THE PLANETS. 95 



date further back than the tenth century. Even upon stones 

 with Gnostic inscriptions they are not met with. Subsequent 



correct views have only recently been established. The Egyptians had 

 originally no short periods of seven days, but periods often days, simi- 

 lar to the week, as has been proved by Lepsius (Chronologic der ^Eg., 

 p. 132), and as is also testified by monuments which date back to ihe 

 most remote times of the erection of the large pyramids. Three such 

 decades 4'ormed one of the twelve months of the solar year. On read- 

 ing the passage in Dio Cassius (lib. xxxvii., cap. 18), " That the custom 

 of naming the days after the seven planets was first adopted by the 

 Egyptians, and had, in no very long time, been communicated by them 

 to all other nations, especially the Romans, with whom it was then al- 

 ready quite familiarized," it must not be forgotten that this writer lived 

 in the later period of Alexander Severus, and that, since the first irrup- 

 tion of the Oriental astrology under the Caesars, and in consequence of 

 the early and extensive commerce of so many races of people in Alex- 

 andria, it was the fashion among Western nations to call every thing 

 Egyptian which appeared ancient. The seven-day week was undoubt- 

 edly the earliest and most diffused among the Semitic nations ; not only 

 among the Hebrews, but even among the nomadic Arabians long be- 

 fore the time of Mohammed. I have submitted to a learned investiga- 

 tor of Semitic antiquities, the Oriental traveler Professor Tischendorf, 

 at Leipsic, the question whether, besides the Sabbath, there occur in 

 the Old Testament any names for the individual days of the week (other 

 than the second and the third of the schebna) 1 Whether no planetary 

 name for any one day of the seven-day period occurred any where in 

 the New Testament at a period in which it was certain that the foreign 

 inhabitants of Palestine already pursued planetary astrology ? The an- 

 swer was, " There is an entire absence, not only in the Old and New 

 Testaments, but also in the Mischna and Talmud, of any traces of 

 names of week-days taken from the planets. Neither is the expression 

 the second or third day of the schebua employed ; and time is general- 

 ly reckoned by the days of the month ; the day before the Sabbath is 

 also called the sixth day, without any further addition. The word Sab- 

 bath was also transferred to the week throughout (Ideler, Handbuch 

 der ChronoL, bd. i., p. 780); consequently, the first, second, and third 

 day of the Sabbath stand for the days of the week in the Talmud as 

 well. The word e66o[j.a<; for schebua is not in the New Testament. 

 The Talmud, which certainly extends from the second to the third cen- 

 tury, has descriptive Hebrew names for a few planets, for the brilliant 

 Venus and the red-colored Mars. Among these, the name of Sabbatai 

 (literally Sabbath-star) for Saturn is especially remarkable, as among 

 the Pharisaic names of the stars which Epiphanius enumerates, the name 

 Hochab Sabbath is employed for Saturn." Has not this had an influ- 

 ence upon the conversion of Sabbath day into Saturn day, the " Saturni 

 sacra dies" of Tibullus (Eleg., i., 3, 18)? Another passage in Tacitus 

 extends the range of these relations to Saturn as a planet and as a tra- 

 ditional historical personage. (Compare also Ftirst, Kultur- und Litte- 

 raturgeschichle der Juden in Asien, 1849, p. 40.) 



The different luminous forms of the Moon certainly attracted the ob- 

 servation of hunters and herdsmen earlier than astrological phantasms. 

 It may therefore be assumed, with Ideler, that the week has origin- 

 ated from the length of the synodic months, the fourth part of which 

 amounts, on the average, to 7f days ; that, on the contrary, references 



