Nahshon ben Zadok

One of the men who studied the world and the Torah to make sure the Jewish calendar was accurate was Nahshon ben Zadok. He flourished in the Gaonim Era, from 589 CE to 1038 CE (Hebrew years 4349 - 4798). The Gaonim ("pride" or "splendor" but more recently translated "genius") were the heads of the great Talmudic schools Sura and Pumbedita. We do not have many dates for Nahshon, but from 874 - 882 CE he was head of the Sura Academy in southern Iraq, what Jewish texts call Babylonia. 

Nahshon was a scholar, producing a dictionary of sorts with explanations of difficult words found in the Talmud. He did not, however, list them in alphabetical order as some others did. Instead, he wrote them down in the order in which they appear, making them more like footnotes.

Looking at the calendar, he realized that there was a cycle of 247 years, after which the order of weekdays on which any particular festival would fall repeats. He created 14 tables that show this cycle.

There are some writings that are ascribed to him, although we do not know for certain about some of them. One on ritual slaughtering, the Re'umah, is usually said to be his, but authorship cannot be proven. The writings that are believed to be his are often in Aramaic, but some are in Hebrew. His writings do not always agree with prior or subsequent scholars, but he was respected enough in his time to be made head of Sura.

The illustration is a carving of one of the Gaonim teaching at the Sura Academy. Sura and Pumbedita Academies were two chief sources of Talmudic scholarship for centuries, and we will talk about them more tomorrow.

The Hebrew Calendar

One of the oldest calendars in continuous use is the Hebrew Calendar. It was not just a way of counting days to get through a solar cycle, however. It was also a constant reminder of the relationship between God and his creations, since rituals and celebrations were not to be ignored or performed arbitrarily.

Jewish scholars attempted to determine the year based on the creation of the world after counting the genealogies in the Torah. By the 4th century CE it was decided that the world began in what the Christian world would call 3761/0 BC.

Because of Genesis 1:5 ("There was evening and there was morning, one day"), it was clear that the day begins with evening, and so sunset is the start of a new day, and the day ends at the following sunset. Festival days begin at sunset the night before the daytime. (The International Date Line observed by much of the world creates some debate for the Jewish calendar.)

Because the Jewish calendar follows lunar cycles, each month begins with the new moon—easy to observe. This does not account for the extra days it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun, however, so between the years 70 and 1178 CE, a series of mathematical formulae were devised to try to keep up.

The "New Year" has more than one meaning in the Jewish calendar. The 1st day of the month of Tishrei is Rosh Hashanah and the start of the civil year. The 1st of Nisan, however is the start of the ecclesiastical year, the date from which festivals are counted. This puts Passover (14 Nisan) in the "first month" and Rosh Hashanah in the 7th, despite the previous statement.

Leap months have to be added every 19 years. Sometimes the year's length has to be altered by adding or removing a day from a month. When this is done, the danger is that Rosh Hashanah's day has shifted. There are important rules for making sure Rosh Hashanah is honored properly.

The man who studied the calendar carefully and helped determine many of its features that help decide when events take place was Nahshon ben Zadok, head of the Academy of Sura in the 9th century. We'll talk about him next time.

If you want a more detailed version of the Gregorian/Jewish image above, see this one.

Other Histories

We've been looking at the origins of the terms Anno Domini and Before Christ to mark the passing of years. Those were Christian-centric choices that did not mean a thing to the other cultures that existed adjacent to Christianity.

The Coptic Calendar (we had recently talked about Coptic Christianity) used a different system. Based on the ancient Egyptian calendar, its start date was 29 August 284 CE. The Ethiopian and Eritrean churches used it, but started its epoch on 29 August, 8 CE. It is currently year 1742. The point of the year 284 was that it was the start of the "Era of Martyrs" that started because Emperor Diocletian started the worst era of persecution of Christians. Dionysius Exiguus specifically created Anno Domini in order to separate the calendar from memories of such a terrible enemy to Christianity.

With the rise of Islam, there was another date used for the "start" of reckoning: 622 CE became AH 1 (Anno Hegirae, "In the year of the Hijrah") when Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina and established a community. It is currently year 1447.

