *pempte* of January instead of *hekste* (sixth), did the same in the month of the Salaminians. It appears from this passage, however, that the Salaminians began their year from the Calends of September, which the Constantinopolitans later prefixed as the beginning of the indiction and the year.

*Ibid.* *According to the Paphites, the fourteenth of July.* Therefore, the beginning of the month of July is from December 24. If this was Julian, it is credible that the Paphites began their year around the vernal equinox. For if "Julus" is January, the third month from it ends on that day which was once attributed to the equinox.

*Ibid.* *According to the Arabs, Aleom.* Among the common months of the Arabs, neither Aleom nor what is later commemorated, Angalthabaith, has any place. But neither are those lunar months; since the 6th of Aleom in January falls on the 21st, which was then the 11th day of the moon, in cycle 1; for the New Moon, according to the Ptolemaic tables of Muller, occurred on December 26, 8, 32' in cycle 19, in the 44th Julian year. Concerning Angalthabaith, it will be demonstrated later. Wherefore the Arabs had not yet transferred the lunar year to civil use; for when Epiphanius names the Arabs, he [means] the greater and more important part of that race in...

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^A regarding the era of Confusion, which immediately preceded the first of July. In *Isag. Can.* lib. III, c. IX, p. 235, however, he teaches that the epoch of this period is the same as that of the era of the Antiochenes, that is, from the first year of the monarchy of Julius Caesar, Period of Julian 4666: which things clearly contradict each other.

But, these trifles being omitted, it is more likely that, at least in the time of Epiphanius, the civil year of the Arabs was solar, and that the months were called by names other than those which are commonly circulated. Simplicius, as Scaliger observes, writes that the Arabs began their year from the spring. Moreover, the Alexandrian chronicle, p. 597, notes under the consuls Candidus and Quadratus that the Petraeans and Bostrenians, who are peoples of Arabia, count their times from this very year, which is the 105th of the Dionysian era, the eighth of the Emperor Trajan.

^B Col. 932. *According to the Cappadocians, Atartaig*. A lunar month of the Cappadocians therefore existed: since it corresponds with the Jewish Tebeth. But in truth, neither was accurately lunar, since the mean new moon falls on Dec. XXVI. Wherefore, if the Jews had derived the new moons civilly from the conjunction, they would have had only twelve months by January VI. But if, as it pleased others—as the gloss to c. VII, par. I of R. Maimonides testifies—the new moon was never set on the day on which the *Molad* might fall, the new moon of Tebeth [would be] December XXVII, but of January [it would] only correspond to the eleventh. Scaliger, in *De emend.* lib. VI, when he disputes concerning the year of the Nativity of Christ, refutes Epiphanius because he put Tebeth instead of Sebat. But he himself is rather to be blamed, for he wished to constrain Epiphanius to his own fiction concerning the Callippic period observed by the Jews at that time, concerning which matter we shall speak a little later, in the *Diatriba on the year of the Lord’s Passion*. ^C This month was therefore Tebeth, not Sebath; and this passage is entirely most accommodated to that Jewish period which we shall later describe according to the mind of Epiphanius. Although I suspect that one of two things happened: that Epiphanius wrote *id* (14) instead of *iy* (13), or because he had imprudently used January V instead of VI, looking back to that, he ascribed the 13th to Tebeth. For according to our method, it was Tebeth 14: since that year was the 50th of the Ogdo-contatessaraeteris, with the cycle of the sun 9, the moon 1, from the Kalends of January of the following Julian year, the New Moon of Nisan [being] April 11, fer. IV. It was a simple ordinary year. Therefore Tebeth, or the tenth month, began on Dec. XXIV. Whence January V was the 13th day of Tebeth: but the sixth was the 14th. In which you see what our method promises—that the civil new moon had already anticipated by nearly two days, when already half the period had elapsed. For from Dec. XXVI it retreated to the XXIV. Wherefore this single passage shows that we have arranged ^D the reasons of Epiphanius most aptly (*εὐστοχώτατα*) by that period. See below in that *Diatriba on the Passion of the Lord*.

Ibid. *According to the Athenians, Maimacterion*. January. The Athenians called it Maimacterion. That no one may think this was done by an error of a copyist, it is affirmed from the fact that a little later he calls November Metagitnion. But this passage is [relevant] to the Attic year, of such a kind as...

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is most worthy of note for the understanding of the disposition of the months. For he teaches that the first solar year was in agreement with the Mæmacterion and January. But we must see what the beginning of the year was. The first of the Attic months was Hecatombaion: from which, if we believe Gaza, the fourth is Mæmacterion; but according to Scaliger, the fifth. Whose opinion is more true must be examined in this place. Scaliger corrects two errors of Gaza in the ordination of the months: one, that he placed Mæmacterion in the fourth position and subordinated Pyanepsion to it; the other, that he placed Anthesterion after Pyanepsion, when winter was already at hand. Against these, Scaliger established that Anthesterion is a spring month, and [metá cheimôna]; whence he placed it after Gamelion; but he attributed Mæmacterion to the autumn which was already declining, ^B as the fifth in order, and next to Pyanepsion. So that it may be more easily perceived by the reader, we have subjoined a table of each opinion.

