Note: This article is published on the website ofSeppRothwangl (Erlengasse 12, A-8020 Graz, Austria):CALENdeRsign. Itwas a lecture held at the Conference of theAstronomicalObservatory of the University of Rome. The Proceedings of the InternationalConference "COSMOLOGY THROUGH TIME" (June 17-21, 2001) will be published in the journal'Memorie della Società Astronomica Italiana'.
It is reasonable to assume Dionysius may have done the same as Aryabhata,who calculated and located a planetary alignment more than 3,600 yearsfrom his age into the past. But could Dionysius have calculated into thefuture? The answer to this question lies in the consideration of the apocalypticbelief and expectation of the Lord's return found in Christianity.
Chronologically or astrologically considered, this return could occurat a similar event as the Star of Bethlehem, or after a time period likethe 2,000-year-long assumed age of Pisces, which began with the incarnationof Jesus. On the other hand, Christ's return could occur at the end ofthe so-called Large Year, when an alignment of all planets takes placeand, as the old cyclical worldview tells, the movements of the planetsbrought them back to the same location in the Greatest Year as at the beginningof time, a point from which the planets would start out anew, like thehands of a watch from 12:00. Both of these are encoded in the Book of Revelation,which discusses the end of time (Boll, 1914; Santillana and Dechend, 1994)
To calculate the time period of an age, another celestial movement besideplanetary alignments is involved. It is the precession of the equinoxes,due to the gyroscopic movement of Earth's axis.
The length of an age is limited by the duration in which a current constellation,year by year, functions as the announcer of the spring equinox until itis replaced by the next. Such an age is also called a Platonic month, whilethe whole wobble of Earth's axis describes the cycle of precession in thePlatonic year with about 25,800 years. Hipparchos and Ptolemy reckonedthe equinoctial precession's value as 100 years for each 1° shiftingon the ecliptic. (Ptolemaios, Heiberg 1903). Later Sassanian, Persian,and Arabic astronomers reckoned its value at 66.6 years for each 1°,which led to an accepted duration of 2000 years for each 30° (averageecliptic length of one constellation) of the zodiac (See list of medievaltestimony of precessional constant 66.6 years/1° in Appendix).
The number 666, the "Number of the Beast" in Revelation describes theassumed constant of precession of 66.6 years for each 1° in a hidden,cryptic way. Please be aware that in Greek, "zodiac," syllable by syllable,means "circle of animals" or "circle of beasts". A calendrical and archeoastronomicalanalysis of Revelation shows that it deals with end of age and thus withthe appearance of new equinoctial constellation due to precession (Rothwangl,2000).
If one assumes that the age of Pisces started with Christ's incarnationat vernal equinox, related to the symbol ICHTHYS, and if one calculateswith the constant of precession 66.6 years each 1°, then after 2000years one age ends, and a new age starts. Focusing on the end of the age,Dionysius also searched for a salient future alignment of the planets,which is calculable by a common multiple of the planetary periods. Thushe found the second significant moment: the Greatest Year, which is atthe end of the Large Year, when all the different movements of the planetsbring them to a common location and all planets align again.
What Aryabhata and Dionysius calculated was, in fact, a universal anchorfor time or creation. Aristotle called it the Greatest Year:
"... there is a yearly unit, which Aristotle calls the Greatest Yearrather than a large year. It concerns the period in which the circularpaths of the Sun, Moon and the five planets will pass through in such away that all these heavenly bodies are located in the same constellation....The time in which all planets meet again in the same sign is the "GreatestYear." In the winter of this year there will be a Cataclysm (tide or flooddisaster), in the summer will be an Ekpyrosis (world-wide fire). It seemsto be that, these periods alternate: the world is afflicted by times ofconflagration, then by times of inundation." (Censorinus, De die natale,ch. 18)
Similar account used Platon in Timaios 39 C-D and the Stoics.
