Our Calendar Part 1

Our Calendar.

by George Nichols Packer.

PREFACE.

Many years ago, while engaged in teaching, the writer of this little volume was in the habit of bringing to the attention of his pupils a few simple rules for finding the dominical letter and the day of the week of any given event within the past and the present centuries; further than this he gave the subject no special attention.

A few years ago, having occasion to learn the day of the week of certain events that were transpiring at regular intervals on the same day of the same month, but in different years, he was led to investigate the subject more thoroughly, so that he is now able to give rules for finding the dominical letter and the day of the week of any event that has transpired or will transpire, from the commencement of the Christian era to the year of our Lord 4,000, and to explain the principles on which these rules rest. When the investigations were entered upon he had no thought of writing a book; but having been laid aside from active labor by ill health, he found relief from the despondency in which sickness and poverty plunged him by pursuing the study of the calendar, its history, and the method of disposing of the fraction of a day found in the time required for the revolution of the Earth in its...o...b..t about the Sun.

He became so much interested in the study of this subject that he frequently spoke of it to friends and acquaintances whom he met. On one occasion, while speaking to Hon. H. W. Williams about some of the curious results of the process by which the coincidence of the solar and the civil year is preserved, it was suggested to him that he should put the story of the calendar, its correction by Gregory, and the theory and results of intercalation, in writing. It was urged that this would give increased interest to the study, help the writer to forget his pains, and probably enable him to realize a little money from the sale of his work to meet pressing wants. Acting upon this suggestion, an effort has been made to put into this little volume some of the most interesting facts relating to the origin, condition, and practical operation of the calendar now in use; together with rules for finding the day of the week on which any given day of any month has fallen or will fall during four thousand years from the beginning of our era.

The writer does not claim absolute originality for all that appears in the following pages; on the contrary, he has made free use of all the materials that came within his reach relating to the history of the calendar and the work of its correction by Gregory. These materials, together with his own calculations, he has arranged in accordance with a plan of his own devising, so that the outline and the execution of the work may be truly said to be original. Of its value the world must judge.

It has been prepared in weakness of body and in suffering, which have been to some extent relieved by the mental occupation thus afforded, but which may have nevertheless left their impress on the work. But let it be read before p.r.o.nouncing judgment upon it. Cicero could infer the littleness of the Hebrew G.o.d from the smallness of the territory he had given his people. To whom Kitto replies: "The interest and importance of a country arise, not from its territorial extent, but from the men who form its living soul; from its inst.i.tutions bearing the impress of mind and spirit, and from the events which grow out of the character and condition of its inhabitants." So the value of a book does not consist in the size and number of its pages, but from the knowledge that may be gained by its perusal.

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE

TO THE REVISED EDITION.

Soon after the publication of the former edition of this work, it was suggested that a chapter be added on Easter; rules for fixing its date, and also church festivals that depended upon the date of Easter. It was suggested that this would add very much to the value of the work, if so presented as to be brought within the comprehension of ordinary minds.

Knowing that the determination of Easter was an affair of considerable nicety and complication, and had had the attention of our best minds, and they had failed so to present it, that even among scholarly men, probably not one in a hundred was able to determine its date without referring to tables prepared for that purpose the author of this work felt as though he was hardly competent for the task. Nevertheless it was undertaken, and the work has been revised and enlarged by a Chapter on the Peculiarities of the Roman Calendar, another on fixing the date of events prior to the Christian era, and a third part on Easter, church festivals, and the Hebrew Calendar. In the opinion of the author, the rules for determining the date of Easter are so simplified by his new method that any person of ordinary intelligence may understand them. How well he has succeeded the public will decide.

G. N. P.

PART FIRST.

DEFINITIONS. HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

DEFINITIONS.

_a_--A Calendar is a method of distributing time into certain periods adapted to the purposes of civil life, as hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc.

_b_--The only natural divisions of time are the solar day, the solar year, and the lunar month.

_c_--An hour is one of the subdivisions of the day into twenty-four equal parts.

_d_--The true solar day is the interval of time which elapses between two consecutive returns of the same terrestrial meridian to the Sun, the mean length of which is twenty-four hours.

_e_--The week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions, a circ.u.mstance to which it owes its unalterable uniformity.

_f_--The lunar month is the time which elapses between two consecutive new or full moons, and was used in the Roman calendar until the time of Julius Caesar, and consists of 29d, 12h, 44m, 2.87s.

_g_--The calendar month is usually employed to denote an arbitrary number of days approaching a twelfth part of a year, and has now its place in the calendar of nearly all nations.

_h_--The year is either astronomical or civil. The solar astronomical year is the period of time in which the Earth performs a revolution in its...o...b..t about the sun or pa.s.ses from any point of the ecliptic to the same point again, and consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 49.62 seconds of mean solar time. Appendix A.

_i_--The civil year is that which is employed in chronology, and varies among different nations, both in respect of the seasons at which it commences and of its subdivisions.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE DIVISIONS OF TIME AND THE OLD ROMAN CALENDAR.

_Day_--The subdivision of the day into twenty-four parts or hours has prevailed since the remotest ages, though different nations have not agreed either with respect to the epoch of its commencement or the manner of distributing the hours. Europeans in general, like the ancient Egyptians, place the commencement of the civil day at midnight; and reckon twelve morning hours from midnight to midday and twelve evening hours from midday to midnight. Astronomers, after the example of Ptolemy, regarded the day as commencing with the Sun's culmination, or noon, and find it most convenient for the purpose of computation to reckon through the whole twenty-four hours. Hipparchus reckoned the twenty-four hours from midnight to midnight.

The Roman day, from sunrise to sunset, and the night, from sunset to sunrise, were each divided at all seasons of the year into twelve hours, the hour being uniformly one-twelfth of the day or the night, of course, varied in length with the length of the day or night at different seasons of the year.

_Week_--Although the week did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, A. D.

292, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all Eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of a year nor of the lunar months, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss to a.s.sign to it an origin having much semblance of probability. In the Egyptian astronomy the order of the planets, beginning with the most remote, is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. Now, the day being divided into twenty-four hours, each hour was consecrated to a particular planet, namely: One to Saturn, the following to Jupiter, third to Mars, and so on according to the above order; and the day received the name of the planet which presided over its first hour. If, then, the first hour of a day was consecrated to Saturn, that planet would also have the 8th, the 5th and the 22d hours; the 23d would fall to Jupiter, the 24th to Mars, and the 25th or the first hour of the second day would belong to the Sun. In like manner the first hour of the third day would fall to the Moon, the first hour of the fourth to Mars, of the fifth to Mercury, of the sixth to Jupiter and the seventh to Venus. The cycle being completed, the first hour of the eighth day would again return to Saturn and all the others succeed in the same order. See table on the 17th page.

It will be seen by the table, and it is also recorded by Dio Ca.s.sius, of the second Century, that the Egyptian week commenced with Sat.u.r.day. On their flight from Egypt the Jews, from hatred to their ancient oppressors, made Sat.u.r.day the last day of the week. It is stated that the ancient Saxons borrowed the week from some Eastern nation, and subst.i.tuted the names of their own divinities for those of the G.o.ds of Greece. The names of the days are here given in Latin, Saxon and English. It will be seen that the English names of the days are derived from the Saxon.

LATIN. SAXON. ENGLISH.

_Dies Solis._ Sun's Day. SUNDAY.

_Dies Lunae._ Moon's Day. MONDAY.

_Dies Martis._ Tiw's Day. TUESDAY.

_Dies Mercurii._ Woden's Day. WEDNESDAY.

_Dies Jovis._ Thor's Day. THURSDAY.

_Dies Veneris._ Friga's Day. FRIDAY.

_Dies Saturni._ Seterne's Day. SAt.u.r.dAY.

_Month_--The ancient Roman year contained but ten months and is indicated by the names of the last four. September from Septem, seven; October from Octo, eight; November from Novem, nine, and December from Decem, ten; July and August were also denominated Quintilis and s.e.xtilis, from Quintus five, and s.e.x, six.

Quintilis was changed to July in honor of Julius Caesar, who was born on the 12th of that month 98 B. C. s.e.xtilis was changed to August by the Roman Senate to flatter Augustus on his victories about 8 B. C. In the reign of Numa Pompilius, about 700 B. C., two months were added to the year, January at the beginning, and February at the end of the year. This arrangement continued till 450 B. C., when the Decemvirs (ten magistrates) changed the order, placing February after January, making March the third instead of the first month of the Roman year.

_Year_--If the civil year correspond with the solar the seasons of the year will always come at the same period. But if the civil year is supposed to be too long (as is the case in the Julian year) the seasons will go back proportionately; but if too short they will advance in the same proportion. Now, as the ancient Egyptians reckoned thirty days to the month invariably, and to complete the year, added five days, called supplementary days, their year consisted of 365 days.

They made use of no intercalation, and by losing one-fourth of a day every year, the commencement of the year went back one day in every period of four years, and consequently made a revolution of the seasons in 1460 years. Hence the Egyptian year was called a vague or erratic year because the first day of the year in the course of 1460 years wandered, as it were, over all the seasons. Therefore 1460 Julian years of 365-1/4 days each are equal to 1461 Egyptian years of 365 days each.