In 45 B.C.E, the Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar. Caesar took advice from an astronomer named Sosigenes and eliminated the period of Intercalaris which was an undefined period at the end of the year. He then assigned all months other than February either 30 or 31 days. This lengthened the calendar to 365 days in common years and added an extra day every fourth year resulting in 366 days in leap years. These changes converted their old nominally lunar calendar to one that was truly solar. Unfortunately, the Julian calendar introduced an error of 1 day every 128 years because the tropical year shifts one day backwards with respect to the calendar. The calendar was not a public document, but was guarded by priests whose job it was to make it work and determine the dates of religious holidays, festivals, and the days when business could and could not be conducted. These priests determined that God was all and that nothing or 0 was equated with evil, so the priests started the calendar with the year one instead of zero, which would have made more sense logically.
When Julius Caesar was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Rome on 15 March 44BC, the Senate honored him and decreed that the seventh month, Quintilis, should be renamed Julius, and it became July. Later the Senate wanted to avoid slighting the Emperor Augustus, so they changed the name Sextilius to August and made it 31 days long, so that it was equal to July. This day was taken from February, and to avoid 3 successive 31-day months, September was shortened to 30 days, October lengthened to 31.
Around 150 AD Christians began to slowly take over the pagan festival of Saturnalia (which celebrated the winter solstice). This festival was a ten day feast that began on Dec. 15th and ended on Dec. 25th. For Romans, Saturn was the god of sowing and reaping. Saturn, which was associated with Saturday and the Sabbath, was also identified with Chronos. Chronos was both the Greek god of harvest and the personification of time or “Father Time”. Chronos is always capitalized, which in ancient Greek signifies a proper noun, such as a person. Its root is used in “chronology” and chronological.
In 321AD, the seven day week based on the Bible, with Sunday as its Holy Day, was introduced by the Roman emperor Constantine as part of the Christian reforms. They were named after planets and eventually some days took names from Norse mythology.
It was around AD 850 to AD 1150 that the Anastazi (meaning ancient ones) of the American Southwest were constructing the Chaco Canyon dagger which also marked time. It was constructed with huge stones that created shadows where a dagger of light pierce the center of a spiral on the Winter solstice. On the equinox two light daggers straddled the sides of the spiral. The age of Chaco Canyon houses which were built to align with the sun have been established by tree-ring dating to be from AD 850 to AD 1150. It was built with 225,000 trees brought from 80 miles away. We can only imagine how they may have further developed time keeping.
In 1400 AD, books were rare and only the elite knew how to read. It was because the early church wanted to replace the festival of Satrunalia with a more controlled celebration, that they started putting on “miracle plays” to tell the people stories from the Bible. Special plays were held at special times of the year, in accordance with the early Christian Calendar of Saints. In those days, the story to tell on December 24 was about the Garden of Eden, and the downfall of Adam and Eve. The play showed how the serpent tempted Eve, how she picked the apple from the forbidden tree, and how the couple was expelled from Eden. In Germany, because there were no apples hanging on trees in December, they brought an evergreen tree into the house, and tied red apples onto it. This is how red and green became the traditional colors of Christmas. They called the tree a “Paradiesbaum” (Paradise Tree), because it symbolized the eviction of Adam and Eve from Paradise. The beauty of a tree hung with apples in the winter was so attractive that many families adopted the tradition of putting up a Paradiesbaum in their homes. The custom lasted long after the miracle plays disappeared. Eventually a “Mass for Christ” or Christ Mass replaced Saturnalia. The Paradiesbaum became the “Weihnachtsbaum” (Holy Night Tree). It is coincidental that Christians now celebrate the birth of Christ on the same day Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise, and the Winter Solstice, which was the Pagan celebration of the birth of the new Sun. The Solstice was on Christmas in those days, but because of the precession of the Equinoxes combined with calandar reform, was displaced.
Over time, the Mass for Christ became mixed up with the German/Norse Yuletide celebration of the New Year. The Yuletide was a 12-day festival that ended with the burning of the Yule log. It is believed this 12 day festival was from an earlier tradition that may have originated in India and celebrated the 12 positions of the Sun as it went around the Zodiac. This is why a song was eventually written about the 12 days of Christmas. Santa Claus was a Norse sprite, or fairy that brought a different gift each of the12 days until the Yuletide feast. Santa Claus eventually merged into the gift giving St. Nicholas, though the two figures had nothing in common at first. One interesting note is that Santa’s suit was originally green in color with brown earth tone boots and belt. The green hat he wore was more like the “Robin Hood” archers hat.
Slowly over time, scientists continued to study the heavens. The Catholic Church became the primary opponent to the Heliocentric view that the Earth revolved around the Sun. During the Renaissance, Nicolaus Copernicus a Polish monk, physician, astrologier, proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system and was persecuted. Giordano Bruno an Italian philosopher burned at stake in the 1580′s for holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith which included speaking against its ministers and for teaching Copernicus’s heliocentric view.
In 1582 AD, Pope Gregory XIII ordered the advancement of the calendar by 10 days and introduced a new corrective device to curb further error. Century years such as 1700 or 1800 would no longer be counted as leap years, unless they were (like 1600 or 2000) divisible by 4. Many counties had delayed the adoption of the new Gregorian calendar. The British Calendar Act of 1751, declared the day after Wednesday the second to be Thursday the fourteenth there by advancing the calendar by twelve days. However, some countries (for example, Greece and Russia) used the old Julian calendar into the 1900s, and the Orthodox Church in Russia still uses it, as do some other Orthodox churches.
