Old Post .. wanted to comment. TY

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Dear Cecil:

If AM stands for ante meridiem, PM stands for post meridiem, and AD stands for anno Domini, why is BC English rather than Latin? It seems curious to me that the inventor of our present year-numbering system, Dionysius Exiguus, living in Rome in the sixth century AD, would coin the term “before Christ” in English. Does BC also mean something in Latin, or did it replace a less-known Latin term? --Elton Raynor, Montreal

Cecil replies:

The mystery isn’t BC, it’s why we continue to use the archaic abbreviation AD. Speakers of many European languages have long since dropped the Latin in favor of the vernacular. The following examples were cheerfully contributed by the gang on the Internet:

French, avJC, avant (before) Jesus Christ; apJC, apres (after) Jesus Christ.
German, vChr, vChrG, vor (before) Christi Geburt (birth), nChr, nChrG, nach (after) Christi Geburt.
Italian, aC, avanti (before) Cristo; dC, dopo (after) Cristo.
Finnish, eKr, ennen Kristuksen syntymaa, before the birth of Christ; jKr, jalkeen Kristuksen syntyman, after the birth of Christ.
Swedish, fKr, fore (before) Kristus; eKr, efter (after) Kristus. AD is used in religious texts.
Dutch, vC, vChr, voor (before) Christus; AD, anno Domini. OK, so the Dutch are as retro as we are.
While Dionysius Exiguus devised our present year numbering system in the sixth century AD, he didn’t invent the term anno Domini, which first appeared in the 12th century. AD subsequently came into wide but not universal use. One correspondent notes that up to the 18th century French official documents were often dated “en l’an de grace 0000,” in the year of grace [whatever]. A similar term is found in old English texts.

There’s no obvious reason why we cling to AD and some wish we wouldn’t. Jewish scholars often use the abbreviations BCE, before the common era, and CE, common era, and some archaeologists have begun doing so as well, occasionally translating CE as “Christian era.” Whether this is done out of a desire to use a more secular term or punctiliousness over the fact that Christ wasn’t actually born in 1 AD I dunno, but the practice has spread to other languages. Italians sometimes use “era volgare,” common era, and in Finnish one occasionally sees the abbreviations “eaa” and “jaa,” which stand for before and after the (beginning of the) common era.

Doesn’t matter to me as long as they don’t mess with the year numbering, as some have been tempted to do. Amos Shapir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem informs me that while common practice in Israel today is to use standard numbering with the Hebrew initials for “before the [Christian] count,” “I have seen some old history books which used the term `before the destruction of the second Temple.’ Since this happened in 70 AD, prehistoric dates in this scale are close to those used by the Gentiles. [But] I guess the confusion created was enough to convince even religious Jewish scholars to abandon this method.” Thank Yahweh.

I found this old post from the early 90’s and wanted to shed light on just a few topics. B. C. did not origianally stand for “Before Christ.” It actually began as political act to try to get everyone aclimated to the rule of Julius Ceaser. It stood for “Before Ceaser.” With the recent dominion of Alexander the great still fresh in the Romans minds this seemed a logical political ploy. It backfired in that, as was mentioned in this commentary above, the poeple of the time did not care to document history in such a fashion. It didn’t really take off as they say. The small and insignificant christian movement at the time took it upon themselves, some believe by inspiration from God Himself, to use the B. C. monicer to stand for “Before Christos.” Christos is the Greek word for “King.” Though today we translate it to “Before Christ.” It has stuck ever since.

A. D. though always standing for “Anno Domini” ,was termed for “in the year of our lord Julius Ceaser.” Later the same christian movement coined it “In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ” . Smooth moves by an insignificant movement of christians.

