The Christian Era by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 22, 1870

The Christian Era.

By Uriah Smith

A CORRESPONDENT says: “Please explain that statement in the pamphlet entitled, Prophecy of Daniel, which says that Christ was anointed A. D. 27, being about 30 years old. I always understood that he was 30 years old A. D. 30.”

The difficulty of our correspondent lies in the fact of his supposing that the year A. D. 1 coincides with the birth of Christ. This, however, is not the case. The Christian era was the invention of Dionysius Exiguus, A. D. 532. The era did not begin to be used much till A. D. 730, and did not come into general use till A. D. 1141. Dionysius, from the best evidence he could obtain, placed our Lord’s nativity in the year 753 of the Roman era, at that time in use. It has since been ascertained that Christ was born about four years previous to this date. But as it makes no material difference in the reckoning of time, the point fixed by Dionysius has never been disturbed. Thus in taking a certain number of years B. C., and a certain number A. D., adding them together, we get the exact number of years between the two points, although the birth of Christ is not within about four years of the line which separates the two divisions. It will thus be seen that this does not in the least affect the accuracy of the chronological reckoning. U. S.