ATTIC MONTHS

[Ex Theodoro Gaza:] [The various columns of the table of months are here presented as follows:] [Ex Scaligero:] ... [text omitted: table of months] ...

In this review of the Attic months, Scaliger defends some things rightly against Gaza; others wrongly and falsely. For he does well in assigning Anthesterion to the spring season, not inclined to autumn. But he seems to me to have thought little enough about Mæmacterion and Posideon. First, he joins Pyanepsion, not Mæmacterion, to Boedromion, and he strives to persuade this by many arguments: all of which, if you except the testimony of Harpocration alone, are void and empty. And he reasons thus: Pyanepsion, as the author is Plutarch ^C in his *Tractate on Isis*, corresponds to Athyr, that is, November. Now Posideon is January, as Plutarch writes in *Caesar*; since it always begins after the solstice. And the same Plutarch in *Demosthenes* makes these three months continuous: Metagitnion, Boedromion, Pyanepsion. Since, therefore, both Pyanepsion is November and Posideon is January, no other month can correspond to December except Mæmacterion. To these, Diodorus, Book III, makes these two months, Mæmacterion and Posideon, continuous.

But Scaliger's reasoning is of such a kind that nothing more suitable could be devised to approve the opinion contrary to Gaza. For if Pyanepsion corresponds to November, and Hecatombaion to July, as the same Scaliger pleases, Metagitnion to August, Boedromion to September, what other month besides Mæmacterion will claim October for itself? Therefore he attributes the fourth place to it very poorly, and makes it the first of the [opôrinôn], if it corresponds to November. Indeed, it is gathered from this that Pyanepsion is to be numbered as the fifth rather than the fourth, because it is also attributed to winter. For the Thesmophoria were celebrated in the month of Pyanepsion, as Plutarch signifies in *Demosthenes*. Furthermore, Aristophanes testifies in *Thesmophoriazusae* that the Thesmophoria fall in winter. In which play, Agathon’s slave speaks thus about the time of the Thesmophoria: For he himself will soon come forth; And in fact he begins to compose music, and so, while It is winter, it is not easy to bend the strophes, Unless he goes forth to the sun.

There are also other reasons, which Scaliger suppresses, proposed by Theodore. Among others, that Aristotle, in Book VI of *De hist. anim.*, ch. 29, adjoins Mæmacterion to Boedromion, where he speaks of the mating of deer: "But the mating occurs after Arcturus, about the months of Boedromion and Mæmacterion." This passage inflicts silence upon Scaliger and strengthens the opinion of Gaza. For he correctly concludes two things ^D from these words: first, that Mæmacterion begins a little after the rising of Arcturus, otherwise he would in vain subordinate Mæmacterion to Boedromion. Now Arcturus rises about the autumnal equinox; for Theophrastus says that cyclamen flowers [perì ’Arktouŕón te kaì isêmerían]; Galen moreover says: "The seed of the silver fir is indeed quite mature around the rising of Arcturus; which season is that which in Rome is called September." Wherefore it is necessary that Mæmacterion be a small distance from September. The second thing which Gaza collects is: that Mæmacterion is next to Boedromion; for as often as he couples two months in this way, in such a way that he says something especially happens about a certain time in those months, he shows that they are continuous months. Thus, when he deals with cattle: "Cows begin their mating about the month of Thargelion and Scirophorion." Much more so, when he also adds a certain time and hinge point, as "about the solstices" and "about Arcturus." For then those months are to be held as consecutive. Furthermore, in Book VI, ch. 12, the same Aristotle writes that more feeble creatures, as much in the genus of fish as in that of birds, when cold approaches, migrate earlier to more comfortable places, such as quail before cranes: "For some migrate in the month of Boedromion, others in that of Mæmacterion." But we see cranes migrating in the month following the one in which quail fly away. Therefore Mæmacterion is next to Boedromion. Finally, the same Aristotle in Book VI, ch. 14, writes that among the *galeoi*, which Gaza calls *mastelos*, the one that is called the *asterias* begins to mate in the month of Mæmacterion. Which fishermen testify occurs immediately after the equinox. Now as far as Plutarch is concerned, who makes Pyanepsion continuous with Boedromion, he errs indeed

