Why didn't the Church re-write the calendar and weekdays?

[EphelDuath]

I always thought the way our calendar works was really weird. We mark numerical years by “before Christ” and “Anno Domini”, Christian markers. But our month names are derived from the Roman pantheon (“January” from “Janus”, “June” from “Juno”, etc.). And our weekdays are named after the Anglo-Saxon versions of the Norse gods (“Thursday” from “Thor’s Day”, etc.).

Why hasn’t the Church ever Christianized our months and days?

 

[peter26]

Not sure if its true, but I read in a novel set in that day that King Alfred tried to change Thursday to “Mary’s Day” for this reason, but it didn’t take off. In short though, I should think the days of the week and months of the year had simply become so engrained in people’s minds and in society. I mean, the months of the year haven’t changed since August was added in honor of Augustus Caesar.

 

[Corki]

I always thought the way our calendar works was really weird. We mark numerical years by “before Christ” and “Anno Domini”, Christian markers. But our month names are derived from the Roman pantheon (“January” from “Janus”, “June” from “Juno”, etc.). And our weekdays are named after the Anglo-Saxon versions of the Norse gods (“Thursday” from “Thor’s Day”, etc.).

Why hasn’t the Church ever Christianized our months and days?

Because the Church doesn’t control all the languages of the world?

The names of the week are only related to Anglo-Saxon gods in English. The word for Thursday in Latin has nothing to do with Anglo Saxon gods.

 

[EphelDuath]

But Catholicism was the only legal religion in England for most of its history. So why not at least the English bishops?

 

[Martin15]

Has anyone else come across the ‘new’ way of referring to BC and AD? In the UK the terms we are encouraged to use (if not explicitly told we must use) are:

BC has become BCE - ‘Before the Common/Current/Christian Era’

AD has become CE - ‘Common/Current/Christian Era’

The whole change seems to be driven by political correctness and the unwillingness of those in government (at any level) to risk offending anyone (except Christians of course - we don’t get a look in). The choice of ‘C’ word depends on the extent to which someone wishes to remove the historical ‘Christian’ aspect - ‘Common’ seems to be the most prevalent.

Utter nonsense. Discuss.

All the best

Martin

 

[malphono]

The names of the week are only related to Anglo-Saxon gods in English. The word for Thursday in Latin has nothing to do with Anglo Saxon gods.

True, but in Italian, e.g. (and other Romance languages too – the one exception I can think of is Portuguese) it actually refers to an old Roman god. So, too, the other weekdays. Go figure.

 

[R_C]

The whole change seems to be driven by political correctness and the unwillingness of those in government (at any level) to risk offending anyone (except Christians of course - we don’t get a look in).

Those measures are utterly childish. Since nothing can be done to change the fact that we count our years from the (approximate) birth of Christ, the secular world tries to “disguise” this. This is not always a matter of “good faith”, as Martin15 kindly suggests. It is often done with sincere anti-christian feelings.

The same happens with Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Christ, in which we find and hear such things as “season’s greetings” instead of “merry Christmas”. Even the wording “happy holidays” is being left behind, since it implies that those days are “holy”, a concept far beyond the grasp of the secular world.

However, there are significant things that the secular world cannot overcome. One of them is the “weekend”, that keeps the Saturday (“Dies Sabbatum”, the old Sabbath) and the Sunday (“Dies Dominicus”, “the Lord’s day”) as “days of rest”. There are, of course, many others.

 

[ProVobis]

I always thought the way our calendar works was really weird. We mark numerical years by “before Christ” and “Anno Domini”,

Officially it is “Ante Christum” but I can see why the Anglo Christians didn’t want to use that qualifier on the years.

And FWIW, Latin days of the week

Latin (Church)
secunda feria
tertia feria
quarta feria / media hebdomas
quinta feria
sexta feria
sabbatum (dies)
dominica

Vulgar Latin
lunae dies
martis dies
mercurii dies
iovis dies
veneris dies
sabbatum dominicus

to English
dies lunae - Monday (Moon Day)
dies marti - Tuesday (Tyr’s day)
dies mercuri - Wednesday ((W)Odin’s Day)
dies iovis - Thursday (Thor’s Day)
dies veneris - Friday (Freya’s Day)
dies saturni - Saturday (Saturn’s Day)
dies solis - Sunday (self-explanitory)

 

[R_C]

Officially it is “Ante Christum” but I can see why the Anglo Christians didn’t want to use that qualifier on the years.