The Martyrs' Age

The Age of Martyrs (lat. aera martyrum) - the counting system used in ancient Egypt. The beginning of the era was 29 August 284.

At the end of the third century, Egypt was introduced after the Roman era, a new era beginning with the entry of Emperor Diocletian in 284, and hence also referred to as the "Diocletian era." As regards its methodology, it is the continuation of the Nabonassar era, its beginning on the New Year of the Egyptian calendar, that is, on the 1st day of the month tot, which after the reform of the calendar, carried out by the emperor Octavian August, fell on August 29. The years counted according to this era have 365.25 days - as in the Julian calendar, it does not exist, so already characteristic of the Nabonassar era and the Philippine era backward dates of the New Year.

In the 19th year of the Diocletian's Age (303), the greatest persecution of Christians in Rome began, and in Christian communities this way of counting began to be called the "age of the martyrs" or the "age of martyrology." This era was in use in Egypt and in the Middle East until the Arab conquest, and the Coptic and Ethiopian Church is still in existence today. Years counted according to the age of the Martyrs were recorded with A.D. - Anno Diocletiani (Diocletian year), which among Christian thinkers has triggered the search for a method other than referring to the heathen emperor to calculate the time. Developed in the West by Dionysius the Little in the sixth century, the method of counting the time from the birth of Christ, now called the n.e. "This is the era of Christianity," A.D. in the enlargement - Anno Domini (the year of the Lord). Bibliography

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