Calendars 2023-2025 • OMM

Picture description: Saturday, (or dies Saturni – the day of Saturn) was the very first day of the week, not the seventh. As the god of agriculture, he can be seen in this preëminent position of importance, holding his symbol, a sickle. Next, on the second day of the pagan planetary week, is seen the sun god with rays of light emanating from his head. Sunday was originally the second day of the planetary week and was known as dies Solis. The third day of the week was dies Lunæ (day of the Moon – Monday). The moon goddess is shown wearing the horned crescent moon as a diadem on her head. The rest of the gods follow in order: dies Martis (day of Mars); dies Mercurii (day of Mercury); dies Jovis (day of Jupiter); and dies Veneris (day of Venus), the seventh day of the week. (Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Publishing Assoc., 1972), p. 10 & 11. Ibid., p. 5.)

Picture description: An eight-day week is clearly discernible on these stone fragments.

Assumptions are dangerous – especially when they are made in the realm of religion. If a theological belief is based upon a faulty assumption, the religious practice will be in error. The most common assumptions in Christendom are that Saturday is the Scriptural Sabbath, and Sunday is the day on which Yeshua was resurrected. These beliefs are built upon another assumption: that the modern week has cycled continuously and without interruption ever since Creation. The facts of the Julian calendar, however, prove these assumptions false.
The Julian calendar was established in 45 B.C. Like the calendar of the Roman Republic before it, the early Julian calendar had an eight day week! Days of the week on the Republican and early Julian calendars were assigned letters: A through H. All early Julian calendars (fasti) still in existence date from 63 B.C. to A.D. 37.

Picture description: Reconstruction of Fasto Antiates, the only calendar of the Roman Republic still in existence.

As the Roman Empire expanded, it came into contact with Mithraism, which quickly became a popular religious cult in Rome. Mithraism brought a seven-day week with days named after planetary gods.

“It is not to be doubted that the diffusion of the Iranian [Persian] mysteries has had a considerable part in the general adoption, by the pagans, of the week with the Sunday as a holy day. The names which we employ, unawares, for the other six days, came into use at the same time that Mithraism won its followers in the provinces in the West, and one is not rash in establishing a relation of coincidence between its triumph and that concomitant phenomenon.” (Franz Cumont, Textes et Monuments Figures Relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, Vol. I, p. 112.)

“The pre-eminence assigned to the dies Solis [day of the Sun] also certainly contributed to the general recognition of Sunday as a holiday. This is connected with a more important fact, namely, the adoption of the week by all the European nations.” (Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, p. 163, emphasis supplied.)