Word: dionysius
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...just an excuse for some folks to sell more alcohol, for others to drink more alcohol, and for still others to see if Anthrax really works as well as advertised. In fact, it's not even the year 2000. Our western calendar was concocted out of thin air by Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth-century Scythian monk, whose love of Jesus was eclipsed only by his inability to count accurately. Dionysius tried to estimate the date of his Savior's birth, and then tried to construct, on that foundation, a formal system of measuring time. Let's just say that mistakes...
...party crowd pounding back beers in Times Square, the doomsayers bunched in armored yurts, all of them will greet the millennium at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31. But by more careful calculations, the millennium began a few years ago. A large part of the misunderstanding stems from Dionysius Exiguus--Latin for "Dennis the Short"--a 6th century monk who should be thought of as the original millennium bug. Dennis laid down the basis for the calendars we use today by figuring how far in the past Christ's birth was. As it turns...
...that chapter, Gould retraces the history of malfunctioning Christian calendars back to a monk named Dionysius Exigus who began the A.D. calendar at the year 1 rather than the year zero. From there sprang the simmering academic debate over whether the new millennium begins on Jan. 1, 2000, or one year later. Based on extensive research of fin de siecle newspapers and magazines, Gould observes that pop culture has generally favored the 1999 New Year's Day as the dawning of the new century. The other view "has always been over-whelmingly favored by scholars and by people in power...
...Middle Ages theologians had constructed an intricate model of heaven, based on the writings of the fifth-century theologian Dionysius. They divided the heavenly host into nine choirs, each with its own task. Contrary to the mocking of modern skeptics, medieval theologians did not spend time debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. They had far more serious enterprises in mind. In their layered architecture of heaven, the highest angels were the seraphim and cherubim, those closest to God in nature, who exist to worship him. The thrones bring justice; dominions regulate life in heaven...
...decide whether to bring Aeschylus of Euripedes to Athens, Dionysius stages a competition to "weight" the merits of their poetry. Many had puns ensue. The clever Euripedes is too "light;" the more philosophical Aeschylus literally tips the scales with the heavy line: "Chariot on chariot, corpse on corpse was piled." Literary theorists theorists today could stand to learn a great deal from this Dionysian, beer-in-webbed-hand approach to criticism...