Byzantine Creation Era

The Byzantine Creation Era or "Imperial Creation Era of Constantinople," was the Calendar officially used by the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Derived from the Septuagint, it placed the date of creation at 5,508 years before the Incarnation, and was characterized by a certain tendency which had already been a tradition amongst Hebrews and Jews to number the years from the beginning of the world - ‘Etos Kosmou / Apo Kataboles Kosmou’ (Greek: Έτος Κόσμου), or ‘Annus Mundi / Ab Origine Mundi’ AM (Latin). This date underwent minor revisions before being finalized in the seventh century A.D. (ca.692), although its precursors were developed circa AD 400 (see Alexandrian Christian Era). By the late tenth century a unified system was widely recognized across the Eastern Roman world.

The era was calculated as starting on September 1st, and Jesus was thought to have been born in the year 5509 Annus Mundi (AM) - the year since the creation of the world.. Thus historical time was calculated from the creation, and not from Christ's birth, as in the west. The Eastern Church avoided the use of the Christian Era since the date of Christ's birth was debated in Constantinople as late as the fourteenth century. Otherwise the Creation Era was identical to the Julian Calendar except that:

• the names of the months were transcribed from Latin into Greek,
• the first day of the year was September 1, so that both the Ecclesiatical and Civil calendar years ran from 1 September to 31 August, (see Indiction), which to the present day is the Church year, and,
• the date of creation, its year one, was September 1, 5508 BC.

It is referred to indirectly in Canon III of the Quinisext Council, which the Orthodox Churches consider as ecumenical, its canons being added to the decrees of the Fifth and Sixth Councils, as follows:

"... as of the fifteenth day of the month of January last past, in the last fourth Indiction, in the year six thousand one hundred and ninety [6190], ..."

When Russia received Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, she inherited the Orthodox Calendar based on the Creation Era. After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in AD 1453, the Creation Era continued to be used by Russia (translated into Slavonic). In AD 1492 (7000 AM) there were millennialist movements in Moscow due to the end of the church calendar. It was only in AD 1700 that the Creation Era in Russia was changed to the Julian Calendar by Peter the Great.. It still forms the basis of traditional Orthodox calendars up to today. The year AD 2000 was 7508 AM. September 2008 marked the beginning of the year 7516 of this era.

Important Early Calendars

During the period of Late Antiquity in the Mediterranean world there were three highly accredited calendars, namely:

* the Babylonian, descendant of the Sumerian calendar, and basic contributor to the Hebrew Biblical calendar;

* the Egyptian, in use since at least 2550 BC, which institutionalized a year that was 365 days long, being divided into 12 months of 30 days each; and

* the Greek (Era of the Olympiads).

Pliny the Elder, the Great Roman erudite scholar, attempted to promote the Roman calendar as modified by Julius Caesar (i.e. the Julian Calendar) at the same level, as a ‘fourth calendar’..

Earliest Christian Sources on the Age of the World

The earliest extant Christian writings on the age of the world according to the Biblical chronology are by Theophilus (AD 115-181), the sixth bishop of Antioch from the Apostles, in his apologetic work To Autolycus, and by Julius Africanus (AD 200-245) in his Five Books of Chronology . Both of these early Christian writers, following the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, determined the age of the world to have been about 5,530 years at the birth of Christ..

From a scholarly point of view as well, Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder points out that the writings of the Church Fathers on this subject are of vital significance (even though he disagrees with their chronological system based on the authenticity of the Septuagint, as compared to the Hebrew text), in that through the Christian chronographers a window to the earlier Hellenistic biblical chronographers is preserved:

An immense intellectual effort was expended during the Hellenistic period by both Jews and pagans to date creation, the flood, exodus, building of the Temple... In the course of their studies, men such as Tatian of Antioch (flourished in 180), Clement of Alexandria (died before 215), Hippolytus of Rome (died in 235), Julius Africanus of Jerusalem (died after 240), Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine (260-340), and Pseudo-Justin frequently quoted their predecessors, the Graeco-Jewish biblical chronographers of the Hellenistic period, thereby allowing discernment of more distant scholarship..

