In 46 B.C.E. the Roman emperor Julius Caesar first established January 1 as
New Year''s day. Janus
was the Roman God of doors and gates, and had two faces, one looking
forward and one back. Caesar felt that the month named after this god
("January") would be the appropriate "door" to the year. Caesar
celebrated the first January 1 New
Year by ordering the violent routing
of revolutionary Jewish forces in the Galilee. Eyewitnesses say blood
flowed in the streets. In later years, Roman pagans
observed the New Year by engaging in drunken orgies -- a ritual they
believed constituted a personal re-enacting of the chaotic world that
existed before the cosmos was ordered by the gods. As Christianity spread, pagan holidays
were either incorporated into the Christian
calendar or abandoned
altogether. By the early medieval period most of Christian Europe
regarded Annunciation
day (March 25) as the beginning of the year.
(According to Catholic tradition, Annunciation Day commemorates the
angel Gabriel''s announcement to Mary that she would be impregnated by
G-d and conceive a son to be called Jesus.)
After William the Conqueror (AKA "William the Bastard" and "William of
Normandy") became King of England on December 25, 1066, he decreed that
the English return to the date established by the Roman pagans,
January 1. This move ensured that the commemoration of Jesus'' birthday
(December 25) would align with William''s coronation, and the
commemoration of Jesus'' circumcision (January 1) would start the new
year - thus rooting the English and Christian calendars and his own
Coronation). William''s innovation was eventually rejected, and England
rejoined the rest of the Christian world and returned to celebrating
New
years Day on March 25. About
five hundred years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII (AKA "Ugo
Boncompagni", 1502-1585) abandoned the traditional Julian calendar. By
the Julian reckoning, the solar year comprised 365.25 days, and the
intercalation of a "leap day" every four years was intended to maintain
correspondence between the calendar and the seasons. Really, however
there was a slight inaccuracy in the Julian measurement (the solar year
is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds = 365.2422
days). This slight inaccuracy caused the Julian calendar to slip behind
the seasons about one day per century. Although this regression had
amounted to 14 days by Pope Gregory''s time, he based his reform on
restoration of the vernal equinox, then falling on March 11, to the
date had 1,257 years earlier when Council of Nicaea was convened (March
21, 325 C.E.). Pope Gregory made the correction by advancing the
calendar 10 days. The change was made the day after October 4, 1582,
and that following day was established as October 15, 1582. The
Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian in three ways: (1) No
century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400
(e.g., 1600, 2000, etc.); (2) Years divisible by 4000 are common (not
leap) years; and (3) once again the New Year would begin with the date
set by the early pagans, the first day of the month of Janus - January 1. On
New Years Day 1577 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under
pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic
conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night
services. On Year Years Day 1578 Gregory signed into law a tax forcing
Jews to pay for the support of a "House of Conversion" to convert Jews
to Christianity. On Yew Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to
confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community.
Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.
Throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods, January 1 -
supposedly the day on which Jesus'' circumcision initiated the reign of
Christianity and the death of Judaism - was reserved for anti-Jewish
activitiese and book burnings, public tortures, and simple
murder. The
Israeli term for New Year''s night celebrations, "Sylvester," was the
name of the "Saint" and Roman Pope who reigned during the Council of
Nicaea (325 C.E.). The year before the Council of Nicaea convened,
Sylvester convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in
Jerusalem. At the Council of Nicaea, Sylvester arranged for the passage
of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation. All Catholic "Saints"
are awarded a day on which Christians celebrate and pay tribute to that
Saint''s memory. December 31 is Saint Sylvester Day - hence celebrations
on the night of December 31 are dedicated to Sylvester''s memory.
More summaries about the New Year