The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-05-30
THE SNARLS OF TIME
POPE eREeoRWs CORRECTION OF
THE JULIAN CALENDAR.

At One Time October Was the Years.
shortest Month-It Contained Oniy
Twcnty-one Days In I5s2-Commo-
tion the. Change Made In England.
Did yOn ever hear of the famous
short month of October, which had
only twenty one days? Some three cen
turtles ago In southern Europe men
tried TO correct an error that had been
growing continually for more than a
thousand years, and the result was
that they called the day after Oct 4,
1882. Oct Is instead of Oct ..
We get our ideas and principles re-
garding the calendar from two sources,
Roman and Jewish. Every one knows
that the names of the months are
Latin. and in the histories we read how
the various Roman rulers changed the
distribution Of days within the month,
etc. to suit their pride or political
schemes, much rs modern politicians
hasten or postpone a convention, and
brought things into great confusion
until julius Caesar decreed that the
coming year should consist of 365 days
and every fourth year of 1866 The ex-
ira day was to be inserted between the
oath and 25th of February. In their
way of numbering the days of the
month, which seems to us so awkward,
the oath was sexto calendas, or the
sixth day before the calends of
March. When the extra day was in
serted It was called the second sixth,
or, in Latin, bissexto calendas, whence
our bisseytile.
From Jewish sources we get other
features. The great Jewish festival Of
the passover was celebrated on the
very day of the first full moon after
the spring equinox. The early Chris
tians, or many of them, took the same
day. but th!' lcl TO charges Of heresy,
TO discussion. criticism and even con-
tempt; so 1t was decreed probably by
Constantine the Great in 325 A. D., in
connection with the council of Nlcaea,
that the Christian festival Easter
should be obserrcd on the Sunday fol
lowing the passover, and the other
movable feasts of the church were
made dependent on this. SO the ele-
ment of fixed day of the week was
brought into the calculation.
In this year-325-the vernal equinox
fell on March 81, and, If Caesars work
in establishing the Julian calendar had
only been correct, this event would have
l,a, Iat. nttt
ture seems to aEhor simple ratios as she
was said to abhor vacuum. Unfortu-
nately for simplicity the year is not ex-
actly 365 days 6 hours, but about IL
minutes IA seconds less. So the inser-
tion of the extra day in four years was
OVERRIDING the correction, as was known
even in the dark ages. but after the re-
vival OF learning and the establishment
Of observatories 1t was commented on
in the council Of Trent and was very
much discussed by mathematicans.
And by the middle of the sixteenth cen
fury the hundreds of small errors had
accumulated to ten days, so the vernal
equino- fdfl not on the 21st, but on
the 11th, of March.
This was the condition Of things
when, in 1872. Pope Gregory XIII. was
elected. He realized the glory that 1t
would be to his reign if this confusing
matter was settled, and so set COM
pany OF matheEaticians to work out
the problem, not only Of rectifying the
old errors, but Of providing rules to
prevent errors in the future. The hard
est part OF the work was to fix the
movable church feasts without doing
violence to the traditions. That good
deal could be said about the work is
evidenced by the book Of 800 pages
written by Clavius, one of the compa
ny. The result was that in 1881 a na-