The Express.
London, England, 1852-12-23 00:00:00

LITERA Ti

THE BABI3ATIf QUESTION.
&plenary In4titulions ciad Me Origin of Me Sabbatical
Observance of Mr Modern Sundae. uroombrisge.
The revival of that mistaken zeal which would
deprive the working chimes, on their only day of
leisure, of all out-door means of healthful recreation,
gives new and immediate value to a pamphlet like this,
the hubstan ce of which first appeared us an elaborate
article in the old series of the II estrainmter Review,
an article considered at the time as almost exhaustive
of the historical part of the subject. In its new and
more accessible form it will, we doubt not. ba exten-
sively read. Let us follow the author through his
philological researches and attempt a brief analysis
of his argument.
It commences with an inquiry into that supposed
universality of the septenary division of time, which,
having in some quarters been hastily assumed,
has often been urged iu support of the
further assumption that the Sabbath was
a primeval institution known to nil races
of men before their earliest dispersion. As tending
to an opposite conclusion the classical student is re-
minded by the author that the mouth of the Greeks
was not divided into weeks of seven days, but into
decades, and the Roman month into three similar
but unequal periods called the eefends, the ides, and
the nones lie shows that the week of the ancient
Mexicans, who were excellent astronomers, consisted
of but five days; having apparently been so fixed on
the ground that 7d weeks of five days complete the
Oar year (XII days) with the nearest practicable
approach to accuracy. (For the fractional period of
3h. 40m. they provided by an intercalation of 23
days every 104 years.) A week of five days, if the
customary interval between one market day and
another may he so called, still prevails in Java and
other eastern parts of Asia. No other week
than such five day intervals is known in
Chive, where the lunar month is divided into two
fortnightly periods corresponding with the waxing
land waning moon. The Chinese have no Sabbaths;
and Sabbaths appear to have formed no part of the
institutions of any of the aboriginal populations of
North and South America, Australia, and the irks of
the Pacific Ocean.

The septenary division of time, however, prevailed
at a "i•ery early date in the western parts of Asia, sod
in Egypt. It is supposed by Latin writer' to have
been introduced into Egypt from Chaltlea, and the
traces which we find of it in India carry us back to
a very remote antiquity. In the hymns of the Rig-
Veda-Sanhite, film are frequent allusions to sep-
tenary periods, and to seven as a sacred or perfect
number. In China the so called ►acred or perfect
number is live, from the fire planetary bodies, to
which the attention of early astronomers was chiefly
confined—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Sa-
turn. In India it became seven from the sun and
moon being added to tho list, and front the moon's
quarter nearly, although not accurately, correspond-
ing to a period of seven days, marked by seven dif-
ferent constellations.

Everywhere, in the infancy of society, the sanction
of religion has been sought by legislators to give
effect to the observance of certain chronological
epochs. These, in the first instance, were limited to
the days of tho new and full moon. Afterwards, as
astronomy advanced, they included the days of the
vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and of the summer
and winter solstice. Out of this connexion of the
celestial bodies with times and seasons arose Sabi-
anism, the most ancient of false religions, and astro-
logy, the most ancient of false sciences. Superstition
peopled the heavens with deities, influencing all the
affairs of men, and astrology sought to interpret
their will by the light of oppositions and conjone•
tions. The astrologers of India taught that every
moment of time was governed by the particular star
that might happen then to be is the ascendant,
and that the sun and moon and five planets presided
by turns over each diurnal interval. Thus each day
came to be dedicated to the worship of ono of the
seven as a god or goddess, and finally to be called by
the same name.

