LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK
The calendar forms one of the most important of social institutions and
registers in its gradual improvement from age to age the onward march
of culture. The first attempts at calendar-making were naturally of
the rudest sort, for they were based on the untutored experience and
observation of common men. With the progress of society the regulation
of calendrical matters tended to fall into the hands of the sacerdotal
class, partly because priests alone enjoyed the leisure necessary for
prolonged researches, but chiefly because the calendar, on which depends
the orderly sequence of holy days and festivals, was itself an affair of
religion.[526]
It is clear that the alternations of night and day must have furnished
man with his most elementary conceptions of the passage of time. A longer
cycle was naturally suggested by the lunar phenomena, so striking, so
obvious, and marked by stages so readily determined. A survey of the
anthropological data indicates that among savage and barbarous peoples
the moon is the measure of time, and that the period of a lunation
furnishes the customary unit for longer reckonings.[527] Lunar months
are general throughout Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa, and
America, wherever primitive calendars have not been supplanted by more
refined calculations borrowed from advanced peoples. The computation
of time by moons naturally formed the basis of those early calendars
which were framed by peoples just rising into civilization. In Mexico
and Yucatan the year of twelve moon-months preceded the introduction of
the solar year; and the ancient Peruvians, in some respects so advanced,
always continued to reckon by the succession of lunations.[528] There
can be no doubt that the solar calendar in use among the Egyptians at
the very dawn of their history had been preceded by a more primitive
reckoning of the year in lunations. It is enough to point out in this
connection that the Egyptians regularly employed the figure of a crescent
moon as the hieroglyph for “month.”[529] The calendars of Semitic
peoples, notably those of the Babylonians and Hebrews, were based on the
moon;[530] and the prophet Mohammed, when enjoining on his followers the
observance of the pure lunar year, in place of the lunisolar year used
by the Arabians before the Hegira, was in reality reverting to a still
more primitive mode of counting time. Lunisolar calendars, in which the
primary unit is the lunation, were known, long before the Christian era,
to every civilization in the Old World from the Roman in the west to the
Chinese in the east. Linguistic researches indicate that in most, if not
all, Indo-European languages, the names for moon and month originally
coincided.[531] In Max Müller’s poetical language the moon was “the
golden hand on the dark dial of heaven.”
The need of observing the moons, apart from religious or superstitious
reasons, was no doubt mainly connected with economic considerations.
To the savage it is of supreme importance to be able to anticipate the
different periods of the year which bring with them different supplies
of natural food; and for this purpose the moons afford a convenient
basis of reckoning. Hence we find that very generally among primitive
peoples the moons are named after the moulting, migrating, and pairing
of animals, or after the budding, blossoming, and ripening of the fruits
of the earth. Again, most shepherd tribes reckon time by moons. In the
pastoral stage it is probable that the necessity of calculating the
various periods of gestation and the proper time for breeding, so that
young animals might be brought into the world at seasons most favourable
to their health and maintenance, contributed to the observation of the
moon and to the formation of lunar calendars. If the desirability of
observing the successive moons was felt by frugivorous and pastoral
peoples, it will be readily seen how the introduction of agricultural
operations, often accompanied by religious ceremonies and festivals,
rendered definite and clearly marked divisions of time a matter of the
greatest moment. It is therefore probable that rude popular calendars
based on the moon were in use long before more accurate observations were
made by primitive astronomers. There is much evidence for the practice
of naming the moon-months after the different agricultural operations,
such as planting and harvesting, which occur in them. Among the Chinese,
Japanese, Babylonians, Hebrews, Celts, Germans, and Slavs, the early
epithets of some or all of the months are connected with agriculture and
the farmer’s life. And the Roman Aprilis, Maius, and Junius, from which
our own month-names have been taken, are believed to have been originally
seasonal designations, referring to the sprouting, growth, and maturity
of vegetation.
A lunar month does not necessarily imply a lunar year. Of not a few
savage and half-civilized peoples it is expressly said that they have
but vague notions of a year as a fixed period of time, and that they can
refer to events more than a few months past only as happening after some
noteworthy event, such as a flood, a drought, an earthquake, a comet, or
the death of a chief. The foundation of yearly reckonings must be sought
in the observation of rhythmical natural phenomena—the alternation of
the seasons, the recurrence of periodical winds, the varying length of
day as determined by the sun’s elevation, and especially the rising and
setting of the Pleiades.[532] In order to adapt the same moons to the
same seasons as they successively occurred, or to the course of the
sun, or to the rising and setting of the Pleiades, the number of moons
was usually taken at twelve, giving the lunar year of three hundred and
fifty-four days.[533]
It is unnecessary in this connection to discuss fully the various methods
which have been employed to adjust the pure lunar year of twelve synodic
months to the seasonal or solar year. Some primitive peoples adopt the
expedient of counting thirteen lunations to the year. A more common and
accurate procedure is to intercalate the thirteenth month, usually in
every second or third year. Familiar illustrations are furnished by the
Hindus, Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks in antiquity; among modern peoples,
by the natives of Burma, Siam, China, and Japan.[534] The methods of
intercalation employed are historically numerous, the details are often
obscure, and in no instance were the results wholly successful. The
difficulties arising from such attempts to coördinate incoördinable
quantities must have been the prime cause of the adoption of calendars
in which the month, instead of denoting the moon’s synodic revolution,
received an arbitrary number of days approaching the twelfth part of a
solar year.
The period of a lunation seems to have been generally estimated, in
the first instance, at thirty days, a calculation found in the lunar
calendars of many half-civilized peoples, and still employed at the
present day on all occasions when absolute accuracy is not considered
necessary. Indeed, if lunations be used, it is more exact to count by
thirty days than by twenty-nine. When the moon’s synodic revolution came
to be more accurately measured by calculating an average from the number
of days comprised in several successive lunations, the true length (about
twenty-nine and one-half days) could be conveniently calendarized only by
periods of twenty-nine and thirty days in alternation. Such vacillating
months were used by the Hawaiians and the New Zealanders; they were
familiar to the Jews, the later Babylonians, and the Greeks; and they are
still found throughout the Mohammedan world, and among various peoples of
southeastern Asia.[535]
People who reckon by moons naturally begin their lunar month with the
first appearance of the luminous crescent in the western sky.[536] The
real moon being invisible for two or three days, various expedients are
adopted in order to secure regularity in lunar reckonings. Thus, the
Toda keep a record of the number of days from new moon to full moon and
from that to the next new moon. The full moon is counted as being on
the fifteenth day after the new moon, and the new moon as being on the
sixteenth day after the full moon.[537] The Basuto begin their month on
the day when the new moon is visible, though they count two more days
when the moon cannot be seen at all in the heavens.[538] Still other
devices were employed in antiquity by the Babylonians, Hebrews, and
Romans.[539]
The lunar month, which in rude communities provides a satisfactory
chronological unit, does not meet the needs of an advancing society.
