Dionysius links an Easter table with years from Christ's incarnation
About this date: 525 is the conventional date of the compilation. The continued table begins in 532; neither number is a newly established date for Jesus's birth.
Dionysius continues an Alexandrian Easter cycle and replaces the Diocletian era in his new table with years counted from Christ's incarnation. Calendar calculation helps explain the later spread of Christian year numbering.
Historical context
The preface addresses Bishop Petronius and describes a 95-year continuation of Cyril's table. Dionysius rejects commemorating the persecutor Diocletian in its year labels. This is a practical and theological choice of era, not an independent historical demonstration of when Jesus was born.
Key points
- The compilation concerns the calculation of an annual festival, not the invention of the resurrection celebration.
- The preface explicitly contrasts Diocletian's era with years from Christ's incarnation.
- Dionysius appeals to Nicaea for his nineteen-year cycle, but that sixth-century appeal must not be mistaken for a surviving numbered Nicene canon.
People
- Dionysius Exiguus
- Petronius
- Cyril of Alexandria
Sources and further reading
- The Date of Easter
Useful for the distinction between ecclesiastical lunar tables and an observed astronomical full moon. Its compressed account of Nicaea should be read alongside the surviving ancient documents. - On Easter: preface and paschal cycle
Roger Pearse's incomplete preface translation and Michael Deckers's cycle translation (2003). The era change is explicit in the preface; summaries here are original paraphrases.