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Anno Lucis is Latin for "Year
of Light"
You
may have seen Anno Lucis abbreviated as "A.L."
It is used as a calendar system within the
Freemason fraternity.
Year
of Light refers to the biblical account of
the creation of the universe wherein God
spoke and said:
"Let
there be light,...and there was light."
(Genesis 1:3)
You
will often see the abbreviation "A.L." on
Masonic certificates, plaques, and building
cornerstones. This calendar system is not
exclusive to Freemasonry.
It was designed as a
simplification of the Anno Mundi
calendar by an Irish cleric, James Ussher
(1581-1656) nearly a century before the
formation of the United Grand Lodge of
England in 1717. Ussher established the
year 4004 B.C. (approximately 6014 years
ago) as the date of the biblical creation of
the Earth.
James Ussher was Archbishop
of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and
Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin;
being highly regarded in his day as a churchman
and as a scholar.
Of his many works, his
treatise on chronology has proved the most
durable. Based on an intricate correlation of
Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and
Holy writ, it was incorporated into an
authorised version of the Bible printed in 1701,
and thus came to be regarded with almost as much
unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself.
Having established the
first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004
BC, by the arguments set forth in the passage
below, Ussher calculated the dates of other
biblical events, concluding, for example, that
Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday
10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched
down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 2348 BC; which was on a
Wednesday'.
Ussher's
spellings have been faithfully
kept in the following excerpt:
For as much
as our Christian epoch falls
many ages after the beginning of
the world, and the number of
years before that backward is
not only more troublesome, but
(unless greater care be taken)
more lyable to errour; also it
hath pleased our modern
chronologers, to adde to that
generally received hypothesis
(which asserted the Julian
years, with their three cycles
by a certain mathematical
prolepsis, to have run down to
the very beginning of the world)
an artificial epoch, framed out
of three cycles multiplied in
themselves; for the Solar Cicle
being multiplied by the Lunar,
or the number of 28 by 19,
produces the great Paschal Cycle
of 532 years, and that again
multiplied by fifteen, the
number of the indiction, there
arises the period of 7980 years,
which was first (if I mistake
not) observed by Robert
Lotharing, Bishop of Hereford,
in our island of Britain, and
500 years after by Joseph
Scaliger fitted for
chronological uses, and called
by the name of the Julian
Period, because it conteined a
cycle of so many Julian years.
Now if the series of the three
minor cicles be from this
present year extended backward
unto precedent times, the 4713
years before the beginning of
our Christian account will be
found to be that year into which
the first year of the indiction,
the first of the Lunar Cicle,
and the first of the Solar will
fall. Having placed there fore
the heads of this period in the
kalends of January in that
proleptick year, the first of
our Christian vulgar account
must be reckoned the 4714 of the
Julian Period, which, being
divided by 15. 19. 28. will
present us with the 4 Roman
indiction, the 2 Lunar Cycle,
and the 10 Solar, which are the
principal characters of that
year.
We find
moreover that the year of our
fore-fathers, and the years of
the ancient Egyptians and
Hebrews were of the same
quantity with the Julian,
consisting of twelve equal
moneths, every of them
conteining 30 days, (for it
cannot be proved that the
Hebrews did use lunary moneths
before the Babylonian Captivity)
adjoying to the end of the
twelfth moneth, the addition of
five dayes, and every four year
six. And I have observed by the
continued succession of these
years, as they are delivered in
holy writ, that the end of the
great Nebuchadnezars and the
beginning of Evilmerodachs (his
sons) reign, fell out in the
3442 year of the world, but by
collation of Chaldean history
and the astronomical cannon, it
fell out in the 186 year c
Nabonasar, and, as by certain
connexion, it must follow in the
562 year before the Christian
account, and of the Julian
Period, the 4152. and from
thence I gathered the creation
of the world did fall out upon
the 710 year of the Julian
Period, by placing its beginning
in autumn: but for as much as
the first day of the world began
with the evening of the first
day of the week, I have observed
that the Sunday, which in the
year 710 aforesaid came nearest
the Autumnal Æquinox, by
astronomical tables
(notwithstanding the stay of the
sun in the dayes of Joshua, and
the going back of it in the
dayes c Ezekiah) happened upon
the 23 day of the Julian
October; from thence concluded
that from the evening preceding
that first day of the Julian
year, both the first day of the
creation and the first motion of
time are to be deduced.
— J.
Ussher, The Annals of the
World iv (1658)
James Ussher
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