ON THE ORIGIN OF WEEKS AND SABBATHS. 337 



named from the ides, which, were always eight i. e., from the 

 seventh to the fourteenth or from the fifth to the twelfth, while 

 the number of days named from the calends and from the nones 

 varied. 



Now, this scheme as a mode of measuring time is so clumsy 

 that we can not suppose it to have come into existence in this 

 shape ; it is more probable that it was an old plan which had been 

 adapted to new conditions viz., the invention of civil months. 

 In 452 B. c. the year consisted of twelve civil months of twenty- 

 nine and thirty days alternately, so as to correspond with the 

 synodic revolution of the moon ; and from this it is certain that 

 at some earlier period time was reckoned by lunar months, and 

 civil months had not been thought of. The Roman day, as with 

 all other peoples who reckon by moons, commenced at sunset, for 

 we find that religious festivals always commenced at that hour ; 

 the festival of Venus,* for instance, was celebrated on the first 

 three days of April, and began at sunset on the last day of March. 

 When the Romans reckoned by lunar months, the calends would 

 be the day of the new moon, the ides would always correspond 

 with the full moon, and the nones would mark the second quarter. 

 This is simple and intelligible, and the ides would always "di- 

 vide" the month, for from the day following the moon would be- 

 gin to wane.f We think, then, that the system of calends, nones, 

 and ides dated from a period when time was reckoned by lunar 

 months, and was really a system of half-moons and quarter- 

 moons, the nones falling on the night of the seventh-eighth, and 

 the ides on that of the fourteenth-fifteenth, which brings us very 

 near to the system of the Tshi and Ga tribes. The introduction 

 of civil months destroyed the connection between the calends, 

 nones, and ides and the phases of the moon ; and the lunar week 

 became a civil week of seVen days, and finally the names for the 

 days of the week were adopted from Egypt. 



From all the foregoing it will now be seen that there is nothing 

 mysterious about the origin of the week, and no need to have re- 

 course to the supernatural to explain it. It is simj)ly a subdivi- 

 sion of a lunar month, and is of four days' duration with some 

 tribes, and five, seven, or ten days' duration among others. 



We now come to the question of the origin of sabbaths. We 

 may define a sabbath to be a day sacred to a god, on which it is 



* Ashtoreth, or Astarte, whence the Anglo-Saxon Eostre and Easter. 



f The verb iduare is probably from the Sanskrit root i7id7i, idh, to kindle, lighten ; 

 whence indu, moon ; properly, the days of light of the moon (Lewis and Short : art. Idus). 

 If so, the word ides would properly be applied to the night of fullest light, that of the full 

 moon ; and the meaning " to divide " would be secondary, and would be formed because the 

 ides divided the lunar month. 

 VOL. XLVI. 25 