In the early 1,600’s AD, Johannes Kepler was the first to devise a system that described correctly the details of the motion of the planets with the Sun at the center. However, Kepler did not succeed in formulating a theory behind the laws he wrote down.
Galileo defended, expanded upon, and corrected Copernicus’s work by using telescopes to enhance Copernicus’s observations. In 1612, opposition arose to the Sun-centered solar system which Galileo supported. By 1616, Cardinal Bellarmino warned Galileo to stop teaching Copernican astronomy or he would be charged with heresy. Galileo was put under house arrest for the last years of his life for advancing and teaching that the Earth was not flat and that it orbitted around the Sun. The Catholic Church then banded certain forbidden books concerning the heliocentric view. It wasn’t until the late 1,600’s when Newton’s invention of the reflecting telescope, celestial dynamics and his law of gravitation, that the motions of the planets was sufficiently explained.
It wasn’t until two hundred years later in 1822 AD, that Pope Pius VII finally allowed the printing of heliocentric books in Rome.
We are still using the Gregorian calendar developed when the Earth was thought to be flat and at the center of the Solar system. Our current Gregorian calendar is disconnected from nature and the heavens. It is a calendar that was developed based on waging war, extracting taxation and keeping people on a religious holiday schedule of man tied to a dead Roman culture that honors questionable leaders, Julius and Augustus Caesar. It has become more of a tool that promotes consumption than a device to serve the good of all. Currently our months are random lengths of either, 31, 30 or 28 days long. This causes each month to start on a different day every year because it on a cycle that doesn’t repeat until fourteen years have passed. We operate in this inefficient and chaotic manor because we have been educated, indoctrinated, and programmed to follow the Gregorian calendar and most of us can not imagine anything different and are afraid of change.
Do we accept that this Gregorian calendar as some unchangeable ultimate truth of religion and government or do we believe that the calendar can continue to evolve into something that will help humanity evolve?
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© Copyright2009 Kelly Sabota-O’Donnell
Many of the ancient calendars such of those of India, had months with lengths of 30 days. The original Roman calendar had ten months in the year of either 30 or 31 days. The winter period was without formal length and was called Intercalaris. When it ended, Martius or March began. March was named after the Roman god of war and it was when taxes for war campaigns were collected based on the spring crops that were planted. This is why our current fiscal year still ends on April 15th, and that is why our taxes are due then. It was around 800 B.C. when Romulus, who was thought to be the first Roman king, made extensive changes to the month lengths, assigning 29 days to some and 31 to others. Shortly after Romulus’ death, a priest observed the sky and “called out” when there was a new moon, which evolved into our word for month. The word “Kalends or Calends” means calare (to announce solemnly, to call out). This lead to the invention of the word calendar-as applied to the whole cycle.
In 713 B.C., Numa, the king who followed Romulus, added January and February to the original Roman calendar of only ten months. The first five months were named after Roman Gods but the last five months were named after Latin numerical names. The addition of January and February shifted the names of the other months so that they no longer made sense. This left us with Quintilis, meaning the 5th month which was shifted to the 7th month. Sextilis, meaning the 6th month was shifted to the 8th month. Septembre meaning the 7th month was shifted to the 9th month. October, meaning the 8th month was shifted to the 10th month. Novem, meaning the 9th month was shifted to the 11th month. Decembre meaning the 10th month was shifted to the12th month. These names had little association to anything that was happening in nature. Alternatively, some Native Americans named months (moons) for animals that appeared during that season, or for things that related to planting, hunting or gathering.
In the year 153 B.C., Rome changed the first month of the calendar from March (the month of the god of war) to January 1st. This was because the military leaders felt that there was not enough time to train the troops for the summer war campaigns. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar began the campaigns that led to the Roman annexation of the whole of Gaul which wiped out the culture that was developing Stonehenge which was based on the Sun cycle. Many of the Celtic tribes that lived east of the Rhine were conquered or moved to west of the Rhine. Eventually the only remaining tribes were in Ireland and Scotland. The Celts first appeared in history in the 9th century BCE. The Celts, were made up the various tribes, called ‘Galli’ by the Romans, and ‘Galatai’ or ‘Keltoi’ by the Greeks. Both terms meant ‘barbarian’ which would support the idea that they previously lived east of the Rhine because part of Germany is called Bavaria. Perhaps their ancient roots were connected to a proven ancient migration from Bengal India. Perhaps the word Galli is connected to Bengali or Gallic. At the height of their power, their territory stretched from the British Isles to Turkey. The Celtic beliefs were slowly destroyed by Christianity. Saint Patrick (who was captured by the Celts as a boy) is alleged to have personally burned close to 180 Irish books written in the Celtic language. This set an example for Christian zealots who destroyed every piece of Druidic literature they could find. The Druids were the Celtic Priesthood who had three divisions: the Bards (poets), who wore blue robes; the Ovates (prophets & philosophers), who wore green; and the priests, who wore white. For clans entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, the oral stories were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
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