a reference to the ancient sanctity of the planets and to the week, notwithstanding their Decades; for on the one hand we meet with a significance appertaining to the number Seven which is only explicable as referred to this source, while, on the other hand, certain religious festivals connected with prescribed days tend to confirm this view. It is unnecessary to enlarge here upon the sanctity attached to the number Seven in various ways by all those Oriental nations among whom we meet with the division of the Week, as these have often been collected and treated of*; but we may notice, as apparently of equal significance with the twelve pigsties of Eumæos and his 360 boarst, the seven flocks and seven herds of Helios, the sun, and Ulysses sailing on the seventh day from Sicily and from Crete, and Agamemnon sending to Achilles seven tripods on taking an oath‡. It is well known that the Alexandrian Jew Aristobulus attributed to Homer and Hesiod certain verses, or falsified others, which were at a later period received as genuine by the Fathers of the Church §, with a view to establish the credibility of the supposition that these poets derived the sanctity of the seventh day from the Hebrews. This fiction was however quite unnecessary, as other traces of the week are found among the ancients. The seventh day of each month-not of the month Thargelion alone-was held sacred as the birthday of Apollo, as well as the fourteenth * See Meursius in Denario Pythagorico (Lugd. 1631), p. 79 seq.; Vossius de Idololatria, ii. 34. Brucker, Histor. Philos. i. p. 1055. Plessing, Osiris und Sokrates, p. 280. Gedike, Geschichte des Glaubens an die Heiligkeit der Zahl Sieben, in the Berlin Monatschr. xviii. p. 494. Müller, Glauben, etc. der Hindus, i. p. 502. Hammer, in the Encyclop. Uebersicht der Wissenschaften des Morgenlandes, etc. + Odyss. xiv. 20. † Odyss. xii. 129, 399, xiv. 252, xv. 475. The ancient Arabians consecrated their alliances by seven stones, Herod. iii. 8. § Clemens Alex. p. 713; Potter, Eusebius Præp. 13, 13. See Valckenaer de Aristobulo Judæo Alexandrino Diatribe; Lugdun. Batav. 1806. day*; and Æschylus says expressly that the god chose for himself the seventh day. The number Four, on the other hand, was consecrated to Mercury at least as early as the time of Aristophanes, who makes Mercury mention the cake which he used to receive on the fourth. The sixth day was dedicated to Venus, and the offerings on that day were referred back to Pythagoras§. Ideler is of opinion that the division of the week according to the planets among the German nations was subsequent to the introduction of Christianity, and that they afterwards substituted heathen names of the gods for the Roman ones. The ancient altar found at Mayence, with the gods of the days of the week-the Sun, Moon, Tyr or Mars, Wodan, Thor, Freya, and Sater-may be referable to a period before the Christian era; and the majority of opinions have coincided in this view, and indicated the common origin of the institution of the week**. It undoubtedly originated with the * Valckenaer, in loc. cit. p. 108. Apollo therefore bears the name among the priests, "born on the seventh day," 'Eßdouayévŋs, and “commander of the seventh day," 'Eßdoμayéтas. Plutarch, Sympos. Quæst. 8, 1. Among the Romans the number seven had a great significancy (Ideler, Handbuch der Chronol. i. p. 89), and the seven courses round the circle in the Circensian Games were anciently referred to the planets. Eschylus, Sept. c. Theb. 797 : τὰς ἑβδόμας Ὁ σεμνὸς Ἑβδομαγέτας ̓́Αναξ ̓Απόλλων εἵλετ ̓. Plutarch, Symposiarch. ix. 3: 'Epμn dè μárioтα тŵν àрioμŵv † TETρàs åvákeitai, etc. Comp. Meursius in loc. cit. p. 46. Valckenaer in loc. cit. p. 113. Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 430. § Jamblichus, Vit. Pythagor. i. 28. || Ideler, in loc. cit. ii. p. 182. Ibid. ii. p. 623. ** Heilbronner, Hist. Mathes. p. 65: "Septimanarum non post Christianorum usum tandem Europæis, sed jam inde a prima haud dubie ex Asia in Europam migratione fuisse receptum." Comp. Grotius de Verit. Relig. Christ. i. 16. Gesner in Comment. Soc. Goett. iii. p. 78. Schlegel, Indische Biblioth. ii. p. 179. Chaldees, from whom astrological ideas flowed westward at so early a period, that a poem by Solon on the climacteral years was founded upon such a derivation*. The Chaldæans, as Varro shows, considered seven to be a periodical number of the greatest influencet; and later tradition ascribes to them, as well as to the Egyptians, the institution of the days of the week‡. But this is also found among the Hindoos, with collateral