A review of The Reckoning of Time

A review of The Reckoning of Time by Bede the Venerable

Two weeks ago I was able to obtain from the library, via Inter-Library Loan, The Reckoning of Time by Bede. I had only two weeks to read it, since you cannot renew ILL materials. I read his work but not the commentary, and now the loan period is up.

First, the man. Bede lived from A.D. 672 – 735 and is also know as the Venerable Bede. He was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth. He was sent to the monastery when he was seven years old, and spent the rest of his life there. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". I first encountered Bede through his Hisotry of the English Church and have liked him since. He was a learned man, and he had a living faith.

Now the book. Here is how the publishers describe it:

“From the patristic age until the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582, computus – the science of time reckoning and art of calendar construction – was a subject of intense concern to medieval people. Bede’s The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione) was the first comprehensive treatise on this subject, and the model and reference for all subsequent teaching, discussion and criticism of the Christian calendar. The Reckoning of Time is a systematic exposition of the Julian solar calendar and the Paschal table of Dionysius Exiguus, with their related formulae for calculating dates. Bede sets calendar lore within a broad scientific framework and a coherent Christian concept of time, and incorporates themes as diverse as the theory of tides and the threat of chiliasm.”

And that pretty much captures the book itself. ☺ Large portions of it were ’pert near incomprehensible to me. A lot if it because the translator kept the original Latin words with no English equivalents. As a result I couldn’t follow the concepts. And I confess, while reading many of Bede’s explanations, I felt like I was lost in a labyrinth.

BUT, the comprehensible parts were awesome! He obviously had a vibrant faith and it was his intent to apply the faith to every are of life. And he was not alone, he was building on the works of many other brothers. The church fathers wrote extensively in an attempt to understand the world around them from the perspective of the faith. We dismiss this today and assume they were so childish in their understanding both of the faith and the world around them. WRONG! In addition, we are told that Christians believed the world was flat until either Columbus. I don’t know if anyone believed it was flat, or if they based it on the Bible, but Bede knew the world was round: he says, not like a shield, but like a ball. And he quotes others, both Christian and pagan, who knew this.

I liked his explanation of day: ‎"Day is air which is lit up by the Sun, and derives it name from the fact that it separates and divides the darkness... But properly speaking, a day comprises 24 hours, that is, a circuit of the Sun lighting up the entire globe. The Sun always and everywhere carries the daylight around with itself."

And his comments about the night: "The seven parts of the night: dusk is uncertain light, that is, between light and darkness; eventide is when the star of the same name appears; the first part of the night is when everything is hushed, that is, silent; dead of night is midnight, when, in thte deep sleep of peace, there is no time for activity for any creature; cock-crow is when the rooster lifts up its song; early morning is between the departure of darkness and the arrival of dawn; and daybreak is when a bit of light first appears. Dawn lasts until sunrise."

I also found his ideas of the Ages of the World interesting (and once again, he was not original, all the fathers accepted some version of this). He says there are eight ages of the world. There are six ages of this world, and he was firmly convinced that the years mentioned in the Bible were literal. So convinced of this that he dated each event in the Bible and the world by its years from creation. In the year 3952 from Creation, “In the forty-second year of Caesar Augustus, and the twenty-seventh after the death of Cleopatra and Antony, when Egypt was turned into a province, in the third year of the one hundred and ninety-third Olympiad, in the seven hundred and fifty-second from the foundation of the City [Rome], that is to say, the year in which the movements of all the peoples throughout the world were held in check, and by God’s decree Caesar established genuine and unshakeable peace, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hallowed the Sixth Age of the world by His coming.” Amen.

The Eight Age of the World comes after the second coming, the resurrection, and the day of judgment. “This eighth day will so follow upon the preceding seven, that it will not have other days following it of which it will be the first, but it alone will abide, one and unending, in the eternal light. Hence, the prophet, thirsting for the vision of that day, rightly called it “one”, saying, better is one day in thy courts than a thousand.” Amen!


When I first discovered this book, I wanted to buy it. Then it was $40-60, for a used book. The problem was locating one. Now a search reveals that a used edition is $160+! Could it be that my searches caused the value to rise? Hope not. Would I buy this book? Yes – for $40-60. But not for $160!!