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History
of the Calendar
Gregory's Contribution
AFTER CONSTANTINE, 1250 years passed before another change in the calendar
occurred. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII undertook the revision now in general use.
In the intervening medieval centuries (between the fifth and sixteenth) a
number of important events had a lasting impact upon Western civilization. The
reign of Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth centuries brought together in a new
unity many of the Northern peoples of Europe. The Arabic contributions to the
West in the fields of science, mathematics, art and education reached their peak
in the tenth century. The Norman invasion in the eleventh century forced the
islanders of Great Britain into the European arena. The eight Crusades between
the eleventh and thirteen centuries gave Europe a closer contact with the Near
East. The Magna Carta of the thirteenth century freed Englishmen from feudal
lords and barons. The Gutenberg printing press of the fifteenth century led to a
broader dissemination of learning. The discovery of America in the fifteenth
century stimulated almost every phase of human activity in the Old World. The
Reformation of the sixteenth century lifted men's conscience the domination of
state religions. Everywhere there were driving forces urging mankind forward
toward new freedoms, broader knowledge and greater unity.
The calendar of Caesar and Constantine, with its irregularities and
deficiencies, could not escape these forces. As early as the thirteenth century
scholars and public officials complained that the calendar year was drifting
away from the seasons, because under Caesar's four-year rule too many leap years
had been inserted. The resultant difficulties were repeatedly called to the
attention of rulers and popes, but nothing was done until the latter years of
Gregory's occupancy of the pontifical throne.
The aging Pope, weary of wars and public works and financial difficulties,
turned his attention at last to the calendar. Aided by a notable staff of
scientists, he analyzed the problems. First, how could the year be
brought back into accord with the seasons? Second, how could the
leap-year rule be corrected to stop further dislocation? Third, could the
beginning of the year be set in a fixed position, instead of being observed at
different times by different peoples? Fourth, could anything be done
about the wandering Easter, a cause of considerable inconvenience?
The Easter question was actually the source of the Papal investigation.
Easter was a spring festival, but the "drifting" of the calendar had been
gradually pushing it further and further away from the spring equinox.
Eventually, if not corrected, Easter would be arriving in the winter, and this
would correspondingly dislocate all the other important feasts which depend on
it. Julius Caesar had kept the equinox on the ancient date of March 25; in
Gregory's time it was falling on the 11th.
The error in Caesar's leap-year rule was readily understood. The Roman
Emperor had figured the solar year at 365-1/4 days. Actually, it takes the earth
but 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds to complete its annual journey
around the sun. The true year is thus 11 minutes and 14 seconds short of six
hours—a quarter of the 24-hour day. This slight difference, accumulating through
the centuries, had been sufficient to put the calendar 14 days off balance with
the seasons.
Pope Gregory and his scientists decided to deal with the first of their four
calendar problems by dropping a certain number of days from the year 1582. On
the question of "How many days?" they worked out a compromise. Not the full 14
which would have brought things back to Caesar's formula, but only ten days,
which adjusted the equinoctial date to march 21, where it had been observed at
the time of the first Christian conclave at Nicea in A. D. 325. The use of Nicea
as a starting point gave an ecclesiastical touch to the whole operation.
As to Problem Number Two, the new leap-year rule, skillfully formulated by
the Pope's advisers, related only to century years. Those which were divisible
by 400 were to be leap years; all the others were to be ordinary years, such as
1700, 1800, 1900. The years 1600 and 2000 are leap years. Outside of centurial
years, all the other years keep to the simple four-year rule as prescribed by
Caesar. Thus three leap years are dropped out of each 400 years, and this simple
formula will keep the calendar approximately correct with the seasons for about
3,300 years from the time of the Gregorian Reform.
Problem Number Three was concerned with a stable New Year's Day. For many
centuries, the New Year had been the most wayward of anniversaries. Julius
Caesar had accepted January 1, but in the sixth century the Church had adopted
March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, which mystically recalled the birth of
Christ. During succeeding centuries, this was a widely observed date, although
all kinds of variations occurred from time to time. Germany and Spain thought
the year should begin at Christmas, Denmark used an August New Year's Day,
France and the Netherlands observed Easter. In Venice the date was March 1, in
Ireland February 1.
