14. The Greek months
TRANSLATION
was delegated to a minor priest. /326/ Then, after a sacri¢ce had been o¡ered by the priest-king and the minor priest, the priest, summoning
[kalata] the people of the Capitoline to the Curia Calabra, very near the house of Romulus, announced the number of days from kalends until nones. He proclaimed ''quintanas'' [i.e. that ¢ve days remained] by saying''kalo''¢vetimes,and''septimanas''[i.e.thatsevendaysremained] byrepeatingitseventimes.Theword''kalo''isGreekandmeans''Icall'',so it seemed good to name the day which was the ¢rst of those''called out'' the ''kalends''. Hence also the same name, ''Calabra'', was given both to the court wherethey were announced and tothe assembly inthiscourtto which all the people were summoned. Thus the minor priest announced the number of days until the nones by calling [kalando], for the populace who worked out in the ¢elds had to gather in the town on the ninth day after the new Moon to receive from the priest-king occasion for a holiday, and to inquire of the priests what ought to be done during that month. Hence some people think they were called ''nones'' because it was the beginning of a new [noua] observance, or because nine [nouem] days were always counted fromthatday until the ides.
Now it pleased them tocallthedaywhichdividedthemonththe''ides'', for in the Etruscan language''iduare'' means''to divide''. Hence a''uidua''
[widow] is, as it were, truly ''idua'', that is, truly divided, or else ''uidua'' means ''a uiro diuisa'' [i.e. divided from a man]. Some prefer to think that ''ides'' comes from the Greek word for ''face'', which they call
''idea'', because on that day the Moon shows its full face.153 Notice that when we read of the kalends in Holy Scripture, we should take it simply to mean the appearance of the new Moon, as in the Book of Numbers:
For at the kalends, /327/ that is, at the beginning of the months, you will o¡er holocausts to the Lord. For as we mentioned above,154 the Hebrews knew no other beginning of the month save the new Moon.155
14. THE GREEK MONTHS
Neither the Greeks nor the Egyptians, of whom we spoke above, observed the distinction of kalends, nones and ides in their months.
153 Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.15.9^13 (70.27^71.24), 16^17 (72.7^18).
154 Ch. 11.
155 ''Notice that . . . new Moon.'' Cf. Jerome, Ep. 121.10, CSEL 56.1 (44.15^16); the biblical quotation is from Numbers 28.11.
THE RECKONING OF TIME
Instead,they counted forward in the sequence of days from the beginning of the month until its end, simply and without error. We discussed the year and the months of the Egyptians above. The Greeks, when all the convolutions of the aforementioned calculations had been adjusted and corrected according to the circumstances, determined that the circle of the revolving year should be ¢xed at twelve months (many of them starting their year on the kalends of December) and with the same number of days used by the Romans in calculating their months.
However, they took no heed, as we said before, of the Romans' kalends, nones and ides, but counted each and every month from the ¢rst to the last day in regularly increasing number.
Amongst the Greeks, December was called Apellaios; /328/ January, Eudymios [i.e.
Audnaios]; February, Peritios; March, Dystros; April, Xanthicos; May, Artemisios; June, Daisios; July,
Panemos; August, Loios; September, Gorpiaios; October, Hyperberetaios; November, Dios.156 Their annual numeration,157 recently transmitted to us from Rome,158 shows in what order they observed the year or the months. And the canons ascribed to the Apostles teach the same thing as the ancient writings when they observe that the 12th day of the month Hyperberetaios is the 4th ides of October [12 October].
From this we can infer that the two months begin together, because they both have the same twelfth day.159 The book which the holy father Anatolius wrote about Easter supports this, when it says: Therefore in the ¢rst year, the beginning of the ¢rst month, which is the starting-point of the nineteen-year cycle, is on the 26th day of the Egyptian month Phamenoth, on the 22nd day of the Macedonian month
Dystros, and according to the Romans, on the 11th kalends of April 156 It should be noted that Bede incorrectly calls these months ''Greek'', though
Anatolius (see n.160 below) correctly identi¢es them as Macedonian.This is because Bede's source, Polemius Silvius, ¢rst lists the Athenian months, and then designates these monthnames as those employed by ''the other Greeks''. Cf. Polemius Silvius, and Jones, ''Polemius Silvius'', 52.
157 computus eorum annalis: Jones (BOT 350) thinks that the word annalis designates a calendar with these month-names inscribed. The word annalis is certainly used elsewhere as a substantive with this meaning (e.g. ch. 23) but here it is plainly an adjective modifying computus.
158 Polemius Silvius seems to have been a recent acquisition by the library of Wearmouth-Jarrow. Bede did not have this source when he composed On Times.
159 ''And the canons . . . twelfth day.'' Cf. Dionysius Exiguus, Codex canonum ecclesiasticarum, ''Regulae ecclesiasticae sanctorum apostolorum'' 38 (PL 67.145D).