Chapter 7.
THE EPOCH OF THE XII CENTURY
34. CALENDAR-ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE FIRST COUNCIL OF NICAEA AND CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
&& WHEN COMPUTUS (PASCHAL CYCLE) WAS DETERMINED.
We will cite the summary of research by G.V.Nosovsky [6v3], ch.2. We are talking here about the two major milestones of the traditional chronology – the Nativity of Christ and the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, often called the Council of Nicaea. The Scaligerian version is largely based on these dates. The fact is that Scaliger built the chronology primarily as the chronology of the history of the church. Secular chronology is presented in his works as secondary, based on the synchronisms with ecclesiastical events.
Apparently both dates – The Nativity of Christ and the Council of Nicaea – were dated by Scaliger absolutely incorrectly.
In [6v3], ch.2 it is described how exactly these dates were calculated by the Mediaeval chronologists and which errors were made. What's most interesting is – WHAT DATES COME UP AS A RESULT, IF THESE ERRORS ARE CORRECTED. Also it gives an account of the true reason for the famous Gregorian calendar reform of the XVI century, after which there were two styles developed in our calendar – 'old' and 'new.
It is thought that at the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325 the church calendar was determined compiled and approved. The Christian Church always believed this calendar, called the PASCHAL CALENDAR, to be of great importance. The Church paschal calendar-computus consists of two parts – immovable and moveable.
THE IMMOVABLE part – is a civil calendar called 'Julian Calendar' as its compilation is associated with Julius Caesar. In it the year consists of 12 months. Every fourth year an additional day is added – 29 February. The Julian calendar is closely connected with the Christian Liturgy. The 'immovable' Christian holidays are allocated according to the dates of the Julian calendar. Every year they fall on the same day of the same month of the Julian calendar.
THE MOVEABLE part of the church calendar determines the dates of the observance of Easter and some other holy days which are calculated relative to Easter. The Christian Easter and the feast days which are counted from it are MOVEABLE, as their places in the Julian calendar change from year to year, moving according to the date of the Christian Easter. The day of Easter moves within the dates of the Julian calendar according to a definite rule. This rule – 'Computus' is quite complicated and is connected to astronomical concepts.
This combination of the immovable and the moveable parts of the church calendar is called the Paschal calendar or simply Paschalia.
Thus both parts of the Paschal calendar-Computus determine the order of the church service for every day of any year. That is why the canonisation of the Paschal calendar-Computus had a pivotal significance for the church. It was Computus which provided the uniformity in the church service in many diverse locations. All the chronological problems connected with the dating of the Nativity of Christ and the history of the church calendar play an important role in our perception of not only the history of the church, but also about the entire Mediaeval Eurasia.
The two main apostolic canons of Easter are as follows:
1) Not to co-celebrate Easter together with the Israelites.
2) To celebrate Easter only following the vernal equinox.
Then, when compiling the Paschalia, the Holy Fathers of the Council of Nicaea who have established Paschalia, added two more canons. The fact is, that the first two apostolic canons do not yet clearly determine the day of Easter unequivocally. The two new canons are:
3) To celebrate Easter only after the first Vernal Full Moon. i.e. following the Jewish Passover, which in the Christian patristic literature was sometimes called the 'Law Passover'- i.e. Passover according to the Law of Moses, and sometimes – the '14th Lunar month of Nisan'.
4) Besides, to celebrate Easter not on any week day, but precisely on the first Sunday following this full moon, i.e. following the Jewish Passover (Pesach).
STATEMENT 1. The Council which established Paschal (it is thought to be the Council of Nicaea) could not have taken place earlier than 784, as only beginning with this year, due to the slow astronomical shift of the moon phases, the concurrencies of the calendar (determined by Paschal) Christian Easter and the 'lunar'('Cynthian') Jewish Passover-Full Moon had ceased. In 784 such a concurrency took place for the last time and then the dates of the Christian Easter and Jewish Passover diverged forever. Therefore the Council of Nicaea a priori could not have canonised The paschal calendar in the IV century, when the calendar Christian Easter would have coincided with the Jewish Passover eight (!) times – in the years 316, 319, 323, 343, 347, 367, 374 and 394 and five (!) times would have even fallen two days EARLIER than it (which is explicitly forbidden by 4th canon of Easter, namely – in the years 306 and 326 (i.e. allegedly in a year after the Council of Nicaea!), and also in the years 46, 350 and 370.
STATEMENT 2. The reasonable concurrence (give or take 24 hours) of the Paschal calendar Full Moons fixed at the Council of Nicaea, with the observed astronomical full moons, existed only during the period of time from circa 700 until circa 1000. In the epoch prior to the year 700 the calculated full moons occurred always later then the Paschal ones, and after the year 1000 it was the opposite, the calculated vernal full moons, i.e. the days of the Jewish Passover according to the Paschal determination, began to take place earlier than the Paschal full moons. The beginning of the 13th Great Indiction (877) falls EXACTLY AT THE TIME OF THE IDEAL CONCURRENCES OF THE PASCHAL AND ASTRONOMICAL FULL MOONS.
