chronogram - Hebrew numerals

The practice of hiding a date within a series of words, by using the letters for Roman numerals (C = 100, V = 5, etc); often used on tombstones and foundation stones to mark the date of the event being commemorated. The numeral letters are usually written in capitals, eg DoMVs ‘domus’ (‘house’).

Chronogram is also a magazine published in the Hudson Valley of New York, featuring politics and art.

A chronogram is a sentence or inscription in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals, stand for a particular date when rearranged. Chronograms in versification are referred to as chronosticha, if they are a hexameter, and chronodisticha if they are a distich.

The practice originated in the late Roman Empire and was particularly popular during the Renaissance, when chronograms were often used on tombstones and foundation stones to mark the date of the event being commemorated. For instance:

My Day Is Closed In Immortality is a chronogram commemorating the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Many lengthy examples of chronograms can be found in Germany, notably in and around the town of Bad Salzuflen.

One double chronogram, in Latin and English, on the year 1642, reads, "'TV DeVs IaM propItIVs sIs regI regnoqVe hVIC VnIVerso."

Hebrew numerals

The great popularity of chronograms among the Jews, and the extent to which they have been cultivated, may be explained by the fact that they are a variety of Gematria, which latter was highly regarded by the Jews and much practised by them.

The earliest chronogram in Jewish literature is one found in a Hebrew poem of the year 1205 by Al-Harizi (ed. 252), while the earliest Latin chronogram is dated five years later (compare Hilton, "Chronograms," iii. According to Abraham Firkovich, Hebrew chronograms date back to 582 (compare the epitaphs in his work "Abne Zikkaron," p. In the thirteenth century chronograms are found in the epitaphs of German Jews (Lewysohn, "Nafshot Zaddikim," No.

In Epitaphs

It is evident, therefore, that for a period of five hundred years chronograms occurred in the epitaphs of European Jews. Thus the dates of the epitaphs of the family of Asher ben Jehiel in the first half of the fourteenth century are indicated by chronograms (Almanzi, "Abne Zikkaron," pp. and among sixty-eight Frankfort epitaphs of that century four chronograms have been preserved (Horowitz, "Inschriften . The German Jews seem to have possessed little skill in the composition of chronograms, there being only about twenty-five (and these very simple) in a total of some 6,000 inscriptions. In Bohemia and Poland, chronograms in epitaphs occur more frequently, and are often very clever; The year of death of the associate rabbi of Prague, Zalman, who perished in the great fire of 1689 (=5449 Jewish era), is indicated by the words 'באש יצא מאת ד (ib.

In Books

While the epitaphs, in addition to the chronograms, in many cases directly mention the dates, many manuscripts, and an even greater number of printed books, are dated simply by means of chronograms; authors, copyists, and typographers rivaling one another in hiding the dates in intricate chronograms, most difficult to decipher. Down to recent times the custom of indicating dates by means of chronograms was so prevalent in Jewish literature that but few books are dated by numerals only. In the earliest printed books the chronograms consist of one or two words only: the Soncino edition of the Talmud, for instance, has for its date the earliest printed chronogram, גמרא ("Gemara") = 244 (1484 C.E.). In longer sentences, in which some of the letters were not utilized in the chronogram, those that counted were marked by dots, lines, or different type, or were distinguished in other ways. The following chronogram, which Rabbi Samuel Schotten adds to his work "Kos ha-Yeshu'ot" (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1711), shows how artificial and verbose chronograms may be: "Let him who wishes to know the year of the Creation pour the contents out of the cup [i.e., count the word "kos," כוס with defective spelling = 80] and seek aid [ישועה = 391;

Many important years in Jewish history are indicated by their respective chronograms;

In Poetry

Neo-Hebraic poetry, which laid especial stress on the formal side of verse, also cultivated chronograms. A number of Hebrew poems were produced in the first half of the nineteenth century, in which the letters of each verse have the same numerical value, being generally the year in which it was written. A New-year's poem in this style, written in the year 579 (=1819), is found in Shalom Cohen's "Ketab Yosher" (ed. Two years later Jacob Eichenbaum wrote a poem in honor of a friend, each line of which had the numerical value of 581 ("Kol Zimrah," ed. The first two verses of the poem are as follows:

עם הלפקים כה אריבה
ולאלה כגמול ידם להם אשיבה

But even poets like I. The modern school of Hebrew poets has given up these artifices, the "minor eras" being now chiefly employed for New-Year congratulations, especially by the poor of Palestine, who frequently distribute printed New-Year cards, the wish consisting of a verse whose numerical value is equal to the year.