Index – Science – Not knowing exactly why the new year starts on January 1

New Years Eve is like having a birthday to all the crazy people in the world at once.
Nothing ends on December 31 and nothing begins on January 1. Except for the calendar.

What do we celebrate when the Earth once orbited the Sun?

Many of us ask ourselves these questions year after year, compulsively watching and listening to the seemingly irresistible revelry, trumpet, and outburst of the population. Really, what is happening that night and why at that moment?

For what January 1 of the New Year does, the answer is quite prosaic:

According to tradition, the first ancient Roman calendar was introduced by the legendary founder and first king of the city-state, Romulus. And the first month was Martius (the month of Mars, March), on the first day of which the judges and officials of the later republic of Rome and the chief magistrate, the consul, were sworn in. This remarkable day was also considered New Years Day.

BC In 153, however, it is not known exactly why, the inauguration ceremony was postponed to January 1. The Romans called the days of the beginning of the months kalendae (hence our word for calendar). The official starting day of the year was the Kalendae Ianuariae, ended by the Julius Caesar calendar reform in BC. At 46.

A possible explanation

We are well aware that the Romans took over many gods of foreign religions (eg Apollo-Apollo). However, one of the most revered is Janus, the Roman god of two faces, the beginning and the end, corridors, doors, entrances and exits he was the incarnation. With one face, the name of the great Roman spirit, the name of the month of January, is preserved even the taste and blood of the past, and with the other until the present.

The Romans prayed to Janus before all his important acts, such as going to war. His sanctuary was located in the center of the northern part of the Forum, opposite the church of Vesta. Through this, the soldiers marched through the two-faced god statue for centuries, through an arched doorway passage. And the gates stayed open until they fought any kind of war somewhere and also returned to Rome for the sanctuary.

He was the first to be presented to the sacrifices and celebrated the beginning of the year with joy, avoiding fights, all complemented with some light work. The Romans were also a superstitious people, they thought

At the end of the imperial era, everything degenerated into a carnival spree. However, in those days not much had passed from Saturnalia, the dynamics of the December winter solstice that swept through the social ranks.

The cult of the god of the two faces was traditionally introduced in Rome by Numa Pompilius, who ruled in the early 7th century BC. C.

Photo: Wikipedia

The clergy did not look kindly

January 1 lasted until the decline of the empire, until the Council of Christian Tours simply abolished it in 567 as an undesirable pagan date. Over the next thousand years, the day accumulated here and there in Europe: it was celebrated at Christmas, elsewhere at Easter, and even on March 25, the Day of the Blessed Virgin Fruit (the date might annoyingly recall the turning point celebrated by the pagans of spring day-night equality).

Even little Jesus’ birthday caused a lot of headaches for the clergy (because the Bible doesn’t provide accurate information), but with an impressive twist it was planted one at a time for the pagan winter solstice festivals.

The chaos of chaos XIII. Pope Gregory’s calendar reform ended in 1582. In his bull, he intolerably marked the remarkable day: the eighth day after Christmas will be the beginning of the new year. That is, on January 1 again.

Although in varied letters, over the centuries, in a few hundred years we have reached the official fixed December 31 (the day of the death of the Pope on New Years Eve, the supposed Baptist and leprosy healer of the Roman Emperor Constantine) and then the following New Year’s Day.

Do we have reason to rejoice?

But what to do about the Chinese New Year (move date, January 21 to February 21 and it’s called Spring Break), the Jewish New Year (move date, September 6 to October 5) or Islam (moving, 2021 in August) and Persian (21 March, at least of course)?

The best we can answer the question is that the first of January alone does not matter.

This is a constructed date. It would be at least a winter or spring solstice, or a day of other natural astronomical phenomena.

However, our lives are finite, and the time that we live instinctively is inevitably divided into periods. We have a basic need for cyclicality and holding large events. And the most obvious and universal way to do this is the Year, which is not an edited, modified contingent period, but the oldest observation of the oldest civilizations, humanity: just one year later, the same starry sky unfolds before us anywhere on Earth.

We also measure our age in one year, so New Year’s Eve and birthday, if not elsewhere, come together at this point. It is true that the latter is personal, intimate at best, and cannot be compared with the daring of all nations. But he only comes once a year.

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