Shorter periods become desirable, and these may be found in the division
of the lunation. There is much evidence that primitive peoples watch
the lunar phases with keen interest, often name them, and sometimes use
them for the purpose of reckoning time. The natives of Victoria are said
to employ ordinal numbers only in numbering the days of the month for
making appointments. As their months are marked by the reappearance of
the moon, their ordinal numbers do not go beyond twenty-eight.[540] The
Dieri and related tribes of South Australia reckon by lunar phases; “when
anticipating a grand ceremony they refer to the first or last quarter
of the moon.”[541] The central Australians, who regard the moon as a
male deity, have distinct names applied to new moon, first quarter, full
moon, and last quarter.[542] In German New Guinea the phases of the moon
are employed for all time-units greater than a day.[543] The natives of
New Britain are close observers of the phases of the moon (_kalang_)
and have separate terms for them.[544] The New Caledonians count by
lunar months, “each divided into four weeks, following the four phases
of the moon.”[545] The Kayan on the Mendalam River in Dutch Borneo name
eight phases of the waxing and waning moon.[546] The Dyak tribes on the
Mahakam and Barito rivers in Dutch Borneo “reckon their time by the full
moon, half moon, and new moon.”[547] In those parts of Sumatra where
the seven-day week has not been introduced, it is a common practice
to calculate by the days of the moon’s age.[548] The very primitive
peoples occupying Nias and the Mentawi Islands off the western coast of
Sumatra distinguish four phases of the moon and give to them appropriate
names.[549] Not only do the Nicobarese possess terms to denote the chief
phases of the lunation, but they are also able to indicate any particular
day in the lunar month with perfect clearness, since each day has its
particular name.[550] The Andaman Islanders, possessing no extended
enumeration, do not count the moons in the year, but nevertheless employ
appropriate words to designate the lunar phases.[551] The Bontoc and
Ibaloi Igorot have noted and named eight phases of the moon; these,
however, are said to be seldom used for counting time.[552] Throughout
the Caroline Islands (Yap, Lamotrek, Ponape, Uleai) the successive days
of the month receive names indicating the moon’s age.[553] In Polynesia
every night in the month had its distinct name derived from the changing
aspects of the moon.[554] The Nandi of British East Africa similarly
designate the successive nights of a lunar month.[555] The Bini of
Southern Nigeria even appoint special persons to observe the changes of
the moon.[556] The Ho tribes of Togo and the Hottentots of South Africa
employ separate terms for all the lunar phases.[557] In South America
the Karaja of Brazil, in addition to noting and naming the four most
conspicuous phases of the moon, also distinguish a fifth phase, which
occurs between first quarter and full moon.[558] Of the North American
Indians it has been said, generally, that the “alternations of day and
night and the changes of the moon and the seasons formed the basis of
their [calendar] systems.”[559] In the words of the _Koran_ the phases of
the moon are “indications of time for men.”[560]
Since new moon and full moon are the most conspicuous lunar phases, it
has been a common practice to recognize two periods in the lunation, as
marked by the waxing and the waning moon.[561] This two-fold division
of the month does not seem to be employed for calendrical purposes by
the Australian aborigines, but in some parts of Melanesia the two halves
of the lunation receive appropriate names and the full moon itself bears
a particular designation.[562] The Maori of New Zealand, who sometimes
“divide the month into halves or fortnights by ‘moon-growing’ and
‘moon-lessening,’”[563] are the only Polynesian people to adopt this mode
of reckoning. It is met, also, in Malaysia (Java, Sumatra, Bali, Nias,
etc.), but only where Indian culture has penetrated.[564]
The division of the month into two parts is found among most
Indo-European peoples. In India the recognition of the “light” and
“dark” halves of the month goes back to Vedic antiquity.[565] Modern
Hindus divide the month into two fortnights, the days of which are
reckoned continuously as those of the increasing or decreasing moon.
The full-moon day (_amavus_) is held in great sanctity.[566] Like
customs prevail in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Indo-China, and other parts
of Asia.[567] The bipartite division of the month was familiar to the
ancient Persians[568] and to the early Greeks.[569] The fifteenth of the
month was regularly called by the Greeks the full-moon day (Dichomenia,
διχομηνία) even after the introduction of the sequence of twenty-nine day
and thirty-day months.[570] In “hollow” months of twenty-nine days the
full moon, of course, would fall on the fourteenth day, except when an
extra day was intercalated every thirty-two or thirty-three months.[571]
The Roman _kalendæ_ and _idus_ corresponded to the Greek νουμηνία and
διχομηνία.[572] The Kalends were so named because in early times the
pontiffs had been accustomed to make a public announcement (_calare_)
whether five or seven days should be reckoned from new moon to the first
quarter.[573] The Ides thus fell on the thirteenth or fifteenth day of
the month, according as the Nones occurred on the fifth or seventh day.
The Roman belief in the virtue of odd numbers doubtless explains this
choice of dates for both Nones and Ides.[574] Among the ancient Germans
new moon and full moon appear as the most prominent lunar phases.[575]
The division of the lunation into two parts, the first of fifteen
days, the second of fourteen or fifteen days, according as the month
had twenty-nine or thirty days, is clearly indicated for the Celtic
peoples.[576] In the Calendar of Coligny the days of each half-month
are numbered consecutively, following what must have been the old
Indo-European practice. The second half of the month is always preceded
by the title _atenoux_, doubtless indicating full moon, and variously
translated “great night” or “renewal.”[577] That this Gallic calendar
presents no exceptional custom is obvious from the constant occurrence
in the literature of the insular Celts of such expressions as the Welsh
_pythewnos_, a fortnight (literally “a fifteen night”), and the Irish
_cóicthiges_, which has the same meaning.[578] With these terms may be
compared our English “fortnight” (O. E. _feówertȳne niht_).
The bipartite division of the month may be traced even more widely. It
was recognized by the Egyptians, who appear to have counted the days
by the decreasing and increasing moon and to have regarded the full
moon (_mḥ_) as the most important of the lunar phases.[579] For Semitic
peoples, notably the Babylonians and Hebrews, new moon and full moon
enjoyed significance not only as religious festivals but also as the
most conspicuous periods of the lunation. A primitive cycle of thirteen
days used for ritual purposes by the ancient Mexicans may have been
originally suggested by the number of months in the lunar year, but the
choice of this number seems also to have been affected by the recognition
of thirteen visible stages of the moon’s increase (_mextozoliztli_,
the moon’s waking) and thirteen visible stages of her decrease
(_mecochiliztli_, the moon’s sleep).[580] In both Colombia and Peru the
half-months were reckoned by the waxing and the waning of the moon.[581]
From the division of the month into two fortnights, at once the
simplest, earliest, and most widespread form of the week, we pass to
the consideration of those shorter cycles of time which are found in
various parts of the world. It might appear at first sight that all civil
weeks of five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten days would likewise have
a natural origin in divisions, either of the true lunation or of the
conventional month. But the evidence which has been presented for the
existence of market weeks shows that these arose quite independently of
the lunar month, and that only at a subsequent period, when they came
into general use for calendrical purposes, were they adjusted to the
length of the moon’s monthly course. Some interesting examples of this
process of adjustment may be studied among the negroes of west Africa.
Thus, the Yoruba week consists of five days, and six of them are supposed
to make a lunar month. As a matter of fact, since the first day of the
first week always commences with the appearance of the new moon, the
month really contains five weeks of five days’ duration, and one of four
days and a half, approximately.[582] Again, the Tshi tribes of the Gold
Coast, having chosen seven-day weeks, find it necessary to begin them
at different hours of the day. Some of their weeks, termed _n’ehsŭn_,
“It is seven,” may have eight days and six nights, others the reverse,
and others seven days and nights, with a fractional part of a day or
night.[583] Such are the expedients adopted by some semi-civilized
peoples, whose months are strictly lunar, to avoid the difficulty
presented by the fact that the length of the lunation (twenty-nine and a
half days) does not permit of subdivision into exactly equal parts.
One of the most common forms of the week is the decade. When not based on
the institution of the market, it seems reasonable to suppose that this
cycle was originally suggested by the increase, culmination, and decrease
of the moon, as shown by the waxing crescent, the more or less full disk,
and the waning crescent. If it be held that the arrangement by decades
was based rather on denary arithmetic, we may at least feel confident
that it would not have been chosen except for its close approximation
to the length of the lunar month. As a matter of fact, such a sequence
represents the true course of the lunation in days more correctly than
a nine-day, or an eight-day, or even a seven-day week. A division of
the month into decades is definitely attributed to the Maori of New
Zealand, who doubtless were obliged to count only nine days in the third
and last decade of every other month.[584] The arrangement of the four
Hawaiian _tabu_ periods, of which the first three came at intervals of
ten days, argues strongly in favour of a division of time into decades,
or _anahulu_. This term, though now obsolete, occurs frequently in
ancient legends and songs as a measure of time comprising ten days. The
fourth monthly _tabu_ period, sacred to the god Kane, was celebrated
on the twenty-seventh of the month, only three days after the festival
of Kaloa, from which circumstance it has been plausibly regarded as of
later introduction than the others.[585] A curious division of the month
into three parts prevails in some of the Caroline Islands. In Yap,
for instance, the thirty-day month is divided into _pul_, or new moon,
lasting thirteen days, _botrau_, or full moon, lasting nine days, and
_lumor_, or darkness, continuing to the end of the month.[586] Lunar
decades are found in southeastern Asia. The Chingpaw or Kachin of Upper
Burma, whose primitive year consists of twelve lunar months uncorrected
by intercalation and arbitrarily adjusted to the successive seasons,
recognize three divisions of the month, each of ten days’ duration. The
first, called _shitta pyaw_, includes ten days of the waxing moon; the
last, called _shitta si_, includes ten days of the waning moon. The
intervening period bears no special name, though the full moon itself is
called _shitta lai_.[587] The peoples of French Indo-China (Cochin-China,
Anam, and Tonkin) regularly divide the month into three decades, but
this arrangement is now being gradually superseded by the European week
of seven days.[588] Probably the Indo-Chinese custom was borrowed from
the Chinese, among whom it has long been a common practice to speak
of anything as happening in the first, middle, or last decade of any
particular month.[589] A similar system has not yet become obsolete in
Japan, where the ten-day periods are known as the upper, middle, and
lower decades.[590] Various African peoples use the ten-day cycle. Among
the Wagiriama of British East Africa the three decades (_makumi_) exist
side by side with the market week four days in length.[591] The Sofalese
of Portuguese East Africa are said to have divided the month into three
periods each of ten days, the first day of the first week being the
festival of the new moon.[592] Among the Tofoke, a Congo tribe, the lunar
month consists of three parts, reckoned, respectively, from new moon to
the increasing half moon, from this to the decreasing half moon, and
thence to the end of the month. Each of these phases bears a distinct
name.[593] The Ahanta of the Gold Coast divide the lunar month into three
periods, two of ten days’ duration, and the third lasting till the next
new moon appears, that is, for about nine days and a half.[594] These
decades seem to be quite independent of the market weeks, sometimes ten
days long, which are also found in Africa. On the other hand the Peruvian
decades, previously noticed, were clearly connected with the institution
of the market.[595] The sole instance of a week discoverable among the
Indians of North America is found among the Zuñi of northeastern New
Mexico, a Pueblo tribe leading a sedentary existence and in many respects
advanced in culture. By the Zuñi “the month is divided into three parts,
each part being called _topĭnta as temla_, ‘one ten.’”[596]
A ten-day week was employed in antiquity by the Egyptians. The
hieroglyphic expression meaning “the ten days” is found in inscriptions
belonging to the age of the Pyramid-builders. The names applied to each
of the three decades—_hati_, that of the beginning, _abi_, that of the
middle, and _pahu_, that of the end—are perhaps somewhat less ancient,
the earliest definite use of these appellations being found in the time
of the Tenth Dynasty. The decades ran continuously from month to month.
Since the Egyptian year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days,
it was necessary, however, in alternate years to begin the reckoning
of the decades on the sixth, instead of on the first, of the month.
According to an inscription dating from the time of the Third Dynasty,
the first day of each decade was marked by sacrifices, and later records
contain frequent instances of a religious observance of this day.[597]
The Greek decades betray in their names, μὴν ἱστάμενος (waxing), μεσῶν
(central), and φθίνων (waning), an association with the moon. The days of
the last decade were usually counted backward; in “hollow” months, the
day corresponding to the twenty-ninth of “full” months was omitted, so
that the decade really contained only nine days. By the Athenians the
last day of the third decade was styled ἕνη καὶ νέα (“old and new moon”),
as being the day which belonged in part to the preceding (theoretical)
month of twenty-nine and a half days and in part to the following month.
No clearer illustration could be afforded of lunar weeks adjusted to
the lunar month.[598] The Greek arrangement by decades must have been
very old. Unknown to Homer, it appears in Hesiod’s _Works and Days_ side
by side with the still earlier division of the month into two parts
determined by full moon. Hesiod, who tells his Bœotian farmer to avoid
the thirteenth of the waxing month for the commencement of sowing, and
who declares that the fourth, whether of the waning or of the waxing
month, is “a very fateful day,” also uses such expressions as the “first
sixth,” “first ninth,” “middle third,” “middle fourth,” and “the fourth
which follows the twentieth of the month.”[599] This unequivocal evidence
for the use of the decades as early as the middle of the eighth century
B.C. seems to dispose of the theory[600] that they were an importation
from Egypt.