Although today is 10 October 2025 in the Gregorian calendar, had we retained the Julian calendar with its flaws regarding Leap Years, the date would be 27 September 2025.

The Hebrew calendar was based on the number of days since the creation of the world, calculated by looking at the genealogy presented in the Torah/Old Testament. This date was (in modern reckoning) 3761 BCE. It is currently year 5786.

The Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar and one of the oldest continuously used. Let's look at it a little more tomorrow.

Making History

After Dionysius Exiguus used the phrase anno Domini to describe the year (525) in which he was writing a table of dates for Easter, the convention took awhile to catch on.

There were many ways to identify the present year. Rome could use the years "since the founding of the city" (AUC, standing for ab urbe condita), or by whomever was proconsul that year. Lots of local kingdoms counted years by the reign of the king, so that each new king dated records and event starting with year "1"; even more confusing since a king could start his reign on any date of the year.

The Anglo-Saxon historian known as the Venerable Bede knew the work of Dionysius and used AD for dating in his history that went up to the year 731 (Bede died a few years later).

For years prior to AD, he use the elaborate phrase ante incarnationis dominicae tempus ("before the time of the Lord's incarnation") followed by a number. The Latin phrases used by scholars to refer to dates prior to Christ eventually came to be known in the English-speaking world simply as "BC": Before Christ.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, they did not explain if by incarnation they meant conception or birth. In the 9th century, theologians chose conception as the starting point of the era, the date of the Annunciation, 25 March, celebrated sometimes as Lady Day.

Alcuin started using Anno Domini during the Carolingian Renascence, which helped spread the convention throughout much of Western Europe and beyond. Popes, who also used regnal years the way kings would, started using the neutral AD starting in the 11th century. When Portugal switched officially to AD for dating documents as of 1422, all Christian countries were now on board.

Note that there in no Year Zero. The first year of the present era is AD1; the year preceding is 1BC. Yes, AD is traditionally printed before the number because you are saying "The year of Our Lord 2025." Otherwise you are saying it is "Year 1 Before Christ."

Because there are other cultures with their own calendars, a modern convention has arisen of using CE and BCE (Common Era, Before Common Era) in western culture to remove the religious facet. These other calendars, still adhered to, will be a topic for tomorrow.

Anno Domini

When Pope John I in 525 asked Dionysius Exiguus to write a chronology to tabulate future dates of Easter, Dionysius looked at how years were numbered and wanted something he considered more appropriate. Of course there was the Roman Empire numbering of AUC, which stood for abs urbe condita, "from the founding of the city." Dionysius wanted something a little more appropriate for a Christian world.

At the time, years in Rome were designated by the terms of the Roman consuls. Other methods of keeping track of years included Olympiads or the regnal years of Caesars. In various countries, years were called by the regnal years of the king. When a new king was crowned, his records began with Year 1 of his reign. 

Christians were using the "Diocletian era," which was calculated since the last big persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian. Dionysius did not want to use a calendar based on someone who was hostile to Christians. There had been a previously calculated set of dates by Victorius of Aquitaine c.457 that Dionysius ignored as being "off" and developed his own system, laying down dates for the years 532-626.

Dionysius wrote that the "present year" was the "consulship of Probus Junior," which he also claimed was 525 years since the birth of Christ. (We assume he looked at various historical records and counted them up to determine that year.) 

His solution to keep track of years was the phrase anno Domini, "year of [our] Lord." This divided time into two sections: everything that happened prior to the Incarnation, and then everything that happened starting at the Incarnation.

Problems arose, of course. One question was what defined the "Incarnation": was it birth, or conception? The Diocletian Year began on 1 September, but consulships began on 1 January, so were we adding up years correctly? Lists of consuls were not always complete, nor were the dates of emperors.

We are not sure how Dionysius determined the year of the Incarnation. It may have been based on the Gospel of Luke, where he says Jesus was about 30 shortly after the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

The use of AD was not adopted universally. Tomorrow we'll look at other conventions and the slow rise of AD's popularity. We should also mention "Phantom Time."

Dionysius Exiguus

We learned a lot about St. Pachomius and his development of the Eastern Coptic Christian monasteries from a biography written over a hundred years after his death by an Eastern Roman monk named Dionysius Exiguus, which means "Dionysius the Humble."

