‘Sexta aetas continet annos

praeteritos DCCVIIII’
(Bede, De temporibus, 22):
A Scribal Error?

MASAKO OHASHI

D
uring the Middle Ages the reckoning of Easter was one of the most
important and difficult problems for the church, since the festival had to be
fixed by following a complicated lunisolar calendar.1 The system adopted in
the medieval West was composed by the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus in the
early sixth century,2 in which he also introduced in his paschal table a new style of
counting years from the birth of Jesus Christ. This is the AD (Anno Domini)
reference that is now used world-wide. However, it was not Dionysius but Bede who
really introduced the AD into historiography in the West. The Historia ecclesiastica
gentis Anglorum (731) uses the AD to describe English and non-English events.3
Thus Bede adopted it in his famous history, but it was nearly thirty years before the
publication of that work that he first explained how to calculate the ‘Year of the

1
On medieval Easter reckoning in general, see C. W. Jones, Bedae Opera de temporibus
(Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1943), pp. 6–113 (hereafter BOT); Bede:
The Reckoning of Time, trans. with introduction, notes and commentary by Faith Wallis,
Translated Texts for Historians, 29 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), pp. xv–ci.
2
The computistical works of Dionysius Exiguus were edited by B. Krusch, Studien zur
christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie; II: Die Entstehung unserer heutigen Zeitrechnung
(Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1938), pp. 75–81 (Argumenta titulorum paschalium);
pp. 82–86 (Ep. ad Bonifacium et Bonum); pp. 63–68 (Ep. ad Petronium).
3
The standard editions of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History are: Baedae opera historica, ed.
by Charles Plummer, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1896); and Bede:
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. by B. Colgrave and R. A. B.
Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). In this paper, I use the Plummer edition.
56 MASAKO OHASHI

Lord’ by following Dionysius.

When he was about thirty years old, Bede started his career as a scholar, and
De temporibus was one of his earliest works.4 In Chapter 14, in which he explains
how to calculate the ‘Year of the Lord’, he gives an indication of the year of
composition (annus praesens). This is given as AD 703, the fifth year of the
Emperor Tiberius III.5 The reference to the same emperor (and the same regnal year)
is found in the last chapter of the work.6
However, there remains a problem in the transmission of the text. At the
beginning of Chapter 22, we read ‘Sexta aetas continet annos praeteritos DCCVIIII’
(‘the sixth age contains 709 completed years’).7 Here Bede shows the traditional
theological division of the universal history. The sixth age started at the birth of
Jesus Christ, and the sum of the years (here 709) should give the Anno Domini. But
the number does not correspond with the AD found in Chapter 14 of the same work.
Historians have suggested that this number is a scribal error. Charles Plummer, for
instance, the editor of Bede’s historical works in the late nineteenth century (Baedae
Opera Historica), reading the number as DCCVIII, states: ‘this is a mistake for
DCCIII, the V being wrongly inserted’.8 Theodor Mommsen, the editor of Bede’s
Chronica minora and Chronica maiora in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, also
suggests that the number should be emended.9 Given the unreliability of medieval
manuscripts, particularly as regards numbers, this interpretation seems to be
plausible. However, the five manuscripts used by Mommsen for his edition
(followed by Jones) offer conflicting evidence on the number. Manuscripts F and P
record it as DCCVIIII; manuscripts E, H and M, which insert the sentence ‘Sexta
aetas annos iam (om. E) praeteritos’ into a different line, omit the number itself.10
4
Bede’s De temporibus (DT) is divided into two parts, one is the main text of the
computus (ch. 1–16) and the other the Chronica minora (ch. 17–22). The former part was first
edited by Jones, BOT, pp. 295–303. The latter part was edited by Theodor Mommsen,
Chronica minora saec. IV, V, VI, VII, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores antiquissimi,
9, 11, 13 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892–98), III (1898), 247–317. The whole work is available in
Bedae Venerabilis Opera didascalica, ed. by C. W. Jones, Corpus Christianorum, Series
Latina, 123, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975–80), III (1980), 585–611, which uses
Mommsen’s edition for Chapters 17–22. Here I use CCSL.
5
Bede, DT, 14, pp. 598–99.
6
Bede, DT, 22, p. 611.
7
Bede, DT, 22, p. 607.
8
Plummer, Baedae opera historica, I, cxlvi. Jones simply follows Plummer about the year
of composition. Jones, BOT, p. 130.
9
Mommsen states: ‘Numerus p. Chr. 709, qui ponitur c. 173, minus fidus est venitque
opinor a librario auctoris aequali’ (Chronica minora, III, 226n.3), thus dating the error to one
of the first earliest copies.
10
Bede, DT, 22, p. 607 (Jones, Bedae Venerabilis Opera); and p. 280 (Mommsen,
Chronica minora).
‘Sexta aetas continet annos praeteritos DCCVIIII’ 57

Since the editor(s) chose the reading of manuscripts F and P for the main text, the
number DCCVIIII in question here must have entered the text at a relatively early
period (MS F was transcribed in c. AD 800; MS P in AD 810).11 But why the same
supposedly mistaken number in the two earliest manuscripts? And why do the three
other manuscripts omit the number itself, although the scribes clearly tried to copy
the sentence? To consider this point, we will at first examine Bede’s understanding
of the relationship between the Anno Domini and the Anno Passionis. The
investigation will then offer another possibility for solving this problem.
Since the fifth year of the Emperor Tiberius III was from AD 702 to 703,
Bede’s calculation of the Anno Domini in De temporibus, 14, presents no difficulty.
When we consider, however, the earlier methods of chronology, the adoption of the
AD by Bede should be carefully examined. What kind of chronology had been used
before Bede introduced the Anno Domini? Bede’s reference to the monks of the
Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery in De temporum ratione (725) may shed some light
on this issue.12 In Chapter 47, Bede states that when his colleagues visited Rome in
the 701st year of Jesus’s incarnation according to Dionysius, the fourteenth
indiction, they found and copied the inscription from the candles in St Mary’s
Church, revealing that it was ‘the 668th year from the Passion’.13 Bede offers this
story in order to ‘prove’ that the date of Easter in the 566th year of the Dionysiac
table should correspond with the historical date of the Passion (=AD 34). Because
Jesus started his preaching at the age of around thirty, and continued his activity for
three and a half years, the year of the Incarnation will be found by adding thirty-
three (or thirty-four) years to the year of the Passion (668 + 33 = 701).
The visit to Rome took place during the time Ceolfrith was abbot, and in the
papacy of Sergius I. The references to the privilege received by the Wearmouth-
Jarrow monastery at the time of Sergius (a reconfirmation of the privilege given
earlier by Pope Agatho) are found in the anonymous Vita Ceolfridi14 and Bede’s
Historia abbatum.15 It is not certain if Bede had received the information about the
year of the Passion before he published De temporibus in 703. But Bede’s reference

11
See Jones, Bedae Venerabilis Opera didascalica, III, 584.
12
De temporum ratione (DTR) is also divided into two parts: the main text (ch. 1–65), and
the Chronica maiora (ch. 66–71). The former part was edited in Jones, BOT, pp. 175–291; the
latter by Mommsen in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores antiquissimi, 13 (Berlin:
Weidmann, 1898) with the Chronica minora in parallel (pp. 247–327). Jones, Bedae
Venerabilis Opera didascalica, II (1977) includes the whole work. The translation by F.
Wallis is also available (see Wallis, Bede).
13
Bede, DTR, 47, p. 431.
14
Vita Ceolfridi Abbatis, 20; see Plummer, Baedae opera historica, I, 395.
15
Bede, Historia abbatum, 15; see Plummer, Baedae opera historica, I, 380. Bede also
refers to the original privilege given by Pope Agatho in the same work, 1, 6; see Plummer,
Baedae opera historica, I, 369.
58 MASAKO OHASHI

in De temporum ratione suggests that the introduction of the Anno Domini had not
yet been fully accepted. It was necessary for him to guarantee the precision and
usefulness of the AD with some authority. Bede, then, sought a new explanation of
the relationship between the Anno Domini and the Anno Passionis when he was
writing the second book on time.
Traditional ways of designating years varied in the medieval West. In Bede’s
time, three ways were mainly used in referring to the history of Christianity: Anno
Mundi (AM), Anno Passionis (AP) and Anno Domini (AD). The Anno Mundi, the
year of the world from the Creation, had been calculated by many authors especially
in the East. They used the Septuagint, and traditionally calculated 5000–5500 years
from the Creation to the Incarnation. The Westerners followed the examples in the
East, and the calculation by Eusebius of Caesarea (AM 5199 for the Incarnation) was
influential through the Latin translation of the Chronicon by Jerome.16 Bede in De
temporibus refers to the Eusebean chronology, but he had another view on the
question. Bede states that there were only 3952 years from the Creation to the
Incarnation.17 This number, he shows, derives not from the Septuagint but from the
Hebrew as given in the Vulgate translation by Jerome which was based on the
Hebraica Veritas. This however caused an accusation of heresy to be brought
against him. Bede apologized in the letter to Plegwin (written five years after the
publication of De temporibus)18 and again in De temporum ratione in which Bede,
nonetheless, still insisted upon his calculation.19
Besides the AM calculations by Eusebius and Bede, there was another tradition
having influence in the West. Victorius of Aquitaine composed the Easter cycle of
532 years at the request of Archdeacon Hilarus (later Pope Hilarus), and used two
chronological standards for his reckoning: the Anno Mundi and the Anno Passionis.
In his letter to Hilarus, Victorius explains that he calculated the year of the Passion
as being AM 5228,20 and the publication of his table as AM 5658, the consulate of
Constantine and Rufus.21 From this we know that the year of composition was AD
457. Victorius shows that the Passion took place in AM 5228, whereas Eusebius put
this as the year of the baptism of Jesus. Thus there is a three-year-interval between
Eusebius and Victorius in the AM calculation. Victorius’s calculation, however,
contained another chronological problem. Since he calculated AM 5228 for the

