''The Reckoning of Time'' (, CPL 2320) is an English era treatise written in

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

by the Northumbrian monk Bede in 725.

Background

In mid-7th-century Anglo-Saxon

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, there was a desire to see the

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

season less closely tied to the Jewish Passover calendar, as well as a desire to have Easter observed on a Sunday. Continuing a tradition of Christian scholarship exploring the correct date of Easter, a generation later, Bede sought to explain the ecclesiastical reasoning behind the Synod of Whitby's decision in 664 to favor Roman custom over Irish custom. Bede's resulting treatise provides justification for a precise calculation for Easter. It also explains why time, and the various units of time, are sacred.

Structure

The treatise includes an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the Earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of how the seasonal motion of the Sun and

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

influenced the changing appearance of the new moon at evening twilight, and a quantitative relation between the changes of the tides at a given place and the daily motion of the Moon. ''The Reckoning of Time'' describes the principal ancient calendars, including those of the Hebrews, the

Egyptians Egyptians (, ; , ; ) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to Geography of Egypt, geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretchi ...

, the Romans, the Greeks, and the English.Wallis (2004:41-54;281–287 The focus of ' was calculation of the date of Easter, for which Bede described the method developed by Dionysius Exiguus. ' also gave instructions for calculating the date of the Easter full moon, for calculating the motion of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac, and for many other calculations related to the calendar. Bede based his reasoning for the dates on the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Sections

The work is divided into six sections:

Technical preparation (Chapters 1–4)

This section familiarizes the reader with terminology regarding measurements. In chapter 3 Bede defines a day as being 12 hours long. An hour consists of increments of ', ' and '. Each of which are small increments of time within the hour. The smallest increment of time is the atom.

The Julian calendar (Chapters 5–41)

Here, Bede gives an exhaustive overview of the date of the Earth's creation, the months, the weeks and the Moon. He argues that the first day did not, as it was generally believed, take place at the time of an equinox. According to the religious accounts of God's creation of the universe, light was created on the first day. It was not until the fourth day, however, that God created the stars and therefore there was no measurement of hours. Much of this section is devoted to the Moon. Bede goes into extensive detail about measuring the moon's cycles, the Moon's relationship to the Earth and Sun. Bede discusses the Moon's relationship to the tide and calculating '.

Anomalies of lunar reckoning (Chapters 42–43)

These two chapters pick up where the previous section left off on examining the irregularities of the Moon creating a leap year as well as why, according to Bede, the Moon appears older than it actually is.

The Paschal table (Chapters 44–65)

This section explores different year cycles that include varying numbers of months and days, determining the year cycle of Christ's incarnation, Easter, and other moon cycles.

The Major Chronicle (Chapter 66)

Bede gives an exhaustive description of the Six Ages of the World. The "Major Chronicle" is the starting point for several later chronicles, such as the '' Chronicon universale usque ad annum 741'' and the '' Chronicon Moissiacense''. Bede details the First Age, from Adam to Noah, as being 1,656 years long according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

. The Second Age, from Noah to Abraham, is 292 years or 272 years long based on Bede's evaluation of the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint respectively. The Third Age is said to be 942 years long according to both the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint spanning from Abraham to David. The Fourth age is from David until the Babylonian exile. This is 473 years according to the Hebrew Bible or 485 according to the Septuagint. The Fifth age is from the Babylonian exile to the advent of Christ. The Sixth age is the current age lasting from the advent of Christ until the end of days.

Prophecy (Chapters 67–71)

Finally, Bede goes on to discuss the end of the Sixth Age, the

Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...

of Christ, the Antichrist, and Judgement Day, and the Seventh and Eighth ages of the world to come.

Notes

References

* Jones, Charles W., ed. ''De temporum ratione'', in ''Bedae opera de temporibus'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943. * Jones, Charles W., ed. ''De temporum ratione'', in ''Bedae opera didascalia'' 2, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 123B, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997. * Wallis, Faith, trans.
Bede: The Reckoning of Time
', Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Pr., 1999/2004. .

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reckoning of Time, The Time in religion Date of Easter Calendars Works by Bede 8th-century books in Latin 725 8th century in England