HISTORY OF THE CALENDAR night sky at different times and places depending on where

the earth is in its orbit round the sun. A star observed in a

Astral themes
given place - on the horizon at dawn, for example - will be
The sky is the most mysterious part of our everyday there again exactly a year later.
experience. Familiarity may make the amazing events In Egypt the temple priests derive much of their prestige
going on at ground level seem almost ordinary. Plants and from close attention to the stars, enabling them to give the
animals grow and die, rain falls, rivers flow. We feel we impression of predicting natural events. The best example
understand that. is their use of Sirius, the Dog Star. It rises above the
horizon just before dawn at the time of year when the all-
But the sky is beyond comprehension. Two great objects important flooding of the Nile is about to occur. Priests
travel through it, one hot and constant, the other cold and who can foretell this great event are powerful soothsayers.
changeable. In the daytime it is moody; there may be
blazing sun, or racing clouds, or darkness followed by This observation of Sirius also enables the Egyptians to
thunder and lightning. And yet on a clear night the sky is become the first people to move from a lunar to a solar
the very opposite - predictable, if you look hard enough, calendar.
with recognizable groups of stars moving in a slow but Lunar and solar years
reliable manner.
Man's interest in the sky is at the heart of three separate In Mesopotamia, where the Babylonians are the leading
stories - astronomy, astrology and the calendar. astronomers, the calendar is a simple lunar one. So
probably is the first Egyptian calendar. And a lunar
Astronomy is the scientific study of sun, moon and stars. calendar is still in use today in Islam. But such a calendar
Astrology is a pseudo-science interpreting the supposed has one major disadvantage.
effect of the heavenly bodies on human existence. In early
history the two are closely linked. The sky is the home of The length of a lunar month, from one new moon to the
many of the gods, who influence life on earth. And the next, is 29.5 days. So twelve lunar months are 354 days,
patterns in the sky must surely reflect that influence. approximately 11 days short of a solar year. In a lunar year
each of the twelve months slips steadily back through the
Days, months and years seasons (as happens now with the Muslim calendar),
Compilers of a calendar, attempting to record and to predict returning to its original position only after 32 years.
the passage of time, are offered an easy first step in the In some lunar calendars an extra month is inserted from
cycle of the moon. time to time to keep in step with the solar year. This
happens in Mesopotamia and in republican Rome, and it
The only two measures of time available to primitive remains the case today in the Jewish calendar.
people are the day (the space between two nights) and the
month (the space between new moons). The month is a wellBut the Egyptian priests' observation of Sirius enables
adjusted length of time for recalling fairly recent events, them to count the number of days in a solar year. They
and it has a magic significance through its loose link with make it 365. They then very logically adjust the twelve
the female menstrual period. A far more important slice of months of the lunar year, making each of them 30 days long
time is the year, a full circuit of the earth round the sun - and adding 5 extra days at the end of the year. Compared to
crucial in human activities because of its influence on anybody else's calendar at the time this is very satisfactory.
seasons and crops. But the length of a year is exceptionally But there is a snag.
hard to measure. The priests cannot have failed to notice that every four
Primitive societies make do with a broad concept, counting years Sirius appears one day later. The reason is that the
the year as starting when leaves sprout on a particular tree solar year is more exactly 365 days and 6 hours. The
or describing someone as having lived through a certain Egyptians make no adjustment for this, with the result that
number of harvests. their calendar slides backwards through the seasons just
like a lunar one but much more slowly. Instead of 32 years
The only simple yet accurate way of measuring a year is in with the moon, it is 1460 years before Sirius rises again on
relation to the stars (though structures such as the passage the first day of the first month.
grave at Newgrange can record an annual position of the
sun, at a considerable cost in effort). The stars appear in the It is known from the records that in AD 139 Sirius rises on
the first day of the first Egyptian month. This makes it commerce benefits from regularity. The original weeks are
certain that the Egyptian calendar is introduced one or two almost certainly the gaps between market days.
full cycles (1460 or 2920 years) earlier, either in 1321 or
2781 BC - with the earlier date considered more probable. Weeks of this kind vary from four days among some
African tribes to ten days in the Inca civilization and in
Julian and Mayan calendars: 1st century BC
China. In ancient China a five-day week sets the working
The Roman calendar introduced by Julius Caesar, and pattern for the Confucian civil service, every fifth day being
subsequently known as the Julian calendar, gets far closer a 'bath and hair-washing day'. Later this is extended to a
to the solar year than any predecessor. By the 1st century ten-day week, with the three periods of each month known
BC reform in Rome has become an evident necessity. The as the first, middle and last bath.
existing calendar is a lunar one with extra months slipped inThere are two possible sources for the seven-day week. One
from to time in an attempt to adjust it. In Caesar's time this is the biblical creation story. From those times the
calendar is three months out in relation to the seasons. Israelites have a week of this length, with the seventh day
reserved for rest and worship (a pattern reflected in the
On the advice of Sosigenes, a learned astronomer from Bible's account of creation).
