The question posed earlier concerned the age of Christ at His death,
whether that be 33. I have been operating under the assumption that 33
is an ordinal and not a cardinal number. In other words, pace Pat
Sloane, Christ was in His 33rd year, and not just past His 33rd
birthday.
My reason for this assumption is two-fold. First is the kerfuffle over
the Nativity in the late antique world. David Lyle Jeffrey's _Dictionary
of Biblical Tradition in English Literature_ is concise and informative
in this regard. If I may:
"However surprising to modern perspectives, Christmas was not celebrated
in the early Church. Probably in reaction to the discreditable
'birthday' feasts (natalitia) of Roman emperors, Origen asserts that in
the Bible only the unregenerate celebrate such festivals (Hom. on
Leviticus, 8). St. Irenaeus and Tertullian do not show a Feast of the
Nativity on their list of Chrisitan celebrations. ... By 386 St. John
Chrysostom had urged the church in Antioch to agree upon Dec. 25 as a
day for celebrating the Nativity, and in Rome the Philocalian calendar
(A.D. 354) includes under Dec. 25, opposite the pagan Natalis invicti,
or 'birth of the unconquered (sun),' the phrase 'VIII kaali ian natus
Christus in Bethleem Iudea." Thus, without any warrant in the Gospels
for it, by the time of St. Augustine the date of the Feast of the
Nativity had been established, over the opposition of those like Jerome
who denigrated the celebration on principle."
At the very least, we ought to show caution in supposing that the age of
Christ was expressed in cardinal numbers representing completed
birthdays.
Second, I am uncertain whether our practice of counting age with
cardinal numbers which represent completed years should be extended to
the ancient Jews and Christians. My very limited Hebrew suggests to me
that generally, Talmudic practice, if this is anything less
controversial to go by, understands one to be IN a year; thus, in your
first year. (Alternatively, one sometimes reads the formula after
such-and-such a year.) This appears to be consistent with church
historians from Orosius to Bede, who generally express dates as in the x
year of the reign of ..., or in the x year of the city, or in the x year
of the world--not AFTER the x year, which would then suggest a completed
year.
So, it appears to me that claiming the age of Christ at His death to
have been 33 probably indicates that Christ was in His 33rd year, not
that He had recently celebrated the passing of 33 years--or, in other
words, celebrated 33 birthdays. Again, I am speculating, so I would be
very interested in correction.
Stephen Harris
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