This means that Computus could have been compiled only during the epoch from the VII to XI cc. AD. Therefore the dating of the Council of Nicaea which determined the Paschal calendar is possible only as the VII-XI cc., and the most likely dating is the epoch of the X-XI cc., after the year 877.
&& THE RESULT OF THE DATINGS OF THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA.
In [6v3], ch.2, it is shown, that Computus could have been compiled:
- Not earlier than year 784 – by definition of the Christian Easter;
- Not earlier than year 700 – according to the concurrence of the paschal and astronomic Full Moons;
- Not earlier than year 700 – according to the 'Damascene palm' 'the hand of John of Damascus';
- Not earlier than 743 – according to Matthew Vlastar (lived in the XIV century), and therefore, according to the ecclesiastical tradition of the Orthodox church and the entire Russian-Byzantine tradition, the voice of which was Vlastar's.
Thus, Paschalia was not established earlier than the second half of the VIII century, and not at all in the II-V cc., as we are told. In the light of the new chronology it becomes clear, that the canonisation of Paschalia at the Council of Nicaea dates to the epoch of the XI-XIV cc. The Paschal calendar could have also easily comprised of some old astronomical formulations of the VII-XI cc., which however by that time had firmly entered ecclesiastical tradition.
&& THE MAIN CONCLUSIONS.
# Paschalian calendar based on the events of the astronomical nature 'contains' the date of its compilation, i.e. allows the objective independent dating.
# This date appears to be significantly later than it is previously believed. It is at a distance of at least some centuries from the Scaligerian year of 325.
# It is this date in particular, and not the one accepted today (325), which was known to Matthew Vlastar in the XIV century and, therefore, is a part of the old tradition of the Orthodox Church.
&& THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST AND THE BEGINNING OF 'CURRENT ERA ('A.D.')
It is well known that since the beginning of A.D. (Anno Domini, 'Current Era') or 'era since the birth of Christ', there was no continuous yearly calculation until the current year. The first year 'A.D.' was calculated much later as the year of the Nativity of Christ. It is widely believed that originally this year was calculated by the Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus in the VI century, i.e. more than 500 years after the event he dated. Whereby Dionysius at first calculated the date of Christ's Resurrection, and then used the ecclesiastical legend, that Christ was crucified in the 31st year of his life. The Resurrection date according to Dionysius is the 25 March 5539 from Adam, and the year of the Nativity of Christ is consequently 5508 from Adam (according to the Byzantine era).
Dionysius' calculations were controversial in the West up until the XV century, and in Byzantine were never canonized.
&& THE CALENDAR HYPOTHESIS OF THE RESURRECTION'.
The ecclesiastic traditions according to the Gospels claims, that Christ was resurrected on Sunday the 25 March the next day after the Jewish Passover. Which, accordingly, fell on Saturday 24 March on that occasion. It was these very calendar-astronomical 'Paschal conditions', which we call the 'conditions of the Resurrection', that Dionysius had in mind when while calculating the dates of Christ Resurrection and Nativity. The full set of the calendar conditions associated with – the stable church tradition – the Resurrection of Christ, can be found in the 'Collection of the Holy Father's rules' of Matthew Vlastar (XIV century). He gives the following calendar regulations for the year of Christ's Resurrection:
1) circle for the Sun 23,
2) circle for the Moon 10,
3) the previous day, on the 24th March, the Jewish Passover took place, which is celebrated on the 14th day of the Moon (i.e. Full Moon,)
4) The Jewish Passover took place on Saturday, and Christ was resurrected on Sunday.
The combination of these four points we will call the calendar 'conditions of the Resurrection'. The Question: is it possible to restore the date of the Resurrection using the dates above? The answer: Yes, it is.
&& THE DATING OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE TOTAL NUMBER OF THE 'CONDITIONS OF THE RESURRECTION'.
G.G.Nosovsky conducted the computer-based calculations for each year for the period from year 100 B.C. to year 1700 A.D. The day of the vernal Full Moon (14 Moon (Nisan), or Jewish Passover) is calculated according to the Gauss algorithm and the Christian Easter, circle for the Sun and circle for the Moon – according to Computus. In the same way that Dionysius and Matthew Vlastar, we assume that the day of Resurrection was the Paschal (Easter) day according to Computus.
Statement 3. The calendar 'conditions for the Resurrection' 1-4, associated by the consistent church tradition of the XIV century with the date of the Passions and Resurrection of Christ, occurred ONLY ONCE: in 1095.
The very fact of the existence of the exact solution is absolutely crucial. If the listed conditions were the result of pure fantasy, then, most likely, we wouldn't have been able to find any exact solution throughout the historical era at all.
CONCLUSION. The Nativity of Christ (according to the erroneous traditions of the XIV century chronologists) was dated circa 1064 – 31 years before 1095.
