apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

704 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
cases the preference was given to the particular year, because the
subsequent investigation respecting the day of the month required it.
Nor do these formidable objections stand alone. To maintain this
day, it is necessary to identify Xanthicus 2 with March 26. But no
calendar known to have been in use in Proconsular Asia admits this
identification. There are indeed good reasons for believing that in
Syria Xanthicus was not the 6th, but the 7th month, counting from the
autumnal equinox'. We have seen already (p. 697) that in different
calendars it
occupied very various places. In a calendar which has been
reconstructed by Ussher, and which he ascribes to the Syromacedonians
and Smyrnaeans (p. 381), this seventh month Xanthicus begins on March
25.
I need not stop to enquire whether he is correct as to the day of
its commencement. It is sufficient to say that there is absolutely no
evidence for dissociatiiig the Smyrnaeans from the surrounding peoples
of Asia Minor and associating them with the Syromacedonians. Moreover,
it should be observed that the Smyrnsean
Letter is addressed to
the Philomelians, and that its circulation in other churches is
enjoined ;
so that a Syromacedonian date would be altogether out of place. But
Ussher started from the date given in the Paschal Chronicle, vii Kal.
April., though at the same time adopting Xanthicus 2, of which the
Paschal Chronicle says nothing, and his whole theory
is built upon this
sandy foundation. Of the Syromacedonian calendar we may observe
by the way, that it seems to have passed through three stages, the
Macedonian names of the months being retained throughout, except
when they were numbered instead of being named, (i) It was originally
a lunar calendar. Hence Josephus after his wont, translating Jewish
names into their corresponding Gentile equivalents, speaks of Nisan as
Xanthicus, Nisan 14 being Xanthicus 14, and so with the months and
days generally. This adaptation however does not warrant the assumption
(improbable in itself) that the Syromacedonian lunar months
coincided with the Jewish. (2)
A solar calendar was substituted, beginning
at the autumnal equinox. So far it
agreed (though differing
somewhat in the lengths of the several months) with the solar calendar
of Macedonia and Asia Minor; but the names of the months in the
latter were one in advance of those in the former. Thus, while Dius
was the first month in the Asiomacedonian year, it was relegated to the
second place, and Hyperberetseus stood first, in the Syromacedonian.
(3)
A Julian calendar was introduced, retaining however the Mace-
1
For the different modes of explaining Macedonian calendar of Syria was brought
how this divergence between the Mace- about, see Ideler i. p. 432.
donian calendar of Asia Minor and the