CHRONOLOGY, CHRiSTiAir.— The first Christians, in their civil relations, used the civil chronology of the countries they lived in. The ecclesiastical dironolo- gy of the early Church was limited to the use of the Jewiflh week, which began with a work-day and closed with the Sabbath, and in which the several days were not named, but counted. Gradually the day of rest was changed from the last day of the week to the first, and the other days of the week came to h^ve a special ecclesiastical naqie. Both these changes proceeded fnm the commemoration of the day of the suffering tnd the resurrection of Jesus Christ — Sunday being the day of the resurrection, Friday the day of the cru- cifixion, and Wednesday the day of the trial. The two latter, as days of mourning and fasting, are men- tioned by Tertallian (de jejun. c. 2) and by Clement of Alexandria (Strom, vii, 12, § 75) ; but they are prob-
ably of an earlier origin, for the name statio ((rra<nc), by which they were generally designated at the time of Tertullian, occurs in the Pastor Hermes (lib. 8, simiL 5). Sunday, as a day of rejoicing, is first mentioned in the Epistle of Barnabas (chap, xv), and its celebra- tion seems to reach back to the apostolic age. These three prominent days were called in the Latin Church, feria quartck, feria sexta orparascevey and dies dornim-' cus or don^nicoy and by the Greeks Tfrpdc, ^apa- oKtmiy rifupa Kvpiaini (also abbreviated Kvpuucii or cvfMd), or avaordtnmQ ^/opa. The oldest witnesses for the names of the station-days are again Tertullian and Clement. The former is also the first to mention the name of domnUca^ while KvpiaK>i is first found in the epistles of Ignatius (ad ifagnes.). The other week-days were designated by the Latins with the * same name as the station-days (feria\ and counted from feria secunda to feria sexta or parasceve.'yrhiie the Greeks counted from rifupa Btvripa to ficri; or irapamcivri. The last day retained its Jewish name sabbatuniy and oa^jiarov or odfijiara. The planetary appellation of days which emanated from the pagan astronomers in Alexandria (see Ideler, Handbuch der mathem. wnd techn. .Chronologic^ Berlin, 1825) is first mentioned by Tertullian, who mentions the ^ties solii (Sunday) and dies Satumi (Saturday); by Justin Martyr, who mentions rev rikiov tffupa (Sunday) and Kpovucfj (Saturday) ; and by Clement of Alexandria, who mentions 'Eo/xoD (Wednesday), and 'A^podirri^ (Friday) rffupa. Still another way of designating the week-days is found in the Easter Canon of Hippolytus, which marks the days of the week (beginning with Sunday) by the first letters of the alphabet, A to G.
Among the weeks of the year, the one including the anniversaries of the death and the resurrection of Christ came early to be celebrated with special solem- nity. The time on which the former of these anni- versaries should be commemorated even became the occasion of one of the greatest ecclesiastical controver- sies of the ancient Church, one party, which claimed to follow the example of the apostles John, Philip, and Paul, insisting that it should be celebrated on the an- niversary day of the month (the full moon's day of the Jewish month of Kisan), and the other party, which appealed to the other apostles as their authori^ ties, urging the celebration on the anniversary day of the week (Friday). The Church of Rome followed the latter, and the churches of Asia Minor the former practice. Bbth customs required either a compliance with the Jewish Calendar or a special calculation of the Christian Easter. Of the latter class, the most ancient known to us is one found on the marble statue of Hippolytus, and computed to the first year of the emperor Alexander Se verus (A. D. 222). It fixes the 18th of March as the time of the eqtkinox, is ar- ranged according to the sixteen years* cycle, and de- termines the EMter Sundays according to the Latin rule, that, whenever the Easter Sundays fall upon Sat- urdays, liaster is to be celebrated, not upon the next, but upon the second next Sunday. In the Eastern churches special calculations were made by Dionysius of Alexandria, Anatolius of Laodioea, and others. Gradually the Alexandrine Easter Canon, the author- ship of which is ascribed by Jerome and Bede to Euse- bius, dislodged all others, and obtained general usage in the Church. It appointed for the celebration of Easter the Sunday following the day of the full moon which falls on or comes next after the equinox. The bish- ops, by paschal letters, informed the churches of the proper time of Easter in every year. A third, which is mentioned by Tertullian, tried to fix the 14th day of the month of Nisan, in the death-year of Christ (the 25th of March), as the immovable anniversary of the death, and the 16th day of Nisan as the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ. See Easteb.
Constantino the Great, in 821, ordered a civil observ- ance of Sunday by prohibiting all secular busfaiess,
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snd transferred the pagan Nundtna of the old Bo- mans to Sunday. A Roman Calendar, compiled in the middle of the fourth century, divides the whole year, from the let of January, according to Nundmce and weeks, by placing in parallel columns the eight Nundinal letters A-H, and the seven week letters A-G. The entire suppressioif of the Nundins is thought to have been effected by the Sunday laws of Theodosius the Great.