Thinking to Change Times and Laws–Part Two
Time is difficult to define and to measure. This is what we have learned by trying to understand the laws that govern our universe, the starting point by which people begin to chart their human existence and to contemplate the purpose of life. Leaving us to only mark the passage of time, often memorializing events and individuals on our calendars, which can reflect the defined and binding cultural attributes, religious beliefs and political directions of peoples and nations. When Julius Caesar decided that he would borrow from the Egyptians to help him establish the Julian calendar—surviving for some 16 centuries—there were problems that developed in counting the days with the seasons. In 46 BCE, Sosigenes reviewed the Roman calendar for Caesar in order to improve it, and to accomplish this the Romans were ordered to disregard the moon, and Caesar ruled that the year 46 BCE should have 445 days. It was called the “year of confusion” by the Romans. Nonetheless, the development of the Julian calendar was a skillful political move that assisted the Romans in establishing their empire, and to influence changes in how other peoples would be governed—particularly conquered peoples—establishing Roman events and individuals as memorials related to the direction of the Roman Empire. It is also worth noting that the Romans took the names of their planetary gods and associated them with the days of the week, some of which were later modified by the Germanic and Norse tribes. The influence of which is with us even to this day. However, the inaccuracies of the newly established Julian calendar later led Pope Gregory XIII to reform the calendar, because the Egyptians and Julius Caesar didn’t allow for an accurate length of the solar year. The consequence was that by AD 1582 the vernal equinox was occurring 10 days earlier according to the calendar (March 11 instead of March 21). This led to the monumental act of removing 10 days from the calendar. Pope Gregory declared that October 15th would follow October 4th. This restored the seasonal calendar to what it was in AD 325. After Pope Gregory changed the way leap years were calculated, this revision became known as the Gregorian calendar, or Christian calendar, which we still live by in the West. Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox church has still not fully adopted this calendar in liturgical matters, revealing the separation that still exists today between Orthodox and Catholics. However, the Gregorian calendar is one of the most accurate solar calendars today. Interestingly, because of the nature of some landscapes, citizens in towns and villages would develop their own calendar in some parts of the world, which included their own particular festivals, and so lest we think that calendars, and the charting of people’s memorials was exclusive to the West, we should take a look to the East. The Chinese year is generally based on the moon, consisting of 12 months. Their calendar was anciently based on a nineteen-year time cycle, not unlike the Hebrew calendar. The Chinese gave names to each year in a twelve-year cycle of years, naming them after constellations and animals. The year 2000, for example, was called the “Year of the Dragon.” Summarily, the calendar, and the way it can be used to chart human political experience and worship, becomes an integral part of any given culture. It helps people to live the way they want to live—in terms of festivals, activities, politics and worship—and by contrast a change in a calendar and the events and memorials attached to it may well mean a major political and cultural shift for any given society or civilization. Additionally, a calendar can have a profound effect on what people come to believe about the beginning of human civilization—particularly their own civilization. Notably, the Chinese Calendar is said to have been invented by Emperor Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), and this calendar is considered to be accurate dating back to the Xia Dynasty, whose first ruler was the Great Yu, King of Xia. This calendar begins in the year Huang Di invented it, 2637 BCE. (The flood story associated with Yao and the Great Yu of China has reasonable relevance to the Flood that occurred in the days of Noah, which is dated to 2325/2324 BCE.) Comparatively, the Islamic calendar began with Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina. This flight is called the Hegira (Hijrah), and took place in AD 622, which is year one of the Islamic calendar. The Gregorian calendar was established in the 1580s, but its year numbering was faultily based on the date of Jesus’ birth. A monk named Dionysius Exiguus based the dating system starting with 532. In this system, Jesus was born just before AD 1 (anno domini, “in the year of the Lord”), and the preceding year was 1 BC (before Christ). Thus, Jesus was assumed to be born at the end of 1 BCE, and just prior to AD 1. Showing that the Romans did not allow for a year zero in this calculation, and so we are obliged to account for one additional year when counting the years from AD to BCE or BCE to AD. Now, the Hebrew calendar is associated by the Rabbis with the “year of chaos” and the creation of Adam. In later Jewish tradition, the date for this according to the Rabbis is 3,760 years and 3 months before the birth of Christ in December of 1 BCE. To get a generally relative comparison to the Gregorian calendar, we have to add 3,760 to the date on the Gregorian calendar. For example, the year AD 2000 would be approximately the year 5760 on the Hebrew calendar. So, once a date is established for any given calendar, then it can usually be recalculated and adjusted to another calendar. From a general perspective, even though there are different dates for different calendars, we still find that the recording and charting of human existence by calendars hasn’t been going on for very long—generally