Alexandria, Caesar adds ninety days to the year 46 BC and
starts a new calendar on 1 January 45. The other and more likely source is Rome, where the
Sosigenes advises Caesar that the length of the solar year is equivalent of the modern week is adopted in about the 1st
365 days and six hours. The natural solution is to add a day century AD - a time and a place where the Jewish tradition
every fourth year - introducing the concept of the leap year. would have little influence. The number of days in the
The extra day is added to February, the shortest of the week derives probably, through astrology, from the seven
Roman months. known planets - which also provide the names of the days
(see Days of the week).
Spread through the Roman empire, and later throughout Jewish and Muslim calendars
Christendom, this calendar proves very effective for many
centuries. Only much later does a flaw yet again appear. The Jewish calendar combines lunar and solar cycles. It is
The reason is that the solar year is not 365 days and 6 hours given its present form in921 after a great debate between
but 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. The supporters of two slightly different systems.
difference amounts to only one day in 130 years. But over
the span of history even that begins to show. Another In origin the calendar goes back to the captivity in Babylon,
adjustment will eventually be necessary. when the Jews adopt the Babylonians' calendar and their
While Julius Caesar is improving on the solar calendar of names for the months. They are lunar months of 30 or 29
365 days, a similar calendar has been independently arrived days. In every second or third year an extra month of 30
at on the other side of the Atlantic. Devised originally by days is added to keep the calendar in approximate step with
the Olmecs of central America, it is perfected in about the the solar year. This constitutes a crucial difference between
1st century AD by the Maya. the Jewish and Muslim systems.
The Muslim calendar is the only one in widespread use to
The Maya, establishing that there are 365 days in the year, be based uncompromisingly on lunar months, with no
divide them into 18 months of 20 days. Like the Egyptians adjustments to bring the years into balance with the solar
(who have 12 months of 30 days), they complete the year cycle.
by adding 5 extra days at the end - days which are
considered to be extremely unlucky for any undertaking. The twelve months are alternately 29 and 30 days long (the
An unusual aspect of the Mayan system is the Calendar lunar cycle is approximately 29.5 days), giving a year of
Round, a 52-year cycle in which no two days have the 354 days. There are two significant results. Muslim months
same name. bear no relation to the seasons, and Muslim years do not
coincide with those of other chronologies. There are about
The working week 103 lunar years in a solar century. By the millennium there
Unlike the day, the month or the year, the week is an will have been 1421 lunar years but only 1378 solar years
entirely artificial period of time. It is probably first made from the start of Muslim chronology in AH 1 or622. The
necessary by the demands of trade. Hunter-gatherers and year AH 1421 will be2000.
primitive farmers have no need of such a concept, but
Gregorian calendar: 1582-1917 way. Julius Caesar and Sosigenes would no doubt be
impressed by this ultimate refinement of their system,
By the 16th century the seemingly minor error in the Julianmaking it accurate to within one day in 20,000 years.
calendar (estimating the solar year to be 11 minutes and 14
seconds shorter than it actually is) has accumulated to a ten-French republican calendar: 1793
day discrepancy between the calendar and reality. It is most
The calendar devised during 1793 by a committee of
noticeable on occasions such as the equinox, now occuring
the republican Convention in Paris combines the rational
ten days earlier than the correct calendar dates of March 21
and the impractical in a way characteristic of much French
and September 23.
revolutionary activity. It is entirely logical and slightly
ridiculous.
Pope Gregory XIII employs a German Jesuit and
astronomer, Christopher Clavius, to find a solution.
The intention is to celebrate the French introduction of a
Calculating that the error amounts to three days in 400
new world era and to sweep away the religious
years, Clavius suggests an ingenious adjustment.
superstitions of the past. By a happy coincidence the first
His proposal, which becomes the basis of the calendar
day after the abolition of the monarchy in 1792 is the
known after the commissioning pope as Gregorian, is that
autumn equinox (September 22), suggesting that even the
century years (or those ending in '00') should only be leap
planetary system recognizes a new beginning. This date
years if divisible by 400. This eliminates three leap years in
now becomes the first day of Year I in the republican
every four centuries and neatly solves the problem. The
calendar.
result, in the centuries since the reform, is that 1600 and
The Gregorian reform of the calendar has established the
2000 are normal leap years, but the intervening 1700, 1800
necessary system of leap years, which the committee can
and 1900 do not include February 29.
only follow. However they are free to divide the 365 days
of the normal year on a more rational basis than the
Gregory puts the proposal into immediate effect in the
traditional months and weekdays. They go for twelve
papal states, announcing that the day after October 4 in
months of 30 days, subdivided into three weeks of 10 days
1582 will be October 15 - thus saving the lost ten days.
