Eric Zorn - Chicago Tribune
 
SAVE THE M-WORD CELEBRATION FOR THE YEAR 2001
 
December 30, 1999
 
If you still don't get it--and significant evidence suggests to me
that even at this late date you may not--take this quick quiz:
 
1) Bill Clinton was inaugurated president in late January 1993.
Which year of his administration are we now completing? And
approximately how long, in years and months, has he been in office?
 
2) Dick Jauron was named head coach of Bears in January. Which year
of the Jauron era are we in?  And approximately how long, in years
and months, has he been at the helm?
 
3) Francis George became head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
in May 1997. Which year of his tenure are we in? And approximately
how long has he held that office?
 
Answers: 1) Year 7, 6 years and 11 months. 2) Year 1, 0 years and 11
months. 3) Year 3, 2 years and 7 months.
 
With me so far? Good. Now. Similarly, what year of Jesus'
"administration" began the day he was born and, in effect, "took
office"?
 
Answer: Year 1. Just as, by historical convention, Jan. 20, 1993
marked the start of Year 1 of the Clinton administration, and so on.
 
To speak of Year 0 of the Clinton, Jauron or George eras would be
nonsensical, just as it would be to speak of "Year 0 of our Lord."
 
So everyone stop dissing Dennis, already. Though it's true that the
6th Century Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus (translation:  Dennis the
Short) made a few errors when producing the Jesus-based
year-numbering system we use today--scholars and historians have
long agreed that Jesus was born several years prior to 1
A.D.--failing to have a Year 0 wasn't one of them.
 
Even if he'd had a zero at his disposal, which he didn't because it
wasn't introduced to the western world until later, he almost
certainly wouldn't have used it. Then as now, people started with
one or "first," when enumerating eras, reigns, administrations and
tenures.
 
In roughly the year 1278 A.U.C. (ab urbe condita, "from the founding
of the city" of Rome), also known as 241 of the era of the Roman
Emperor Diocletian, Pope St. John I directed the abbot Dionysius, a
respected scriptural and mathematical scholar, to calculate and
standardize the proper dates for Easter, which were then a subject
of dispute and confusion among churches.
 
As part of his reckoning, the abbot attempted to identify precisely
the date of the birth of Jesus. Just how and why he missed the date
by four to six years is unclear, but historical resources in the
ancient world were so spotty and confusing that no one seriously
challenged his calculations until the 8th Century.
 
Dionysius then proposed replacing the numbering system referencing
the years of Diocletian, a persecutor of Christians, with one
referencing "Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi," the years of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That, he said, made it then the 525th year in what he
called "the era of the Incarnation," what others first called "the
Dionysian era" and later "Anno Domini," and what I above called the
"Jesus administration."
 
We are completing the 1,999th of those years, per Dionysius, and
about to start the 2,000th (to help keep this straight, think of our
year designations as ordinal numbers, "--st, --nd, --rd, --th," not
cardinal numbers). Were Jesus still walking the Earth, his Dionysian
birthday cake would have 1,999 candles on it right about now, not
2,000, just as a person who has completed his 49th year of life and
is about to start his 50th gets 49 candles on his birthday cake, not
50.
 
That's my last and best shot at making it plain why Saturday does
not mark the start of "The Millennium" and why the promiscuous
misuse and corruption of that word this week has become so grating.
The problematic lack of Year 0 was not an oversight or a stupid
blunder by a diminutive abbot as many insistent and still
uncomprehending revelers want to claim--it was and remains accepted
practice.
 
Call 1-1-2000 the dawn of Y2K, the kickoff of the year 2000, the
start of the aughts and the end of the '90s, the coolest, most
awe-inspiring, party-worthy and numerically provocative date ever.
It will be all those things and more. But stop calling it .  . . you
know. Just stop.