The date of 1095 corresponds with the dating of the life of 'pope Hildebrand' ('Pope Gregory VII', born Hildebrand of Sovana – Tr.) (the phantom reflection of Christ from the XII century). This dating (the result of the erroneous mediaeval calculations) was originally restored by A.T.Fomenko with entirely different methods in [1v] and [2v1], ch.4. Thus we discovered the mediaeval tradition of erroneously dating the life of Christ to the XI century. The final dating of the Nativity of Christ which we arrived at in [TsRS] gives us the middle of the XII century, i.e. a century later. When correlating this date with the dating of Computus we can see that Computus was compiled, at least in its original version, way before Christ. Is it contradictory to the ecclesiastical history and legend? It appears to be a difficult question. In the old church text both arguments 'for' and 'against' can be found. The absolute contradiction occurs only with that outlook upon the history of the church which took shape not earlier than the XVI-XVII cc. i.e. by that time under the influence of the Scaligerian chronology.
That is why it is no probability that the dates of Resurrection and Nativity of Christ were calculated in the VI century based on the calendar situation of the year 563. Besides, as it is shown in [6v3], ch.2, the calculation, which was used by Dionysius, itself was compiled not earlier than the XVIII century and was canonized only the IX century.
Therefore the computations of Dionysius Exiguus (Dionysius the Small), or possibly attributed to him, were carried out not earlier than the X century. And therefore 'Dionysius Exiguus' himself could not have lived earlier than the X century.
In the chapter of the 'Collection of the Holy Father's rules' by Matthew Vlastar which is related to Easter (Passover), it says that 'at present' equinox falls on the 18th March [6v3], ch.2. In fact the vernal equinox in the times of Vlastar in the XIV century fell on the 12th March. It fell on the 18th March in the VI century.
This means, that when dating Vlastar's text according to the vernal equinox we will by default arrive at the VI century! It appears, that the same later-mediaeval text was included both into the 'Rules' of Matthew Vlastar and the writing of Dionysius the Small. It is possible that this is text written by Vlastar himself or by someone of his immediate predecessors in the XIII-XIV cc. It includes the dating of the Resurrection of Christ, but nothing is said about the date of the Nativity of Christ. It is feasible, that it is the text by Vlastar which 'Dionysius the Small' used very soon after, who deducted 31 years from the date of Christ's Resurrection, arrived at the date of the 'Nativity of Christ' and presented his new era. If it took place in the XIV century, then the beginning of the systematic use of this era specifically only just since the XV century (from 1431) in the West is understandable. Subsequently, possibly in the XVII century, Dionysius' text was dated by the equinox as the VI century and there emerged the above mentioned reconstruction of his computations. The name 'Dionysius the Small' itself (Small = Exiguus in Latin), according the hypothesis expressed by A.T.Fomenko (in) [1v], ch.6:17, is simply the name of the XVII century chronologist Dionysius Petavius, who completed the construction of the Scaliger chronology. Scaliger and his students lived in France. There the name 'Small' translated as 'petit' and turned into 'Petavius'.
35. ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE NEW CHRONOLOGY.
1. (1638) THE ROMAN ZODIC LV FROM LOUVRE. 'Ancient Rome', allegedly 'antiquity'. In fact: 12-17 June according to the Julian Calendar 1638 [DZEE].
2. (1661) ZODIAC FS IN THE SCYTHIAN CHAMBER OF THE DUKES D'ESTE. Fresco on the wall of the duke's palace (Palazzo Schifanoia – Tr.) Italy, Ferrara, allegedly XV century. In fact: 24 June according to the Julian calendar 1661 [GRK], ch.4.
3. (1664) THE ROMAN ZODIAK RZ ON 'MARCUS AURELIUS'' GEMMA. The embossed red jasper. Europe, allegedly 'Ancient' Rome. In fact: 8-9 December according to Julian calendar 1664 [DZEE].
4. (1667 or 1227) ZODIAC P1 FROM THE TOMB OF PETROSIRIS, OUTER CHAMBER. Colour image in the tomb ceiling. 'Ancient' Egypt, Dakhla oasis, allegedly 'antiquity'. In fact – first solution: 5 August 1227; second solution: 2 August according to Julian calendar 1667 [NKhE].
5. (1670) ZODIAK ZP CHAMBER PONTIFEX SALA. Grand frescos fully covered the ceiling of an ample chamber in one of the Vatican castles. Italy, Vatican, allegedly 1520-1521. In fact: 24-30 June according to the Julian calendar 1670 [GR], Introduction.
6. (1680) ZODIAC FR IN DUKES D'ESTE SCYTHIAN CHAMBER. Fresco on the wall of the duke's castle. Italy, Ferrara, allegedly 1468-1469. In fact 19 May according to Julian calendar 1680 [GRK], ch.4.
7. (1682) BRUGSCH ZODIAC, horoscope of the demotic postscripts (adscripts) BR1. Depicted on the internal surface of the wooden coffin lid. 'Ancient' Egypt, allegedly antiquity. In fact: 17 November 1682 according to Julian calendar or 18 November 1861 according to Julian calendar [NKhE].
8. (1686) ZODIAC FT IN DUKES' D'ESTE SCYTHIAN CHAMBER. Depicted on the fresco of the Virgin Mary, on the wall of the duke's castle. Italy, Ferrara, allegedly XV century. In fact: 15 October 1686 according to Julian calendar [ERIZ].
