10. The TWIN-TRICK

As I indicated earlier, I have found a solution to the issue of how to fit 220 years into the 200-year interval of the significant years of Exiguus and Bede (in between Exiguus’ AD525 and Bede’s AD725).

Of course, the following solution is a figment of my imagination or, I could say, fiction within my historical fiction. But it is feasible to implement.

Here is one imaginary but numerically possible solution, which I call TWIN-TRICK.

I suppose that the news about Bede’s extensive knowledge of computus and astronomy, and thus of his idea to build a “time bridge” by Easter tables, reached Rome.

For simplicity’s sake, as a first approximation, let us assume that both Exiguus and Bede happened to work in AD512.

They were contemporaries, “intellectual twins”. They put their heads together and determined by the inclusive calculation that they lived 512 years after Jesus was born, in Anno Jesu 512, short AJ512. Similarly, today we would say that if the year of Jesus’ birth is marked AJ1, then the year of the “twins” was AJ1+511 = AJ512 because 511 years have elapsed according to our current exclusive calculation.

The “twins” also realised that they could imagine themselves backwards and forwards in time along the years of the Easter tables. They invented “medieval time travel”. For some reason, as yet unknown to me, but which I hope can be fathomed by knowledgeable religious historians, the Roman Pontiff wanted to make the history of Christianity appear to be much older than the years it went back. (I can think of several reasons for this, but they are all fiction.) The Pope was caught by the possibility of historical “time travel”. He commissioned the “twins” to transfer back the years of Jesus’ life, some 200 years! So, the twins were not acting “on their beard”. They should go forth with the knowledge and even the mandate of the Roman Church to carry out their task. To carry out such a momentous “time travel” (in my view), a strong and long-reigning Pope was needed. During the life of Bede, the ambitious Gregory II was Pope for more than 15 years!

Following the principle of “Occam’s razor”, I will not overcomplicate things at first approximation. Let’s see what I think is the most straightforward solving procedure for period insertion.

The “twins” have analysed the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, the Jewish calendar and the Metonic cycle. Because of the 20-year cycle time of the J-S conjunctions, they moved backwards in time in 20-year increments. They concluded that 220 years would satisfy the boundary condition of the J-S conjunction and the Jewish calendar and would even satisfy the Metonic cycle with a retrospectively hardly recognisable error of precisely one astronomical day.

They realised as I did that only 220 years could be inserted on an astronomical basis. Two hundred twenty years is the only period that meets the obvious “hard to recognise” criterion.

Accordingly, the twins first inserted 220 fictitious years before their actual year. This retrospective insertion increased the time gap between Jesus’ birth year and the twins’ running year from 511 to 731 years so that they temporarily could write AJ732.

The twins decided to hide this jump forwards, the insertion of 220 years.

Therefore, in the second step, Exiguus was placed back by 200 years in AJ532. His time distance from Jesus’ birth year decreased to “only” 531 years, but Bede’s time distance remained 731 years, 200 years more. If two famous monks live 200 years apart, then 220 years of insertion in this period seems impossible, they thought.

Then the “time travellers” slapped their foreheads and found their trick was not yet hidden enough!

So Exiguus was given the task of calculating his new time distance from the year of Jesus’ birth, but in the “opposite direction” to the previous time offset! This is why Exiguus put the year of Jesus’ birth, the origo of the time reckoning, seven years later than it happened, and it caused the “7 years error” and made Jesus 7 years younger.

Because of the seven-year jump forwards, Exiguus’ apparent final year difference from the “new virtual year” of Jesus’ birth was reduced from 531 years to 524 years. Jesus’ birth year was renamed AD1, so Exiguus found himself in the year of AD1+524 = AD525, which is still the same today, and we called it “Exuguus’ year”!

Similarly, the year distance of 220 years added to the year of Bede (as the first step) was reduced by 7, too, so that the year AD725 became “Bede’s year”.

This way, the twins have “double hidden” Jesus’s original birth year and double hidden the insertion of the 220 years.

Bede later retroactively compiled his fake Easter tables to fill up the inserted gap before his own time by his “virtual year calendar”.

The “7-year error” was, I guess, a deliberate “stunt”. But of course, these seven years do not affect the year-distance between known historical events. “Only” Jesus was born seemingly in a later year of the reign of Emperor Augustus, as we have been led to believe for many centuries. That is why applying the “7-year error” was a strategic decision; it “hid” the 220-year insertion! After all, the year of Jesus’ birth was virtually transformed back only by213 years (from 214CE to AD1), making it more challenging to decipher the 220-year insertion. The AD1 was false by the “7-year error” even compared to the 220-year insertion. Because of these “shifts” in two opposite directions, I feel justified in using the word “confusion”.

It is relatively easy to come up with more “twisted solutions”.

For example, it is also possible that Exiguus was merely a monk invented by Bede. Bede sent quasi “himself” back 200 years earlier under the name of “his twin” monk, Exiguus.

However, the above “solutions” presuppose the twins’ ” initiation “, or at least that of Bede.

Let us not forget that Bede lived in England, far from Rome, from where the Western Roman Empire “fled” long before its final fall, i.e., before 696CE aka AD476. Bede was, moreover, a scholar living in monastic isolation.

It is conceivable that the information supplied to him about Exiguus’ calculations was already antedated as if it were 200 years older. So, Bede could have been a “misled scientist” who did not even know why he had to compile backdated Easter tables!  

In this case, of course, the 20 years of Exiguus had to be inserted somewhat before the “Exiguus’ year.”

This can also be “enhanced”:

The insertion before the years of Exiguus could have happened even much earlier, e.g., 20 years earlier. In this case, there would be 20 years of really happened history between the 20-year and 200-year insertions.

Earlier historians filled up the artificial time gap with fictive historical events.

My fingers are crossed for the historians of the present time.

Summarised with formulas:

In the new CE system, Jesus's original birth year, 
AJ1 (Anno Jesu) was shifted to xCE.
The formula for “x” is the 2-step "procedure", 
starting from AD512 = AJ512 (511 elapsed years):
x = (512-511) +220-7 = 1+213 = 214
Therefore, the formula for AJ1 in the new CE system,
based on Bede's year and the really elapsed 511 years:
AJ1 = 725CE-511 = 214CE
Jesus’ original birth year in the AD system:
AJ1-220 = 214CE-220 = AD(-6) = BC7
Jesus' current AD1 year transformed in three steps:
AJ1-(20+200-7) = 214CE -213 = AD1
Exiguus’ year in the AD system today: 
AJ512 +20-7 = 525CE = AD525 
Bede’s year in the AD system today:  
AJ512 +220-7 = 725CE = AD725