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in that he writes that Demosthenes lived for a few months after his return to his homeland; for the battle at Crannon took place in the month of Metageitnion, but the garrison was introduced into Munichia in Boedromion, and Demosthenes died at last in Pyanepsion. He does not say that he died in the month following Boedromion. It was therefore possible for Mæmacterion to have intervened. The same judgment should also be made concerning the passage of Diodorus, who writes thus: "From the month which the Athenians call Mæmacterion, they say that none of the seven stars according to the bear is seen until the first watch, and in Posideon until the second." For he does not declare that Posideon follows Mæmacterion immediately, since even those words, "from Mæmacterion," can be taken of a month not completed, to which another is adjacent, that is, Pyanepsion. ^B Thus, finally, the matter is reduced to this: that he holds no one as a defender of his opinion besides Harpocration. For he writes in his lexicon that Mæmacterion is the fifth month. But either "fourth" must be written instead of "fifth"; or, if nothing has been sinned by the copyist here, there is no doubt that the authority of Aristotle and Plutarch ought to be of more weight with us than that of a single grammarian.

^C There follows the monstrous stupor of Scaliger, while he compares Posideon with January in such a way that it begins after the solstice, than which nothing is more false. Aristotle, Book V, chapter 9, on the Thynnide: "The first spawning occurs about Posideon before the solstices." Theophrastus, Book VII, chapter 1, on the diverse time of sowing: "For the beginning of the winter [period] is after the summer solstices of the month Metageitnion; and of the second again after the winter solstices of the month Gamelion." Posideon, therefore, falls before the winter solstice, and Gamelion after the solstice. Plutarch, however, in his *Life of Caesar*, compares Posideon only with the beginning of January: "When winter is in its solstices, [and] the month of January is beginning (this would be Posideon for the Athenians)." For the lunar Posideon sometimes takes away a part of January. The same is also clearly taught by Suidas in these words: "Posideon, the month called December among the Athenians." As for the fact that Gamelion holds a position next to the solstice, this is declared by Aristotle, 1 Meteor., c. 6: "In the archonship of Euclees at Athens, son of Molon, there appeared a comet star towards the north, in the month of Gamelion, the sun being about the winter solstices." These things would have to be demonstrated by us a little more accurately, both because the passage of Epiphanius demands it, and because I would take it ill that some learned men were led by Scaliger into the same error. ^D Among whom one asserts, unskillfully, that all before him counted Mæmacterion as the fourth month. He who has indeed been convicted by so many arguments must necessarily yield, and at length eventually unlearn what he had learned from Scaliger. The rest of the matters which could be said—many and exquisite—regarding the discussion of the Attic months will have their own place in that work in which, God willing, we shall vindicate the teaching of times from the dreams of Scaliger. It is necessary that the reader be admonished of one thing: that those same Attic months are sometimes lunar, sometimes not lunar, and hold no fixed seat in the Julian context, but wander to and fro: which variety causes them to be attributed by writers to different Julian months. Epiphanius here speaks of [months] of thirty days, or at any rate of the Julian [months], concerning which we shall speak shortly. The head of the year, if those things which we discussed above concerning the opinion regarding Gaza are true, is derived from the Julian October; for Metageitnion corresponds to November. Therefore Hecatombeon occupies October, from which month Scaliger starts the Syro-Macedonian period. It seems they established that new beginning of the Julian year after the Constantinian indictions, and substituted Hecatombeon in the place of Mæmacterion. Otherwise, nothing is more certain than that Hecatombeon was placed about the summer solstices. For that was the neomenia of the lunar Hecatombeon which was closer to the solstice, whether before or after the solstice: a thing which will be proved in another place against the Scaligerians. But in the Julian, or fixed and stable, form of the year, Hecatombeon adhered to July; the other following months obtained the Julian [positions]. When Plutarch mentions the Attic months, he sometimes understands them as fixed and Julian. But that the Athenians reordered their sequence and moved Hecatombeon from its position, I know not if it can be proven from any other writer than this passage of Epiphanius.

Col. 932 C. Before the sixth of the Ides of November. The neomenia of Athyr of the Actiac or Diocletian era corresponds to the 5th of the Kalends of November, that is, October 28th. Therefore the twelfth [day of] Athyr [is] November 8th, or the 6th of the Ides of November, which he had also said above at no. 16, sixty days before Epiphany; wrongly, therefore, afterwards, no. 23, it was written by the copyist as "before the eighth of the Ides of November."

Ibid. According to the Salaminians. The neomenia of Choiac falls on November 11th, which he calls the third month: either because there were several of the same name, as among the more recent Arabs there are two Rabiu, and just as many Giumediu; or because it was the third in order. Whence the fifth also falls into January. From November 11th to the Kalends of January, the Kalends themselves being included, the days are exactly sixty, which make two months of thirty days. For on January 11th the fifth month began. It seems the Salaminians adapted an equable and Egyptian arrangement of months.

