section_path: History/Origins
section_name: Origins
paragraph_text: Origins
  
  Around the year 525, the Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus devised the principle of taking the moment that he believed to be the date of the incarnation of Jesus to be the point from which years are numbered (the epoch) of the Christian ecclesiastical calendar. Dionysius labeled the column of the table in which he introduced the new era as " Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi " (the years of our Lord Jesus Christ).: 52 He did this to replace the Era of the Martyrs system (then used for some Easter tables) because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians.: 50
  
  This way of numbering years became more widespread in Europe, with its use by Bede in England in 731. Bede also introduced the practice of dating years before what he supposed to have been the year of birth of Jesus, without a year zero.