Common EraMaimon Schwarzschild

Gail is bemused that a Presbyterian sermon would cite B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) or C.E. (of the Common Era) rather than B.C. or A.D.  Of course, common usage is bound to seep – one way or the other – into situations where it might seem a little odd.  If people routinely say B.C.E., Presbyterian sermons are apt to do so as well; just as, if B.C. and A.D. were still de rigueur, people who aren’t Christians would feel awkward avoiding them or, more likely, would slip into using these fragments of Christian theology, against their real beliefs.

As a (Jewish) kid, I was firmly taught always to say B.C.E. and C.E.  Now it wouldn’t occur to me to do otherwise.  Of course I’m delighted if the Presbyterian pulpit is following suit.

Given the political predilections of today’s Presbyterian Church USA, perhaps we should all be grateful that this Preacher didn’t date things from the Hejira.  Or from the Khmer Rouge Year Zero.

As for A.D. – it can cause confusion.  Remember Jerry Cruncher, Dickens’ grave-robber (“I’m a honest tradesman; that’s what I am”) in A Tale of Two Cities:

The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley,
Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March
morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. Mr. Cruncher
himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes:
apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the
invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.

It’s almost enough to make one grateful for A.D.  Even Dickens might not have been able to make much from C.E. or B.C.E.