16
Eusebius-Jerome, Chronicon, in Eusebius Werke: Die Chronik des Hieronimus, ed. by
R. Helm, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Jahrhunderte, 47 (Berlin:
Akademie, 1956).
17
Bede, DT, 22, p. 607.
18
Bede, Ep. ad Pleguinam, ed. by Jones, Bedae Venerabilis Opera didascalica, III, 617–
26; translation by Wallis, Bede, pp. 405–15.
19
Bede, DTR, 67, pp. 535–37.
20
Victorius Aquitanus, Prologus ad Hilarum archidiaconum, 9, in Krusch, Studien, II, 24.
21
Victorius Aquitanus, Prologus, 7, in Krusch, Studien, II, 23.
‘Sexta aetas continet annos praeteritos DCCVIIII’ 59

Passion and AM 5658 for his own writing, the latter was the 430th year from the
Passion. From a comparison between the Victorian and the Dionysiac tables (which
have minor differences in the dates for Easter), it is clear that the historical year of
the Passion given by Victorius was AD 28.22
When Bede, in De temporum ratione, Chapter 47, insisted that the date of
Easter in AD 566 should correspond with the historical date of Jesus’s resurrection
in the Dionysiac table (AD 34), did he compare the Victorian and the Dionysiac
tables? The first year of the Anno Passionis by Victorius is AD 28, and the second
cycle of the 532-year table begins in AD 560 (28 + 532 = 560), six years before the
calculation by Bede according to the table of Dionysius (AD 566). In this case, the
problem is that Dionysius Exiguus omitted any reference to the year of the Passion.
As has been suggested above, Bede needed some witness to explain the relationship
between the Anno Domini and the Anno Passionis. The AP referred to by Bede here
is not that of Victorius but of St Mary’s Church in Rome, which the monks of
Wearmouth-Jarrow had visited in AD 701.
When computists in Bede’s period found the term Anno Passionis, it is
probable that they understood it as the AP given by Victorius of Aquitaine. For
instance, the Munich Computus (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. 14456, early
ninth century; exemplar written in AD 718),23 comparing the Irish 84-year, Victorian
and Dionysiac cycles, basically follows the AM by Victorius in the chronology. And
it states that the Passion took place in AM 5228, the same year as given by
Victorius.24 The same author copied a computistical work written in AD 689 that
was based on the Victorian table. The exemplar refers to the AP 130 of the Victorian
table (= AD 157) in fol. 23r, implying that it had been written in AD 689 (157 + 532
= 689).25
The Victorian cycle was one of the two ‘erroneous’ methods of Easter
reckoning in Bede’s estimation (another is the Irish 84-year cycle). In De temporum
ratione, Chapter 51, Bede vigorously attacks Victorius,26 and the basic points of

22
Krusch, Studien, II, 27.
23
On the major studies of the Munich Computus, see B. Krusch, ‘Die Einführung des
griechischen Paschalritus im Abendland’, Neues Archiv, 9 (1884), 99–169; E. Schwartz,
Christliche und judische Ostertafeln (Berlin: Weidmann, 1905); Annals of Ulster: A Chronicle
of Irish Affairs from AD 431 to AD 1540, ed. by W. M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy, 4 vols
(Dublin: [Stationery Office], 1887–1901), esp. IV (1901) edited by MacCarthy; D. J.
O’Connell, ‘Easter Cycles in the Early Irish Church’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of
Antiquaries of Ireland, 66 (1936), 67–106.
24
The MS states ‘Rimari ad initium huius creaturae per annos VCCXXVIII. usque ad
passionem’ (fol. 23v).
25
For Krusch this was the main evidence for composition in AD 689, but other scholars
agree that this part was copied by the compiler of the Munich Computus in AD 718.
26
Bede, DTR, 51, pp. 437–41.
60 MASAKO OHASHI