The evidence for the existence of weeks of nine days is very obscure.
They are found in west Africa, but only as market weeks unconnected
with the lunation. Efforts have been made to discover traces of such
periods among various Indo-Germanic peoples, particularly the Greeks
of the Homeric and pre-Homeric age.[601] There are, indeed, numerous
illustrations in the older literature of cycles of nine days (as also
of nine years), but no evidence at all that these were ever employed for
civil purposes as regular divisions of the month. The same remark applies
to the so-called weeks of nine days among the ancient Germans,[602] and
to the frequent mention in old Irish and Welsh texts of periods of three
days and nights and of nine days and nights.[603]
Market weeks, eight days in length, which seem to have developed from
earlier periods of four days, are found in Assam, in certain parts
of Africa, perhaps at one time among the Indians of Colombia, and in
antiquity among the Romans.[604] Such market weeks are independent of the
moon and run unfettered through the months and years. On the other hand
a week of eight days, called _‘sāmĕn_, which exists among the northern
Abyssinians, is clearly adjusted to the length of the lunation. Every
month consists, theoretically, of four weeks, of which the first two are
those of the increasing moon and the last two those of the decreasing
moon. In practice, however, the people are compelled to count only six
days in their fourth and last week.[605] This Abyssinian cycle possibly
may have originated as a market week, since elsewhere in Africa market
weeks of four or more days have been adjusted, somewhat artificially, to
the length of the lunation.
Six-day weeks, connected with the market and probably derived from an
earlier week of three days’ duration, are found in Africa.[606] There
are also a few instances of the same cycle where a connection with the
market does not certainly appear. The Lolo, Pula, and other aboriginal
tribes of southwestern China keep a “Sabbath,” as a rule every sixth day.
No ploughing may take place at this time, and in some places the women
are not allowed even to sew or wash clothes.[607] The Bawenda, who occupy
the northeast corner of the Transvaal, are said also to use a week of six
days, though only three of these are separately named.[608]
The numerous five-day weeks found in the Malay Archipelago, southeastern
Asia, and Africa all exist in connection with the market.[609] On the
other hand this cycle seems to be sometimes independent of the market.
An Egyptian calendar, belonging to the second century B.C. but probably
based on much older material, divides the year for astrological purposes
into weeks of five days, each week corresponding to the sixth part of
one of the signs or constellations of the zodiac. The calendar also gives
the name of the presiding deity of each sign, together with the omens,
portents, and favourable or unfavourable characteristics that belong
to it.[610] A five-day period, _khamushtu_, employed as a sixth of the
month, appears to have been familiar to the Assyro-Babylonians in the
third millenium B.C. We do not know how far the _khamushtu_ entered into
the civil life of the Mesopotamian peoples, but from the circumstance
that this system of computing short time-intervals was used in mercantile
and monetary transactions it may be surmised that we here have to do with
a very ancient form of the market week.[611] Babylonian and Assyrian
cuneiform texts also contain traces of five-day periods associated with
the successive changes of the moon and dedicated to various divinities;
but it is not certain that these later cycles were derived from the
_khamushtu_.[612] The whole subject is obscure and may well await future
discoveries for its complete elucidation. Finally, there is evidence
that the old Scandinavian peoples employed time-intervals of five days,
of which six were counted to the month. Here, again, we are at a loss to
determine how far this pentad, called _fimt_, was regularly used as a
civil week in heathen times. After the introduction of the hebdomadal
cycle into northern lands, the term survived as a standing phrase in
Norse laws and popular sayings.[613]
The preceding pages have presented much evidence to show how carefully
primitive peoples watch the changes of the moon and describe them by
appropriate names. The four lunar phases provide, indeed, an obvious
means of calculating the passage of time; and they are often used for
this purpose in the absence of any recognized calendrical unit shorter
than the lunar month. The length of the lunation being approximately
twenty-nine and a half days, a single phase occupies about seven and
three-eighths days, which must be calendarized as seven days, since it is
necessary to employ a round number. It is not a valid argument against
the natural origin of the hebdomadal cycle to urge that seven does not
form an exact division of the lunar month. No other number will divide
the lunation without a remainder. However, the hebdomad furnishes a less
satisfactory time-unit than the decade, the former falling short of a
quarter of the month by more than nine hours, the latter exceeding a
third of the lunation by rather less than four hours. This circumstance
may account for the otherwise remarkable fact that, while the ten-day
lunar week is found in many parts of the world, the week of seven days
occurs in the lower culture and among peoples of archaic civilization
only as a borrowed institution, which can be traced ultimately to Semitic
lands and Semitic antiquity.
The prevalence of the seven-day week throughout the world furnishes a
most impressive instance of the diffusion of a cultural element. Its
introduction into the Pacific area during the nineteenth century and
among the aborigines of America as the result of their contact with
European civilization is well known.[614] In Africa it has been spread
by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; in southeastern Asia and the Malay
Archipelago the original disseminators were Hindus, followed later by
Arabs and Europeans. This imported week has sometimes provided a cycle
of time shorter than the lunar month, where none existed before; in
other cases it has supplanted a native cycle usually associated with the
market. Together with the week has often gone the Jewish, Christian or
Mohammedan rest day.
In Madagascar and along the east coast of Africa Arab influence,
continuing for many centuries, naturally left its impress on the
calendar. The names of the Malagasy weekdays are of Arabic origin.[615]
Previous to the introduction of Christianity under Radama I (1810-1828)
no rest day was communally observed, though each god had a sacred day
when those who were its special votaries abstained from work.[616] The
Swaheli, who occupy the coast lands north and south of Zanzibar, use a
seven-day week, beginning with Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath.[617] Some
peculiar arrangements are found among the Masai of eastern equatorial
Africa, a warlike race clearly distinguished by language, customs, and
appearance from the Bantu peoples. The Masai seem to be connected with
the so-called Nilotic group, and their ancient home has been placed in
the region between Lake Rudolf and the Nile. At the present time they
dwell much farther south both in British and German territory. The Masai
count time by moon months, generally taken at thirty days in length.
