Julian and Japanese Calendars
I’m distressed about all kinds of things all the time, so I know my distress isn’t a big deal. But at the moment, I am distressed about the new year.

The new year is coming. But what new year? Why does it start on January 1st? What does January mean? Why are we using a modified Julian calendar (aka Gregorian calendar) anyway? If Michael Grant, a great fan of Cleopatra, is correct, Julius Caesar has Cleopatra’s astronomers to thank for his calendar (more book info here), so let’s call it the Cleopatran calendar. I’d like that. She was horrendously evil and God killed her for it, but other than that, I rather like her. :p

Our lives are governed by the calendar. My watch and schedule book determine where I scurry around from day to day, but instead of following a church calendar, I follow two ancient pagan calendars, Japanese and Julian.

*Emeth groans in frustration and dreams of a day when society is centered on the liturgical year … like maybe 5000 years from now when postmils have reproduced enough to take over the planet and there has been enough cumulative generational sanctification that they actually learned to agree on things, like a calendar system.*

Practical Applications

- Working 6 days a week and resting 1 day (c.f. The Fourth Commandment).
- Instead of taking Saturdays off, establishing holy feast days (aka “holidays”). God provided at least as many days off if not more in the Mosaic calendar. (You can go count all the special holidays in the OT, hehe. And btw, I’m not saying we should going back to the Mosaic calendar, but that it provides good precedent.)
- Establishing fast days also.
- Maybe properly reinstating sabbatical years and the year of Jubilee. Roman Catholic popes do this … kinda sorta.

Here’s a little something about the Puritans, Reformed Christians, and the calendar. Scroll down to see The Puritans: Strengths and Weaknesses by Richard Bledsoe.

Religion and Naming
Calendars are ruled by religion and the symbolic power in the giving of new names can be seen in history. New eras and regimes come with new calendars. There is overwhelming symbolism inherent in the usage of personal names (the significance of names is too great to expand on in this post but you can hunt down more info starting here), which can be seen in the Old Testament when people’s names are changed or when different names are used for them depending on the context they are mentioned (e.g. Jacob to Israel, or the various names for Christ) or in ancient Japan, when bushi would change names at least once in their lives, if not more. Every time a Japanese emperor dies, the Japanese start counting the years from 1. Next year will be the 18th year of the emperor Heisei. Whenever I have to sign forms in Japanese, I cross out the word “Heisei” and replace it with the Year of Our Lord, A.D. Like in ancient Rome, the emperor’s birthday is a holiday.

Even The French revolutionaries came up with their own calendar. Why didn’t Gregory at least change the months from the names of idols (whom I believe could very well be real-life demons) to the names of the Apostles or something? Our calendar is a litany of the personal names of pagans or demons.

Months of the Year
January - named for Janus, the god of doors and gateways in Roman mythology.
February - named for the Roman god Februus, the god of purification.
March - named after Martius, the Roman god of war and was considered a lucky time to begin a war.
April - The derivation of the name is uncertain. Since all the Roman months were named in honour of divinities, and as April was sacred to Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her Greek name Aphrodite, or from the Etruscan name Apru.
May - may have been named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May.
June - named after the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera.
July - named for the month Julius Caesar was born.
August - named in honor of Augustus Caesar. It has 31 days because Augustus wanted as many days as Julius Caesar’s July. Augustus placed the month where it is because that is when Cleopatra died.
September - name comes from the Latin septem, for “seven”. September was the seventh month of the Roman calendar until 153 BC.
October - from the Latin octo for “eight”.
November - from the Latin novem for “nine”.
December - from the Latin decem for “ten”.

Days of the Week
Sunday - from Sunna, or Sunne the Germanic sun goddess.
Monday - from Mani (Old English Mona), the Germanic Moon god.
Tuesday - from the Nordic god Tyr, god of war.
Wednesday - from the Old English Wodnesdæg meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden, god of both wisdom and war.
Thursday - from the Old English Þunresdæg, meaning the day of Þunor, commonly known in Modern English as Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
Friday - from the Old English frigedæg, meaning the day of Frige, the Norse god of beauty. Frige replaced the Roman god of beauty, Venus, as the namesake of the fifth day of the week after the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain.
Saturday - named after the Roman god of time Saturn and the only day of the week to retain its Roman origin in English.

Days of the Week in Chinese and Japanese
In Chinese, every day of the week is a day of worship, starting with Sunday, literally “Worship Day.” The rest are numbered from Monday (Worship Day One) to Saturday (Worship Day Six). My first language (chronologically) being Chinese, I still think of the days of the week in Chinese, and prefer it to English.

In Japanese, Sunday and Monday are literally exactly the same as in English: Sun Day and Moon Day. Tuesday to Saturday are Fire Day, Water Day, Wood Day, Metal Day, Earth Day.

This site explains more about the days of the week in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

The Zodiac
Mustn’t forget the zodiac either. I remember my dad telling us years ago about a different zodiac system he read about in James Jordan somewhere, I think it was Persian, which followed the Gospel story. The Greek is supposedly a perversion of that (e.g. Virgo is Mary, holding Christ, not a vase).　　Please, if anyone reading this can recommend books about Persion astronomy, please let me know, please. Thank you.

Calendar of Saints
I’m still not sure what to think about saints days or what biblical basis there is for them. It seems not only unbiblically Eurocentric (maybe each continent or country can have its own calendar of saints?) but unnecessarily bound to one period in time.

OK, that’s all for now.