criticism are: (1) the lunar limits for Easter Sunday between the sixteenth and the
twenty-second; (2) the limits of the first day of the first month between 5 March and
2 April. Here Bede attacks the Victorian cycle for allowing the possibility of
celebrating Easter before the vernal equinox on 21 March. The same attack had
already been made by Abbot Ceolfrith in his letter to King Nechtan of the Picts,27
and Bede’s attitude towards the Victorian cycle clearly follows that of his master.
Although Bede never states that the Victorian cycle had ever been used in Britain, it
is obvious that this traditional way of reckoning Easter was used by those who were
following the Roman church custom before the Synod of Whitby (664). In his letter
attempting to persuade King Geraint of Wales and his clergy to stop using the British
way of Easter reckoning (which followed the same criterion as the Irish 84-year
cycle), Aldhelm of Malmesbury refers to the Victorian cycle as being inferior to the
more certain method brought from Rome.28 The reason for Bede’s attack was thus
the theological danger involved in the Victorian cycle.
Turning now to the text under consideration, we may admit that because of the
ease of confusion in Roman numerals, it is highly possible that the sentence in De
temporibus, Chapter 22, contains a scribal error in the numeral. However, when we
consider the different attitudes towards the Victorian cycle in the early Middle Ages,
another interpretation of the problem is possible.
Since the calculations of the Anno Mundi and the Anno Passionis by Victorius
were directly connected, the Victorian 532-year cycle could be widely adopted as an
Easter table. The usefulness of a 532-year cycle had already been known by
computists in the British Isles before Bede published his main work on time, as the
letter of Ceolfrith to King Nechtan shows.29 Did, then, the users of the Victorian
cycle adopt it to record events, as Bede did with the Dionysiac table for his histories?
We may point out that Jonas of Bobbio, who had written the Life of Columbanus in
c. 640, used the Victorian table for his chronology in the Life of Abbot John of
Réôme. At the beginning of the work, it is stated that Jonas wrote the life in ‘Anno
centesimo post explicionem numeri sancti Victori episcopi, ciclum recapitulantem’
(‘the one-hundredth year of the recapitulated cycle of Holy Bishop Victorius after
the completion of the number’).30 This means that he composed his work in AD 659.

27
The letter of Ceolfrith (705/16) is preserved in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, V, 21; in
Plummer, Baedae opera historica, I, 333–45. Some historians, such as Plummer (Plummer,
Baedae opera historica, II, 332, 392), suggest that the letter was written by Bede himself, but
recent studies tend to recognize that Ceolfrith was the author. See D. Ó. Cróinín, ‘“New
Heresy for Old”: Pelagianism in Ireland and the Papal Letter of 640’, Speculum, 60 (1985),
505–16, esp. pp. 515–16.
28
Aldhelm, Ep. ad Gerontium, in Aldhelmi opera, ed. by R. Ehwald, Monumenta
Germaniae historica, Auctores antiquissimi, 15 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), pp. 480–86.
29
Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, V, 21; see Plummer, Baedae opera historica, I, 341.
30
Jonas, Vita Iohannis abbatis Reomaensis (Incipit), ed. by B. Krusch, in Passiones
vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici, et antiquiorum aliquot, ed. by B. Krusch and W.
‘Sexta aetas continet annos praeteritos DCCVIIII’ 61

In Merovingean Francia, the Victorian calculation (both the Anno Mundi and the
Anno Passionis) was sometimes used to designate the years in the history of the
Franks. The Victorian cycle continued to be used in Gaul even after the publication
of Bede’s De temporum ratione.31
This situation may have influenced the transmission of Bede’s works.
Generally speaking, the scribes of the five manuscripts used in Mommsen’s edition
(reproduced in Jones) are careful in copying the first sentence of each chapter for the
first five ages in the Chronica minora (De temporibus, chapters 17–21). Only the
last chapter, 22, presents a problem. Of course, Bede should have written the year as
DCCIII if he really believed that the calculation of the Anno Domini by Dionysius
should give the historical years from the Incarnation of Jesus. But what of other
computists (or copyists) in Gaul or elsewhere who were following the Victorian
chronology? Is it possible to suggest that a later computist added six years to DCCIII
in order to make it correspond with the Victorian chronology for the fifth year of the
Emperor Tiberius III? As has been mentioned above, Bede inserts a so-called ‘proof’
of the relationship between the Anno Domini and the Anno Passionis in Chapter 47
of De temporum ratione. Bede maintains that the historical year of the Passion and
Resurrection was AD 34, and that the same date should recur in AD 566 of the
Dionysiac table. But the historical year of the Passion was calculated as AM 5228 (=
AD 28) by Victorius. So, there was a six-year-interval between the Victorian and the
Dionysiac calculations of the year of the Passion, and therefore, of the Incarnation
(the beginning of the sixth age). This caused confusion among computists. Chapter
22 could have been changed by a scribe (ignoring the main text of De temporibus) to
give the years of the sixth age according to the Victorian calculation, while in
another manuscript tradition the problematic number was simply omitted.

Nanzan University

Levison, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, 3–7, 5 vols

(Hannover: Hahn, 1896–1920), I, 505. Victorius of Aquitaine was probably not a bishop, but
some later authors give him the title.
31
Krusch, Studien, II, 53–57.