"Time" is
Christianically seen as the framework in which God's revelation
is manifested, for the fulfilment of man's salvation as well as
for the sanctification of Creation in History. In other
words, it has a soteriological significance - one that is always
linked to the development of the plan of "Divine Providence".
That is why Time is not perceived as something cyclical - as an
interminable recycling - but rather as something linear.
Its flow is not a repetitious one; it is filled with unique and
salvific events that are "once only" and "everlasting".
The centre and the "fulfilment" of linear - direct - Time is
Christ, the Alpha and the Omega of History, the Commencement and
the End. The Christian perspective is steadfastly
eschatological, and it is from there that the Church draws the
contents of Her perceptions regarding Time.
In Christianity,
world and Time are seen as creations "ex nihilo" by the Triadic
God - outside every notion of being God's "archetypes" or
"ideas". Besides, any notion whatsoever of an "analogy"
between "created" (the creations) and "Uncreated" (the Triadic
God) is Christianically (orthodoxically) nonexistent. Both
the world and Time have a beginning and an end - that is, a
destination and a "fullness" (Gal.4:4). God,
therefore, creates Time, as He is the "creator of all - of
the ages and of all the beings" (John Damascene). God is
"He Who created the nature of Time" (Basil the
Great). Saint Gregory the Theologian
in fact also defines the relativity of Time, inasmuch as he
defines it as "that, which
by a certain motion is split up and measured".
It is the movement of Earth and of the other celestial bodies
that give rise to our awareness of "chronicity" and its
"measurability". In actual fact, the measurement of Time
is just a conventional thing for the Church, Herself being the
"body of Christ" and an "in-Christ communion". However,
given that the Church lives and moves within the world (even
though She is not "of this world" -John 18:36),
She conceded along the way to calendars being used by the
societies in which Her flocks lived and struggled for their
salvation. It should also be pointed out that (Christianically-Orthodoxically
speaking), salvation is not some sort of escape from Time and
the world; it is the conquering of the evil of the world - of
sin. Calendars, therefore, are nothing more than an
"auxiliary addition" in Christianity, for the management of
worldly conventionalities, with no subjugation to it.
By "Christian world" we mean the new political morph, which had
begun as an informal Christian commonwealth during the first
three centuries A.D., then later appeared as an organized
city-state magnitude with the inauguration of New
Rome-Constantinople in 330 A.D.. By the 6th - 7th century
the Christian world was using local or national calendars, which
dated according to the system of the Gentiles. In other words,
the Christian world did not have a uniform and common calendar,
nor did it begin its chronology from Christ. Furthermore,
because of its links to the Old Testament (that is, the
prophetic tradition), Christianity had originally accepted the
Hebrew designation of the age of the world - which of course is
far different to the calculations of science. It was only
in 691 A.D. in the 3rd Canon of the Quinisext Council "in Trullo",
that the Christian calculation of the date of "Creation" was
proposed as being 5508 years before the Incarnation of Christ.
This was accepted by the entire Christian world, which had
already begun to differentiate (politically to begin with, and
later on spiritually-culturally), into "eastern" and "western".
Therefore, "from the creation of the world" was the first
Christianic chronological designation.
The freedom that exists in the universal Christian community is
apparent, in the instituting of feast-days as early as the first
Christian centuries. It was on the basis of the solar calendar -
the Julian one, which began to be applied in the year 45 b.C. -
that the Christian feast-days were allocated. Thus, the
Conception of John the Baptist was set as the 23rd of September,
and the conception of Jesus Christ (the Annunciation of the
Theotokos) which -in accordance with the Gospel narration- was
six months later, on the 25th of March. Respectively, the
birth of the Baptist was specified as the 24th of June and of
Jesus Christ (finally) as the 25th of December, the prerequisite
being the equinoxes and the solstices and the symbolic
interpretation of the Baptist's words regarding Christ: "He
must increase, but I must
decrease" (John 3:30). In other words, the criteria were
spiritual, not mundane or scientific. Nevertheless, it must not
be overlooked that the political year begins in the East on the
23rd of September, which was also the the beginning of the "Indiction"
up until 460, when it was transferred to the 1st of September.
This last date acquired an ecclesiastic significance as the
commencement of the liturgical year - a fact that continues to
be valid to this day. It is uncertain when this practice
began, however, it has been recorded in the 8th century.
