The term (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for 'before Christ asborn'), usually abbreviated to a. Chr. n., a.Ch.n., a.C.n., A.C.N., or ACN, denotes the years before the birth of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

. It is a Latin equivalent to the English " BC" ("before Christ"). The phrase ''ante Christum natum'' is also seen shortened to ante Christum ("before Christ"), similarly abbreviated to a. Chr., A. C. or AC. A related phrase, p. Chr. n., p. Ch. n., P.C.M, PCN, or ''post Christum natum'' complements a. Ch. n. and is equivalent to (AD). In English, these phrases are rare and AC, ACN, and ''ante Christum natum'' are not in the ''Chicago Manual of Style'' (14th edition), the ''American Heritage Dictionary'' (3rd edition), or P. Kenneth Seidelmann's ''Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac'' (1992, University Science Books). In other European languages, such as Italian ("a.c." or "a.C." for ''avanti Cristo''), a vernacular version is the standard term. The

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

historian

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

used the Latin phrase ("before the time of the Incarnation of the Lord") in his '' Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'' (''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'') (Book 1, Chapter 2) of 731 PCN, and thereby became the first author to describe a year as being ''before Christ''.The full phrase may be (please verify) ''ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus anno sexagesimo'' ("in fact in the sixtieth year before the time of the Lord's incarnation"), which is quoted from the first sentence of Book 1, Chapter 2. Both

Dionysius Exiguus Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble"; Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present-day Constanț ...

and Saint Bede, who was familiar with the work of the former, regarded Anno Domini 1 as beginning on the date of the Incarnation of

, yet "the distinction between Incarnation and Nativity was not drawn until the late 9th century, when in some places the Incarnation

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

was identified with Christ's conception, i. e., the

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

on March 25".

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* {{cite book , first1=Bonnie , last1=Blackburn , first2=Leofranc , last2=Holford-Strevens , title=The Oxford companion to the year , publisher=Oxford , date=2003 , edition=Reprinted , orig-year=1999 Calendar eras Latin religious words and phrases Nativity of Jesus

See also

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