Many of our difficulties in making judgments and decisions arise from our neglecting to define whatever it is we are discussing. Take the much vaunted millennium, for instance. A millennium is defined as 1,000 years, just as a century is 100 and a decade 10 years. It is nothing more nor less, however hard the political spin doctors strive to interpret it as something unique, and, as they might say, epoch-making.
I cannot find that anyone in the year 1000 made a great fuss about the date, and there seems no good reason why the year 2000 should be any different. And I cannot explain why, in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the ancient Egyptians, the number 1,000 should be represented by a lotus flower, although it has been claimed that the roundness of the leaves and fruit of the lotus plant symbolises the supremacy of divine intellect over brute matter.
As to the idea that dates rounded off with three noughts represent a new beginning, this is false, since they represent an end. When time started to be reckoned in terms of the Christian epoch, and the indications BC and AD were indicated, there was no year zero. The year 1BC was followed immediately by AD1. According to astronomical reckoning, the year 0 would be our year lBC. If we start with one and count to 2,000, we shall find that the year 2000 completes the second millennium. It is not the beginning of a fresh millennium. For that we shall have to wait until 2001. The conspiracy to advance the magical date seems to have been between politicians and big business, for obscure reasons of their own.
Since we are involved in concepts inherent in our national religion, there are further complications to be taken into account. The celebration of Christ's nativity prior to the fourth century was on January 6. In the year 354 this changed to December 25. The Gregorian calendar of 1582, which we adopted in 1752, commenced the year with January 1, and the starting date was AD1.
In 1690 there were arguments between those who believed that the coming century would commence on January 1, 1701, and those who held that it started on January, 1700. The confusion that our leaders find between beginnings and ends of centuries and millennia is therefore nothing new. Bishop Ussher in 1654 muddied the waters by working out that the world was created on October 23, 4004BC.
According to the Book of Revelation, the millennium proper is that space of 1,000 years during which Christ will reign supreme on earth. Some enthusiasts calculated that the Biblical millennium was to commence on October 23, 1997. However, as we all know, nothing epoch-making occurred on that date. Perhaps, until we can all agree what we are talking about, we could concentrate on more immediate issues of politics and society than a new millennium.