Calendar Wars
by Robert Wolfe (November 2009)
Origins
History
How well man used to live with Saturn as king,
Before the earth was laid open for faraway campaigns.
And the poem concludes:
Nor had the cruel smith with brutal skill yet forged a sword.
But now in the reign of Jove, slaughter and wounds are ever-present,
Untimely Death comes now by sea, by a thousand other ways.
Significance
(2) The notion that the birth of the new era took place on December 25, the birthday of the sun god with whom the Caesars identified themselves, which provided the basis for the subsequent Christian claim that Christ was born on this day.
(3) The notion that Sunday was a special day, more important than any of the other days of the week, which provided the basis for the subsequent Christian claim that Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, which should therefore be the day on which Christians should gather to pretend to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
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