The month does not begin with the visible new moon, but on the fourth
day thereafter. In addition they have a week of seven days, each one
separately named. The seventh day, which ends, and does not begin, the
week, is called _essubat ’n oloṅ_, “the good day.” According to Masai
tradition this week in remote times began on the new-moon day, but now
it is reckoned continuously without regard to the lunation. Furthermore,
the Masai appear to have once divided the months into decades, as is
still indicated by their expression, _ne̱gera_, applied to the tenth,
twentieth, and thirtieth days. This term comes from a verbal form
meaning “to be silent.”[618] There can be little question that the Masai
seven-day week was borrowed from Jewish or Christian sources, while the
decade arrangement may have been affected remotely by cultural contact
with peoples influenced by ancient Egypt. Most of the interior tribes
of British East Africa recognize no subdivision of the lunar month. But
among the Rendile and Burkeneji, who inhabit the steppes east of Lake
Rudolf, we find a week of seven days. Three of these days are marked
by restrictions. The first day, _hahat_, is a fast day, at which time
animals cannot be slaughtered for food. On the second day, _hura hakhan_
(_hura_ in the Rendile language means sun), no work may be done, except
the slaughtering of food animals. On the fifth day, _ser hakhan_, people
will not travel, move their grazing grounds, or make cattle-medicine.
The natives are unable to identify the particular days of their week
with those of the European cycle.[619] Many of the Galla tribes between
Shoa, a kingdom of southern Abyssinia, and the Tana River of British
East Africa, are said to show great respect for Saturday and Sunday,
and on these days do not work in the fields. Here we may legitimately
assume Jewish and Christian influences from Abyssinia, especially since
the nomadic Galla of equatorial Africa do not seem to keep any special
rest days.[620] Other eastern Hamitic peoples, the Somali, Afar, and
Danakil, use the seven-day week with Arabic names and observe Friday, the
Mohammedan Sabbath.[621] The seven-day week found among the natives of
Kaffa, a region of eastern Africa on the borderland between the British
and Italian spheres of influence, appears to have been introduced a few
centuries ago by Christian immigrants from Amhara, the central province
of Abyssinia.[622] The spread of Islam among the Sudanese and Guinea
negroes has resulted in the introduction of the hebdomadal cycle and of
the custom of holding markets on the seventh day.[623]
The seven-day week in India has a long history. The original division
of the Hindu lunar month was, as we have seen, into two equal parts,
determined by the waxing and the waning moon. This arrangement, which
still prevails in India, appears to have been the only one in calendrical
use until long after the beginning of the Christian era. It is true that
even in Vedic times the eighth day after the full moon was regarded as
one of the festival days of the month, and that, at least as early as the
rise of Jainism and Buddhism in the sixth century B.C., the eighth day
after new moon was added to the list of holy days.[624] The celebration
of four lunar festivals does not, however, imply the use of a civil week
by the Hindus, any more than in the case of the Persian festivals, which
likewise were adjusted to the phases of the moon.[625] The hebdomadal
cycle in India was entirely a borrowed institution, derived from the
planetary or astrological week, the days of which are named after five
planets and the sun and moon. By the middle of the third century A.D.,
the planetary week was well known in the Roman world, and somewhat
later it was introduced as an astrological device into India. Who the
intermediaries were—whether Hindus who visited Mediterranean lands or
learned Greeks who made the voyage to India—it is impossible to say. The
earliest-known genuine instance of a planetary name of a day in India
occurs in an inscription belonging to the year 484 A.D. By the end of
the eighth century there are perhaps ten other inscriptional records,
coming from various parts of India and from Indian settlements in Java,
Cochin-China, and Cambodia, of the assignment of the weekdays to the
planets. After 900 A.D., instances of this practice are more numerous,
indicating that the seven-day week had now become something more than an
astrological device and was generally recognized for civil purposes as a
part of the Hindu calendar.[626] In modern India every day of the week
has its sacred character for the devotees of various gods, Sunday being
especially consecrated to the sun, Monday, to Siva, and Saturday, to the
monkey-god Hanuman.[627] For Hindus, generally, Sunday, Tuesday, and
Saturday are unlucky days, and at such times no important business will
be undertaken or any long journey begun.[628]
India was the center from which the planetary week of seven days was
first introduced into southeastern Asia—into Ceylon, the Maldive Islands,
Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Cambodia, and Siam.[629] The Brahmanist Chams in
Cambodia and Anam use the planetary weekdays borrowed from Hinduism, but
the Mohammedan Chams sometimes employ the days of the Arabic week and
observe Friday as a Sabbath.[630] The Laotians, who have taken over the
planetary week from the Siamese, are careful, as pious Buddhists, so
to adjust their calendar that Sunday (_van athit_) always falls on the
eighth and fifteenth days of the lunar fortnight.[631]
The Chinese possess no regular division of the month into weeks, though
a popular cycle, ten days in length, has long been found among them. The
week of seven days is coming into use in commercial centres frequented
by Europeans, where, for Monday, Tuesday, etc., native names meaning
“first day,” “second day,” etc., have been coined. The assertion that
the Chinese from of old have been familiar with the seven-day week
appears to be based on their custom, which is not of extreme antiquity,
of applying the names of the twenty-eight lunar mansions to each day of
the year in rotation, from which circumstance the same four out of the
twenty-eight always fall on Sunday and constitute what has been well
described as a perpetual “Sunday letter.”[632] On the other hand there
is definite evidence that the planetary week was introduced from India
to China, where, however, it seems never to have been employed except
for astrological purposes. A Chinese translation, made in the eighth
century A.D. of an Indian treatise on astrology, apportions the days of
the week among the planets, according to the astrological order. Sunday
in some Chinese almanacs is still called the “day of Mit,” that is, the
day of Mithra, the Persian deity associated with the sun. This “Sunday”
seems formerly to have had a place in the state calendars issued under
imperial auspices at Peking.[633] In this connection it is interesting to
note that the famous Nestorian Monument bears witness to the introduction
of the Christian Sunday into China by Nestorian missionaries from
Persia.[634] But the week of seven days as a calendrical entity never
took root among the Chinese, nor have they ever observed a weekly day of
rest.[635]
In old Japan, as in China, the week of seven days was unknown. Shortly
after the restoration of the Mikado’s power in 1867-1868 there was
introduced what were called the _ichi-roku_, or holidays on the “ones”
and “sixes” of each month, _i.e._, on the first, sixth, eleventh,
sixteenth, twenty-first, twenty-sixth, and thirty-first days. But this
arrangement, borrowed from the Christian Sunday, did not last long,
and the copy soon gave way to the original. The Japanese now have the
seven-day week with names derived from the Occidental names. Sunday, in
vulgar parlance is called _dontaku_ (a corruption of the Dutch Zontag)
and Saturday, in equally vulgar parlance, is called _han-don_, that is,
“half-Sunday” (because the modern English Saturday half-holiday has made
its way into Japan).[636] On Sunday government offices and schools are
closed. In the cities some of the larger banks and mercantile houses
also suspend their business on Sunday, but as a rule country people,
artisans, and labourers observe no weekly day of rest. By people of the
middle and highest classes Sunday is preëminently a day devoted to social
intercourse, and even Japanese Christians, after attending an early
morning church service, feel themselves free to devote the afternoon and
evening to any form of legitimate recreation or amusement.[637]
The planetary cycle is not unknown in the Malay Peninsula, though
here employed, as it seems, solely for astrological purposes. For
civil purposes weeks of seven days, marked by the return of Friday,
the Mohammedan Sabbath, are in general use.[638] Curious animistic
superstitions sometimes attach themselves to this day. Thus, the Malays
of the Patani States believe that the spirits have extra power over
mankind on Friday, hence many people will not take shelter under a tree
at any time on this day, lest the spirits sitting in the tree dive down
into them. This precaution especially applies to travellers, whose bodies
are weary and whose souls are therefore weak. Some Malays who have
wooden chests in which they store their finery and treasures dare not,
on Friday, lift the lid of one of these receptacles, because then the
chest’s soul (_semangat_) might escape. Henceforth the chest would become
a dead thing and all luck would desert its owner. Patani fishermen on
Friday always make offerings to the _semangat_ of their boats.[639]
The seven-day week in the Malay Archipelago exists both as a Hindu
institution of remote origin and also as an outcome of the expansion of
Islam over this region. The Achehnese in northern Sumatra have not only
borrowed the hebdomad from the Mohammedans, but go so far as to make
Friday a day _pantang_ for all agricultural work, _pantang_ being the
native term for taboo.[640] Among the natives of the Kuantan District
the seven weekdays bear names derived from the Arabic.[641] On the
other hand the Batta of Lake Toba possess a calendar derived from Hindu
sources and also a week of seven days, with planetary names clearly
taken from the Sanskrit. But the Batta magicians, who use this cycle for
astrological purposes, do not now recognize its planetary origin; they
know only the sun, the moon, and, possibly, Venus. To the Batta _ari na
pitu_, the seventh day, is an evil day, and he who ventures to begin
any work upon it will surely be visited by some grave misfortune.[642]
In districts of Sumatra where neither Hindu nor Arabic influence has
penetrated, a division into weeks is unknown, the natives counting,
instead, by the days of the moon’s age.[643] In Java the Hindu planetary
week was combined with the still earlier market week of five days in
the eighth and ninth centuries, A.D., and since that time the Arabic
designations of the seven weekdays have also been introduced.[644] A
similar combination of the two cycles, yielding a period of thirty-five
days, occurs in Bali.[645] In Macassar, a former native kingdom of
Celebes, the Mohammedan Sabbath is observed.[646]
The foregoing pages make it clear that the spread of Mohammedan rule
both in Asia and Africa has introduced the week of seven days into
regions where it had not previously found entrance. The Arabs themselves
adopted the week from the Jews and Christians, presumably at the time of
their conversion to Islam.[647] In the Arabic week the days from Sunday
to Thursday are numbered in their order, Friday is called _al jum‘a_
“the meeting” (for worship), and Saturday, _as sabt_, “the Sabbath.” On
Friday, according to the rule laid down by Mohammed, the faithful are
to take part in the midday prayer at the mosque and to listen to the
sermon which follows the prayer. Labour is suspended during the service,
but at its close secular vocations, including marketing, are resumed.
The Mohammedean _jum‘a_, unlike the Jewish Sabbath, but like the early
Christian Sunday, is not a day of rest.[648]
The seven-day week has now been traced over a large part of the globe. It
sometimes exists as a planetary-astrological cycle of pagan derivation;
in other cases its presence is obviously due to Jewish, Christian, or
Mohammedan influence. In no region does the hebdomadal cycle appear as an
independent product of the native culture. The inquiry into its remote
origin and connection with the cult of the number seven takes us back to
the ancient Oriental world.
It is a familiar fact that many people attach to certain numbers a sacred
or symbolic meaning.[649] Such mystic numbers, unlike those of ordinary
arithmetic, are real categories in which thought naturally rests;
they are not fortuitous counts of objects but are rather subjective
syntheses—_cadres donnés d’avance_—according to which the mind divides
up and parcels out all things visible and invisible. Like names they
may become virtual entities endowed with their own functional power.
The symbolism and superstitions attaching to certain numbers, which we
discover in the records of all archaic civilizations, must be based
on very primitive modes of thinking, since a similar tendency toward
mysticism in the use of numbers appears among half-civilized peoples.
It is a tendency to whose development no bounds can be set, once the
refining ingenuity of the priestly class has begun to elaborate the
concept of the “sacred” as opposed to that of the “profane.” It seems
obvious, therefore, that the systems of sacred numbers, found in ancient
India, Babylonia, Greece, and other cultural areas, incorporate many
items of folk superstition together with the results of much speculative
activity on the part of early organizers of religion.
It would be hard to find any number in the first decade which has not
been invested, by this or that society, with a mystical significance.
Seven, in particular, has enjoyed a marked importance among many peoples
widely separated in space and time.[650] As a symbolic number it occurs
among the Babylonians, Greeks, and Hindus at the very dawn of their
history; and it still figures prominently in the popular lore of India,
China, and southeastern Asia. Cultural influences emanating from the
Asiatic mainland appear to have introduced the symbolism of seven into
certain parts of Oceania and, notably, into Borneo. Of the Sea Dyak
of Sarawak it is said that, after three, their favourite number is
seven; while among the Malanau, another Sarawak tribe, seven is very
prominent in rites of exorcism.[651] The same number occurs repeatedly
in the legends of the Dusun of British North Borneo, and its mystic
significance may account in part for the curious system of unlucky days
observed by them. The Dusun consider twelve days of the month, beginning
with the seventh and including also the fourteenth and twenty-first,
as distinctly bad for agricultural labour. At such times they refrain
from going to their rice-fields, under penalty of failure of the crop,
but other work than that on the farms may sometimes be performed. The
natives cannot furnish any explanation of the evil quality of these
days.[652] A peculiar observance of the seventh day is found in some
parts of Melanesia. When the first missionaries visited the New Hebrides
and introduced the European week with Sunday as a day of rest, the
natives were much astonished to learn that the whites were also familiar
with their _bugi kai bituki_, or evil day. These Melanesians had never
recognized any time-divisions shorter than the lunar month, but it
had long been a custom among them to mark the seventh day by certain
taboos. The natives would not engage in warfare on the seventh day
after the declaration of hostilities; nor would they attempt to execute
vengeance on the seventh day after the receipt of an insult.[653] The
two prohibitions perhaps represent the broken-down form of a system of
taboos at one time much more extensive. Elsewhere in the Pacific area
(New Guinea, Australia, and Polynesia) seven does not seem to possess any
special significance.
The mystic qualities of seven are recognized in Africa, but only where
foreign influences have penetrated. Among the Wachaga of German East
Africa the seventh month of the year is most unlucky: houses are not
built, or marriages celebrated, or fields planted, or wars begun, during
this fateful time.[654] The Wagiriama and Wasania, Bantu tribes living in
the southeastern corner of British East Africa, observe the symbolism of
seven in birth, circumcision, and mourning ceremonies.[655] The Akikuyu
attach a very special ill-luck to the seventh day. A herdsman will not
herd his flocks for more than six days, and on the seventh he must be
relieved by another man. One who has been away on a journey for six days
will not return to his village on the seventh; sooner than do so he will
go and sleep at the house of a neighbour a short distance away. Were this
rule broken, he would certainly be struck down by some serious illness,
and a medicine-man would have to be called in to remove the curse. “This
belief,” we are told, “makes it easy for the missionaries to explain to
the Akikuyu the force of the Christian observance of the Sabbath.”[656]
Seven is also one of the unlucky numbers of the Nandi.[657] The seven-day
periods kept as Sabbaths by some of the Baganda and the seven-day
week with three days marked by taboos, found among the Rendile and
Burkeneji, have been previously noticed.[658] In some parts of Abyssinia
and Somaliland we find not only a week of seven days but also cycles
of seven months and seven years, with seven as a distinctively holy
number.[659] In west Africa, besides the adoption of a seven-day week
as the result of Mohammedan influence, there is also a symbolic use of
seven in native folktales,[660] thus providing an instructive parallel
to the same feature in European stories. The frequent occurrence of the
symbolic seven in the magic and astrology of north African peoples must
also be attributed to the spread of Islam from the Mediterranean to the
Sudan.[661]
If the cult of seven in the Pacific area and Africa appears clearly as
a borrowed institution, no other explanation than that of independent
origination can account for the fact that some American Indian tribes
also ascribe a peculiar sanctity to this number. In the opinion of most
Americanists the symbolism of seven is here an outgrowth of cosmical
conceptions of the four cardinal points, reinforced by conceptions of
a central, an upper, and a lower world. Seven is thus the most sacred
number because it represents all the regions of the cosmos.[662] This
explanation cannot be safely applied outside the American area.
The antiquity of the symbolism of seven in the Old World is attested by
its appearance as a sacred number in the earliest literary records of
India, Greece, and Babylonia. Numerous references to seven occur in the
_Rig-Veda_, where, however, it enjoys less importance than three.[663]
Periods of seven days and seven years are frequently mentioned in the
_Odyssey_.[664] Hesiod includes the seventh day of the month in his list
of holy days (έβδόμη ἱερὸν ἦμαρ), “for on the seventh day Leto bare
Apollo of the golden sword”; and this particular connection with the
seventh day was maintained by the god in the later age of Greek history.
Most of his great festivals began on the seventh day, at which time all
public business appears to have ceased.[665] Many other illustrations
exist of the large symbolic rôle played by the number seven in Greece
at a remote period.[666] Among the Babylonians, as early as the third
millenium B.C., seven appears as a symbolic number in magico-religious
rituals, incantations, exorcisms, and mythological narratives.[667] Thus,
in the Babylonian version of the Deluge myth, periods of seven days’
duration assume a marked importance: the rain continues for six days and
ceases on the seventh, when the waters begin to subside; and seven days
again intervene before the Babylonian Noah is able to abandon the Ark
and offer sacrifice to the gods for his preservation. The exceptional
importance which this number enjoyed in Babylonia lends credibility to
the theory that here was the centre from which the lore of seven passed
to adjoining regions of western Asia and thence to more distant parts of
the ancient world.[668]
Some Assyriologists have connected the symbolism of seven with the seven
stars visible to the naked eye which traverse the celestial zodiac. For
the Babylonian astrologers and astronomers these were the sun, the moon,
and the five larger planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
There can be no question that the separation of the planets from the
fixed stars, one of the enduring contributions which Babylonia has made
to civilization, was the outcome of superstitious notions concerning
the influence of the heavenly bodies on the life of man. The Babylonian
astrologers who watched night by night the stately procession of the
stars across the cloudless skies were animated by no high zeal for
scientific knowledge, but rather by the necessity of drawing from the
celestial phenomena omens of good or ill for king and country. Jupiter
and Venus were probably the first planets to be differentiated, the one
because of his brilliant light, the other because of her two appearances
when she precedes the rising, and follows the setting, sun. Saturn,
Mercury, and Mars seem originally to have been combined under the one
designation Lu-Bat, a term which came to bear the general meaning of
“planet”—doubtless on account of the difficulty involved in observing
their separate courses.[669] We do not know when all five planets were
set off from the fixed stars, or when they were first connected with
the sun and moon to form a group of seven planetary luminaries. As an
eminent Italian astronomer has remarked, both achievements must have
required centuries of close and accurate observations; they do not
belong to a primitive astronomy.[670] Hence we may safely conclude that
the symbolism of seven, reaching into remote Babylonian antiquity,
long preceded the recognition of the seven planets; nay, more, that
the symbolic significance of this number imposed itself on Babylonian
astronomers and astrologers and compelled them to include in it all the
principal stars.
The differentiation of the planets led naturally to their identification
with the greater deities of the Babylonian pantheon, whose several
names—Nabu, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib—have come down to us
through the Greeks and Romans in their classical equivalents, Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. It is by no means certain, however,
that at all periods of Babylonian history these were the only deities
which enjoyed planetary affiliations, or that the same gods were
invariably connected with the same planets. The association of planet and
god seems to have been quite artificial and arbitrary; at any rate, the
omen texts do not show any close correspondence between the character
of the deity and the prognostications drawn from the behaviour of his
planet. Furthermore, the cuneiform records contain no indication that the
Babylonians were familiar with what is known as the astrological order
of the planets, the order, that is, in which they appear as regents of
the weekdays in the so-called planetary week of seven days. The oldest
known list of the Babylonian planets dates from about 700 B.C., and
presents the following arrangement: Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn,
Mercury, Mars. The same order is found one hundred and fifty years
later, in astronomical texts belonging to the time of the New Babylonian
Empire.[671] This seems to be nothing more than the sequence according
to which the planets were severally differentiated from the fixed stars.
At all events it is not the astrological sequence, which lies at the
basis of the planetary week. Nor can the origin of the names of the
weekdays be sought in Babylonia. It is true that the Babylonians, like
the Egyptians,[672] ascribed to every day in the month its appropriate
divinity, but absolutely no evidence exists that they ever applied the
names of the seven planetary deities to the days of a septenary cycle.
That step was taken at another time and by another people.