Born c.470 in Scythia Minor—a Roman province north of Constantinople, between the Danube and the Black Sea—he was a "true Roman" by inclination (according to Cassiodorus).  He was a mathematician and astronomer, a theologian, and was well-versed in canon law. He was fluent in both Greek and Latin. This skill allowed him to translate hundreds of important Greek works into Latin, including the "Life of St. Pachomius." He also translated a history of the discovery of the head of John the Baptist. Some translations attributed to him seem to be the earlier work of Marius Mercator (mentioned previously in a post about forgeries).

He came to Rome when Pope Gelasius I summoned him to organize the papal archives. (Gelasius died 496CE, so Dionysius must have been in Rome by that year.) He translated into Latin 401 ecclesiastical canons, including the apostolic canons and the decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, and Sardis, all of which were recorded in Greek, having taken place in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Pope John I in 525 asked him to create a chronology, which he did, using the Julian calendar and tabulating the dates of Easter, that "floating Holy Day" that caused much consternation in the early Church. In the process, Dionysius created a—let's call it a "convention"—that has lasted until today: the use of Anno Domini to describe years since the birth of Christ.

Tomorrow we take a deep dive into those two simple words, what came before, and how they were determined.

Theodorus of Tabannese

After the death of St. Pachomius, the popular Theodorus of Tabannese was passed over as a successor for Petronius, who died three months later, appointing Horsiesius. Horsiesius was perceived as a weak leader, drawing opposition from many of the more tenured monks.

Theodorus, who had always been known for the camaraderie he inspired—early in his time at the Pachomian monasteries he had been nicknamed the "brothers' comforter"—went to the monastery at Tabannese, where there were many monks in rebellion against Horsiesius' authority, and tried to calm them down.

Horsiesius resigned in 350, and Theodorus became the leader of the family of the nine Pachomian monasteries (although he called himself the "vicar" of Horsiesius). Although he had been demoted in his youth by Pachomius for a combination of ambition and insufficient discipline over the monks under him—or perhaps because he was aware of these qualities—he ran the monasteries effectively for 18 years by frequently re-organizing them and moving ambitious leaders around to new posts.

Some of Theodorus' sermons have survived, recorded by his followers, as well as some of his letters, written in Coptic. Three letters that we believe he wrote himself have survived, in which he quotes Scripture and gives advice to the monasteries on topics such as maintaining asceticism, vigilance against sin, and celebrating Passover.

We also know about him from other references. St. Athanasius (c.298 - 373), patriarch of Alexandria, writing a letter to Horsiesius, said of Theodorus:

I have seen your fellow-worker and father of the brethren, Theodore, and in him the master of our father Pachomios. And I rejoiced to see the sons of the Church, and they made me glad by their presence. But the Lord is their recompenser. And as Theodore was about to leave me for you, he said to me: "Remember me." And I said to him: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten, yea let my tongue cleave to my throat if I remember thee not" [Ps. 137:6, LXX.].

It might have comforted Horsiesius that Athanasius thought so highly of Theodorus. When Theodorus died in 568, Athanasius wrote another letter to Horsiesius, praising the deceased, and talking about how the two of them worked well together. In fact, Horsiesius was Theodorus' successor. Horsiesius ran the monasteries until his death in 387.

A lot of what we know about Pachomius and the monastery system he created comes from a later writer, Dionysius Exiguus, who took it upon himself to translate hundreds of religious works into Latin. He was also the man who created the "modern calendar"; I'll explain further tomorrow.

Pachomius' Successors

When St. Pachomius was dying, his followers at the monastery were concerned because he had not yet chosen a successor. Many of them wanted Theodorus of Tabennese (c.314 - 368).

Born into a wealthy Christian family, Theodorus joined a monastery at 14 in Egypt until he heard about the success of Pachomius from a friend and determined that he wanted to go there. He was told that his wealthy background made him unsuitable for the atmosphere that Pachomius was creating in his monasteries, but Theodorus went anyway to Tabannese, one of the Pachomian monasteries.

Admired by Pachomius and his fellow monks, Theodorus came to be called the "brothers' comforter" because of his kindness and support toward his peers. Pachomius eventually made him the steward of Tabennese when Pachomius retired to another of his monasteries, Pbow. While keeping tabs on Theodorus, Pachomius saw that monks who did not follow the strict rules set down by Pachomius were being allowed to do so without any discipline, so Pachomius demoted him from authority.

Theodorus became Pachomius' assistant, behaving himself and maintaining the popularity he had with his fellow monks.

When Pachomius became ill, several monks wanted Theodorus to agree to assume control of the monastery. Theodorus agreed that he would do so, but Pachomius recovered and found out that Theodorus had been ready to take control. He exiled Theodorus, but eventually forgave him and allowed him to return without any special rank.

When Pachomius died in 348CE, he had named as his successor Petronius, who had been overseeing some of the Pachomian family of monasteries. Petronius died three months after Pachomius, however, and appointed Horsiesius, who had been overseeing the monastery at Sheneset. Horsiesius, however, resigned in 350, and finally Theodorus was placed in charge.

Tomorrow I'll tell you a little more about Theodorus, and that the story of Horsiesius wasn't finished when he resigned.

St. Pachomius

St. Anthony the Great is credited with being the first monk in that he did not just live an ascetic life, but also he removed himself from civilization and went into the desert. The eremitical (hermit) life appealed to many in the years to follow, but not everyone had the self-discipline to lead that kind of life. This is where Pachomius was needed.

St. Pachomius (c.292 - 348) was born a pagan in Egypt. Drafted into military service by the Roman army at the age of 21, he was put on a ship with several other conscripts heading toward Thebes. There he noticed how Christians kindly brought food daily to the conscripts.

When he left the army a few years later, he investigated Christianity and converted in 314. After seven years as a hermit, he traveled to where St. Anthony was living, modeling his life after Anthony's solitary example. Then, however, a vision told him to create a community where others could join him.

Hermits had clustered together in the same area before, but Pachomius created an organized structure for monks who actually lived and worked together, holding their possessions in common and following a similar schedule. This style of monastic tradition is called cenobitic, a Latin word from the Greek words for "common" [κοινός] and "life" [βίος].

He created the first community shortly after this vision; the first person to join him was his brother John. Many more were to follow. Pachomius built eight monasteries, and the trend caught on: by the time of his death there were hundreds of monks in Egypt following his guidance. He was referred to as "Abba" ("father"), from which the terms "abbot" and "abbey" come. He also wrote the Rule of Pachomius, creating guidelines for communities. It is written in the Coptic (Egyptian) language. He is also given credit for inventing the Prayer Rope to aid in repetitively reciting prayers.

Pachomius never was ordained as a priest. St. Athanasius visited him and wanted to ordain him in 333—Pachomius, like Athanasius, had proven to be a vocal opponent of Arianism—but Pachomius did not want ordination. He died on 9 May 348, we assume from plague.

When he had fallen ill and the end seemed near, he had not named a successor. Many of his followers wanted one monk—a man who was looked up to by many—to assert himself, but Pachomius had different ideas. The succession got a little tricky over the next few years. I'll talk tomorrow about dissent that might have ended the monastery.

A Personal Note

Just jumping in for a post that is personal as well as related to this blog.

To the right of these words you can see the advertisements to the two medieval mystery novels I self-published on Amazon many years ago. Knowing that no one would necessarily trust an unknown author, I priced the first at $1.99 and the second at $2.99 (assuming that if you're buying the second you've read the first and liked it and would be willing to take a bigger gamble).

I was absolutely surprised and delighted to find that someone recently not only bought them, not only read them, but also liked them enough to write a glowing review in which she accurately describes what I was trying to accomplish when I wrote them.

If you've ever glanced at the covers to the right and wondered if they were worth the risk of $1.99, or even $2.99, the review on Daily Kos by Dr. Lori, who has a Ph.D. in medieval manuscripts, might entice you.

The link is here.

Thanks (as always) for reading.

The Prayer Rope

We've been talking about the origin of the Rosary lately and its promotion by Alan de la Roche, but it wasn't the only or earliest aide to memory when reciting prayers. The precursor to the Rosary or "proto-Rosary" was the prayer rope.

