apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

698 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
No example has yet been produced
of the use of a lunar calendar in
Proconsular Asia at this time or for several generations before '.
Moreover probability would suggest the same conclusion. The cities
of Proconsular Asia were bound together by very close religious as well
as political ties. In the former respect, not less than in the latter,
Rome supplied the principle of cohesion. The Roman state-worship
was the most potent religious element which they had in common ^ The
Coi/imune Asiae, which maintained this worship, celebrated its festivals
in the several cities according to some cycle. The inconvenience of
various and fluctuating lunar calendars with their uncertain intercalations
would be felt increasingly. It would be a matter of growing
importance that a definite day in the calendar of one Asiatic city
should correspond to a definite day in the calendar of another Asiatic
city as well as in the calendar of Rome. This would lead to the
adoption of a solar calendar on the Julian principle, though not
necessarily assigning the same names to the months, or even beginning
either the year or the several months at the same time. In short, the
establishment of the Asiatic Confederation, linking the cities one with
another and with Rome, would lead to a speedy reform of the calendar.
This suggestion of probability accords with the testimony of facts.
The Nysaean inscription (see above p. 682)
is about contemporary with
the Christian era, and nearly half a century later
than the introduction
(B.C. 46) of the Julian calendar at Rome. The Commune Asiae at this
time must have been firmly established and in active working.
cipal purposes in preference to the Mace- Martyrdom not the Ionian name (Andonian
;
but it strikingly confirms the thesterion) but the Macedonian (Xanstructure
of these calendars. The three thicus) is used would point only the more
points are these; (i) That according to directly to a solar calendar,
1
these calendars the second of the month In Athens however a lunar reckoning
would correspond to viii Kal. ; (2) That long survived. Again in Greek Inscr. in
these calendars commenced with the au- the Brit. Miis. 11. p. 116 sq a portion of
tumnal equinox; and (3) That Anthes- a Rhodian lunar calendar is preserved
terion is the sixth month, so that 2nd belonging to an epoch certainly not earlier
Anthesterion would be viii Kal. Mart., than the Flavian dynasty, as the names
as it is here represented. This cannot show. At Tyra in Mcesia Inferior in one
reasonably be regarded as an accident. inscription dated a.d. 201 (C. /. Z. iii.
Nor is it
easy consistently with known 781) xiii Kal. Mart, coincides with Lefacts
in Proconsular Asia to conceive a nceon 8, and in another dated A.D. 182
lunar calendar which would produce such {Revue Archeologiqtie 1883, II. p. 84) v
a coincidence. Kal. Mai. coincides with Artemision 30.
But even if it could be shown that the It may be doubtful whether this calendar
retention of these Ionian names was was lunar or solar.
bound up with a lunar calendar, the -
See above, pp. 460, 467 sq, and
fact that in the account of Polycarp's below, in. p. 404 sq.