CHRONOLOGY
738
CHRONOLOGY
of his conversion. The date of the first missionary-
journey (xiii, 1 ; xiv, 26) still remains to be dealt with.
Herod Agrippa died in 44, and St. Paul's first journey
did not begin till after that event. Moreover, it was
finished before the Council of Jerusalem (51). There
is no indication in the Acts sufficiently definite to
settle the question. It can, however, be safely stated
that the journey must have been finished some time
previous to the council; because between the two
events Paul and Barnabas "abode no small time with
the disciples" (xiv, 27).
It may be well to explain here that the uncertain- ties which surround its chronology in no way detract from the trustworthiness of the Bible as an historical document, or from its authority as an inspired record. The further back we go, the more general and in out- line are our ideas of history; and so, in Genesis, the whole history of the world to the Flood is contained in a few brief chapters. As it is with the narrative of events, so it is with chronology. Coming farther down in Jewish history, it is obvious that in regard to numbers the text is often at fault, equally obvious that the inspired writer often only wishes to place before us round numbers. Of the latest period the evidence we possess for fixing the chronology of the Bible is often inconclusive. It may be safely affirmed that the time has not yet come to fix an authoritative chronology of the Bible. A good deal of obscurity and uncertainty remains to be removed. But when the time does come, it may be confidently asserted that the ultimate result will contain nothing deroga- tory to the authority of the Bible.
Hummelauer, Genesis (Paris, 1895); Judges (1SSS); Samuel (18S6); CnHNELY, Introductio (Paris, 1SS6); Vigouroux, Diet, de la Bible (Paris. 1S99); Driver, Genesis (London, 1904); Burnet, Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings (Oxford, 1903); Sayce, Early History of the Hebrews (London, 1897); Sayce, Higher Criticism and the Monuments (London, 1894); GlGOT, Introduction (New York, 1900); Wellhatjsen, Prolegomena (tr. Edinburgh, 1885); Hastings, Diet, of the Bible (Edinburgh. 1898); Cheyhe, Encyclopedia Biblica (London, 1899); Van Hoonacker, Various works about the return from exile (Paris and Ghent); Lenormant, The Beginnings of History (Eng. tr., London. 1S93); Ramsay, St. Paul the Tra idler (London, 1S95i; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (London, 1895); Soni her, Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (tr. Edinburgh, 1906) ; Blass, Acta Apostolorum (Gottingen, 1895). See also works referred to in article.
J. A. HOWLETT.
Chronology, General (Gr. xpi"»s, time, X670S, dis- course), the science of time-measurement, has two branches: (1) Mathematical Chronology, which deter- mines the units to be employed in measuring time, and (2) Historical Chronology, of which we here treat, and which fixes in the general course of time the position of any particular occurrence, or, as it is generally termed, its date. It is thus for history what latitude and longitude are for geography. The first requisite in any system of historical chronology is an era, that is to say a fixed point of time, the distance from which shall indicate the position of all others. The term era, the derivation of which is not certainly known, ap- pears first to have been employed in France and Spain to signify a number or rule. Since the need of a defi- nite system of chronology was first recognized by man- kind, many and various eras have been employed at different periods and by different nations. For ] Tac- tical purposes it is most important to understand those which affect Christian history.
Christian Era. — Foremost among these is thai which is now adopted by all civilized peoples and known as the Christian or Vulgar Era, in the twenti- eth century of which we are now living. This was in- troduced about the year 527 by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk resident at Home, who fixed its starting point in the year 753 from the foundation of
Home, in which year, according to his calculation, the birth of ( 'hrist occurred. Making this t lie year I of
his era, he counted the years which followed in regu- lar course from it. calling them years "of the Lord",
and we now designate such a date A. D. (i. e. Anno
Domini). The year preceding A. d. 1 is called Ante
Chrislum (a. c.) or Before Christ (b. c). It is to be
noted that there is no year intervening, as some have
imagined, between b. c. and A. d. It is supposed by
many that the calculation of Dionysius was incorrect,
and that the birth of Christ really occurred three years
earlier than he placed it, or in the year of Rome 750,
which he styles 3 B. c. This, however, is immaterial
for the purposes of chronology, the first year of the
Christian Era being that fixed, rightly or wrongly, by
Dionysius. His system was adopted but gradually,
first in Italy, then in other parts of Christendom.
England would appear to have been among the earli-
est regions to have made use of it, under the influence
of the Roman missioners, as it is found in Saxon
charters of the seventh century. In Gaul it made its
appearance only in the eighth, and its use did not be-
come general in Europe until after A. D. 1000: accord-
ingly in French the term millcsime was frequently
used to signify a date A. d. In Spain, although not
unknown as early as the seventh century, the use of
the Christian Era, as will presently be shown, did not
become general until after the middle of the four-
teenth century.
Pre-Christian Chronology. — Of the chronolog- ical systems previously in use it will be sufficient to briefly describe a few. The Greeks dated events by Olympiads, or periods of four years intervening be- tween successive celebrations of the Olympic games, and this mode of computation, having been largely adopted at Rome, continued to be frequently used in the first centuries of Christianity. The Olympiads started from 776 b. c, and consequently A. D. 1 was the fourth year of the 194th Olympiad. The Romans frequently reckoned from the traditional foundation of their city (ab urbe condita — a. u. c), which date, as has been said, coincided with 753 B. c. They like- wise often designated years by the names of the con- suls then in office (e. g. console Planco). Sometimes the Romans dated by post-consular years (i. e. so long after the consulate of a well-known man). Naturally the regnal years of Roman emperors pres- ently supplanted those of consuls, whose power in later times was merely nominal, and from the em- perors this method of describing dates was imitated by popes, kings, and other rulers, with or without the addition of the year A. D. It became in fact uni- versal in the Middle Ages, and it subsists in docu- ments, both ecclesiastical and civil, down to our own day.
Regnal Years. — The pontifical years of the popes are historically important (see chronological list in article Pope). Care must be taken, of course, in the case of such dates, to observe from what point of time each reign is reckoned. In an elective monarchy like the papacy there is necessarily an interval between successive reigns, which is occasionally considerable. Moreover, the reckoning is sometimes from the elec- tion of a pontiff, sometimes from his coronation.
In determining dates by the regnal years of other sovereigns there are of course various points to w Inch attention must be paid. Confining ourselves to Eng- lish history, the earlier kings after the Norman Con- quest dated their reigns only from their coronation, or some other public exhibition of sovereignty, so that there was sometimes an interval of days or even weeks between the close of one reign and the com- mencement of the next. Only from the accession of Richard II (22 June, H>77) was the reign of a. monarch held to begin with the death or deposition of his pre- decessor. Even subsequently to this it was reckoned sometimes from the day itself upon which the preced- ing monarch ceased to reign. Sometimes from the day
following. Not till the first year of Queen Elizabeth
was it enacted t hat the former should be the rule. In certain particular instances the matter was still fur-
