Letter: Christ was born seven years early

Sir: The Christian church has never denied its links with pre-Christian customs (Letters, 14 December). We call it the 'hallowing' of sites and traditions, converting or making Holy.

My own Church of All Saints' was known as 'All Hallowes', the first structure having been built on the site of a pagan temple in AD 794, almost 12 centuries ago. The early Christian missionaries hallowed the site and the pre- Christian festivals that were held around it.

Often folk question the year of Jesus's birth. Seven BC would be about right. In AD 525 a Roman monk, Dionysius Exiguus, fixed our calendar to start December AD 1 (in the year of Our Lord) to match AUC 754 in the Varronian Calendar (AUC meaning ab urbe condita 'from the founding of Rome'). Exiguus missed out the year '0' which he should have placed between 1 BC and AD 1. He also missed out the four years when Emperor Augustus ruled under his own name of Octavian.

The contemporary Roman historian Flavius Josephus records the death of Herod as 'within days of an eclipse of the moon' - this took place during the night of 12/13 March 4 BC. Given that shortly before his demise Herod ordered all children under two years to be killed, we can feel quite comfortable about a birth date somewhere around what, we must call 7 BC.

Astrological evidence also supports a date of 7 BC for the birth of Jesus Christ. In the autumn of 7 BC there was a triple conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Pisces - an event which would not have escaped the notice of the Magi of Babylonia.

Yours faithfully,

ALAN HUGHES

Kirkbymoorside, N. Yorkshire