Alexandrian Christian Era

The "Alexandrian Calendar", or Alexandrian Christian Era was the precursor to the Byzantine Creation Era and the second dominant system present alongside it, varying slightly. After the attempts by Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria and others, the Alexandrian computation of the date of creation was worked out to be 25 March 5493 BC.. It was adopted by church fathers such as Maximus the Confessor and Theophanes the Confessor, as well as historians such as George Syncellus.

Dionysius of Alexandria emphatically quoted mystical justifications for the choice of March 25th as the start of its year:

March 25 was considered to be the anniversary of Creation itself. It was the first day of the year in the medieval Julian calendar and the nominal vernal equinox (it had been the actual equinox at the time when the Julian calendar was originally designed). Considering that Christ was conceived at that date turned March 25 into the Feast of the Annunciation which had to be followed, nine months later, by the celebration of the birth of Christ, Christmas, on December 25.

By the late tenth century the Byzantine Creation Era, fixed at September 1 5508 BC, had become the widely accepted calendar of choice for Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. The Alexandrian Era continued to be used from the sixth century on by the Coptic Church, and in a modified form by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, forming their calendars up until the present day.

Accounts in Church Fathers

St. John Chrysostom

St. John Chrysostom says clearly in his Homily "On the Cross and the Thief", that Christ:

"opened for us today Paradise, which had remained closed for some 5000 years.".

St. Isaac the Syrian

St. Isaac the Syrian writes in a Homily that before Christ:

"for five thousand years five hundred and some years God left Adam (i.e. man) to labor on the earth.".

St. Augustine

Blessed Augustine writes in the City of God (written AD 413-426):

"Let us omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race...They are deceived by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings we find that not 6,000 years have passed. (City of God 12:10).

Augustine goes on to say that the ancient Greek chronology "does not exceed the true account of the duration of the world as it is given in our documents [i.e. the Scriptures], which are truly sacred."

St. Hippolytus

St. Hippolytus of Rome (ca.170-235) maintained on Scriptural grounds that the Lord's birth took place in 5500 AM, and held that the birth of Christ took place on a passover day, deducing that its month-date was 25 March (see Alexandrian Era below). He gave the following intervals:

"...from Adam to the flood 2242 years, thence to Abraham 1141 years, thence to the Exodus 430 years, thence to the passover of Joshua 41 years, thence to the passover of Hezekiah 864 years, thence to the passover of Josiah 114 years, thence to the passover of Ezra 107 years, and thence to the birth of Christ 563 years.".

In his Commentary on Daniel, one of his earlier writings, he proceeds to set out additional reasons for accepting the date of 5500 AM:

"First he quotes Exod. xxv. 10f. and pointing out that the length, breadth and height of the ark of the covenant amount in all to 5 1/2 cubits, says that these symbolize the 5,500 years from Adam at the end of which the Saviour was born. He then quotes from Jn. xix. 14 ' it was about the sixth hour ' and, understanding by that 5 1/2 hours, takes each hour to correspond to a thousand years of the world's life..."

Around AD 202 Hippolytus held that the Lord was born in the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus and that he was born in 5500AM. In his Commentary on Daniel he did not need to establish the precise year of the Lord's birth; he is not concerned about the day of the week, the month-date, or even the year; it was sufficient for his purpose to show that Christ was born in the days of Augustus in 5500 AM.

Accounts in Byzantine Authors

From Justinian's decree in AD 537 that all dates must include the Indiction, the unification of the theological date of creation with the administrative system of Indiction cycles is commonly referred to amongst Byzantine authors, to whom the indiction was the standard measurement of time (see reference #4 below).

Doukas

The historian Doukas, writing circa AD 1460, makes a detailed account for the Creation Era. Although unrefined in style, the history of Doukas is both judicious and trustworthy, and it is the most valuable source for the closing years of the Byzantine empire.

"From Adam, the first man created by God, to Noah, at whose time the flood took place, there were ten generations. The first, which was from God, was that of Adam. The second, after 230 years, was that of Seth begotten of Adam. The third, 205 years after Seth, was that of Enos begotten of Seth. The fourth, 190 years after Enos, was that of Kainan begotten of Enos. The fifth, 170 years after Kainan, was that of Mahaleel begotten of Kainan. The sixth, 165 years after Mahaleel, was that of Jared begotten of Mahaleel. The seventh, 162 years after Jared, was that of Enoch begotten of Jared. The eighth, 165 years after Enoch, was that of Methuselah begotten of Enoch. The ninth, 167 years after Methuselah, was that of Lamech begotten of Methuselah. The tenth, 188 years after Lamech, was that of Noah. Noah was 600 years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. Thus 2242 years may be counted from Adam to the flood.

