40. Why it is intercalated on the sixth kalends of March
TRANSLATION
course of the fourth year, and which they call the bissextus, lest the order of the seasons be perturbed. But if we consider these ¢ve and a quarter days, we see that the number six works mightily within them. First, since it usually happens that the whole is computed from the part, there are now not ¢ve days but rather six, so that this quarter-day is counted as a day; then, because in these ¢ve days there is the sixth part of a month.
The quarter-day itself has six hours, for the whole day with its night has 24 hours, whose fourth part, which is a quarter-day, is found to be six hours. Thus in the course of a year the number six is particularly prevalent.352
It was a pleasure to excerpt these words from the writings of such a great authority, so that in re-reading the views of my insigni¢cant self on the nature of the bissextus, you might understand, out of the mouth of this most learned expositor, not only that the bissextus grows each year by six hours, but also the many-sided perfection of this number six, by which the year itself is constituted.
40. WHY IT IS INTERCALATED ON THE SIXTH
KALENDS OF MARCH
The Romans saw ¢t to intercalate the leap-year day in the month of February because it is shorter than the others, and because it was the last month of the year. Yet they did so when the month was not yet over, for they did not wish to do this when the year had totally run its course as the Egyptians and Greeks do, /405/ lest their old rule that they should join the beginning of March to the end of February be broken.
Moreover they would not [intercalate] before the 6th kalends of March [24 February], for out of devotion to the god Terminus, they had instituted the sacred Terminalia on the 23rd day of the same month, and they certainly did not dare change it to another day. For a long time they inserted many days after this [feast] had been duly celebrated.
However as their expertise increased over the centuries, they inserted one day every four years.353
Alas, what wretches those fools were, who did not know Him whose kingdom will have no end, and who said, I am the beginning, which I also
352 Augustine, De Trinitate 4.4 (169.3^170.12; 171.44^172.3).
353 Up to this point, Bede is drawing on Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.13.13^16, 19 (63.22^64.18, 64.29^65.7). Cf. similar passage in ch. 12.