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dragon13238 writes:

> I found this old post from the early 90’s and wanted to shed light on just a few
> topics. B. C. did not origianally stand for “Before Christ.” It actually began as
> political act to try to get everyone aclimated to the rule of Julius Ceaser. It
> stood for “Before Ceaser.” With the recent dominion of Alexander the great still
> fresh in the Romans minds this seemed a logical political ploy. It backfired in
> that, as was mentioned in this commentary above, the poeple of the time did
> not care to document history in such a fashion. It didn’t really take off as they
> say. The small and insignificant christian movement at the time took it upon
> themselves, some believe by inspiration from God Himself, to use the B. C.
> monicer to stand for “Before Christos.” Christos is the Greek word for “King.”
> Though today we translate it to “Before Christ.” It has stuck ever since.
>
> A. D. though always standing for “Anno Domini” ,was termed for “in the year of
> our lord Julius Ceaser.” Later the same christian movement coined it “In the
> year of our Lord Jesus Christ” . Smooth moves by an insignificant movement of
> christians.

This is utterly ridiculous. First, the decision to use the estimated year of Christ’s birth as the zero point for a timeline wasn’t made until the year 525 A.D. This was after the end of the Roman Empire and was well into the period of Christian dominance of Europe, so no one at that time would have wanted to use Caesar’s birth year rather than Christ’s as the method for dating. Second, in what language are you claiming that B.C. stood for either “before Caesar” or “before Christ”? English? Obviously it wasn’t around either in 1 A.D. or im 525 A.D. Those wouldn’t have been the abbreviations for those terms in Latin, Greek, or any other language around at the time. Also, “christos” means more like “the anointed one” than “king.”

Furthermore, no one ever thought of using a year as a zero point at the time of the ancient Romans. In so far as they dated years, they talked about “the first year of X’s rule,” “the second year of X’s rule,” etc. When there was a new ruler, they started over with “the first year of Y’s rule.” It wasn’t until 525 A.D. that anyone thought of having an overall dating scheme. Where did you read this strange explanation of yours?

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Julius Caesar became “Dictator for Life” in 44 BC. Alexander the Great died in 323 BC – almost three hundred years earlier. There wasn’t a Christian movement, insignificant or otherwise, until somewhere around 33 AD – 75 years after Julius Caesar died.

So your statement is the equivalent of claiming that the word “Zorple!” was originally coined by policy wonks of the Harding administration to get people acclimated to the man and take the public’s mind off the recent dominion of Oliver Cromwell. Then, the small and insignificant internet message board community at the time took up the word and championed it.

When , of course, “Zorple!” was actually coined in AD 2500.

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Not quite right on older calendars. Romans actually used “(In the year) when A and B were the Consuls.” (Consuls continued to be elected pro forma for centuries after they had ceased to have any power.) And they also had dates AUC (Ab Urbe Condita or Anno Urbis Conditae – “Since the Founding of the City” or “In the year N of the Founding of the City”), which counted from 753 BC. However, AUC wasn’t in day-to-day use.

It is true, though, that most civilizations dated “In the year N of the reign of A.” Indeed, it is used in the United Kingdom to this day for certain technical and ceremonial purposes, which in the US are handled by “In the Nth year of the Independence of the United States”.

One serial-number system that was in use in Biblical times was the Seleucid Era, dating from the accession of Seleucus (one of the several generals who grabbed a share when Alexander died) in 311 BC. You will find it in use in the Books of Maccabees.

Back on the subject of the original post, although dates from the reign of Seleucus were in use, I am unaware of Alexander’s dates having been used after his lifetime. And Alexander never ruled Rome, wheras inside recently conquered Roman territory, people were already accustomed to “in the Nth year of the reign of A”. And Romans were perfectly aware of this custom of Kings, and the very last thing Caesar wanted to do was to appear to have royal ambitions, for Rome had such a horror of the word that, when it finally did become a monarchy, it had to enlist new words, “conquering hero”, “first citizen”, and “venerable one” as euphemisms. Really, I’ve rarely seen so much nonsense in so few words.

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Why is BC an English abbreviation while AD is a Latin one? (30-Sep-1994)

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