To remove all the confusion Pope Gregory came out firmly for January 1. He
ignored the pagan origin of this date, and gave it ecclesiastical standing by
pointing out that it was the Feast of Circumcision in the church calendar. His
scientific advisers probably reminded him that the first of January had a
certain astronomical basis: the "perihelion" occurs on or about the beginning of
January, when the earth is closest to the sun—being 91,500,000 miles away, as
against 95,000,000 miles six months later.
Then there was the question of stabilizing Easter. The wandering character of
Easter is due to the fact that it is tied to a lunar reckoning; theoretically
Easter comes on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring
equinox. Here is a basic contradiction. The civil calendar goes by the sun; the
religious feast day Easter is reckoned by the moon. No compromise is possible,
for the result must be either one thing or the other.
There appears to be no reason why Easter cannot be observed on the Sunday
nearest to the historical date of the Resurrection, presumably April 9. Gregory
and his advisers attempted no such change. They left Easter as it was, and the
result is a wandering festival which causes great inconvenience in countries
where Easter is important in civil life.
The Gregorian revision went into effect in 1582 in all Roman Catholic
countries. Then days where dropped from October: Thursday, October 4, was
followed by Friday, October 15.
Outside the strictly Roman Catholic countries, there were long delays in
recognizing the scientific advantages of Gregory's proposals. Protestant Germany
and Denmark adopted the new calendar in 1700, Great Britain and the American
colonies in 1752, Sweden in 1753, Japan in 1873, China in 1912. Russia and the
Eastern Orthodox countries were tardiest of all—Russian first in 1918 and again
in 1940 after experimenting with calendars of her own; and the Eastern Orthodox
countries in 1924 and 1927.
The hesitance of the Northern nations to accept the Gregorian reform was due
to the violent religious prejudices aroused by the Reformation. In the Eastern
Orthodox area, too, the scientific nature of the reform was minimized and the
priesthood feared that acceptance would be interpreted as a quasi-allegiance to
a faith different from their own.
In other parts of the world, particularly in the Asiatic countries, the new
system was labelled the "Christian Calendar" and its name created resistance
among Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Taoists and other powerful groups.
These unfortunate reactions had not been foreseen by Gregory XIII and his
advisers, who had expected that the revision would be accepted as a sound
scientific action without religious connotations. It did now work that way. For
more than a century, his calendar was help up as a symbol of Papal domination,
and this caused the Roman Catholic Church a considerable amount of annoyance and
trouble. It is one of the reasons, in the present age, that the Vatican—although
in favor of revision—has been reluctant to take an initiative in the
movement for a further improvement in the calendar.
The Gregorian reform was good up to a point. It anchored the calendar in the
seasonal year from which it never should have strayed, and it established a
uniform practice as to the year's beginning. It failed, however, to correct
Caesar's faulty arrangement of the months, quarters and half years; and it did
nothing to harmonize the wandering weekdays which were an inheritance from
Constantine. These two faults are becoming increasingly burdensome with the
development of civilization and the requirements of our modern world.
Gregory's able scientific advisers undoubtedly pointed out these defects.
Such competent men as Lilius, Clavius and Scalliger could not have failed to
realize the situation. The Pope's viewpoint, however, was strongly
ecclesiastical: his primary concern was to make certain that he inconveniences
of the church calendar were remedied, and he may have felt that any further
action would endanger the simpler program he had in mind.
The Gregorian reform left the calendar still inadequate. There was no
regularity in the arrangement of the months; the quarter years varied from 90 to
92 days in length; the half years were ridiculously unequal. The people actually
had to use 14 different calendars and 28 different kinds of months. A new
calendar had to be prepared and printed every year. The order, stability and
comparability which only come when the year is one complete unit, such as the
Egyptians and Julius Caesar recognized, were totally absent.
by Elisabeth Achelis, Journal of Calendar Reform, June
1954
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will save)
would
affirm today; it's the same truth He
attested to as he walked this earth
some 2000 years ago - an exclusive way to the Father
(John 14:6) and that man,
as a sinful creature, is in need of a
Saviour.(John
3:16-21).