(with a day of rest on every tenth day rather than every
The pope's lead is followed in the same year by Spain,
seventh, implying a revolutionary increase in productivity).
Portugal, France and most Italian states. The German-
speaking Roman Catholic states comply in 1583.
The five extra days are grouped as holidays at the end of
the year and are called sansculottides. (A sans-culotte,
Other Christian realms drag their feet on the issue, reluctant
meaning 'without knee-breeches', is the contemporary
to admit that the pope in Rome has a point. The Lutheran
phrase for a revolutionary - describing someone radical
states of Germany change in 1700. Great Britain delays
enough to wear the more informal trousers).
until 1752, by which time the gap is eleven days. Some of
The ten weekdays are named unimaginatively by their
the British prove exceptionally dim over the issue, fearing
numbers, but a great deal of effort is put into finding vivid
that their lives are being shortened and in places even
names for the months. These are devised by the poet Fabre
rioting for the return of the missing days. Imperial Russia
d'Églantine, a close friend of Danton's (they die together on
never makes the change; it is introduced after the
the scaffold six months after the calendar is adopted).
revolution, in 1918. (Potentially confusing dates, near the
change-over years, are identified by historians with the
Fabre d'Églantine's names reflect the changing weather and
codes OS or Old Style for the Julian version and NS or
crops of the year, with considerable effort being made to
New Style for the Gregorian equivalent.)
find verbal rhythms to suit the moods of the seasons. His
More precise measurements in the 20th century have
months are Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire (the autumn),
introduced a further refinement of the Gregorian calendar,
Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse (winter), Germinal, Floréal,
though not one of immediate significance. As adjusted for
Prairial (spring), Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor
pope Gregory, the present system adds one day in every
(summer).
3,323 years. The accepted solution is that years divisible by
A satirical version is immediately provided by George
4000 will not be leap years.
Ellis, an English poet deeply hostile to French
revolutionary pretensions. He translates d'Églantine's
February 29 will therefore be dropped unexpectedly in
efforts (beginning in January 1 with Nivôse) as: 'Snowy,
2000 years' time. In4000, even though the year is divisible
Flowy, Blowy, Showery, Flowery, Bowery, Hoppy,
by 400, March 1 will follow February 28 in the normal
Croppy, Droppy, Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy'.
The system is imposed by the French on all the sister
republics set up in Europe from 1795 (though as a calendar His commanding officers also wanted to get rid of
for a new world era it is unfortunate that the names of the the skinny Virginian who spoke with a gentle
months only match the seasons in the northern hemisphere).southern drawl. They saw him as a liability. Nobody
However it is abruptly dropped by Napoleon in 1805, when believed a soldier without a weapon was
he wants to improve relationships with the pope. France
reverts to the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1806.
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHisto
ries.asp?historyid=ac06
On April 1, 1942, Desmond Doss joined the United
States Army. Three and a half years later, he stood
on the White House lawn, receiving the nation’s
highest award for his bravery and courage under
fire. Of the 16 million men in uniform during World
War II, only 431 received the Congressional Medal
of Honor. Among these was a young Seventh-day
Adventist Christian who refused to carry a gun and
had not killed a single enemy soldier. His only
weapons were his Bible and his faith in God.
President Harry S. Truman warmly held the hand of
Corporal Desmond Thomas Doss, as his citation
was read to those gathered at the White House on
October 12, 1945. “I’m proud of you,” Truman said.
“You really deserve this. I consider this a greater
honor than being president.”
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Desmond was
working at the Newport News Naval shipyard and
could have requested a deferment. But he was
willing to risk his life on the front lines in order to
preserve freedom. He wanted to be an Army combat
medic and assumed his classification as a
conscientious objector would not require him to
carry a weapon. When he was assigned to an
infantry rifle company, his refusal to carry a gun
caused his fellow soldiers to view him with distain.
They ostracized and bullied him. One man warned,
“Doss, when we get into combat, I’ll make sure you
don’t come back alive.”
worthwhile. They tried to intimidate him, scold him,
assign him extra tough duties, and declared him
mentally unfit for the Army. Then they attempted to
court martial him for refusing a direct order—to
carry a gun. But they failed to find a way to toss
him out, and he refused to leave. He believed his
duty was to obey God and serve his country. But it
had to be in that order. His unwavering convictions
were most important.
