DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0169
359
194. How the clays of the week came to be called by the names
of the planets, or why the planets were thus placed in an order so
different from that of nature, and even from that in which any theo-
rist ever has placed them, is difficult to conjecture. The earliest
notice of it in any ancient writing now extant, is in the work of an
historian of the beginning of the third century of Christianity;' who
says that it was unknown to the Greeks, and borrowed by the Ro-
mans from other nations, who divided the planets on this occasion
by a sort of musical scale, beginning with Saturn, the most remote
from the centre, and then passing over two to the Sun, and two
more to the Moon, and so on, till the arrangement of the week was
complete as at present, only beginning with the clay which now
stands last. Other explanations are given, both by the same and
by later writers ; but as they appear to us to be still more remote
from probability, it will be sufficient to refer to them, without enter-
ing into further details.1 Perhaps the difficulty has arisen from a
confusion between the deities and the planets; the ancient nations of
the North having consecrated each day of the week to some princi-
pal personage of their mythology, and called it after his name,
beginning with Lok or Saturn, and ending with Freia or Venus:
whence, when these, or the corresponding names in other languages,
were applied both to the planets and to the days of the week con-
secrated to them, the ancient mythological order of the titles was
retained, though the ideas expressed by them were no longer religi-
ous, but astronomical. Perhaps, too, it may be accounted for from
the Ptolemaic system ; according to which the order of the planets
was, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the
Moon : for if the natural day consisted of twenty-four hours, and
each hour was under the influence of a planet in succession, and
the first hour of Saturday be sacred to Saturn, the eighth, fifteenth,
and twenty-second, will be so likewise ; so that the twenty-third will
belong to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to Mars, and the first hour of
the next day to the Sun. In the same manner, the first hour of the
' The part of Plutarch's Symposiacs, in which it was discussed, is unfortu-
nately lost.
f Cass. Dion. lib. xxxvi. p. 37. Hyde de Rclig. vet. Tersar. c. v. ad fin.
194. How the clays of the week came to be called by the names
of the planets, or why the planets were thus placed in an order so
different from that of nature, and even from that in which any theo-
rist ever has placed them, is difficult to conjecture. The earliest
notice of it in any ancient writing now extant, is in the work of an
historian of the beginning of the third century of Christianity;' who
says that it was unknown to the Greeks, and borrowed by the Ro-
mans from other nations, who divided the planets on this occasion
by a sort of musical scale, beginning with Saturn, the most remote
from the centre, and then passing over two to the Sun, and two
more to the Moon, and so on, till the arrangement of the week was
complete as at present, only beginning with the clay which now
stands last. Other explanations are given, both by the same and
by later writers ; but as they appear to us to be still more remote
from probability, it will be sufficient to refer to them, without enter-
ing into further details.1 Perhaps the difficulty has arisen from a
confusion between the deities and the planets; the ancient nations of
the North having consecrated each day of the week to some princi-
pal personage of their mythology, and called it after his name,
beginning with Lok or Saturn, and ending with Freia or Venus:
whence, when these, or the corresponding names in other languages,
were applied both to the planets and to the days of the week con-
secrated to them, the ancient mythological order of the titles was
retained, though the ideas expressed by them were no longer religi-
ous, but astronomical. Perhaps, too, it may be accounted for from
the Ptolemaic system ; according to which the order of the planets
was, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the
Moon : for if the natural day consisted of twenty-four hours, and
each hour was under the influence of a planet in succession, and
the first hour of Saturday be sacred to Saturn, the eighth, fifteenth,
and twenty-second, will be so likewise ; so that the twenty-third will
belong to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to Mars, and the first hour of
the next day to the Sun. In the same manner, the first hour of the
' The part of Plutarch's Symposiacs, in which it was discussed, is unfortu-
nately lost.
f Cass. Dion. lib. xxxvi. p. 37. Hyde de Rclig. vet. Tersar. c. v. ad fin.