Dionysius Exiguus

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Dionysius Exiguus

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Dionysius Exiguus , d. c.545, Roman monk, chronologist, and scholar, a transmitter of Greek thought to the Middle Ages. He made collections of 5th-century papal decretals and the canons of the early church councils. Dionysius, in an attempt to improve the reckoning of the date of Easter, was the first (525) to use our present system of reckoning a date from the time of the birth of Jesus (see era ).

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Dionysius

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church | 2000 | | © The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Dionysius (7) Exiguus (d. between 529 and c.556), Scythian monk, famous for his contributions to chronology and canon law. He seems to have arrived in Rome soon after the death of Gelasius I (496). When called upon to construct a new Easter cycle, he abandoned the era of Diocletian and dated the first year in his Easter cycle from the (supposed) year of the Incarnation. The ‘Christian Era’ was adopted by Bede; it is that still in use. His corpus of canon law was the first collection to gain wide influence.

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E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Dionysius." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 8 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Dionysius." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (December 8, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-DionysiusExiguus.html

E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Dionysius." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Retrieved December 08, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-DionysiusExiguus.html

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Related articles from newspapers, magazines, and more

To Him, Calendar Makes Zero Sense
Newspaper article from: Chicago Sun-Times; 1/27/1995; ; 700+ words ; ...had never heard of this guy Dionysius Exiguus who apparently was very big...according to Monson, is that this Dionysius Exiguus, a monk and early Christian...establishment of Rome, to which Dionysius assigned the date of Jan. 1...
CATCH NEW-MILLENNIUM FEVER -- ONE YEAR EARLY.(MAIN)
Newspaper article from: Albany Times Union (Albany, NY); 2/28/1999; 700+ words ; ...the sixth-century scholar Dionysius Exiguus.'' Or, if you grant greater...About 1,500 years ago the monk Dionysius Exiguus -- Dennis the Short -- was...persecuted early Christians, and Dionysius said in a letter he ``preferred...
Nearing the Real 1,000-Year Switch / A year after celebration, millennium almost here.(NEWS)
Newspaper article from: San Francisco Chronicle; 12/25/2000; ; 700+ words ; ...confusion. "I understand this argument comes up every thousand years," he said. BLAME DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS All of this is the fault of the scholar Dionysius Exiguus, who lived in what is now Russia and compiled a table of dates from a Roman calendar...
ONE YEAR EARLY, OR FOUR YEARS LATE?
Newspaper article from: The Record (Bergen County, NJ); 12/20/1998; ; 482 words ; ...calendrical mix-up. His name is Dionysius Exiguus -- literally, "Dennis the...the sixth century. Back then, Dionysius and everyone else in the Western...an overhaul, and he charged Dionysius with the task. In a bit of historical...
TAKE STOCK OF HOW YOU SPEND TIME
Newspaper article from: The Record (Bergen County, NJ); 12/23/1999; ; 700+ words ; ...computation of years done by Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth-century monk. Trying...year in which Jesus was born. Dionysius Exiguus means "Dennis the Short...calculations. Scholars believe Dionysius was wrong by four years or more...
Just phenomenal Past counting
Newspaper article from: The Scotsman; 1/1/2000; ; 580 words ; ...invented by a Roman monk named Dionysius Exiguus who proposed that years be numbered...practice at the time. Since Dionysius believed that Christ was born...currently living in AD533. Note that Dionysius started with year one, not year...
Let's celebrate the birth of a very good idea
Newspaper article from: Belfast Telegraph; 12/22/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...may previously have mentioned Dionysius Exiguus, Russian-born monk, martyr...Christmas. It was in 525AD that Dionysius was asked by the Pope to devise...festivals. Logically enough, Dionysius began by identifying the day...
Noteworthy Ukrainians: Inventing time and the Ukrainian connection
Newspaper article from: Ukrainian Weekly, The; 2/11/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...Era is generally attributed to Dionysius Exiguus, (c. 470-540) that is...of present-day Ukraine), Dionysius was an abbot who came to Rome...Pope John I in about 525. When Dionysius initiated his cycle of the Christian...
After 1,500 years the date's still wrong - and it's all the fault of Denis Questions & Answers
Newspaper article from: The Sunday Telegraph London; 12/28/2003; ; 590 words ; ...AD 2004, lies in the work of Dionysius Exiguus ("Denis the Lesser"), a...1,400 years ago. In AD 532 Dionysius proposed a Christian calendar...Time (Wiley, 2000). First, Dionysius did not do the obvious thing...
Quando festeggiare il 2000? Problemi di cronologia cristiana
Magazine article from: The Catholic Historical Review; 10/1/1999; ; 676 words ; ...the widely held assumption that Dionysius Exiguus miscalculated the date of Jesus...was closer to the date fixed by Dionysius that tradition has used to mark...and Rome. In the sixth century Dionysius, a Scythian monk resident in...

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