There are also ten generations from the flood to Abraham numbering 1121 years. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he moved to the land of Canaan from Mesopotamia, and having resided there twenty-five years he begat Isaac. Isaac begat two sons, Esau and Jacob. When Jacob was 130 years old he went to Egypt with his twelve sons and grandchildren, seventy-five in number. And Abraham with his offspring dwelt in the land of Canaan 433 years, and having multiplied they numbered twelve tribes; a multitude of 600,000 were reckoned from the twelve sons of Jacob whose names are as follows: Ruben, Symeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Dan, Joseph, and Benjamin.

The descendants of Levi were Moses and Aaron; the latter was the first of the priesthood while Moses was appointed to govern. In the eightieth year of his life he walked through the Red Sea and led his people out of Egypt. This Moses flourished in the time of Inachos [son of Oceanus and King of Argos] who was the first [Greek] king to reign. Thus the Jews are more ancient than the Greeks.

Remaining in the wilderness forty years they were governed for twenty-five years by Joshua, son of Nun, and by the Judges for 454 years to the reign of Saul, the first king installed by them. During the first year of his reign the great David was born. Thus from Abraham to David fourteen generations are numbered for a total of 1024 years. From David to the deportation to Babylon [586 BC] there are fourteen generations totalling 609 years. From the Babylonian Captivity to Christ there are fourteen generations totalling 504 years.

By the sequence of Numbers we calculate the number of 5,500 years from the time of the first Adam to Christ.".

John Skylitzes

John Skylitzes' (ca.1081-1118) major work is the Synopsis of Histories, which covers the reigns of the Byzantine emperors from the death of Nicephorus I in 811 to the deposition of Michael IV in 1057; it continues the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. Quoting from him as an example of the common Byzantine dating method, he refers to emperor Basil, writing that:

"In the year 6508 [1000], in the thirteenth indiction, the emperor sent a great force against the Bulgarian fortified positions (kastra) on the far side of the Balkan (Haimos) mountains,..."

Niketas Choniates

Niketas Choniates (ca. 1155–1215), sometimes called Acominatus, was a Byzantine Greek historian. His chief work is his History, in twenty-one books, of the period from 1118 to 1207. Again, an example of the dating method can be seen as he refers to the fall of Constantinople to the fourth crusade as follows:

"The queen of cities fell to the Latins on the twelfth day of the month of April of the seventh indiction in the year 6712 [1204]."

Comparative List of Dates of Creation

Early Church Writers

• 5537 BC - Julius Africanus (AD 200-245), Church historian.
• 5529 BC - Theophilus (AD 115-181), Bishop of Antioch.
• 5508 BC - Byzantine Creation Era or "Creation Era of Constantinople." (finalized in 7th c.).
• 5500 BC - Hippolytus of Rome. (ca. AD 234), Presbyter, writer, martyr.
• 5493 BC - Alexandrian Christian Era (AD 412).
• 5199 BC - Eusebius of Caesarea, Bishop of Caesarea and Church historian (AD 324).

Other Estimates

• 5199 BC - Mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, published by the authority of Pope Gregory XIII in 1584, later confirmed in 1630 under Pope Urban VIII.
• 4004 BC - Anglican Archbishop James Ussher (AD 1650).
• 3952 BC - Venerable Bede (ca. AD 725), English Benedictine monk.
• 3761 BC - Hebrew Calendar (Judaism).

Other Dominant Church Dates

Roman Martyrology

Some Traditionalist Catholics use the year 5199 BC, which is taken from Catholic martyrologies, and referred to as the true date of Creation in the "Mystical City of God," a 17th-century mystical work written by Maria de Agreda concerning creation and the life of the Virgin Mary. This year was also used earlier by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea in 324.

Anglican and Protestant

In the English-speaking world, one of the most well known estimates in modern times is that of Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656), who proposed a date of Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC, in the Julian calendar. He placed the beginning of this first day of creation, and hence the exact time of creation, at the previous nightfall. (See the Ussher chronology).

