О несогласном летосчислении

Anyone who reads historical books and prudently examines the years of ancient deeds knows and clearly sees the great discrepancy in the years. Beginning with the Bibles, which are called Divine Scripture and from which all the chronographers and narrators of ancient stories proceeded in their reasoning, like rivers from a source; however, in the chronology they came to disagreement and became dissimilar. For the years are counted differently in the Bibles and differently in chronographs, and there is no agreement in the chronographs themselves: they disagree on many things, and one calculates the years one way and the other another. When I wrote this book, I had in mind, in addition to Bibles, the Greek printed chronograph of George, nicknamed Kedrin, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the pious Greek king Isaac Komnenos. This book was published in Greek and Latin in Paris (in 1647). To this chronograph I attached the historical book of Dorotheus, Metropolitan of Monemvasia, which was translated from Greek into Slavic by the Greeks Arsenius and Dionysius in the reigning city of Moscow in the days of the pious Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. When I added many Russian chronographs to all this, I saw that the Greek chronographs did not agree in years with the Bibles, and the Russian chronographs did not agree either with the Bibles, or with the Greek chronographs, or with themselves. In addition, the church book of the Lenten Triodion, the creation of St. Theodore the Studite, does not agree in years with the Bibles: on the Thursday of the second week, at Vespers, in the reading from Genesis, the following is written: “Adam lived (after expulsion from paradise) 230 years and gave birth to Seth.” In the Bible it’s different: “Adam lived 130 years and gave birth to... Seth” (Gen. 5:3). Hence the disagreement between Bibles and chronographs and regarding all previous years, because in the Bibles the chronology began to decrease, and in chronographs it increased. It so happened that before the flood from the beginning of the world, according to Russian Bibles, 2162 years, and according to chronographs, 2242 years. Let's look at the differences in the chronographs themselves. The Greek chronograph Georgiy Kedrin before the birth of Abraham from the beginning of the world counts 3312 years; Russian chroniclers count 3324 years, and according to Russian Bibles, 3234 years pass before the birth of Abraham. Likewise, regarding other outstanding past deeds, some years are found in Bibles and others are calculated in chronographs. Because of this disagreement and difference, there is no perfect news in which year from the beginning of the world our Savior Christ was actually born. For some, the chronology continues, but for others it does not, as this will become clear when we describe the very time of the birth of Christ. Here I pass by the disagreements of other peoples, each of whom, calculating years according to their Bibles and according to their chronographs, writes in their own way, as anyone understands: otherwise the Jews, otherwise the Romans, otherwise and others. And as many chronographs are found among other nations, there are so many disagreements in chronology, and I don’t need to consider them. But I have to look at the chronology of Slavic chronographs and Bibles. Starting with God's help to narrate the ancient events that took place after the expulsion of Adam from paradise, I decided to place at the beginning a chronology or chronology, starting from Adam and until the Nativity of Christ. This was done partly instead of the table of contents of this book, partly so that the reader would be aware of the discrepancy in years that exists when calculating years in Bibles and chronographs. You might be interested in: