forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor of the
lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital
will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks, to assign
to it an origin having much semblance of proba-
bility.”— Article *‘Calendar,” Vol. IV, p. 088,
eleventh edition.
There is abundance of historical proof that the
calendar changes and revisions in the past never
altered the original order of the days of the week.
Our present calendar has gone through a number of
changes since Romulus in B. ¢. 738 introduced the
Roman Calendar, in which he divided a year of
304 days into ten months. In B. ¢. 713, Numa
Pompilius added two more months — January and
February — thus giving 354 days to the regular
year. He made provision that another month should
be added every second or third year in order to give
a true length to the year of 365 days. By the time of
Julius Ceasar the spring began about January 1
instead of March 21, and therefore, in B. Cc. 46, he
made another attempt to reform the calendar to
correct this confusion. He issued a decree that the
year B. C. 46 should have 445 days, and that the year
B. C. 45 should begin on the first day of January and
have 365 days, and that each succeeding year should
have the same number of days, but that each leap
year should have 366 days, and that this extra day
should be added to the month of February each
leap year.
But none of these changes in the Roman Calendar,
in the addition of extra months and days to correct
their miscalculations as to the true length of the
solar year, altered in a single instance the true days
of the weekly cycle. The Jewish nation and the
Eastern countries were able to continue the obser-
vance of the Sabbath as aforetime, and the weekly
cycle was preserved unbroken during all these
changes in the Roman Calendar, which only affected
the length of the months and the length of the year.
Julius Camsar had decreed that the month of
February should ordinarily have twenty-nine days,
and during leap year thirty days. The intercalary
day during leap year was not to be called the
thirtieth day of February, but it was ordained that
the twenty-fifth of February should be counted
twice on leap year. Some have concluded that this
arrangement altered the true days of the week.
But the following illustration shows how the Jews
who lived in Rome at this time counted the days of
the week when the twenty-fifth of February was
counted twice:
JULIAN CALENDAR
FEBRUARY
Mon. Tues. Wed. Thur. Fri.
2 3
10
17
24
B. C. 44
Sun.
PAGE SIX
You will observe from this calendar that the first
twenty-fifth of February fell on Saturday and the
second twenty-fifth of February on Sunday in the
leap year of B. C. 44. This way of reckoning did not
alter the weekly cycle among the Jews, and this is
still the way the ecclesiastical calendar operates on
the Julian Calendar to this day, according to the
authority of the ‘‘ Encyclopedia Britannica.”
The Roman Empire at the time of Constantine’s
Keystone View Co.
The only kind of church a “wandering Sabbath’
would not affect adversely. The congregation meets
in this one only once a year, at Slate Hill, N. J.
decree of A. p. 321 officially accepted the weekly
cycle as handed down by the Jewish race and the
Christian believers. However, none of the changes
made in the transfer from the Julian to the Gregorian
Calendar and adopted by the various nations at
different times have in a single instance altered
the days of the original weekly cycle.
The Julian Calendar was not accurate, because it
assumed the length of the solar year to be 36524
days, whereas the exact length was a few minutes
less. By A. Dp. 1582 this error amounted to ten days.
Pope Gregory XIII made an attempt to rectify the
error. He issued a decree that after October 4, 1582,
ten calendar days should be omitted, so that the
next day should be October 15 instead of October 3.
The change from the Julian to the Gregorian
Calendar was not made by all nations at the same
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE