Geminus of Rhodes' Notes on the Egyptian Calendar

Geminus wrote about the Egyptian calendar during the 1^st century B.C. in a work that is known by the title Elements of Astronomy. He comments about the nature of the Egyptian calendar, how it differed from Greek practices, and how it moved with respect to the seasons. 

This work is significant with respect to claims made by moderns that Christian holy days and practices were taken from particular dates in use by ancient pagan Egypt. Geminus gives us an example in the 1^st century B.C. of how very unlikely direct influence from any Egyptian civil calendar celebration would have been on the primary holy days of Christianity.

About Geminus

We know almost nothing about Geminus himself. He is often called Geminus of Rhodes though we do not know if that was his birthplace. He at least did some of his work there according to the text his Elements of Astronomy. We can say at least that he was a mathematician and astronomer. We know of three works penned by him. Through citations and mentions in other authors we know about a mathematical work by Geminus and about a commentary he wrote on Posidonius' writing On Meteorology.

About Elementa Astronomiae

His ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ ΕΙΣ ΤΑ ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΑ Introduction to the Phenomena, also called Elements of Astronomy survives to us in manuscripts that come mainly from the 15th century.

About the text and translation presented here

The Greek text here come from the critical edition of Karl Manitius in the 1898 Teubner edition.

Geminus, Eisagōgē eis ta phainomena, Ed. and Tr. Karl Manitius, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, 1898

This edition is available on Google Books at https://books.google.com/books?id=M3I7AQAAMAAJ and on Google Play at
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=M3I7AQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PA106&hl=en

The text was scanned through Google Play and then visually corrected. Critical notes and line numbers are not included in this transcription. Greek numerals did not scan well. These have been corrected according to the printed text. However, the letter koppa used to indicate the number 90 is signified by an older, non-Byzantine form ϙ. I was unable to find a Byzantine UTF glyph.

The translation is an edited and corrected machine translation through Google Translate based on the Greek text and on Manitius’ German translation.

Any corrections or suggestions are more than welcome.

Elementa Astronomiae 8.16-31

16 Οἱ μὲν γὰρ Αἰγύπτιοι τὴν ἐναντίαν διάληψιν καὶ πρόθεσιν ἐσχήκασι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν. οὔτε γὰρ τοὺς ἐνιαυτοὺς ἄγουσι καθ' ἥλιον, οὔτε τοὺς μῆνας καὶ τὰς ἡμέρας κατὰ σελήνην, ἀλλ᾿ ἰδίᾳ τινὶ ὑποστάσει κεχρημένοι εἰσί.	16 The Egyptians had the exact opposite conception and intention to the Greeks. They neither counted the years according to the sun, nor the months and days according to the moon, but followed a very peculiar principle.
17 βούλονται γὰρ τὰς θυσίας τοῖς θεοῖς μὴ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν καιρὸν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ γίνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ διὰ πασῶν τῶν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ὡρῶν διελθεῖν καὶ γίνεσθαι τὴν θερινὴν ἑορτὴν καὶ χειμερινὴν καὶ τὴν φθινοπωρινὴν καὶ ἐαρινήν.	17 They wanted that the sacrifices should not be offered at the same time of the year, but should run through all the seasons, i.e. the summer festival should also be a winter festival and the autumn festival a spring festival.
18 ἄγουσι γὰρ τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν ἡμερῶν τξε'· ιβ' γὰρ μῆνας ἄγουσι τριακονθημέρους καὶ πέντε ἐπαγομένας· τὸ δὲ δον οὐκ ἐπάγουσι διὰ τὴν προειρημένην αἰτίαν, ἵνα αὐτοῖς ἵνα αὐτοῖς ἀναποδίζωνται αἱ ἑορταί.	18 They reckon the year to be 365 days, for they have 12 months of 30 days and 5 additional days. They do not take the quarter day into account for the reason stated above, so that their festivals may be counted backwards.
19 ἐν γὰρ τοῖς τέσσαρσιν ἔτεσι μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ ὑστεροῦσι παρὰ τὸν ἥλιον, ἐν δὲ τοῖς μ' ἔτεσι δέκα ἡμέραις ὑστερήσουσι παρὰ τὸν τοῦ ἡλίου ἐνιαυτόν, ὥςτε καὶ τοσαύταις ἡμέραις ἀναποδίσουσιν αἱ ἑορταὶ πρὸς τὸ μὴ γίνεσθαι κατὰ τὰς αὐτὰς ὥρας τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ. ἐν δὲ τοῖς ρκ' ἔτεσι μηνιαῖον ἔσται τὸ παράλλαγμα καὶ πρὸς τὸν τοῦ ἡλίου ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ πρὸς τὰς κατὰ τὸ ἔτος ὥρας.	19 In 4 years they will be one day 19 behind the sun, but in 40 years they will be 10 days behind the solar year, so that their festivals will also be delayed by that many days, in accordance with the intention that they should not take place in the same seasons. Thus, over 120 years the difference with the solar year, i.e. also with the seasons, will be a whole month.
20 Δι᾿ ἣν αἰτίαν καὶ τὸ περιφερόμενον ἁμάρτημα παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐκ πολλῶν χρόνων παραδοχῆς ἠξιωμένον μέχρι τῶν καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς χρόνων πεπίστευται. ὑπολαμβάνουσι γὰρ οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἅμα τοῖς Ισίοις κατ' Αίγυπτίους καὶ κατ᾿ Εὔδοξον εἶναι χειμερινὰς τροπάς, ὅπερ ἐστὶ παντάπασι ψεῦδος· μηνὶ γὰρ ὅλῳ παραλλάσσει τὰ Ἴσια πρὸς τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπάς.	20 (In this very gradual increase) we can also see the reason why a common error, sanctioned by a long-standing tradition, has been accepted in good faith by the Greeks up to our times. The overwhelming majority of Greeks are of the opinion that the winter solstice takes place at the same time as the Isis festival, both according to the Egyptian calendar and according to (the calendar of) Eudoxus. But this is quite wrong, because the Isis festival differs from the winter solstice by a whole month.
21 ἐρρύη δὲ τὸ ἁμάρτημα ἀπὸ τῆς προειρημένης αἰτίας. πρὸ γὰρ ρκ' ἐτῶν συνέπεσε κατ᾽ αὐτὰς τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπὰς ἄγεσθαι τὰ Ἴσια. ἐν ἔτεσι δὲ τέσσαρσι μιᾶς ἡμέρας ἐγένετο παράλλαγμα. τοῦτο οὖν οὐκ αἰσθητὴν ἔσχε παραλλαγὴν πρὸς τὰς κατ᾽ ἔτος ὥρας. ἐν ἔτεσι δὲ μ' ἡμερῶν δέκα ἐγένετο παράλλαγμα. οὐδ᾽ οὕτως αἰσθητὴν εἶναι συμβαίνει τὴν παραλλαγήν.	21 The error crept in for the reason given above. 120 years ago, it was the case that the Isis festival was celebrated at the winter solstice; but after just four years, the difference was one day. This was not, however, a noticeable difference with the season. After 40 years, the difference was 10 days. But even then, the difference would not be particularly noticeable.
22 νυνὶ μέντοι γε μηνιαίας γινομένης παραλλαγῆς ἐν ρκ' ἔτεσιν, ὑπερβολὴν οὐκ ἀπολείπουσιν ἀγνοίας οἱ διαλαμβάνοντες ἐν τοῖς Ἰσίοις κατʼ Αἰγυπτίους καὶ κατ᾽ Εὔδοξον τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπὰς εἶναι. μιᾷ μὲν γὰρ ἡμέρᾳ ἢ δυσὶ διενεχθῆναι ἐνδεχόμενόν ἐστι, μηνιαῖον δὲ παράλλαγμα ἀδύνατόν ἐστι λαθεῖν.	22 But now, when after 120 years the difference is a whole month, the assumption that the winter solstice takes place on the Isis festival according to both the Egyptian calendar and the calendar of Eudoxus leaves nothing to be desired in terms of ignorance. A difference of one day, or at most two days, is acceptable, but a difference of one month cannot possibly go unnoticed.
23 καὶ γὰρ τὰ μεγέθη τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐλέγχειν δύναται μεγάλην ἔχοντα παραλλαγὴν πρὸς τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπάς, καὶ αἱ τῶν ὡρολογίων καταγραφαὶ ἐκδήλους ποιοῦσι τὰς κατὰ ἀλήθειαν γινομένας τροπάς, καὶ μάλιστα παρ' Αἰγυπτίοις ἐν παρατηρήσει γενομένοις.	23 The length of the days, can serve as a guide, which, compared with the time of the winter solstice, shows a great difference; the hour dials of the sundials also make the actual occurrence of the solstice clearly noticeable, especially among the Egyptians, who were such good observers.
24 ὅθεν τὰ Ἴσια πρότερον μὲν ἤγετο κατά τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπάς, καὶ πρότερον δ᾽ ἔτι κατὰ τὰς θερινὰς τροπάς, ὡς καὶ Ἐρατοσθένης ἐν τῷ περὶ τῆς ὀκταετηρίδος ὑπομνήματι μνημονεύει, καὶ ἀχθήσεται πάλιν κατὰ φθινόπωρον καὶ κατὰ τὰς θερινὰς τροπὰς καὶ κατὰ τὸ ἔαρ καὶ πάλιν κατὰ τὰς χειμερινὰς τροπάς. ἐν ἔτεσι γὰρ αυξ' ἅπασαν ἑορτὴν διελθεῖν δεῖ διὰ πασῶν τῶν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ὡρῶν καὶ πάλιν ἀποκατασταθῆναι ἐπὶ τὸν αὐτὸν καιρὸν τοῦ ἔτους.	24 So the Isis festival once fell on the winter solstice, and even earlier on the summer solstice, as Eratosthenes also mentions in his treatise on the eight-year period, and will in future be celebrated in autumn, at the summer solstice, in spring, and then again at the winter solstice. For in 1460 years every festival must pass through all the seasons and return again at the same time of the year.
25 Οἱ μὲν οὖν Αἰγύπτιοι κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ὑπόστασιν κεκρατήκασι τοῦ προκειμένου τέλους, οἱ δὲ Ἕλληνες τὴν ἐναντίαν γνώμην ἔχοντες τοὺς μὲν ἐνιαυτοὺς καθ᾿ ἥλιον ἄγουσι, τοὺς δὲ μῆνας καὶ τὰς ἡμέρας κατὰ σελήνην.	25 The Egyptians therefore set about solving the problem we are now dealing with according to this peculiar principle, while the Greeks, following the opposite view, reckoned the years according to the sun, but the months and days according to the moon.
26 οἱ μὲν οὖν ἀρχαῖοι τοὺς μῆνας τριακονθημέρους ἦγον, τοὺς δὲ ἐμβολίμους παρʼ ἐνιαυτόν. ταχέως δ᾽ἐπὶ τοῦ φαινομένου ἐλεγχομένης τῆς ἀληθείας διὰ τὸ τὰς ἡμέρας καὶ τοὺς μῆνας μὴ συμφωνεῖν τῇ σελήνῃ, τοὺς δὲ ἐνιαυτοὺς μὴ στοιχεῖν τῷ ἡλίῳ, ὅθεν ἐζήτουν περίοδον, ἥτις κατὰ μὲν τοὺς ἐνιαυτοὺς τῷ ἡλίῳ συμφωνήσει , κατὰ δὲ τοὺς μῆνας καὶ τὰς ἡμέρας τῇ σελήνῃ, περιέχει δὲ ὁ τῆς περιόδου χρόνος ὅλους μῆνας καὶ ὅλας ἡμέρας καὶ ὅλους ἐνιαυτούς.	26 As for the ancients, they had months consisting of 30 days each, and added the intercalary months one year after the other. But because the correctness of this procedure was soon called into question by the celestial phenomena, in that the days and months did not correspond with the moon and the years did not progress with the sun, they sought a period which should correspond with the sun as regards the years, and with the moon as regards the months and days, and which should contain whole months, whole days and whole years.
27 πρώτην δὲ συνεστήσαντο τὴν περίοδον τῆς ὀκταετηρίδος, ἥτις περιέχει μὲν μῆνας ϙθ', ἐν οἷς ἐμβολίμους τρεῖς, ἡμέρας δὲ βϡκβ', ἔτη δὲ ὀκτώ. συνεστήσαντο δὲ τὴν ὀκταετηρίδα τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον.	27 The first period which they established was the eight-year period; it comprises 99 months, including three intercalary months, or 2922 days, that is, eight years. They arrived at the establishment of this period in the following manner.
28 ἐπεὶ γὰρ ὁ καθ ' ἥλιον ἐνιαυτὸς ἡμερῶν ἐστι τξε' δον, ὁ δὲ κατὰ σελήνην ἐνιαυτός ἐστιν ἡμερῶν τνδ', ἔλαβον τὴν ὑπεροχήν, ἣν ὑπερέχει ὁ καθ' ἥλιον ἐνιαυτὸς τοῦ κατὰ σελήνην. εἰσὶ δὲ ἡμέραι ια' δον.	28 Since the solar year has 365 ¼ days and the lunar year has only 354 days, they took the surplus of the solar year over the lunar year, which is 11 1/4 days.
29 ἐὰν ἄρα κατὰ σελήνην ἄγωμεν τοὺς μῆνας ἐν τῷ ἐνιαυτῷ, ὑστερήσομεν ἡμέρας παρὰ τὸν τοῦ ἡλίου ἐνιαυτὸν ια΄ δον. ἐζήτησαν οὖν, ποσάκις αὗται αἱ ἡμέραι πολυπλασιασθεῖσαι ἀποτελοῦσιν ὅλας ἡμέρας καὶ ὅλους μῆνας. ὀκτάκις δὲ πολυπλασιασθεῖσαι ἀποτελοῦσιν ὅλας ἡμέρας καὶ ὅλους μῆνας, ἤγουν ἡμέρας μὲν ϙʹ, μῆνας δὲ τρεῖς.	29 If we therefore reckon the months in the year according to the lunar year, we shall be 11 1/4 days behind the solar year. They then sought the number by which this number of days must be multiplied in order to obtain whole days and whole months. This result is obtained by multiplying by eight: it is 90 days or three months.
30 ἐπεὶ οὖν ἐν τῷ ἐνιαυτῷ παρὰ τὸν ἥλιον ὑστεροῦμεν ἡμέρας ια' δον, φανερὸν ὅτι ἐν τοῖς ὀκτὼ ἔτεσιν ὑστερήσομεν παρὰ τὸν ἥλιον ἡμέρας ϙ', ὅπερ εἰσὶ μῆνες τρεῖς.	30 Since we are 114 days behind in a solar year, it is clear that in eight years we will be 90 days, or three months, behind the sun.
31 δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίαν καθ᾿ ἑκάστην οκταετηρίδα τρεῖς ἄγονται μῆνες ἐμβόλιμοι, ἵνα τὸ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν γινόμενον ἔλλειμμα πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον ἀναπληρωθῇ καὶ πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς διελθόντων τῶν ὀκτὼ ἐτῶν συμφωνῶσιν αἱ ἑορταί πρὸς τὰς κατ᾽ ἔτος ὥρας. γινομένου γὰρ τούτου αἱ θυσίαι τοῖς θεοῖς διὰ παντὸς ἐπιτελεσθήσονται κατὰ τὰς αὐτὰς ὥρας τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ.	31 For this reason, three leap months are inserted in every eight-year period, so that the annual loss of light from the sun is balanced out, and so that once the eight years have elapsed, the festivals will fall in the same seasons. If this happens, the sacrifices to the gods will always be made at the same times of year.

Review: Cohen, Mark E. 2015 Festivals and Calendars of the Ancient Near East

Mark E. Cohen 2015 Festivals and Calendars of the Ancient Near East CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland. 467 pages, indexes: Month Names; Deities; General Terms; Selected Subjects;

Available from Eisenbrauns $50 https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-934309-64-3.html 

Review by Pastor Joseph Abrahamson

Cohen’s book is a guide to the annual liturgical practices and religious holy days of cities and cultures in the ancient Near-east from the 3rd millennium BC down to the end of the 1st millennium BC. This volume is important for liturgical history, and for understanding the ways in which the reckoning of time was affected in Scripture by the cultures with whom the Israelites had contact. Knowledge of the languages is not necessary to understand the main arguments and data presented in this book, but it is necessary to evaluate the strengths of the Cohen’s etymological arguments. The reader also needs to have familiarity with the geography and history of the ancient Near-east to be able to grasp how these calendars fit into the current understanding of how these societies developed and interacted.

My interest in this volume stems from researching current claims that Christian practices and holy days were established by borrowing from or usurping particular pagan days and practices from the ancient Near-east. This particular kind of charge originated in the 19th century from protestant writers like Alexander Hislop (The Two Babylons 1853), anti-religion writers like T.S Doane (Bible Myths 1882), and schools in that century which adopted an evolutionary approach to the history of religion, for example: Religionsgeschichtliche Schule from the University of Göttingen, or the Tübingen School of F.C. Baur.

The questions these claims raised about origins for Biblical teaching, faith, and practice required actual data from the peoples and cultures to whom these various authors attributed their claims of origin. But in truth, none of those authors making the claims had any significant data. They had based their versions of history on their own various unverified presumptions of how history had to have developed.

Unfortunately the conclusions drawn by those writers have had incredible staying-power and influence. The majority of their opinions were published before there was any real data or any comparative survey of the actual texts from the periods and people.

In 1915 Benno Landsberger published the first comprehensive study of the Assyrian and Babylonian cultic calendars from the then available cuneiform texts.

• Der kultische Kalender der Babylonier und Assyrer: I. Die altbabylonischen Lokalkalender, Leipzig 1914 (Dissertation) (Leipziger semitistische Studien. Bd 6, H. 1. 1915) https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.33809 

In 1935 Stephen Langdon published his lectures in which he had taken into account contemporary calendars from other cultures in the Levant and the Arabian peninsula.

• Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars , London Pub. For The British Academy By H. Milford Oxford University Press (1935)https://biblicalarchaeology.org.uk/pdf/schweich-lectures/1933_babylonian-menogies_langdon.pdf

A great supply of newly unearthed texts have been made available since then. Through the 1960s and 1970s several studies were made of calendars in several specific cities and time periods. But many of the relevant texts were still inaccessible even to specialists in the field.

In 1993 Mark Cohen published the first comprehensive examination of calendars in the Ancient Near East.

• 1993 The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, (504 pages). https://archive.org/details/TheCulticCalendarsOfTheAncientNearEast

22 years later and with the benefit of a great wealth of thousands more published texts available, with specialized studies by numerous researchers, as well as computer access and searching, Dr. Cohen has released a new comprehensive study that is 37 pages shorter than the previous! Festival Calendars of the Ancient Near East is not a revision or updating. The scope of the newly available data required a thorough analysis and a new work.

Festivals and Calendars basically replaces Cultic Calendars. There are but a small handful of references to the previous volume.

How the Book is Arranged

Cohen divides his survey by epoch and by location. Three main sections deal with the 3rd Millennium BC, the 2nd Millennium BC, and then the final section on the 2nd and 1st Millennium BC. Then follow indices of Month Names, Deities, General Terms, and Selected Subjects. Each of the three main sections is generally subdivided by location. Terms, months, and names of festivals and deities are presented in transcription and interpreted for the reader.

In his introduction “Festivals and Calendars” Cohen makes distinctions between

1. Parochial or Native Calendars “restricted to a city and its metropolitan area.”
2. Ethnic Calendars reflecting a usage of “traditional month names used by a population whose territory far exceeds the boundaries of the metropolitan city or kingdom in which it is used.” (1)
3. National Calendars are defined as “mandated for use in all cities, including those previously using a parochial or ethnic calendar, comprising a ruler’s kingdom.” (2)
4. Universal Calendars ar those “in use across major swaths of the ancient Near East that transcends the borders of cities, kingdoms, and ethnic areas, with minor differences in some locations.”

Each calendar is presented first with the dates during which the tablets testify to the calendar’s use, the location of calendar use, and a discussion of relevant texts from other locations which come to bear on this particular calendar’s development and use at this site or others.

Cohen discusses how the names of the months are known, whether or not and how we can know the arrangement of order of the months; what gaps there are, and if these months can be related to other calendars. This sometimes, but not always, gives us the order and sequence of months in the calendar year.

All the calendars of the ancient Near-east in this volume were lunar, that is, they were tied to the start of a new moon. The origins and arrangement of the Old Persian calendar (a solar calendar that lacks attestation before mid 1st millennium BC) do not come into this discussion except as a resource to help with particular month names or practices listed in other calendars. Cohen does not discuss how the new moon was spotted or defined. He does not address the issue of how National calendars were synchronized from city to city. Nor does Cohen address the issue of calendar tampering for political or religious purposes. (Sacha Stern takes up these topics in his 2012 Calendars in Antiquity)

Cohen does address whether the data in the texts show evidence of intercalation to make up for the difference between the lunar and the seasonal year. In some cases there is evidence of adding a month on at the end of the year. In others there is evidence of added days before the next new moon. In some cases the calendar runs twelve moons and begins to repeat, causing the months to take place earlier and earlier through successive years (e.g., possibly the Aššur calendar after Amorite rule, and the Nuzi/Gasur calendar). In many cases there is not enough evidence to say.

The question of intercalation is addressed by several means; for example, if a month name is tied to a particular seasonal activity, or if the name is possibly or consistently related to a similar month name from another calendar where the seasonal position of the month is known.

Cohen discusses whether and how the beginning month of the year is known, if it is. In these discussions Cohen explains previous views and their basis then lays out his own, his supporting data and his reasons. In general he has concluded that it is most likely the case that all of these lunar calendars began their year in the spring, though for many calendars there is insufficient data to establish this. He devotes space to particular cases where previous scholarship has concluded that calendars began the year in the fall (e.g., Ugarit, Emar, Pre-exilic Israel) or the winter solstice (e.g., Aššur).

Then he follows with discussions about each month, the rituals or gods celebrated during the month under discussion; what is known about the ritual and the sources for this information. Then follows a list with brief discussion of month names and festivals known from the tablets, but which cannot be attributed to a particular slot in the calendar.

For some calendars there is extensive information about some festivals. For example, Cohen is able to trace akītu festivals, and the kinūnum “Brazier” festivals through the two millennia.

Throughout each presentation Cohen gives references both to the tablets on which the data is found and to the scholars who have made the tablets available or done the research on the tablets and calendar systems.

Because the data are fragmentary or lacking in so many cases, the author points out both the uncertainty of his own conclusions and those of other researchers. This means that a great many reconstructions, positions, and conclusions advanced in this survey are tentative.

Particular Topics Related to Biblical Interpretation

Cohen’s approach of the data in the Hebrew Bible is historical critical. He does not specify which particular historical critical reconstruction he mainly espouses. When he discusses particular interpretations of the biblical text he expresses a view based in presuppositions that the text and the religion of Israel evolved through various stages of cross-cultural contact.

There are four topics that are directly related to biblical interpretation: 1) two calendars present possible evidence of the development of a seven day week, 2) a sacrifice of the first-born festival in the Emar Calendar which has been interpreted as culturally related to the Passover, 3) the Levantine calendars with a section on Pre-exilic Israel, and 4) the widespread adoption of the Standard Mesopotamian Calendar throughout the ancient Near-east at the end of the 2nd millennium and into the 1st millennium BC.

I will only respond to two of these issues: the week, and the Passover. My responses are critical and take up more space than the review above. I think that Cohen has produced a very valuable and useful work. And we are in his debt for this. His work is, I think, something of a very high standard and will be a main reference for years to come. As such it will, through citation, come to influence more popular level interpretations and histories of the ancient Near-east and of the Bible. For this last reason I wish to devote more space to these two issues in order to help readers understand the tentative nature of many of Cohen’s reconstructions.

The reader must pay attention to when Cohen is conjecturing and building on those conjectures versus when he is citing the data in the tablets and laying the data out in an orderly and usable way.

---

The Week

The seven day work and worship cycle found in the Pentateuch is unique in all of the ancient Near-east. The Hebrew Bible makes this ritual/liturgical cycle the centerpoint of Israel’s confession of who God is.

The creation account (Genesis 1-2) and the Monotheism in which it is grounded stands in stark contrast to every other known cosmology from the ancient world. Within academia this is a point expounded upon at length by Yehezkel Kaufmann in his 1960 The Religion of Israel, and still not adequately addressed by the rest of Old Testament historical critical scholarship.

In Exodus the seven day Sabbath cycle is set at the heart of the liturgical confession of Yahweh as the one true God over against all others. The Exodus confession (20:8-11) is a weekly restatement of how the world was created and Who the creator is. According to biblical chronology this expression of the Sabbath law was made in about 1440 BC as the Israelites came out from a polytheistic culture whose religious calendar was subdivided into decans— a ten day period.

In Deuteronomy the retelling of the Sabbath Law (5:12-15) highlights the contrast between the polytheism and ritual of Egypt with what the Lord has now established for the Israelites as they enter the promised land.

Again, outside of Old Testament Israel, there is no known ancient Near-eastern calendrical system that expresses anything like the seven day Sabbath cycle.

But that has not prevented scholars from attempting to argue for a cultural evolution of the seven day Sabbath cycle from other sources that are thought to pre-date the events and motives for the Sabbath cycle in the Hebrew Bible.

One of the most influential of these historical critical reconstructions was published in 1942 by Hildegard and Julius Lewy. [“The Origin of the Week and the Oldest West Asiatic Calendar.” Hebrew Union College Annual Vol. 17 (1942-43), pp. 1-152c] The Lewys claimed that the original calendars in the Old Assyrian period were made up of a set of seven pentecontads (50 day units) which were maintained throughout history, and which originated among the Amorites. This proposal influenced a great many writings on the calendars of Israel and of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But the Lewy’s model has been abandoned by Assyriologists due to its extremely conjectural nature, lack of evidence, and mishandling of data. [See Jonathan Ben-Dov “The History of Pentecontad Time Units (I)”  in A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor of James C. VanderKam (2 vol. set), Edited by Eric F. Mason, pp 93-111 Brill, 2011 https://www.academia.edu/1213350/The_History_of_Pentecontad_Time_Periods_I_ ]

In 1993 Cohen referred to the works by J. Lewy several times. But only twice did he refer to H. and J. Lewy’s “The Origin of the Week.” In both those citations the topic was the akītu festival, not the seven day week. And in those locations Cohen was pointing out that the data the Lewys had cited was actually irrelevant to the akītu festival. (Cultic Calendars pp. 245, 417). In this current volume references to the Lewys have disappeared, except in an oblique way: “There has been much speculation as to the origin of the association of seven with the non-human aspect of existence. Some have suggested that it is based on the count of heavenly bodies visible to the ancients….”(p. 428)

But there is still a drive in historical critical scholarship to formulate some kind of evolutionary developmental explanation for the seven day Sabbath cycle found in the Hebrew Bible.

In all the calendar data from the ancient Near-east there are only two examples of calendars that might have a time period of days that is regular and more brief than a month.

The first comes from the calendar established by Rim-Sîn I of Larsa (1822-1763 BC). In this calendar there is a unique notation for bureaucratic matters. It is called the ša šarrim “royal” system. Debate has centered around how to understand the dating system which does not use month names, and the format of which vary a bit from one city to the other. In the position where researchers expected the number to indicate which month there were problems with numbers over 30.  Cohen’s reconstruction is a tentative proposal that the “royal month” may have been a subset of the lunar month, and the “royal day” (the third numerical position in the system at Larsa) refers to a subdivision of a solar day. This, he proposes, would work better with an accounting system— though it does not answer all the issues raised by the data. Possibly the system is related to tabular notation as in the Old Babylonian style. Then, rather than being a dating system, the so-called “royal month” and “royal-day” would be a filing system for economic records. (pp. 238-242) Throughout these calendar texts there is no mention of a seven day system or cycle. Thus, a seven day cycle like that of Genesis is not supported by the evidence from these calendars.

The second possible example of a dating system using a group of days shorter than a month is from the Old Assyrian period calendar (1950-1710 BC texts from Kültepe Level 2 and Level 1b). This calendar used the term hamuštum, possibly to denote a regular period of days shorter than a month. The word has been much debated. Cohen summarizes the research very briefly and points to texts that equate this period with a lunar month. Cohen has made deliberate efforts to leave the previously influential theory and research of the Leyers unacknowledged— especially with reference to the fourth section of their thesis where they expounded on the term hamuštum as evidence of their pentacontad. Another term involved is šapattum, which some have tried to relate to Sabbath. However, in Assyrian šapattum refers to the full moon. (pp. 309-310)

These two examples help demonstrate an irony: The less historical critical scholars know about a cultural feature from history the more likely they are to conjecture that it is a source for something in the Bible. And what the scholars state as conjecture is taken up as historical fact by others.

The irony is not lost to this reviewer. So it is with no small sense of caution that readers should consider Cohen’s own speculation on the origin of the week starting at the bottom of page 425 through page 431.

Cohen’s Speculation on the Number Seven and the Origin of the Week

In his reading of the calendar texts the number 7 is the number of badness, unfavorableness. “The 7th day of the 7th month: this was a highly unfavorable day and, as another text notes, was a time when men cleansed themselves.” Cohen then immediately associates a mid 7th month harvest festival in this particular tablet which is “unattested elsewhere in cuneiform sources” with the Israelite fruit harvest in the middle of the seventh month. (p. 425)

The text to which he refers is Assyrian Astrolabe B. Two important points on this text: First, this text dates from the Middle Assyrian period (1400-1000 BC), so by biblical chronology this text is at best contemporary with the Mosaic Covenant, but could be later. Second, Cohen writes: “the interpretation of sections of this text must be tentative. Our understanding of the significance of these lines differs from that of Tsukimoto….” (p 425n 158). Looking at Cohen’s translation one should note he translates the relevant line: “(3) the first (-fruits?) of the year are sanctified;” meaning that the word “fruits” is in doubt.

The point of this linkage is to associate the fear of the number 7 with the Israelites. And for the next few paragraphs he brings in comparative data from other calendars discussing other features of this particular tablet. He resumes discussing the association of the number 7 on p. 427.

He restates: “The seventh day of the seventh month, more than any other day of the year was fraught with peril.” From this point his conjecture runs in this way:

1. “Throughout the Ancient Near East, the number seven was associated with the divine.” (427)
2. At this point he introduces the term “Other” in scare-quotes marks do denote the fearful presence of “the divine.” (427)
3. “[C]ontact with the ‘Other’ was considered life threatening.” (427)
4. And so the number 7 must have been considered fearful. (427)

Immediately following this Cohen returns to making his conjectural association with ancient Israel.

1. “Since human contact with the ‘Other’ was considered life-threatening, as depicted, for instance, in the Bible, when the Israelites were afraid to hear God’s voice from Mt. Sinai lest they die, or Moses’ facial disfigurement [sic!] after meeting with God, or Uzzah’s death upon touching the Ark of the Covenant upon its entry into Jerusalem.” (427)
2. And since there are lots of sevens in ancient Near-eastern literature associated with evil, scary ‘Other’ things. (427)
3. People back then were uneducated and prone to fall for superstitions. (428)
4. “We suggest that this ancient wariness of the number seven was a by-product of the numbers 3 and 10.” (428)
5. Because everyone had 10 fingers. (428)
6. “Psychological research has shown” the numbers 1-3 are processed differently than are the other numbers. (428)
7. Chaos theory shows the number 3 to be important to the Universe (as does Charles Dodgson in The Hunting of the Snark). (428 and n 167) [Dodgson was no-doubt added for humor, but the Chaos theory reference is meant as evidence.]
8. “Therefore, just perhaps, when ancients looked at their ten fingers…. Their brains subconsciously divided reality into 3 and 7. … [S]even, therefore was the non-human number, the number of the ‘Other,’ of the divine.” (428)

It is from this line of reasoning that Cohen goes on to assert “The association of seven with the divine aspect of existence manifested itself in the ancient festival calendars.” (428) Here he enlists ancient Near-east calendar data. But note his language:

1. “A festival of Narua...in the Ur III period occurred around the 7th of the 7th month.” (428f, emphasis mine)
   [“around”, ironically, the footnote at this point n169 refers to the previous page where the only mention of this festival is the sentence to which the footnote is attached. The reference should be to p. 227 where the author conjectures “Since this observance involved wailing and occurred on the 7th day of the 7th month, it raises the possibility that this observance was related to the later-attested solemn observance on that day, the sebût sebim.” (227, emphasis mine) However in his listing of textual data the festivities run at least from the 3rd of the month through the 7th.]
2. The 2nd millenium Emar “zurku festival, may have been based upon cycles of seven (though six is possible).” (429, emphasis mine)
3. “And, of course, for the Israelites every seventh day, the Sabbath, was a time to confront the ‘Other.’” (429)
4. Like the rest of the ancient Near-east “so too for the Israelites every seventh day held the same dangers, and thus they refrained from working, lest things go astray.” (429)

An obvious problem with this line of conjecture is that the Sabbath is never described in this manner at all in the Hebrew Bible. So Cohen follows immediately stating his proposed evolution of the Israelite view:

“For the Israelites, this ‘negative’ view of the seventh day eventually became ‘positive,’ so that the reason for refraining from working became one of remembrance, in one case remembering YHWH’s creation of the world and elsewhere the Exodus from Egypt.”(429)

And from here Cohen enlists the Feast of Weeks, Passover, Sukkot and the Jubilee as supporting evidence because they all revolve around periods divided by sevens. (429)

This is the line of speculation that led Cohen to conclude:

“Thus the number seven was associated with and marked the divine, the other numbers the profane, and therefore, the 7th day of the 7th month was the ultimate marker of divine time.” (429)

Cohen writes this as speculative thought. He knows he is speculating and he makes the reader aware of this through his language. I have no doubt, however, that some readers will take this up as historical truth, repeating this argument without Cohen’s speculative language.

After reviewing the data, the speculation, and the arguments based on the speculation we can still say that there is nothing like the seven day Sabbath cycle in all of the known ancient Near-eastern literature. And there are no demonstrable links with the Sabbath of the Hebrew Bible with any of the surrounding liturgical cycles, calendars, myths, or law systems.

The biblical Sabbath is unique. It is described in the Hebrew Bible as confession of the unique origins of the universe and of the nature of the God who created it, a confession that distinguishes this faith from all others in the way even the days are counted.

Passover

Here we wish to consider Cohen’s evaluation of the 1200s BC Emar calendar. In this calendar there is a reference to a zukru festival in the first month of that calendar. Cohen makes some conjectural remarks relating this zukru festival to the Passover. It is necessary to understand the highly conjectural state of the reconstruction of the Emar calendar and of this city festival.

First, note that the dating of the calendar text is from two centuries after the date of the Exodus according to biblical chronology.

Second, the name of the first month is not firmly known, “The zukru ritual texts Emar 373 and 375 seem to indicate… that Zaratu/Zeratu … were … names for the first month.” (329)

Third, reconstructing the full calendar to know in which order the months occurred in the year is tentative. (330-331)

Fourth, the season in which the first month in the year took place is debated. Cohen suggests a spring season orientation, others an autumn.

Fifth, “[t]here is no evidence of intercalation at Emar.” (333) This means that Assyriologists do not really know if the same 12(?) months were repeated without reference to season or solar year. This would be similar to the Islamic calendar shifting months through the solar year.

Cohen states that his highly conjectural reconstruction “has the positive effect of aligning the zukru festival with the Israelite spring festival of the pesaḥ-offering, which we discuss below. (332)

There are two tablets which record the instructions for the zukru festival. These are Emar 373 and Emar 375. Assyriologists do not agree as to whether this festival was annual or took place once every seven years. The month named in Emar 375 is Zaratu. (333)

Cohen writes: “The observance appears to have been related to the cattle and sheep herds.” (333, emphasis mine) His caution is due to differences in how Assyriologists interpret the name of the god Dagan bēl buqāri. The word buqāri  is interpreted as “bovines” or as “offspring.” Cohen opts for the first, which in turn depends upon the tentative interpretation of another term Šaggar which usually means “full moon” but in this case, based on other evidence, might mean “the cattle pen, where a sacrifice is performed.” (334 n 12)

The meaning of the name of the festival, zukru, is debated. Cohen makes his case for “male animal.” “We suggest that the zukru festival at Emar was the occasion for the offering of male animals, presumably newborn males from the herds, to the god of the herds.” (334, emphasis mine) Note that what Cohen is suggesting is a presumption based on many levels of hypothetical reconstruction. An addition to his conjectures, there is nothing in the texts which he cites that indicates “newborn.”

One of the locations specified in the ritual for this city festival is the city gates. Dagan bēl buqāri was driven there in a chariot, animals were sacrificed, “oil and the blood from the animals was smeared on the stones.” (334)

It is here where Cohen begins to lay out his speculation how this Emar festival might have influenced Passover. I would submit, rather, that Cohen’s framing of the data has been shaped by the presupposition of just such a relationship.

Cohen writes;

“Because of the geographical proximity of the later Israelites to Emar, it seems natural to speculate as to whether the later Israelite ritual may have been influenced by its earlier neighbor to the north….”(335, emphasis mine)

And then on p. 338 in footnote 18:

“Based on our interpretation of the ritual of the zukru festival, we can attempt to reconstruct the underlying narrative that was reshaped into the Exodus story of the tenth plague, the slaying of the firstborn.” (emphasis mine)

Cohen has been very clear throughout the exposition that what he is putting forward is a hypothetical reconstruction. His interpretation does not relate the mere facts of what is known and what is not known, it adds, deletes, rearranges, and nuances. What he has created is a fiction about what this zukru festival might have been. He has also rejected the biblical chronology of the Exodus in favor of a different scheme based in the historical critical schools.

It is necessary to emphasize by repetition what was said above: The less historical critical scholars know about a cultural feature from history the more likely they are to conjecture that it is a source for something in the Bible. And what the scholars state as conjecture is taken up as historical fact by others.

Cohen’s book is very well done and should be in seminary libraries as a resource. This is a great tool for understanding what can be known of the calendar systems of Israel’s Mesopotamian neighbors and how their calendars come into the biblical text and use through the Babylonian Captivity. It is filled with good and solid data, well arranged, and highly readable. Cohen’s transcriptions of the original languages are accompanied by translations. It may take some work for those who are not familiar with the original languages. His book is also filled with a great deal of conjecture. In part the conjecture is warranted because of either a lack of sufficient data, or because of unclear or contradictory data. The reader should be aware that Cohen does not accept the Hebrew Bible as historical record. He reconstructs the biblical text in accordance with his own views to fit how he thinks events unfolded. Where he comments on biblical traditions should be read with this in mind.

Ash Wednesday, Ashes, and Lent

Where did Ash Wednesday and Lent come from? Are they relics of paganism? No. They are not. The actual history is much more interesting and beneficial.

Early Practice of Lent

The ancient Church chose to keep a fast during the forty days before Passover/Easter to focus on repentance and the gift of the Resurrection at Easter. St. Athanasius, who led at the Council of Nicea to defeat Arianism—a denial of Christ being truly God and man in one person—was a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote annual Festival letters to the Church as they prepared to celebrate Easter. In the year 331 he wrote in order to encourage his congregations in Egypt to keep the Lenten fast for 40 days. Athanasius directs the readers to many Scriptural examples and exhortations to moderation, self-control, and fasting for repentance, Athanasius gives several Bible examples of the 40 day fast, especially of Christ's 40 day fast, after which Athanasius wrote:

“The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth (we call Ash Wednesday); and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi (Palm Sunday), in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings, and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with precious blood, and to escape the destroyer (Exod. xii. 7, 23.). Let us rest then, on the fifteenth of the month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday Eve), for on the evening of that Saturday we hear the angels’ message, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen (Luke xxiv. 5).’ Immediately afterwards that great Sunday receives us, I mean on the sixteenth of the same month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday morning), on which our Lord having risen, gave us peace towards our neighbours.

We learn from this that even at the time the Nicene Creed was written, at the time Constantine the Great ruled, the Western and Eastern Churches practiced a voluntary fast for 40 days before Easter.

That this was practiced in Rome and elsewhere is seen in St. Athanasius' letter from the year 340 A.D. when he returns from a meeting of pastors/bishops from all around the world, and he encourages his own congregations to continue in the same practice of the 40 day Lenten fast as does “the rest of the whole world.”

In order to count the 40 days of Lent the Sundays of that season are not counted as part of the fast. Rather the Sundays are each a minor feast day. If you add the six feast Sundays to the 40 fast days you get 46 days. That means that the first day of the Fast of Lent is a Wednesday, just as Athanasius explained.

The 40 days was not counted the same way in all areas. About the year AD 380 a woman named Egeria (also called Etheria or Aetheria) documented her trip to Jerusalem and the liturgical practices in the area. Regarding Lent she says this:

“And when the Paschal days come they are observed thus : Just as with us forty days are kept before Easter, so here eight weeks are kept before Easter. And eight weeks are kept because there is no fasting on the Lord's Days, nor on the Sabbaths, except on the one Sabbath on which the Vigil of Easter falls, in which case the fast is obligatory. With the exception then of that one day, there is never fasting on any Sabbath here throughout the year. Thus, deducting the eight Lord's Days and the seven Sabbaths (for on the one Sabbath, as I said above, the fast is obligatory) from the eight weeks, there remain forty-one fast days, which they call here Eortae, that is Quadragesimae.” (Chapter 27 Egeria's Description of the Liturgical Year in Jerusalem: Translation, Based on the translation reproduced in Louis Duchesme's Christian Worship (London, 1923) http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/durham/egetra.html#ch27 )

Though the 40 day Lenten Fast was scheduled differently in Jerusalem, it was still the 40 day Lenten Fast.

Ashes and Ash Wednesday

The practice of believers using ashes to represent sorrow and repentance is well testified in the Bible. In the ancient world it was the natural formal response of those who are sorry for their sins:

For example:

• Mordecai's repentance and the repentance of the Jews in exile; Esther 4:1,3 When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
• Job's repentance: Job 2:8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
• See also Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:6; and Christ's harsh words to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Luke 10:13.

The Christian Liturgical use of ashes is documented by Tertullian(c. 160 – c. 225). In his On Repentance Ch. 11 Tertullian complains about those who claim repentance but do not want to demean themselves with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Eusebius (c. 260- c. 340) records a particular liturgical use of ashes as a sign of public repentance by an individual (Church History Bk5, Ch 28, par. 12).

Documentation on Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday was not a uniform practice in the church, but by the late 7th and early 8th century we have strong evidence of uniformity of practice in Western Europe.

Bede (672-735) dates sermons based on Ash Wednesday; for example: Homily 37 “in die Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:349); Homily 38 “in fiera quinta post Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:350), etc. https://books.google.com/books?id=rvQQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT62#v=onepage&q&f=false )

8th Century Gelasian Sacramentary begins Lent (Quadragesima) on Wednesday (Minge PL 74:1065 https://archive.org/stream/patrologiaecurs21goog#page/n535/mode/2up )

Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955 – c. 1010), an English abbot in a sermon on Ash Wednesday (Aelfric’s Lives of the Saints, ed. p. 236 https://archive.org/stream/aelfricslivesof01aelf#page/262/mode/2up/search/ashes )

“On the Wednesday, throughout the whole world, the priests bless, even as it is appointed, clean ashes in church, and afterward lay them upon men's heads, that they may have in mind that they came from earth, and shall again return to dust, even as the Almighty God spake to Adam, after he had sinned against God's command….
...
“Now let us do this little in the beginning of our Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads,

Sarum Use of the 11th Century has special service for Ash Wednesday including the imposition of ashes. (in this English translation it begins on p. 52 https://books.google.com/books?vid=08I4RhaJDeU0z2Dt&id=cyUBAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PR7&lpg=RA1-PR7&dq=%22Sarum+Missal#v=onepage&q=ashes&f=false )

According to Nicolaus Nilles it was at the Council of Benevento in AD 1090 that Pope Urban II standardised the use ashes on Ash Wednesday making it uniformly the liturgical head, or beginning of the Lenten Fast. (Nilles, 1897 Kalendarium Manuale vol II, p. 94. )

The Suppression of Ash Wednesday

I don’t have the library resources available to examine the Lutheran Church Orders of the 15th and 16th centuries. What I have gathered is from the development of liturgical practice in English.

The origins of the Book of Common Prayer in England were greatly affected by Luther through the chief author, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. In turn, during the shift from the German language to English in America, both before World War I and later, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was a significant resource for the framers of the liturgical practice of English speaking Lutherans from the beginning of the 20th century in America.

The Parliament and King Edward VI enacted An Act for Uniformity of Service and Administration of the Sacraments throughout the Realm in 1549. This law mandated the use of the Book of Common Prayer for every citizen of the realm. It also made using other forms or services an act punishable by civil law. Cranmer was not Lutheran, he was Calvinist. By 1552 he had readied a second edition of the Book of Common Prayer which eliminated many liturgical practices and specifically condemned Lutheran teaching on the Sacrament of the Altar.

Cranmer’s non-Lutheran but Calvinist Reformed theology embraced what they called the Regulative Principle of Worship: which means that they asserted that anything not explicitly commanded by God for worship is sin. In Cranmer’s view he needed to improve the Book of Common Prayer according to this principle. His first edition was a concession to the weak, but he aimed (in his way of thinking) to eliminate any liturgical teaching or practice that was not explicitly commanded in Scripture.

So the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer (1549) has the propers for “The first day of Lent, commonly called Ashwednesday”
( https://archive.org/stream/firstbookofcommo00waltuoft#page/n137/mode/2up )

The second edition of 1552 has only
“The first day of Lent” (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/Readings_Lent_1549.htm)

A similar change was made elsewhere. The 1549 edition contained a whole section dedicated to Ash Wednesday:

“ xii. A declaracion of scripture, with certein prayers to bee use the firste daye of Lent, commonlye called Ashwednesdaie.”

This was retitled for the 1552 edition to remove any reference to Ash Wednesday:

“Xx. A Comminacion against sinners, with certain praiers to be used divers tymes in the yere.”

With the publication of this volume a renewed Act of Uniformity in 1552 required the use of this new version with it’s elimination of Ash Wednesday, the use of ashes, and several other liturgical practices previously legally accepted. Along with this the new edition added at the end of the Service of Communion a paragraph that became called the “Black Rubric” which warned against kneeling and condemned the Scriptural teaching of the Lord’s Supper:

Although no ordre can be so perfectlye devised, but it may be of some, eyther for theyr ignoraunce and infermitie, or els of malice and obstinacie, misconstrued, depraved, and interpreted in a wrong part: And yet because brotherly charitie willeth, that so much as conveniently may be, offences shoulde be taken awaye: therefore we willing to doe the same. Whereas it is ordeyned in the booke of common prayer, in the administracion of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants knelyng shoulde receyve the holye Communion. whiche thynge beyng well mente, for a sygnificacion of the humble and gratefull acknowledgyng of the benefites of Chryst, geven unto the woorthye receyver, and to avoyde the prophanacion and dysordre, which about the holy Communion myght els ensue: Leste yet the same kneelyng myght be thought or taken otherwyse, we dooe declare that it is not ment thereby, that any adoracion is doone, or oughte to bee doone, eyther unto the Sacramentall bread or wyne there bodily receyved, or unto anye reall and essencial presence there beeyng of Christ's naturall fleshe and bloude. For as concernynge the Sacramentall bread and wyne, they remayne styll in theyr verye naturall substaunces, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatrye to be abhorred of all faythfull christians. And as concernynge the naturall body and blood of our saviour Christ, they are in heaven and not here. For it is agaynst the trueth of Christes true natural bodye, to be in moe places then in one, at one tyme. (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1552/Communion_1552.htm )

The 1552 edition lasted six months, King Edward VI died of tuberculosis at the age of 15. His half-sister Mary (Bloody Mary) took the throne and re-established Roman Catholicism. She died in 1588, and her half-sister Elizabeth I took the throne. Elizabeth I re-established the Anglican Church and issued a new Book of Common Prayer in 1559. This edition followed the 1552 edition in eliminating any reference to ashes or Ash Wednesday.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, was published by John Day in 1563. This volume was an anti-Roman Catholic polemical text. Its aim was to demonstrate the historical legitimacy of the Church of England by showcasing the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy. When the 3rd edition (1576) and 4th edition (1583) of Fox’s Book of Martyrs were produced this anti-Rome sentiment had grown more strong.

In 1571 English law required that Fox’s Book of Martyrs be placed beside the Bible in churches and read alongside Scripture during the services. The 1576 edition first records how after the death of Henry VIII (1547) Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, worked to abolish the use of candles at Candlemas; ashes at Lent, and the use of palm branches on Palm Sunday. (1576 ed, bk 9, p. 1286 https://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=text&gototype=&edition=1576&pageid=1286&anchor=%20ashes%20#kw)

For the English liturgical world, Ash Wednesday was expunged from language and practice.

Claims of Pagan Origin

So, what are the supposed pagan origins of Ash Wednesday and Lent?

The claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are based on pagan origins is a relatively new fiction that comes mainly from two different sources.

The chief source is the irresponsible work of Alexander Hislop in the mid 1800s and those who followed him; both those who claim to be Christian and those who oppose Christianity.

Second main source is the neo-pagan movement today that falsely imagines that paganism is the most ancient of religions and rejects the Bible totally. But, as we have seen above, Lent and Ash Wednesday have no origins in paganism.

You will find all kinds of books, articles, videos, and websites on the Internet that claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are not Biblical because Christ never commanded them. In this way they base their argument upon the Calvinist Regulative Priciple of Worhsip.

Their claim is partly true. And Satan likes to use truth to give credibility to his lies.

It is true that Christ didn't command any such celebration. Christ did not command His followers to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Nor did he command that we worship on Sunday. Nor did He command that we sing “Rock of Ages.” Nor did he command that we use chairs or pews when we gather. Nor did he command we use Advent Candles, etc… .

The problem with the Regulative Principle is this: If Christ didn't specifically command us to do something, then it is a sin to do it. So, think about how little sense that logic makes. Take this example: Christ did not command that I have my children wash dishes. Is it therefore a sin to have them do so? No.

What Christ did command and give to His Church was that the Word of God be preached for the remission of sins; that is, that the Law and the Gospel be taught, so people would be brought to repentance; and that faith in Christ would be given to them. He commanded that sins be forgiven in His name through the absolution to penitent sinners and withheld from the impenitent as long as they do not repent. He commanded that all nations, young and old, regardless of race be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. He commanded that we celebrate the feast of His Holy Supper where He gives us His Body and Blood together with the bread and wine in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of our sins. He gave us the promise that the Father hears our prayers in Christ's name because He has made us His brothers and sisters through the forgiveness of sins—won for us on the cross and distributed to us through Word and Sacrament. The prayer and celebration of these gifts can be held any day.

It is very important to remember that the use of the Regulative Principle was the justification Cranmer used to deny what the Scripture actually teaches about the Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper.

The ancient Church recognized that it was free from legalistic obligations, both from the Old Testament Law, and from new invented laws of men. As St. Paul wrote in Colossians 2. They also knew from Scripture that they were not to use this liberty as an excuse for sin. (Romans 6) They knew that they were not to let their consciences be bound by new human regulations as if their salvation depended upon them. (Galatians 1-2) Whatever was beneficial for the teaching of God's word and for the practice of the Christian life-consisting of repentance and forgiveness in the Means of Grace-was encouraged.

With regard to Lent in general:

The 40 day fast does not come from the so-called “weeping of Tammuz” as claimed by the radical anti-Roman Catholic writer Alexander Hislop in his book The Two Babylons. Hislop made up myths and connections out of thin air because of his hatred for Roman Catholicism. Hislop's views were adopted whole cloth by many Reformed denominations and others. One should note that these views were wholely embraced by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who continued to republish Hislop's book until 1987. Hislop's book was cited in 22 different issues of the Jehovah's Witnesses periodical The Watchtower from 1950 to 1978, and several times in the 1980s. From 1989 the Jehovah's Witnesses stopped referring to Hislop's book, but they have kept Hislop's teaching and use other sources.

The month of Tammuz in Old Testament times is roughly equivalent to our July. To the best evidence, that was when the Babylonian pagans, and the fallen Israelites mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14 would “weep for Tammuz”. Also, this weeping took place on the second day of that month, right after the new moon. Not for forty days.

Two basic facts: 1) The weeping for Tammuz was not a 40 day thing. That is Hislop's fiction. 2) The month of Tammuz is 4 months after Easter. They aren't even in the same time of year. ( From the The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: Inana and Bilulu: an ulila to Inana: c.1.4.4 English Translation)

With regard to Ashes and Ash Wednesday:

Many websites claim that the use of ashes comes from pagan sources.

The ironic thing is that these websites cannot get their own stories straight. Some people assert that the ashes and Lent come from Nordic Odin worship, others that they come from pagan Roman cults, others that they come from ancient Hindu religions—and some try to maintain irrational combinations of the above very different imagined sources. We have seen above the reasons the churches gave for using ashes. They were based in Biblical examples of repentance.

But didn't Jesus tell us not to put on a show while fasting? Yes, that's in Matthew chapter 6:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

He said the same of prayer and of giving charitable gifts. His point is that these things should not be done as a show of righteousness. He did not prohibit praying in public or as a group in worship. He did not prohibit giving something publicly or to a group. And he did not prohibit using outward symbols of repentance like ashes.

What Christ condemned in these passages is thinking that we can show others how good, how sincere, how devout, and what kind of a Christian we are with these outward symbols. The ash on the forehead is a confession that the person is worth only ashes, has no righteousness, is not better than another, and needs God's grace if there is to be any hope for him or her.

It might be helpful to think of the use of ashes in comparison to the use of an Advent Wreath. Both are helpful reminders that can be used to focus upon the teaching of God’s Word. This would be a proper use.

Can the symbol be abused? Yes, of course it can. But that does not make it a bad symbol. Every gift of God can be abused by sinful people. We should expect that because of sin. So we should recognize that the ways that Christians choose in their freedom to celebrate God's gifts can also be misused.

So we see, first of all, that neither forty day fast of Lent nor the ashes of Ash Wednesday have anything to do with pagan origins. The use of ashes in the Christian faith as a sign of repentance is as old as Job, and probably older. It certainly is the outward act chosen by believers throughout thousands of years, from the earliest times as outward sign to confess unworthiness and sin.

No human can require a Christian to use the fast of Lent as a saving work. A congregation can recommend the practice as a serious self-examination of one's own sin and sinful appetites; of one's own weaknesses. This is, indeed, what Luther says, “Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed a fine outward training.” No human can require Christians to use ash on Ash Wednesday or any other day as a way of proving their faith.

And neither can any human forbid the use of the Lenten fast or the use of ashes either. Both are legalism, a replacing of the Gospel for a new law. The whole point of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Fast is to look on ourselves as worthless and utterly needy: to look only upon Christ, to celebrate His feast in the Lord's Supper, preach His passion and death upon the cross, and proclaim the Resurrection of Christ as the final seal upon our salvation.

We should reject any fictionalizing about pagan origins of Lent or Ash Wednesday with both the truth of Scripture and real history.