Desmond had been raised with a fervent belief in
the Bible. When it came to the Ten
Commandments, he applied them personally.
During childhood his father had purchased a large
framed picture at an auction. It portrayed the Ten
Commandments with colorful illustrations. Next to
the words, "Thou shalt not kill" was a drawing of
Cain holding a club and standing over the body of
his dead brother Abel. Little Desmond would look
at that picture and ask, "Why did Cain kill Abel?
How in the world could a brother do such a thing?"
In Desmond's mind, God said, "If you love me, you
won't kill." With that picture firmly embedded in
his mind, he determined that he would never take
life.
However, there was another commandment that
Desmond took just as seriously as the sixth. It was
the fourth commandment. His religious upbringing
included weekly church attendance, on the seventh
day. The Army was exasperated to discover that he
had yet another personal requirement. He asked for
a weekly pass so he could attend church every
Saturday. This meant two strikes against him. His
fellow soldiers saw this Bible reading puritan, as
being totally out of sync with the rest of the Army.
So they ostracized him, bullied him, called him
awful names, and cursed at him. His commanding
officers also made his life difficult.
Things began turning around when the men
discovered that this quiet unassuming medic had a
way to heal the blisters on their march-weary feet.
And if someone fainted from heat stroke, this medic
was at his side, offering his own canteen. Desmond
never held a grudge. With kindness and gentle
courtesy, he treated those who had mistreated him.
He lived the golden rule, "…do to others what you
would have them do to you…" (Matthew 7:12
NIV).
Desmond served in combat on the islands of Guam
and Leyte. In each military operation he exhibited
extraordinary dedication to his men. While others
were taking life, he was busy saving life. As enemy
bullets whizzed past and mortar shells exploded
around him, he repeatedly ran to treat a fallen
comrade and carry him back to safety. By the time
they reached Okinawa, he had been awarded two
Bronze Stars for valor.
In May, 1945, Japanese troops were fiercely
defending Okinawa, the only remaining barrier to
an allied invasion of their homeland. The American
target was capturing the Maeda Escarpment, an
imposing rock face the soldiers called, Hacksaw
Ridge. After they secured the top of the cliff,
Japanese forces suddenly attacked. Officers ordered
an immediate retreat. As a hundred or more lay
wounded and dying on enemy soil, one lone soldier
disobeyed those orders and charged back into the
firefight. With a constant prayer on his lips, he
vowed to rescue as many as he could, before he
either collapsed or died trying. His iron
determination and unflagging courage resulted in at
least 75 lives saved that day, May 5, 1945, his
Sabbath.
Several days later, during an unsuccessful night
raid, Desmond was severely wounded. Hiding in a
shell hole with two riflemen, a Japanese grenade
landed at his feet. The explosion sent him flying.
The shrapnel tore into his leg and hip. While
attempting to reach safety, he was hit by a sniper’s
bullet that shattered his arm. His brave actions as a
combat medic were over. But not before insisting
that his litter-bearers take another man first before
rescuing him. Wounded, in pain, and losing blood,
he still put the safety of others ahead of his own.
Before being honorably discharged from the Army
in 1946, Desmond developed tuberculosis. His
illness progressed and at the age of 87, Corporal
Desmond Thomas Doss died on March 23, 2006.
He is buried in the National Cemetery,
Chattanooga, Tennessee. For more information,
please visit the Desmond Doss Foundation
Desmond - Doss Council.
Statement: Seventh-Day Adventist Church in
North America Regarding the Film, "Hacksaw
Ridge."
The story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious
objector to receive the esteemed Medal of Honor, is
one that has inspired generations of his fellow
Seventh-day Adventist Church members. As
powerfully shared in the upcoming film, “Hacksaw
Ridge,” Doss’s strong convictions, his Adventist
beliefs, and his unshakeable confidence in God
come alive, and hold the promise of inspiring a new
generation of believers.
While a graphic portrayal of the realities of war,
“Hacksaw Ridge” paints a stirring portrait of the
resolute manner in which Doss lived his faith, even
while living through the horrors of the battlefield.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church historically has
strongly discouraged its members from bearing
arms, and Doss embodied that philosophy. He
became the first person to voluntarily enlist and
then be granted conscientious objector status, the
role in which he contributed to the often-
heroic rescue of scores of his fellow soldiers.
The North American Division of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church appreciates the care and attention
to detail brought to the telling of Desmond Doss’s
unique, unparalleled story of faith by the
filmmakers in the production of “Hacksaw Ridge.”
https://www.adventist.org/en/service/religious-
liberty/desmonddoss/