Ibid. According to the Paphians. The neomenia of Apogonicus began October 24th. Julus began December 24th. From the 24th of October to the 24th of December the days are sixty-one, which are two Paphian months. Wherefore the Apogonicus of the Paphians was November; Julus, December.

Ibid. According to the Arabs. The neomenia of Angalthabaith corresponds to October 18th: from which day to December 16th the days are sixty, or two Egyptian months: which [people] used in those times. For the neomenia of Aleon began a little before December 17th.

Ibid. According to the Macedonians [of Apellaius]. Since he was dealing with the time of the Nativity, the Macedonian month [author] omitted the mention. Furthermore, the neomenia of Apellaius corresponds to the Apogonicus of the Paphians. For each began on October 24th. But neither proved to be lunar. Among those of the middle antiquity

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^A you may see that writers, especially Christian writers, sometimes confuse the Macedonian months with the Syromacedonian months, which are also called the months of the Greeks; as in that celebrated passage of Anatolius, which we shall explain in the following Diatriba, though others discern them, as Epiphanius did in this passage. And certainly, the placement of one of the Syromacedonian months in the Julian year was different from that of the Macedonian months, not only of the ancient ones, which we suspect were lunar, but also of the later and fixed ones. And the series of the later ones, that is, the Macedonian ones, among the ancients is obscure and difficult, as the most eminent writers seem to have held various opinions about it. But having omitted that question for now, or deferred it to another place, I establish the time entirely thus: that the principal month was Lous, which corresponded to Hecatombaeon, as Plutarch testifies in his *Life of Alexander*. Galen also, in his book *On the Epidemics*, wrote that the autumn equinox occurs at the beginning of the month Aidos: ^B or it may be understood as the beginning of Peritius, marking the winter solstice; the vernal equinox, Artemisius; the summer solstice, Lous. Which may be taken either as referring to the Julian and fixed months, or to the lunar ones, in the sense that four months lie under those four cardinal points of the year. Josephus favors this conjecture, who very often says that Xanthicus is Nisan, as in *Orig. lib. 1, cap. 3*, and *lib. III, cap. 9 et 10*. Indeed, in *book VIII, c. 2*, he compares Ijar with Artemisius; in *book VIII, cap. 3*, Hyperberetaeus with Tisri; Dium with Marchesuvan in *lib. 1, cap. 3*; Chasseu with Apellaeus in *lib. XI, cap. 7*. Add to these some astronomical examples in the Chaldean period according to Ptolemy. All of which are more diligently explained elsewhere. From all these, the following order of the Macedonian months is to be established:

But in the letter of Philip, king of the Macedonians, which is in Demosthenes, *On the Crown*, Lous is compared with the Attic Boedromion, so that the context of the months among the Macedonians seems to have been different at those times. Concerning which, more elsewhere. Now this, which I have said, is evident from the diagram: that the Macedonian months were almost one month prior to the Syromacedonian. For Xanthicus, for example, of the Syromacedonians is the Julian April: the Macedonian, however, although when it is lunar it sometimes corresponds to April, more often falls into March and occupies the greater part of it. Furthermore, in this place in Epiphanius, for 'Ἀπελλαίου ιε′, Scaliger, in *lib. V De emendat., page 482*, corrects it to 'Ἀπελλαίου ϛ′. For which reason the Macedonian Apellaeus would have begun on November 1st. Whether this is true, I do not know. ^C They employed it. Indeed, that this was the case among those most ancient people was not first taught by Scaliger, as he boasts, but Gaza taught it before him in his book *De mensibus*, where he discusses the year. For the year, he says, was double among them; one of 360 days, at the end of which five days were inserted, to which every fourth year one day was added; the other was lunar. In the former form, the months were of thirty days, after the manner of the Egyptian year; the last month was longer by five or six days. This is what Gaza says. Whether this was accepted in popular use in those ancient times is discussed elsewhere. After the Julian reform, and in the age of Epiphanius, it can be conjectured from this passage of Epiphanius that such a year was observed at Athens. For as the Egyptian year, consisting of thirty-day months, while wandering hitherto by the omission of the intercalary day through the Julian year, nevertheless retained the thirty-day months upon the adoption of the Julian type, with five—and sometimes six—epagomenal days: so it is credible that the Athenians did the same in their year; so that each month ran for only thirty days, and did not correspond to the description of the Julian months. Scaliger indeed, in *IV De emendat., page 227*, where he discusses the Julian Athenian year, thinks that they not only admitted the Julian year, that is, the solar and fixed one, but also the Julian months, and that the Hecatombaeon Neomenia corresponds to the Kalends of July itself. But in proving this, it is surprising how ignorantly and unskillfully he behaves. For he argues thus: Lucian, in his *Life of Peregrinus*, immediately after the Olympic games, when still ^D