Criticism

• According to Fr. Stanley Harakas, the Bible's description of creation is not a "scientific account". It is not read for scientific knowledge but for spiritual truth and divine revelation. The physical-scientific side of the origins of mankind, though important, is really quite secondary in significance to the Church's message. The central image of Adam as God's image and likeness, who also represents fallen and sinful humanity, and the new Adam, Jesus Christ, who is the "beginning", the first-born of the dead (Colossians 1:18) and the "first-fruits" of those who were dead, and are now alive (1 Corinthians 15:20-23), is what is really important.

• Professor Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis claims that the various new dating systems introduced throughout the Christian Roman Empire involved different eras (dates), causing great difficulty in homogenizing Christianity that was progressively torn up by conflicting theoretical systems, until one of them, the Creation Era of Constantinople, prevailed through the use of the military machine of the empire, and applied unprecedented terror against the rest, which were characterized as heretical.

Summary

Even the most mystical Fathers such as St. Isaac the Syrian accepted without question the common understanding of the Church that the world was created "more or less" in 5,500 BC. As Fr. Seraphim Rose points out:

"The Holy Fathers (probably unanimously) certainly have no doubt that the chronology of the Old Testament, from Adam onwards, is to be accepted "literally." They did not have the fundamentalist's over-concern for chronological precision, but even the most mystical Fathers (St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Gregory Palamas, etc.) were quite certain that Adam lived literally some 900 years, that there were some 5,500 years ("more or less") between the creation and the Birth of Christ."

It is interesting to note that the traditional Jewish understanding of the creation "days" of Genesis is that they are literal as well, as virtually all the Rabbis have understood in commentaries from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic sources.

Currently the two dominant dates for creation that exist using the Biblical model, are about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These are calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates in the Byzantine Creation Era are based on the Greek Septuagint. The later dates of Archbishop James Ussher are based on the Hebrew Masoretic text.

The Fathers were well aware of the discrepancy of some hundreds of years between the Greek and Hebrew Old Testament chronology, and it did not bother them; they did not quibble over years or worry that the standard calendar was precise "to the very year"; it is sufficient that what is involved is beyond any doubt a matter of some few thousands of years, involving the lifetimes of specific men, and it can in no way be interpreted as millions of years or whole ages and races of men.

To this day, traditional Orthodox Christians will use the Byzantine calculation of the Etos Kosmou in conjunction with the Anno Domini (AD) year. Both dates appear on Orthodox cornerstones, ecclesiastical calendars and formal documents. The ecclesiastical new year is still observed on September 1 (or on the Gregorian Calendar's September 14 for those churches which follow the Julian Calendar).

See also

• Church Calendar
• Julian Calendar
• Indiction
• Septuagint
• Genesis
• Evolution
• Gaussian Formulae

External Links

• Byzantine Calendar at Wikipedia.
• Era of Constantinople at Classic Encyclopedia (Based on the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911).
• Etos Kosmou at Wikipedia.
• Coptic Calendar at Wikipedia. (The "Alexandrian Calendar", based on the ancient Egyptian Calendar).
• Ethiopian Calendar at Wikipedia. (Based on the "Alexandrian").
• Russian Calendar (988-1917). Charles Ellis, University of Bristol. The Literary Encyclopedia. 25 September, 2008.
• Calendar Era: Late Antiquity and Middle Ages: Christian era at SMSO Encyclopedia (Saudi Medical Site Online).

• Dating Creation at Wikipedia.
• Indiction at Wikipedia.
• Dr. Stephen C. Meyers. Biblical Archaeology: The Date of the Exodus According to Ancient Writers. Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies (IBSS). Updated April 30, 2008.
• Chronology of the Biblical Patriarchs.

Hebrew Calendar

• The Era of the Creation at Jewish Encyclopedia.
• Hebrew Calendar at Fact-Archive.com
• Hebrew Calendar at Absolute Astronomy.
• Enoch Calendar at Wikipedia.

