[2] Matthew, xvi, 19.
As everything before Christ’s birth is called B.C. and everything since His birth is called A.D., you would naturally suppose that 0 would be the date of His birth.
But it was not until some five hundred years later that people began to date from Christ’s birth. And then, when they did begin to date from this event, they made a mistake. It was found out that Christ was really born four years before He was supposed to have been born—that is, in 4 B.C.—but when the mistake was found out, it was then too late to change.
36
Blood and Thunder
I once had a big Newfoundland dog, and he was one of the best friends a boy ever had. I don’t know who it was that named him; he was named before I got him; but whoever it was must either have been ignorant of history or a bad chooser of names. He was called Nero, and even a dog would have hated such a name, had he known whose it once was.
Every good story usually has a villain to make it interesting. Nero is the prize villain of history. He was a Roman emperor who lived not long after Christ, and he is considered the most terribly cruel and wicked ruler that ever lived.
He killed his mother.
He killed his wife.