Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/1006

 complete observance of Sunday rest 'was not generally possible to the early Christians before Christendom obtained civil recognition.

5. Origin.—As the Sabbath was originally a religious feast, the question of the origin of the Sabbath resolves itself' into 'an inquiry why and in what circle a festal cycle of seven days was first established. In Gen. ii. 1-3 and in Exod. xx. II the Sabbath is declared to be a memorial of the completion of the work of creation in six days. But, it appears certain that the Decalogue as it lay before the Deuteronomist did not contain any allusion to the creation (see ), and it is generally believed that this reference was added by the same post-exilic hand that wrote Gen. i. 1-ii. 4a. The older account of the creation in Gen. ii. 4b seq. does not recognize the hexaemeron, and it is even doubtful whether the original sketch of Gen. i. distributed creation over six days. The connexion, therefore, between the seven days' week and the work of creation is now generally recognized as secondary. But, if the week as a religious cycle is older than the idea of the week of creation, we cannot hope to find more than probable evidence of the origin of the Sabbath. Unless the Sabbath was already an institution peculiarly Jewish, it could not have served as a mark of distinction from heathenism. This, however, does not necessarily imply that in its origin it was specifically Hebrew, but only that it had acquired distinguishing features of a marked kind. What is certain is that the origin of the Sabbath must be sought within a circle that used the week as a division of time. Here again we must distinguish between the week as such and the astrological week, i.e. the week in which the seven days are named each after the planet which is held to preside over its first hour. It is plain, however, that there is a long step between the astrological assignation of each hour of the week to a planet and the recognition of the week as an ordinary division of time by people at large. Astrology is in its nature an occult science, and there is no trace of a day of twenty-four hours among the ancient Hebrews. Moreover, it is doubtful from extant remains of Assyrian calendars whether the astrological week prevailed in civil life even among the Babylonians and Assyrians. They did not dedicate each day in turn to its astrological planet; and it is therefore precarious to assume that the Sabbath was in its origin what it is in the astrological week, the day sacred to Saturn, and that its observance is to be derived from an ancient Hebrew worship of that planet.

The week, however, is found in various parts of the world in a form that has nothing to do with astrology or the seven planets, and with such a distribution as to make it pretty certain that it had no artificial origin, but suggested itself independently, and for natural reasons, to different races. In fact, the four quarters of the moon supply an obvious division of the month; and, wherever new moon and full moon are religious occasions we get in the most natural way a sacred cycle of fourteen or   fifteen days, of which the week of seven or eight days (determined by half moon) is the half. Thus the old Hindus chose the new, and the full moon as days of sacrifice; the eve of the sacrifice was called upavasatha, and in, Buddhism the same word (upōsatha) has come to denote a Sabbath observed on the full moon, on the day when there is no moon, and on the two days .which are eighth from the full and the new moon respectively, with fasting and other religious exercises. From this point of, view it is most significant that in the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures the new moon and the Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together.

Nor are other traces wanting of the connexion of sacrificial occasions—i.e. religious feasts—with the phases of thernoon among the Semites; Thus the Harranians had four sacrificial days in every month, and of these two at least were determined by the conjunction and opposition of the moon. That full moon as well as new moons had a religious significance among the ancient Hebrews seems to follow from the fact that, when the great agricultural feasts were fixed to set days, the-full moon was chosen. In older times these feast-days appear to have been Sabbaths (Lev. xxiii. 11; comp. the article, ). A week determined by the phases of the moon has an average length of 29÷4＝7 days, i.e. three weeks out of eight would have eight days; But there seems to be in 1 Sam. xx. 27, compared with verses 18, 24, an indication that in old times the feast of the new moon lasted two days. In that case a week of seven working days would occur only once in two months. We cannot tell when the Sabbath became dissociated from the month; but the change seems to have been made before the Book of the Covenant, which already regards the Sabbath simply as an institution of humanity and ignores the new moon. In both points it is followed by Deuteronomy.

[6. The Babylonian and Assyrian Sabbath.—The Babylonian calendars contain. explicit directions for the observance of abstention from certain secular acts on certain days which forms a close parallel to the Jewish Sabbatical rules. Thus for the 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th and also the 19th days of the intercalary Elul it is prescribed that “the shepherd of many nations is not to eat meat roast with fire nor any food cooked by fire, he is not to change the clothes on his body nor put on gala dress, he may not bring sacrifices nor may the king ride in his chariot, he is not to hold court nor may the priest seek an oracle for him in the sanctuary, no physician may attend the sick room, the day is not favourable for invoking curses, but at night the king may bring his ift into the presence of Marduk and Ishtar. Then he may offer sacrifice so that his prayers be accepted.” Clearly, then, it was a day of suspended activity, but it will be noted that no religious observances are prescribed in place of the forbidden secular matters. So far no evidence is forthcoming that the same days of each month were observed as these of this special rarely occurring month. Calendars exist for other months which make no such regulations for any days. These abstentions are prescribed for the king and a few other persons; there is no evidence that they were observed by all the people. The 19th day is supposed to have had its sacred nature as the 49th day from the commencement of the preceding month, assuming that to have had 30 days. The months often had only 29 days. when the same character ought to have applied to the 20th day of the following month. There is no evidence that these days we recalled shabattu, a word which is rendered by ūmu nūḥ libbi, “day of rest of the heart,” and has been thought to be the origin of Sabbath. This name shabattu was certainly applied to the 15th dav of the month, and ūmu nūḥ libbi could mean “day of rest in the middle” referring to the moon’s pause at the full. The frequent Old Testament association of “new moons and Sabbaths” may point to an original observance of the 1st and 15th days of the month. Many days are indicated in the calendar as nubattu, a term which signifies rest, pause, and especially a god’s connubial rest with his consort goddess. The observance of such days was a bar to attending even to important diplomatic business or setting out on a journey. Such nubattu days fell on the 3rd, 7th and 16th of the intercalary month of Elul, and were noted as the nubattu of Marduk and his consort. It would be precarious to assume that the same days in each month were nubattu,, for the nubattu fell on the 4th of Iyar on one occasion.