Further reading

• Fr. Seraphim Rose. GENESIS, CREATION and EARLY MAN: The Orthodox Christian Vision. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA, 2000. ISBN 1887904026
• Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder. Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World Chronicles. in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol.61, No.3 (Jul., 1968), pp.451-481. (Dr. Wacholder is Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at Hebrew Union college (HUC)- Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in Cincinnati, and holds the Solomon B. Freehof Professorship of Jewish Law and Practice)
• Dr. Floyd Nolan Jones. Chronology of the Old Testament. Master Books, AZ, 1993. Repr. 2005. (supports Ussher's chronology, i.e. 4004 BC).
• E.G. Richards. Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History. Oxford University Press, 1998. (Good overall general review of the history and astronomical basis of the principal calendars that have been used throughout history all around the world).
• Elias J. Bickerman. Chronology of the Ancient World. 2nd edition. Cornell University Press. 1980.
• George Ogg. Hippolytus and the Introduction of the Christian Era. in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol.16, No.1 (Mar., 1962), pp.2-18.
• George Synkellos (+ca.810). The Chronography of George Synkellos: a Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation. Transl. Prof. Dr. William Adler & Paul Tuffin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Ibn Ezra, Abraham ben Meïr, (1092-1167). Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch: Genesis (Bereshit). (Vol.1 - Genesis). Transl. and annotated by H. Norman Strickman & Arthur M. Silver. Menorah Pub. Co., New York, N.Y., 1988. ISBN 9780932232076
• Jack Finegan. Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible. Hendrickson Publishers, 1998.
• K.A. Worp. Chronological Observations on Later Byzantine Documents. 1985. University of Amsterdam. (PDF format)
• Prof. Dr. Roger T. Beckwith (D.D., D.Litt.). Calendar, Chronology, and Worship: Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. (Dr Beckwith served for twenty years on the Anglican-Orthodox Commission).
• Prof. Dr. William Adler. Time Immemorial: Archaic History and its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus. Washington, D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1989.
• Roger S. Bagnall, K. A. Worp. The Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt. Zutphen, 1978.
• Samuel Poznański. Ben Meir and the Origin of the Jewish Calendar. in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Oct., 1897), pp. 152-161.
• V. Grumel. La Chronologie. Presses Universitaires France, Paris. 1958.
• Yiannis E. Meimaris. Chronological Systems in Roman-Byzantine Palestine and Arabia. Athens, 1992.

Sources

• Byzantine Calendar at Wikipedia.
• Dating Creation at Wikipedia.
• Doukas (ca.1460). Decline and Fall of Byzantium To The Ottoman Turks. An Annotated Translation by Harry J. Magoulias. Wayne State University Press, 1975. (ISBN 9780814315408)
• Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder. Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World Chronicles. in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol.61, No.3 (Jul., 1968), pp.451-481.
• Elias J. Bickerman. Chronology of the Ancient World. 2nd edition. Cornell University Press. 1980.
• Fr. Seraphim Rose. GENESIS, CREATION and EARLY MAN: The Orthodox Christian Vision. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA, 2000.
• Fr. Stanley S. Harakas. The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers. Light & Life Publishing, Minneapolis, 1988.
• George Ogg. Hippolytus and the Introduction of the Christian Era. in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol.16, No.1 (Mar., 1962), pp.2-18.
• Niketas Choniates. O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates. Transl. by Harry J. Magoulias. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1984.
• Paul James-Griffiths. Creation days and Orthodox Jewish Tradition. AnswersinGenesis.org. March 2004.
• Prof. Charles Ellis (University of Bristol). Russian Calendar (988-1917). The Literary Encyclopedia. 25 September, 2008.
• Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis. Gueze – ‘Ethiopian’: the Counterfeit Millennium. Sept. 8, 2007.
• The Rudder (Pedalion): Of the metaphorical ship of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the Orthodox Christians, or all the sacred and divine canons of the holy and renowned Apostles, of the holy Councils, ecumenical as well as regional, and of individual fathers, as embodied in the original Greek text, for the sake of authenticity, and explained in the vernacular by way of rendering them more intelligible to the less educated. Comp. Agapius a Hieromonk and Nicodemus a Monk. First printed and published A.D.1800. Trans. D. Cummings, from the 5th edition published by John Nicolaides (Kesisoglou the Caesarian) in Athens, Greece in 1908, (Chicago: The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957; Repr., New York, N.Y.: Luna Printing Co., 1983).
• Paul Stephenson. "Translations from Byzantine Sources: The Imperial Centuries, c.700-1204: John Skylitzes, "Synopsis Historion": The Year 6508, in the 13th Indiction: the Byzantine dating system". November 2006.