p. 48 | Old Style and New

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 5, 1864

Old Style and New.

We republish the following by request from Review Vol. xii, No. 12.

Concerning the change from Old Style to New, we give the following extract from the Encyclopedia Americana, Art., Calendar. Having given a description of the Julian Calendar, it continues:

"This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom till 1582. The festivals of the Christian church were determined by it. With regard to Easter, however, it was necessary to have reference to the course of the moon. The Jews celebrated Easter (i. e., the Passover,) on the 14th of the month Nisan; (or March;) the Christians in the same month, but always on a Sunday. Now, as the Easter of the Christians sometimes coincided with the Passover of the Jews, and it was thought unchristian to celebrate so important a festival at the same time as the Jews did, it was resolved, at the council of Nice, A. D. 325, that, from that time, Easter should be solemnized on the Sunday following the first full-moon after the vernal equinox, which was then supposed to take place on the 21st of March. As the course of the moon was thus made the foundation for determining the time of Easter, the lunar cycle of Meton was taken for this purpose; according to which the year contains $365\frac{1}{4}$ days, and the new moons, after a period of 19 years, return on the same days as before. The inaccuracy of the Julian year, thus combined with the lunar cycle, must have soon discovered itself, on a comparison with the true time of the commencement of the equinoxes, since the received length of $365\frac{1}{4}$ days exceeds the true by about 11 minutes; so that, for every such Julian year, the equinox receded 11 minutes, or a day in about 130 years. In consequence of this, in the 16th century, the vernal equinox had changed its place in the calendar from the 21st to the 10th; i. e., it really took place on the 10th instead of the 21st, on which it was placed in the calendar. Aloysius Lilius, a physician of Verona, projected a plan for amending the calendar, which, after his death, was presented by his brother to pope Gregory XIII. To carry it into execution, the pope assembled a number of prelates and learned men. In 1577, the proposed change was adopted by all the Catholic princes; and, in 1582, Gregory issued a brief, abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, under the name of the Gregorian

or reformed calendar, or the new style, as the other was now called the old style. The amendment consisted in this: 10 days were dropped after the 4th of Oct. 1582, and the 15th was reckoned immediately after the 4th."

Thus the change made by Gregory was simply dropping ten days in the reckoning of the month, and calling the 5th the 15th. But our opponents can claim nothing from this against the Sabbath; for this change would not in the least affect the reckoning of the days of the week. Thus the 4th of Oct., 1582 fell on Thursday. The next day, Friday, instead of being called the fifth, was called the fifteenth; but it held its order in the week just as usual. So we see that the regular succession of weeks, and the regular recurrence of the Sabbath was in no wise interrupted by this change.