Ancient philosophers here are describing nothing less than the OlympicSymposium of the Gods that took place after the creation of men by Prometheus.This symposium of all Olympic, thus celestial, gods describes, in old symboliclanguage, a meeting or conjunction, of all of the "old" naked-eye planets.Both words mean the same thing, i.e., conjunction means "meeting or alignment,"and symposium means "sitting together at a common meal!"
Besides the well-known synodic planetary periods, the shape in whichconjunctions reappear, like the alignments of Jupiter and Saturn over aperiod of 59 years that describe a shifting triplicity, gave a definitiveinstrument of forecast. One thousand years before Dionysius, the large- 854 years lasting - commensurable period of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, andSun was known (Ferrari D'Occhieppo, 1994 and Waerden, 1968). After thisperiod, these four celestial bodies return closely to the same locationon the zodiac and same date of a solar calendar. This means that with theplanetary positions of the year 292 CE as base, one can calculate two suchlarge periods and thus predict their positions for the year 2000.
A copy of a text in private hands offers a new view for the adjustmentof 1 AD. This text gives the quotation from the Liber de Paschate in aslightly different way that reveals the secret plan of Dionysius best,if we compare it with the document that the Vatican published in the PatrologiaLatina.
The Patrologia Latina text reads:
… sed magis elegimus ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christiannorum tempora prænotare, quatenus exordium spei nostræ notiusnobis existeret, et causa reparationis humanæ, id est,passioRedemptoris nostri, evidentius eluceret.
The private text (Rothwangl, 2000) reads:
… sed magis elegimus ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christiannorum tempora prænotare, quatenus exordium spei nostræ notiusnobis existeret, et causa reparationis humanæ, id est,reditusredemptionis nostrae, evidentius eluceret.
English translation of both:
There is a small but important difference between the two versions,which obviously deal with the same matter. The Vatican text focuses onthe passion of the Redeemer, but the private document focuses on the returnof the redemption. It is to be considered that Latin "redemptio" is alsotranslated as lease or rent.
The comparison reveals that in fact the two documents support two completelydifferent things. The first (passio Redemptoris) means the crucifixionof Jesus, which, however, calendrically has nothing to do with his incarnationand the year 1 AD that lies some 30 years earlier. The second (reditusredemptionis) points to the return of redemption. Redemption started inthe past with Christ's incarnation, calendar-related with NSE and ICHTHYS,but - with a view to the future – it gives a hint to the end of the Pisceanage, which in Revelation is linked with precession and doomsday. This differenceshows us the genuine reason why Dionysius Exiguus chose this, of all years,as "anno ab incarnatione", which later became "Anno Domini."
The private document also mentions some commensurable planetary periods,which can be used to figure out easily planetary alignments of some hundredyears apart:
3 Trine, 2 Saturn, 5 Jupiter (59 years)
43 Trine, 29 Saturn, 72 Jupiter, 400 Mars, 854 years 1 moon (before)
65 Jupiter, 875 Moon
152 Venus, 243 years
5 Venus, 99 moon, 8 years, 2920 days
101 Trines, 2006 years ...
... anno MM A.D. est reditus C.M ... et hic est finis piscis.
This document demonstrates that the reason for the adjustment of Christ'sincarnation was to shine light on the date of the redemption's return,which was expected on one hand when Pisces lost its function of announcingthe spring equinox, and on the other hand when an alignment of all planetsrecurred. It explicitly says that the year 2000 will bring the end of theage of Pisces. It also shows the ancient well-known common multiples ofthe commensurable planetary periods. The same or similar periods are foundin cuneiform or papyri texts and were called by B. L. van der Waerden,Pinches and Sachs "goal year texts" (in German Zieljahrestexte), as theperiods point to the time when the planets will align again (Waerden, 1972).
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Rothwangl, Sepp:Wirklicht. (V)Erzählung zur Zeitenwende.Graz 2000.
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Waerden, Bartel L. van der:Die "Ägypter" und die "Chaldäer",Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1972
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