In the early years of the spread of Christianity, the Eastern Mediterranean developed some practices and philosophies that were different from Rome and Europe. By the 4th century CE we know that some ascetics and hermits who withdrew from the world to pray all day used prayer ropes to keep themselves on track.

The prayer rope is a knotted cord designed to be handled during prayer so that one could feel one's way from knot to knot and keep an accurate count of recitations. The typical prayer rope might have 100 knots, a nice round number of prayers. Ropes can be found with 150 knots (for the number of Psalms), 60, 50 (which became the standard number of Hail Marys for the Rosary), 41 (one better than the days of fasting in the desert), and 33 (for the years of Jesus' life on Earth).

Traditionally it is made of wool and dyed black, to remind the user of the blackness of their sin. It was in a loop, with a cross or tassel attached to the joining of the two ends. You work your way through it with the left hand, keeping the righthand free to make the sign of the Cross at appropriate times.

Although the Rosary was sometimes worn as a necklace to remind one to pray and as spiritual protection, the prayer rope was not used as decoration.

Its creation is attributed to St. Pachomius, about whom you will learn more tomorrow.

Alan de la Roche

Alan de la Roche (also known as Alanus de Rupe) was born in Brittany c.1428; he joined the Dominican Order in 1459 in Paris, studying there and becoming well-known for his education in theology and philosophy.

He became a teacher in many locations in France and Germany. At Rostock in Germany in 1473 he was declared Master of Sacred Theology (a post-graduate degree that can stand on its own or be considered an intermediate step between Masters and doctorate programs). As famed as he was for his teaching career, he is best known now for his championing of the Rosary.

Dominican tradition holds that St. Dominic despaired at the ineffectiveness of his preaching against the Albigensian heretics, and prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. In a vision she told him to use her psalter along with preaching. A psalter was usually a book of the Psalms, but in this case it was the recitation of 150 Hail Marys. Alan claimed that the Virgin Mary had shown him a vision of how this came about with Dominic.

This account was never mentioned in Dominic's lifetime, and in the 17th century it was concluded by religious scholars that the story was concocted by Alan de la Roche to add weight to his belief that the Rosary should be more widely used.

Rather than 150 Hail Marys, Alan promoted the idea of 50 prayers: five decades of Hail Marys, interspersed with some other prayers like the Our Father. He devised three sets of mysteries of the Rosary—the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious—each reflecting significant events in the lives of Christ and Mary. Pope John Paul II added a fourth set, the Luminous Mysteries.

Alan also claimed that Mary offered him 15 promises that would come true for anyone who prayed the Rosary. These promises included special protection, not dying without the sacraments of the Church, deliverance from Purgatory, aid from Mary in your necessities, and more.

Long before the Rosary, however, there were other aids to memory during prayer, like the prayer rope used in the first few centuries by hermits and monastics. We'll talk about those tomorrow.

The Rosary

The Rosary is a series of linked beads designed to aid your memory while praying. Many faiths have used something similar, often simply calling them prayer beads. The Catholic Rosary begins with the Creed, the Our Father, three Hail Marys and the Doxology ("Glory Be"), and is followed by five "decades" of an Our Father and ten Hail Marys.

The term "Rosary" was not recorded until the year 1597, but the device itself had been around in various forms. How did this particular form of prayer beads start?

There are various stories to explain it. One, mentioned yesterday, is that Peter the Hermit invented it. Another says that it was St. Dominic who introduced it. The Dominic version claims he did not exactly invent it; rather, it was "given" to him in a vision by the Blessed Virgin Mary. This story came about long after his death, however, and during his lifetime was never mentioned.

The idea of a memory aid goes back a long way in Christianity. In the 3rd century CE Christian hermits and monks would use stones or knotted ropes to help them keep their place during the repetitive nature of prayers, such as reciting the 150 Psalms, or praying the Our Father 150 times.

In the early 1400s, Dominic of Prussia "organized" the decades of Hail Marys into the Mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. There are five of each Mystery, describing different events in the life of Mary and their importance. (An additional set was introduce by Pope John Paul II in October 2002: the Luminous Mysteries.)

Still, the Rosary was not widely used; that is, until a Dominican friar and mystic and theologian came along. Tomorrow I'll introduce you to Alan de la Roche.