The planetary week,[673] an institution which has spread eastward
over the Oriental world and westward into Europe, is a product of the
speculations of astrologers and philosophers during the Hellenistic, or
Græco-Oriental, era. The sequence of its days depends ultimately upon the
order of the seven planetary spheres, adopted by Ptolemy in antiquity
and after him by astronomers until the discoveries of Copernicus. If the
planets are grouped according to their distance from the earth, beginning
with the highest and descending to the lowest, we obtain the following
order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. No certain
evidence exists that this arrangement was known at an earlier date than
the second century before our era.[674] The astrological order, which
also begins with Saturn, proceeds next to the fourth planet, or Sun, from
which again the fourth planet (by inclusive reckoning) is the Moon. By
continuing to select every fourth planet thereafter we obtain at length
the regents of the seven weekdays: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury,
Jupiter, Venus.
How, it may be asked, did such an arrangement arise? This question has
been answered for us by the Roman historian, Dio Cassius, who interrupts
his narrative of the victorious campaign of Pompey the Great in Palestine
to furnish a brief account of the planetary week.[675] The institution,
says Dio Cassius, can be explained in two ways. According to the first
explanation the gods are supposed to preside over separate days of the
week, following the “‘principle of the tetrachord’ (which is believed
to constitute the basis of music).”[676] The planetary week would thus
be one expression of the occult relations supposed to exist between
harmonic intervals of music and the seven planetary spheres. Though
the idea that the motions of the planets were regulated by the laws of
musical harmony had great popularity among some of the Greek schools
of philosophy, neo-Pythagorean and neo-Platonist, it is not, however,
to this comparatively refined doctrine of the “music of the spheres”
that we must look for the origin of the planetary sequence.[677] The
second explanation given by Dio Cassius, and also by Vettius Valens,
is connected with the astrological theory of “chronocratories,” which
assigned to the several planets dominion over hours and days as periods
of time. If the day is divided into twenty-four hours and each hour is
ascribed in turn to the several planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun,
Venus, Mercury, Moon—then Saturn will preside over the first, eighth,
fifteenth, and twenty-second hours of the first day, the twenty-third
hour will fall to Jupiter, and the twenty-fourth to Mars. The
twenty-fifth hour, or the first hour of the second day, will belong to
the Sun, the first hour of the third day to the Moon, and so on for the
remaining weekdays. The planetary deity found to preside over the first
hour of a day is then supposed to give his name to the entire day. This
scheme, as far as it depends on the recognition of twenty-four hours, is
evidently not of Greek origin, for the mathematical division of the day
into fixed parts did not arise in the Occident, but was due to Oriental
influences.[678]
The planetary week thus presents itself as a curious amalgam of ideas
derived from different sources. Babylonia, the motherland of divination,
provided the doctrine of the influence of the stars on human destinies;
Greece furnished the mathematical astronomy which grouped the planets
according to their distance from the earth; and upon these foundations
astrologers of the Hellenistic era, familiar with the cult of seven and
with a division of the day into twenty-four hours, built up what was, at
the outset, an entirely pagan institution.
The seven-day week (ἑβδομάς, _septimana_), in its astrological form, has
had a varied history. It probably first appeared in the star cults of
Mesopotamia and Syria, certainly not before the second century B.C.,
passed thence to the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, the meeting-ground
of East and West, and about the age of Augustus gained an entrance into
Occidental lands. The first reasonably certain evidence of its existence
in Italy is found in the so-called _fasti Sabini_, the fragments of a
calendar drawn up between the years 19 B.C.-4 A.D. Here the days of the
seven-day week (indicated by the letters _A_ to _F_) and those of the
old Roman nundinal cycle (indicated by the letters _A_ to _G_) are set
forth in parallel columns for the months of September and October. All
similar calendars of the same period employ only the lettering of the
eight-day Roman week.[679] The earliest evidence for the planetary naming
of the weekdays is found in two inscriptions from Pompeii. Of these, the
first gives all the names of the planetary deities in their Greek form;
the second, the names in their more familiar Latin form, except for the
accidental omission of Wednesday: Saturni, Solis, Lunæ, Martis, Jovis,
Veneris.[680] Indications that the planetary week was known and used
during the second century A.D. occur in both classical literature and
the inscriptions. Dio Cassius,[681] writing early in the third century
(about 210-220 A.D.), declares that the custom of referring the days to
the stars, called planets, had then become quite familiar to the Romans
as well as to the rest of mankind. The accuracy of this statement is
confirmed by his Christian contemporaries, Tertullian and Clement of
Alexandria, who in their writings addressed to the pagans employ the
planetary names of the weekdays.[682]
The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven-day week with
its numbered weekdays,[683] but by the close of the third century A.D.
this began to give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth
centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in the western
half of Christendom.[684] The use of the planetary names by Christians
attests the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by
converts from paganism. The old beliefs in the power of the stars over
human destinies lived on in Christian communities; the heavenly bodies,
though no longer deities, were still demons capable of affecting the
fate of man. During these same centuries the spread of Oriental solar
worships, especially that of Mithra,[685] in the Roman world, had already
led to the substitution by pagans of _dies Solis_ for _dies Saturni_,
as the first day of the planetary week; and Constantine’s famous edict,
as we have seen, definitely enrolled Sunday among the holidays of the
Roman state religion.[686] The change from Saturn’s Day to Sunday must
have further commended the planetary week in Christian circles, where
the Lord’s Day (_dies dominica_), beginning the week, had long been
observed as that on which Christ, the “Sun of Righteousness,” rose
from the dead.[687] Thus gradually a pagan institution was engrafted on
Christianity.
The planetary week became familiar to the barbarians of the West before
its adoption by Christianity. Much monumental evidence exists to show
that in Gaul and Roman Germany the planetary order, beginning with
Saturn, was known from the first half of the third century. The same
cycle appears to have been introduced into Roman Britain. In nearly all
Romance countries the planetary names are applied to the weekdays except
the first and seventh, for which the ecclesiastical designations, _dies
dominica_ and _sabbatum_, are retained.[688] In most Germanic languages
Sunday and Monday appear as translations of the Latin forms; Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday represent equations of classical and
Germanic deities, based on the most obvious points of resemblance between
them;[689] while Saturday, for which no corresponding Germanic god
suggested itself, is a corrupt form of Saturnus.[690] Among the Slavic
peoples, whose week begins with Monday, as the first day after rest, the
planetary names are unknown, the days being numbered in conformity with
the usage of the Greek Church.[691] A similar custom prevails among the
Lithuanians and Esthonians, who appear to have borrowed their week from
the Slavs. Modern Greeks employ the ecclesiastical designations of the
weekdays,[692] but the Finns and Lapps, at the other extremity of Europe,
in adopting the week from the Scandinavians, took over also the planetary
names of the days.[693]