The same freedom is also apparent in the "mobility" of Christian
feast-days. The case of the dates on which Pascha is
celebrated is the most characteristic example, but we will come
back to that later on. Something similar also occurred
with the date for the Nativity; up until 336 A.D. Christmas was
celebrated together with the Epiphany, on the 6th of January
(always according to the Julian calendar). However, this date
was transferred in the West to the 25th of December, in order to
confront the celebrations held in honour of the sun god Mithra,
which took place during the winter solstice. In the East, the
new date for Christmas was introduced around the year 380.
Pursuant to this change was the reallocation of the other
feast-days which are linked to Christmas (Circumcision,
Presentation, Annunciation etc.).
We need to mention here the systems of the "Indictions" that
were also observed by the Christian world. "Indiction" means
"indicator", and was a term initially linked to the tax system
of the Roman Empire. The usage of this system began during the
reign of the emperor Diocletian (297/8), but with a duration of
5 years for each Indiction. The first Indictions with a duration
of 15 years began in 312 A.D. (the first mention is in imperial
documents, in 356/7). Ecclesiastically, this was accepted
in 327, with commencement date the 24th of September. The
Indiction period therefore was of a 15-year duration, and
was used for dating documents or events. Upon the
completion of that period of time, a new Indiction began,
with its own reference year (first, second, etc. - something
like the system of the Olympiads). The usual Indiction
is called "byzantine" or "hellenic", and it commenced -as we
mentioned- on the 1st of September. This system prevailed
throughout the Christian world during the byzantine period, but
continued to be in use, in meta-byzantine greek texts (the
patriarchal-ethnarchic ones).
Dating based on the Birth of Jesus Christ (AD - Anno Domini)
begins in the 6th century. This new system was inspired by
Dionysius Exiguus* of
Scythian origin, monk, canonologist and chronologist.
He settled in Rome around 500 A.D. and worked on chronological
issues (for example, charts with Paschal dates). During
the composition of his opus "Cyclus Decem Novennalis" (in 532)
for the calculation of Pascha, he became renowned for
identifying the years on the chart based on the Birth of Christ
and not "the founding of Rome" («Ab urbe condita») as was done
in the West, or beginning from Abraham, or from the first
Olympiad. This new dating system spread very slowly to the
West (France and England), while the first historian who used it
steadfastly was the Venerable Bede, in the 8th century. From
then on it prevailed throughout the entire Christian world - but
also throughout the non-Christian world, as it continues to do,
to this day.
Dionysius however made a fatal mistake. He had accepted
the year 754 «Ab urbe condita» as the year of Christ's
Birth, when it was a known fact that Herod died in 750/751 - a
short while after the Massacre of the Infants (Matth.2:16),
given that Christ was about two years old during the time of
that Massacre. Which means He must have been born in the
year 748/749 «Ab urbe condita». Hence our current date is
deficient by 5 or 6 years, in which case, we are presently
(2011) in the year 2016 or 2017
A.D.
-----------------------------
*Dionysius
Exiguus (Dennis the Small, Dennis the Dwarf, Dennis the Little
or Dennis the Short, meaning humble) (c. 470 – c. 544) was a
6th-century monk born in Scythia Minor, modern Dobruja shared by
Romania and Bulgaria. He was a member of the Scythian monks
community concentrated in Tomis, the major city of Scythia
Minor. Dionysius is best known as the "inventor" of the Anno
Domini (AD) era, which is used to number the years of both the
Gregorian calendar and the (Christianized) Julian calendar. From
about 500 he lived in Rome, where, as a learned member of the
Roman Curia, he translated from Greek into Latin 401
ecclesiastical canons, including the apostolical canons and the
decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon and
Sardis, and also a collection of the decretals of the popes from
Siricius to Anastasius II. These collections had great authority
in the West and still guide church administrations. Dionysius
also wrote a treatise on elementary mathematics. The author of a
continuation of Dionysius's Computus, writing in 616, described
Dionysius as a "most learned abbot of the city of Rome", and the
Venerable Bede accorded him the honorific abbas, which could be
applied to any monk, especially a senior and respected monk, and
does not necessarily imply that Dionysius ever headed a
monastery; indeed, Dionysius's friend Cassiodorus stated in
Institutiones that he was still only a monk late in life.