The names of the week in the ancient Sanscrit,
—the language of the holy wettings 01 India—wen)
the following :—Adita•var, Sunday; Soma car, Moon-
day ; Maogala-var, Mars-day ; Buddha-var, Mercury-
day; Vrihaspate-var, Jupiter-day; Subra-var, Venus-
day ; Sani-var, Saturn-day.
It is curious to trace, in our modern names fur tho
days of theweek, the influence of the Mythology of
Western Asia descending to our own times, through
the Teutonic races. They were called, by our Anglo-
Saxon ancestors, Son-daeg, Moon-daeg, Tuis-claeg,
Wodnes, or Woden'a-daeg—(in the old German
Odiostag); Thurres-daeg, or l'hor's-daeg; Friga's-
daeg, and Saterne's-daeg.
Ihe Hebrew names of the week were those which
have since been adopted by the English Quakers—
first day, second day, third day, &c.—and it seems
not improbable that George Fox rightly divined the
ob;ect for which these numerical terms were first
employed by the Jewish lawgiver, viz., to assist in
weaning the Israelites from the idolatrous observances
connected with the more ancient planetary names.
The Israelites were particularly prone to the wor-
ship of Baal, who was the god of fire, or sun, of the
Plicenicians and Syrians ; the Apollo and Sol of the
Greeks and Romans, from which it may fairly bo
inferred that Moses saw the policy of not permitting
the first day of the week to be called by any of the
Eames that would remind the Israelites of sun
worship ; and it might suggest itself to his mind, as
an additional reason, besides that mentioned in
Genesis, for holding a Sabbath on the seventh day
rather than on the first. If, however, the fact should
have been so, it is a remarkable instance of the
sometimes anomalous character of orthodox con-
sistency, that some among those who would be fore-
most in maintaining the authority of the deealogue,
should now be making the most strenuous exertions
to restore the custom which Iltoses condemned.
For the change of days it is usually pleaded that a
new Sabbath day was substituted for the old on the
inauguration of a new dispensation, bat for such
substitution not the slightest warrant can bo found
in the teaching of Christ and his apostles. All that
can be adduced is four passages in the New Testa-
ment, and four only, in which mention is made of
meetings held by the disciples on the first day of the
week; but the context shows, that for many years
atter the death of Christ the Jewish Sabbath con-
tinued to be observed by the Church at Jerusalem,
from which we may conclude that the meetings held
on the day following the Sabbath were chiefly for
consultation or other secular business, and only
assumed a religious character by insensible degrees.
Many are ofopin ion that these meetings were instituted
in commemoration of the resurrection, but in the
two instances in which they are first mentioned, the
di.ciples were incredulous of the report that Christ
had risen ' • Thomas, surnamed Didymua, re-
fusing to believe it even on the testimony
of the rest. One reason for assembling on
the first day of the week might be that
as the dies soils of the heathen world, the day
when the temples of Apollo were most frequented, it
was probably more of a day of leisure than any other
on which secular business could be transacted. And
here it may bo noted that the death of Christ oc-
curred about the time when the reformation of the
calendar by Julius Cmsar, and the progress of con-
quest, had led to the introduction among the Romans,
from their Egyptian or Syrian provinces, of our pre-
sent hebdomadal week, by which the calends, ides, and
nones of the old republican month ultimately became
entirely superseded. The day now began to be
called:—Dies sobs, day of the sun; dice twee, day
of the moon; dies Martis, day of Mars; dies Mercuric,
day of Mercury ; dies Juvis, day of Jupiter; dies
Veneris, day of Venus; and dies Saturn], day of
Saturn. Justin Martyr, writing about the year A.D.
147, describes the meetings of the Christians as being
held on the dies solis, but his testimony is decisive that
the dies nulls was not observed by Christians in a
Sabbatical sense. He speaks of Sabbaths as abolished,
and says expressly,—" There was no need of the
observance of Sabbaths before Moses, neither now is
there any need of them after Jesus Christ."
An edict of a Roman Emperor is the only known
authority for a Sunday Sabbath. Constantino, by
decree dated A.D., 321, ordered the public courts to
be closed, and all privateebusiness, excepting that of
persons engaged in agriculture, to be suspended on
the di, sso is. We are left in doubt of the object of
this decree, which might have been rather to pro-
mote heathen than Christian worship, for it was
followed by another edict the same year to discour-
agethe growing neglect of the sacrtticcs offered to
gods.
Constantine, although a protector of the Christians,
had been careful to snow in the early part of his

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