What was the Sunday Letter for the Year of Creation? V

What was the Sunday Letter for the Year of Creation?

Part I · Part II · Part III · Part IV · Part V

So far, the chronology of St Jerome is ailing.

In Patristics, man need to be created not just any Friday, but Friday 25 of March, or as Roman Calendars was not used, at a point of the year astronomically corresponding to it.

I think I have a solution - very tentative, since involving material which at least scrupulous minds would consider heterodox.

It involves, on the one hand a canonicity or quasi-such at least being possible of Book of Henoch and on the other hand also a somewhat rotating Earth - after the Flood. But first of all, the Sunday letter paradigm : it only applies if years are not even multiples of seven days. With a year of 364 days, all years have the same Sunday letter.

This brings us to the book of Henoch. According to it, not just is it so that the Sun moves around its circuit up and down in 364 days, but also it is said that this will always be so.

This cannot be true (and book of Henoch cannot therefore be canonic) if the Sun has slowed down its orbit around the Zodiak (not mentioned in Book of Henoch, as I recall it, but implicit, probably). But it could still be true if since then Earth has started to move slightly eastward, so that 364 pre-Flood days now come out as 365.2425 sth post-Flood days, each day now about 5 pre-Flood minutes shorter than the pre-Flood day, which disrupts our circadian rythm and helped to shorten human lives just after the Flood.

So, if all pre-Flood years up to or including Year of Flood (2242 Anno Mundi to both St Jerome and Syncellus) were same Sunday letter, that would mean we find the Sunday letter of 2242 AM or possibly 2241 AM and we project it back to all previous years.

We are, as we know, now a A after a leap year CB, and we also know the periodicity of Gregorian calendar in short terms not crossing centurial years without leap years is 28, but in somewhat longer terms is 400 years. Now, the Flood was in 2957 BC, which makes us 4973 Anno Diluvii.

2016 cb
2957
4973 cb
4000
0973 cb
0800
0173 cb
0056
0117 cb
0116 d
0115 e
0114 f
0113 g !		113 ag
0112 a		112 b
0111 b		111 c
0110 c		110 d
0109 d !	109 ed	109 fe
0108 e	108 f	108 g
0084	084	084
0024 e	024 f	024 g
0023 f	023 g	023 a
0022 g	022 a	022 b
0021 ba	021 cb	021 dc
0020 c	020 d	020 e
0019 d	019 e	019 f
0018 e	018f	018 g
0017 gf	017 ag	017 ba
0016 a	016 b	016 c
0015 b	015 c	015 d
0014 c	014 d	014 e
0013 ed	013 fe	013 gf
0012 f	012 g	012 a
0011 g	011 a	011 b
0010 a	010 b	010 c
0009 cb	009 dc	009 ed
0008 d	008 e	008 f
0007 e	007 f	007 g
0006 f	006 g	006 a
0005 ag	005 ba	005 cb
0004 b	004 c	004 d
0003 c	003 d	003 e
0002 d	002 e	002 f
0001 fe	001 gf	001 ag
2242 g	or a?	or b.
2241 a?	or b	(or c).

It depends on how many leap years you omit, two because of centurial year and the one accumulated day in 3200 years (see previous, on this one left column), or one, because of only one of them (mid column), or none (right column), considering the year was perhaps a bit longer in terms of days (or days a bit shorter) just after the Flood.

But let us now a bit discuss both the implications, theological and otherwise, of the solution I propose.

Book of Henoch is by St Augustine explicitly considered as possibly really from Henoch, but even so not canonical. Because there could have been some alteration during the very long transmission (if it was inspired by God, perhaps God knew how to preserve it even so?).



In other words, we cannot consider all Church Fathers consider Henoch Apocryphal in the normal sense of the word. One good item in favour of Henoch I came across through Trey Smith (he is known to be a huge fan of that book) is a passage resembling the Stabunt Iusti passage in Wisdom. It goes on to say that the people who are saying "nos stulti" or "hemeis nepioi" are in fact saved due to the prayers of those they had persecuted, which salvation is however after some punishment - an indication of purgatory. I don't think Luther and Calvin would have liked it, but no Catholic from St Gregory the Great to St Robert Bellarmine could object to that aspect!

The relevant passage in astronomical book as part of book of Henoch:

1 The book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months, which Uriel, the holy angel, who was with me, who is their guide, showed me; and he showed me all their laws exactly as they are, and how it is with regard to all the years of the world 2 and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which dureth till eternity.

So, if the rest of the passage shows Sun to be making a full circle of its variation in height in 364 das before the Flood, this means it must still be doing so, if Henoch is canonic.

This implies that a year taking in average a bit more than 365 days rather than 364 must be due to some rotation of Earth. And that in turn means that sth would have started to rotate the Earth about the time of the Flood:

• theologically it must not violate "non commovebitur in aeternum"; but comments by Heliocentrics considering there is a DAILY more then full rotation of Earth have shown a possibly orthodox way to get around that;
• theologically it must also not violate the conditions of Joshua's long day, but if Earth was budging in a movement which takes 295 pre-Flood days to complete a turn, the relative movement of Sun and Moon (due to Earth's real movement) would have been 1° 13 ' 13" in 24 hours (if I counted right) and this means the Sun and Moon would still be on the spots where Joshua wanted them to be. The difference in angle would not have mattered. The stillness in the orbits was there, and the stillness in appearances was only disrupted so slightly that very fine instruments could have detected it. And:
• theologically it must also not violate any possibly infallible decision against Galileo in 1616 or 1632 wherein Earth "also moving by a proper movement" is qualified as "at least erroneous". And then:
• physically such a rotation could be accounted for by an impact of a meteor, like the one in Yucatan, possibly;
• physically such a rotation, like the presumed daily rotation and yearly circuit, could be accounting for the wobbles.

But if this solution passes, we have what we were looking for a pre-Flood calendar in which all years were, at least for March, Sunday Letter B. And in which therefore also the year of Creation was so. And this with preserved integrity of the chronology of St Jerome, since the years had same length, it was only slightly longer days back then.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Day after Ascension
and in Pentecost Novena
26.V.2017