Peter in Jerusalem

When the main body of the First Crusade reached the Holy Land, Peter the Hermit joined them as a member of the council that made decisions. Peter had drummed up so much support for the Crusade that he was welcome, even though his "People's Crusade" (see the last few posts) had gone spectacularly off the rails.

In fact, Guibert of Nogent, a contemporary of the Crusade who wrote a chronicle of it, refers to Peter's status in 1098 as a "fallen star." His preaching continued, however. During the Siege of Antioch, for instance, Guibert gives Peter credit for making a stirring speech to the starving Crusaders that inspired them to leave the city and attack the larger Muslim force and achieve victory. (Part of that inspiration may have been from the discovery of the Holy Lance.)

The march to Jerusalem included besieging the town of Arqa, during which it is recorded that Peter was given responsibility as treasurer of alms.

Peter was present at Jerusalem when the Crusade captured the city, and spent some time there. According to The Alexiad, the account written by Anna Comnena of that time from the viewpoint of the reign of her father, Alexios I:

He saw many forbidden and wicked things occurring there… so he sought out the patriarch of the holy church of Jerusalem and asked why gentiles and evil men were able to pollute holy places and steal away offerings from the faithful, using the church as if a stable, beating up Christians, despoiling pilgrims through unjust fees, and inflicting on them many sufferings." The frustrated patriarch threw up his hands in exasperation: "Why do you reprimand me and disturb me in the midst of my fatherly cares? I have but the strength and power of a tiny ant when compared to those proud men. We have to redeem our lives here by regular tribute payments or else face death-dealing punishment."

Perhaps he was discouraged by what he saw in Jerusalem. In 1099 he went to Latakia (Laodicea) in Syria, and from there sailed west and home. On his way home, with Count Conon of Montaigou, a storm threatened their ship, but subsided when they prayed and promised to found a church if they survived. The two later founded Neufmoustier Abbey in Huy.

It seems he founded an Augustinian monastery in France, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The contemporary Albert of Aachen claims Peter died there in 1131 as its prior, but this must be a fabrication. In the records of Neufmoustier Abbey we find an entry for 8 July 1115:

...the death of Dom Pierre, of pious memory, venerable priest and hermit, who deserved to be appointed by the Lord to announce the first to the holy Cross.

We assume this is more accurate than Albert, especially since Albert had a tendency to presume things that suited him. And because Neufmoustier contains Peter's tomb (see illustration).

One item attributed to Peter that cannot be proven is that he invented the rosary, presumably as a guide for the illiterate in their prayers. Tomorrow we'll look at what history we know about the rosary.

The People's Crusade Ends

After the terrible situation (for the People's Crusade) at Xerigordos, where several thousand German Crusaders were converted to Islam or killed, some Turkish spies infiltrated the main Crusader camp before news of the Xerigordos outcome was known and spread rumors that Nicaea had similarly been captured by the Germans.

Peter the Hermit, who had been leading the Crusade, had gone back to Constantinople for supplies. In his absence, the Crusade—under the leadership of a Frenchman, Geoffrey Burel—convinced the fighting men they should go right away to Nicaea, leaving the women and children and the old and sick behind. As a result, 20,000 headed toward Nicaea on 21 October 1096.

The Turks were waiting on the road to Nicaea and ambushed the Europeans in a narrow wooded valley in an event called the Battle of Civetot. Most of the men were slaughtered. Any women and children who tagged along were spared. A few thousand, including Burel, fled to a nearby abandoned fortress, besieged by Turks until a Byzantine army arrived to rescue them.

Of the 40,000 who set out after meeting Peter the Hermit in Cologne, the 3,000 who survived the Turks' ambush were all that remained of useful Crusaders. Peter, with a fraction of the original group, spent the winter of 1096/97 in Constantinople, waiting for the main army to arrive, after which they continued to the Holy Land.

The events referred to as the "People's Crusade" were now concluded. What happened after was all part of the official First Crusade. Since I started several days ago intending to discuss Peter the Hermit, however, let us follow him to Palestine where his story continues. (The illustration is from a 1270 French manuscript with Peter showing the way to Jerusalem.)