The Ancient Calendar of the Week
By W. A. S.
SOME years ago the late Dr. Wm. Mead Jones, of London, got out a chart of the week, showing the style of the weekly cycle in many languages, ancient and modern. It showed very vividly that the seven-day period, the week, was known from the most ancient times; and in many languages the seventh day was designated by a title meaning rest or worship day, or some name suggesting sacredness. The agreement among the many languages, spoken by nations widely separated, bears witness to the fact that the world never lost the regular reckoning of the days of the week. In some ancient languages the common word for week was sabbath. A given number of weeks was spoken of as so many sabbaths. And the days of the week were numbered and referred to as first, second, third, etc., of or toward the Sabbath, the Sabbath being the chief, or crowning, day with reference to which the reckoning was kept. This was the common usage of the people of Syria in Christ’s time. The New Testament writers wrote accordingly. Some Sunday-rest advocates pushed to the last resort, have tried to confuse people by saying that the New Testament calls the first day a sabbath when it uses the phrase “first day of the week,” the word for week here being the word “sabbath.” One of the simplest and clearest statements as to the ancient usage in this respect is that of the eminent writer Horne, in his “Introduction” to the study of the Scriptures. He gives just such a calendar of the week6as any home in Palestine would have most recognized. He says of the week:— This division of time was universally observed by the descendants of Noah. This is evident from the word Sabbat or Sabbata denoting a week among the Syrians, Arabians, Christian Persians, and Ethiopians, as in the following ancient Syriac calendar, expressed in Hebrew characters (taken from Bishop March’s translation of Michaelis’s Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. I, page 136):—
[We do not give the Hebrew characters.]
One of the Sabbath, or week (Sunday).
Two of the Sabbath (Monday).
Three of the Sabbath (Tuesday).
Four of the Sabbath (Wednesday).
Five of the Sabbath (Thursday).
Eve of the Sabbath (Friday).
The high antiquity of this calendar is evinced by the use of the cardinal numbers, one, two, three, etc., instead of the ordinals, first, second, third, etc., following the Hebrew idiom, as in the account of the creation, where we read in the original, “one day—two day—three day,” etc. . . . It is remarkable that all the evangelists follow the Syriac calendar, both in the word sabbata, used for “a week,” and also in retaining the cardinal number mia sabbaton, “one of the week,” to express the day of the resurrection. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1.—Horne’s Introduction, Vol. III, part 2, page 165.
The Sabbath truth is enshrined from of old and for all time in the languages and calendars of the nations, there to be a witness against those who trample the Sabbath itself under foot. All the world uses the weekly cycle and no one in the world has ever been able to account for such a cycle except on the ground of the Scripture record of the creation and the making of the Sabbath. W. A. S.