Hebrew text), in that through the Christian chronographers a window to the earlier Hellenistic biblical chronographers is preserved: The Chronicon of Eusebius (early 4th century) and Jerome (c. 380, Constantinople) dated creation to 5199 BC. Earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day used this date, as did the Irish Annals of the Four Masters. Alexandrian era The Alexandrian era, which was conceived and calculated in AD 412, was the precursor to the use of the Byzantine era. After the initial attempts of Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and others the Alexandrian computation of the date of creation was calculated to be 25 March 5493 BC. The Alexandrian monk Panodorus reckoned 5,904 years from Adam to AD 412. His years began on 29 August, which corresponded to the First of Thoth, the first day of the Egyptian calendar. Annianus of Alexandria, however, preferred the Annunciation style for New Year's Day, i. e., 25 March, and shifted Panodorus' era by circa six months to begin on 25 March. This created the Alexandrian era, whose first day was the first day of the proleptic Alexandrian civil year in progress, 29 August 5493 BC, with the ecclesiastical year beginning on 25 March 5493 BC. Dionysius of Alexandria had earlier emphatically quoted mystical justifications for the choice of 25 March as the beginning of the year: Church fathers such as Maximus the Confessor and Theophanes the Confessor, and chroniclers such as George Syncellus adopted the Alexandrian Era of 25 March 5493 BC. Its striking mysticism made it popular in Byzantium, especially in monasteries. However, this masterpiece of Christian symbolism had two grave problems, namely historical inaccuracy regarding the date of the Resurrection as determined by its Easter computus, and its contradiction of the chronology of the Gospel of Saint John regarding the date of the Crucifixion on Friday after the Passover. Chronicon Paschale A new variant of the World Era was suggested in the Chronicon Paschale, a valuable Byzantine universal chronicle of the world, composed about the year AD 630 by some representative of the Antiochian scholarly tradition. It dates the creation of Adam to 21 March 5507 BC. For its influence on Greek Christian chronology, and also because of its wide scope, the Chronicon Paschale takes its place beside Eusebius, and the chronicle of the monk Georgius Syncellus which was so important in the Middle Ages; but in respect of form it is