circumstances: the number Seven is considered highly sacred, and is frequently mentioned in the Indian myths; as for instance in the seven holy Rishis, the seven horses of Surya, the seven tongues of Agnis, the seven-headed Dragon, the seven mouths by which the Ganges, like the Nile, empties itself into the sea, and the seven caverns of purification, which represent the same number of Mithra's gates. The planets were mentioned in ancient writings, and there exist even prayers appropriated to them§. They appear in the same legends as in other parts of Asia. Venus (here a male deity) and Mercury are lucky stars; Jupiter, as the instructor of the gods, was held in high honour; and on the contrary, Saturn (Sanis, the Slow), to whom, as a source of evil, the raven was dedicated, always appears as the token of ill luck, division, and the rainy period||. The days of the week were distributed by the Hindoos according to the planets, in our manner : * See Weber, Elegische Dichter der Hellenen, p. 60. Varro, in Gellius Noct. Attic. iii. 10. Joan. Lydus de Mensib. p. 40, edit. Roether. § Asiat. Res. vii. p. 239. || Moor, Hindúpanth. p. 312. tab. 89; Porphyrius de Abst. 3, 4:"Apaßes корáкwν aкоvоvot. Comp. my Commentat. de Molenabbio, p. 50. Also Virgil (Georg. i. 388) says:— "Tum cornix plena pluviam vocat improba voce." For the representations of the Persians, see Hammer, Fundgruben des Or. i. p. 1, etc. Rhode (ii. p. 300) confounds all the planets, according to a print in Creuzer. Among these days the Sunday was esteemed the most holy: it was the day of creation under the meridian of Lanka*. At sunrise on this day begins the Kalpa, or a new world-period; and it is said to be even still celebrated in some Indian countries with religious ritest. True it is that all these phenomena are insufficient to justify our inferring the necessary community of origin in one particular people, since each might easily be led to assign the planets as so many tutelary spirits to the days. This fact however is remarkable, that the days everywhere follow in the same order, without any reference to the respective distances of the stars in the heavens,-a problem which is only solved by the astrology of the East, and which renders it highly probable that the combination was originally made by one nation. Dio Cassius furnishes the key to this enigma by explaining more clearly what Herodotus had only intimated, viz. that the Egyptians first determined what deity presided over each month and day‡, and adding, that they assigned a planet not only to each day, but likewise to every hour§. The stars, throughout the whole of antiquity, were arranged according to what is called the Ptolemaic system: the Sun was, by an optical illusion, brought into the series; and the reckoning began with the remotest planet, Saturn, under whose influence the first *Davis, in Asiat. Res. ii. p. 233. + See Walther, Doctr. Tempor. p. 154. Hitopadesa, p. 18, edit. Lond. Moor, Hindúpantheon, p. 286. Schlegel, Ind. Bibl. ii. p. 178. Herodot. ii. 82. § Dio Cassius, xxxvii. 17, 18. hour of the Saturday and Saturday itself were brought, until after constant repetition the twenty-fifth hour of Saturday, or the first hour of the Sunday, fell to the Sun*. It is clear from this arrangement, that it could not have been made by the Hebrews, who were opposed to all astrology. They nationalized only the day of Saturn, connecting it with a beautiful reference; for it is expressly asserted that the Sabbath was instituted in remembrance of the Egyptian bondaget. The later age of the Chaldæan cosmogony in Genesis, which rests on the institution of the Week, is thus at the same time given. But the worship of Saturn, to which they had for a long time zealously adhered‡, was regarded as idolatry; for the Egyptians and Phoenicians considered this planet as the tutelary deity of the nation, as the originator of agriculture, the God of Justice (hence its Chaldæan name Kawàn, "just") and of the Happy Age. The Tyrians even offered boys in sacrifice to Saturn§. Now if the hours were derived from the Babylonians, as Hero The diaréσσapov, or Pythagorean Fourth, which Dio also mentions, is far Deut. v. 15; Ezek. xx. 10; Nehem. ix. 14. The Hebrews were at the same time favoured by the similarity in sound of Shabbat (rest) with Sapta, seven, week, in the neighbouring language. The Septuagint even translates it sometimes by &ßdóun, the seventh day. Compare Amos v. 26, "Chiun," Saturn; called "Remphan" in Acts vii. 43. § The proofs are found in Selden, De Diis Syris; and Jablousky, Dissert. de Deo Remphan. |