"in the Year of our Lord" - Anno Domini Nostri Iesu
'Anno Domini' - A.D.
(Main Topical info. excerpted from this page on WikiPedia)
Anno Domini (Latin: "In the year of (Our) Lord"[1]), abbreviated as AD, defines an epoch based on the traditionally-reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth. similarly, Before Christ (from the Ancient Greek "Christos" or "Anointed One", referring to Jesus), abbreviated as BC, is used in the English language to denote years before the start of this epoch. Some non-Christians use the abbreviations AD and BC without intending to acknowledge the Christian connotation.
The designation is used to number years in the Christian Era, conventionally used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars. More fully, years may be also specified as Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ"). 'Anno Domini' dating was first calculated in 525 and began to be adopted in Western Europe during the eighth century.
The numbering of years per the Christian era is currently dominant in many places around the world, in both commercial and scientific use. For decades, it has been the global standard, recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations and the Universal Postal Union. This is due to the prevalence of Christianity in the Western world, the great influence of the Western world on science, technology and commerce, as well as the fact that the solar Gregorian calendar has, for a long time, been considered to be astronomically correct.
English copies Latin usage by placing the abbreviation before the year number for AD, but after the year number for BC; for example: 64 BC, but AD 2006.
History of Anno Domini
Early Christians designated the year via a combination of consular dating, imperial regnal year dating, and Creation dating. Use of consular dating ended when the emperor Justinian I discontinued appointing consuls in the mid sixth century, requiring the use of imperial regnal dating shortly thereafter. The last consul nominated was Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius in 541. The papacy was in regular contact throughout the Middle Ages with envoys of the Byzantine world, and had a clear idea — sudden deaths and deposals notwithstanding — of who was the Byzantine emperor at any one time.
The Anno Domini system was developed by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (born in Scythia Minor) in Rome in 525, as an outcome of his work on calculating the date of Easter. Dionysius, in his Easter table, equates the year AD 532 with the regnal year 248 of Emperor Diocletian; in his cover letter he equates the year AD 525 with the consulate of Probus Junior. "However, nowhere
in his exposition of his table does Dionysius relate his epoch to any other dating system, whether consulate, Olympiad, year of the world, or regnal year of Augustus; much less does he explain or justify the underlying date" (Blackburn & Holford-Strevens 2003, 778). Blackburn & Holford-Strevens briefly present arguments for 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1 as the year Dionysius intended for the Nativity or Incarnation.
Among the sources of confusion mentioned by Blackburn & Holford-Strevens (2003, 778–779) are:
In modern times Incarnation is synonymous with conception, but some ancient writers, such as Bede, considered Incarnation to be synonymous with the Nativity. The civil, or consular year began on 1 January but the Diocletian year began on 29 August. There were inaccuracies in the list of consuls. There were confused summations of emperors' regnal years. Another calculation had been developed by the Alexandrian monk Annianus around the year AD 400, placing the Annunciation on March 25, AD 9 (Julian) — eight to ten years after the date that Dionysius later calculated. This Era of Incarnation was dominant in the East during the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire, and is still used today in Ethiopia, accounting for the 8 or 7-year discrepancy between the Gregorian and the Ethiopian calendar.
Byzantine chroniclers like Theophanes continued to date each year in their world chronicles on a different Judaeo-Christian basis — from the notional creation of the World as calculated by Christian scholars in the first five centuries of the Christian era. These eras, sometimes called Anno Mundi, "year of the world" (abbreviated AM), by modern scholars, had their own disagreements. No single Anno Mundi epoch was dominant. One popular formulation was that established by Eusebius of Caesarea, a historian at the time of Constantine I. The Latin translator Jerome helped popularize Eusebius's AM count in the West.
Accuracy
"Although scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating" (Doggett 1992, 579). According to the Gospel of Matthew (2:1,16) Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born, and ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in response to his birth. Blackburn & Holford-Strevens fix Herod's death shortly before Passover in 4 BC (2003, 770), and say that those who accept the story of the Massacre of the Innocents sometimes associate the star that led the Biblical Magi with the planetary conjunction of 15 September 7 BC or Halley's comet of 12 BC; even historians who do not accept the Massacre accept birth under Herod as a tradition older than the written gospels (p. 776).
The Gospel of Luke (1:5) states that John the Baptist was at least conceived, if not born, under Herod, and that Christ was conceived while John's mother was in the sixth month of her pregnancy (1:26). Luke's Gospel also states that Christ was born during the reign of Augustus and while Quirinius was the governor of Syria (2:1-2), . Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (2003, 770) indicate Quirinius' governorship of Syria began in AD 6, which is incompatible with conception in 4 BC, and say that "St. Luke raises greater difficulty....Most critics therefore discard Luke" (p. 776). Some scholars rely on John's Gospel to place Christ's birth in c.18 BC
(Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 2003, 776).
Popularization
The first historian or chronicler to use Anno Domini as his primary dating mechanism was Victor of Tonnenna, an African chronicler of the seventh century. A few generations later, the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius, also used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731. In this same history, he was the first to use the Latin equivalent of before Christ and established the standard for historians of no year zero, even though he used zero in his computus. Both Dionysius and Bede regarded Anno Domini as beginning at the incarnation of Jesus, but "the distinction between Incarnation and Nativity was not drawn until the late ninth century, when in some places the Incarnation epoch was identified with Christ's conception, i.e. the Annunciation on 25 March" (Annunciation style)
(Blackburn & Holford-Strevens 881).
On the continent of Europe, Anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the Carolingian Renaissance by Alcuin. This endorsement by Charlemagne and his successors popularizing the usage of the epoch and spreading it throughout the Carolingian Empire ultimately lies at the core of the system's prevalence until present times.
Outside the Carolingian Empire, Spain continued to date by the Era of the Caesars, or Spanish Era, well into the Middle Ages, which counted beginning with 38 BC. The Era of Martyrs, which numbered years from the accession of Diocletian in 284, who launched the last yet most severe persecution of Christians, prevailed in the East and is still used officially by the Coptic and used to be used by the Ethiopian church. Another system was to date from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which as early as Hippolytus and Tertullian was believed to have occurred in the consulate of the Gemini (AD 29), which appears in the occasional medieval manuscript.
Even though Anno Domini was in widespread use by the ninth century, Before Christ (or its equivalent) did not become widespread until the late fifteenth century.
[1] Blackburn & Lolford-Strevens p. 782. (Blackburn, Bonnie, Leofranc Holford-Strevens (2003). The Oxford companion to the Year: An exploration of calendar customs and time-reckoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-214231-3). (reprinted & corrected, originally published 1999).
If the founders had just meant to signify a date, they undoubtedly would have used A.D. as a designation. Given the fact that the majority of them were very learned men, as well as many being lawyers. One can thus surmise that there was a deliberative purpose for the use of the words "in the year of Our Lord". Especially, when considering some of the quotations from Mr. James Madison, one of the main advocates of the Constitution. As well as, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, in which is stated:
"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
- James Madison, Federalist No. 37, Jan. 11, 1788
And;
"...The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. Perhaps, also, an answer may be found without searching beyond the principles of the compact itself...."
- James Madison, The Federalist No. 43, Jan. 23, 1788.
Other quotes by Madison, (whom later became President), are:
"The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded. We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government — far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the commandments of God."
"Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift [James 1:17] we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land."
- James Madison
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