Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	day_n	jew_n	sabbath_n	7,683	5	10.0435	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36161	A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.; Dictionarium antiquitatum Romanarum et Graecarum. English	Danet, Pierre, ca. 1650-1709.	1700 (1700)	Wing D171; ESTC R14021	1,057,883	623

opinion of some Writers was the same as Osiris the Father of Harpocrates Others represent him with a glittering head some have dress'd him in a Gown which hangs down to the heels carrying on his Head a branch of a Peach-tree which was a Tree consecrated to Harpocrates because the Fruit thereof resembles the Heart and its Leaves are like the Tongue as Plutarch has observed whereby old Writers signified the perfect correspondency that should be between the Tongue and the Heart Some others figure him with a particular Ornament on his Head having the badges of Harpocrates Cupid and Esculapius for he holds his Finger on his Mouth he carries Wings and a Quiver with Arrows and a Serpent twisted about a stick The union of Harpocrates with Cupid shews that Love must be secret and the union of Harpocrates with Aesculapius gives us to understand that a Physician must be discreet and not discover the secrets of his Patient The Pythagoreans made a Virtue of silence and the Romans a Goddess called Tacita as 't is related by Plutarch HARPIAE The Harpyes fabulous Birds only mentioned by Poets who describe them with the face of a Virgin and the rest of the body a Bird with crooked feet and hands Virgil's description of them runs thus in the third Book of his Aeneid v. 213. Quas dira Celaeno Harpyae colunt aliae ....... Tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deûm Stygüs sese extulit undis Virginei volucrum vultus foedissima ventris Proluvies uncaeque manus pallida semper Ora fame The truth of the Story is that Phineus King of Paeonia having lost his sight and his Sons being dead the Harpyes his Daughters were spending his Estate till Zethes and Calais his Neighbours Sons of Bordas drove these Ladies out of the City and re-establish'd Phineus in possession of his Estate HASTA signifies all kind of offensive Arms that have a long staff or handle as Pike Spear Javelin c. 'T was said in the Roman Law Hastae subjicere to signify thereby to confiscate or to sell by publick sale and sub hastâ venire to be sold by Auction for Romulus had order'd that this Pole should be set before the place where the confiscated Goods were sold HASTA PURA A Half-pike without Iron at the end us'd for a Scepter and a badge of Authority and not a Pike armed with Iron used in the war HEBDOMADA A Week the numof seven days Four Weeks make up a Month because of the four chief and more apparent Phasis of the changes of the Moon And as these four changes of the Moon are in a manner the space of seven days one from another 't is very likely that from thence the first Egyptians and Assyrians have taken occasion to divide time by intervals of seven days which therefore were called Weeks As for the Hebrews their way of reckoning the time by weeks has a most august Origine and the Law commanded them to forbear from all kind of work the seventh day to imprint in their memory the great Mystery of the Creation of the World in which God had wrought during six days and rested the seventh whereupon it was called the Sabbath-day which in their Language signifies a day of rest The other days took their name from that day for the following day was called by the Jews prima Sabbati the first day of the Sabbath the next day the second of the Sabbath then the third and fourth c. till the sixth called otherwise Parasceve which signifies the day of preparation for the Sabbath This way of reckoning by Weeks was properly speaking used only by the Eastern Nations for the Greeks reckoned their days from ten to ten or by decads dividing each month in three parts the first part was reckoned from the beginning of the Month the second was the middle of the Month and the third was the rest of the Month from the middle to the end thereof And thus the Romans besides the division of the Month by Kalends Nones and Ides made use also of a political distribution of a series of eight days distributed from the beginning of the year to the end thereof The names of the days of the week used by the Primitive Christians were founded on a more holy principle viz. the resurrection of our Lord which has given the name of Dominica or the lord's-Lord's-day to the day called the Sabbath by the Jews And because they to shew their joy in the celebration of the Feast of Easter i. e. of the Resurrection were used to keep the whole week holy resting from all servile work which is called in Latin Periani therefore they called the day following immediately after the Holy Sunday Prima Feria and the second day Secunda Feria the third day Tertia Feria and so forth and from thence the days of all the weeks were afterwards improperly called Foriae in practice of the Church The Origine of the names commonly given to the days of the week being names of Divinities ador'd by superstitious Antiquity comes from a more remote principle for 't is likely that these names passed from the Assyrians to the Greeks and from the Greeks to the Christians And we may reasonably presume that the Chaldeans who were esteemed the first Men who addicted themselves to study Astronomy have also given the name of their Gods to the Planets or at least the same names which they have afterwards ascribed to the Gods whom they ador'd and that they might give more authority to that art which they profess and by which they foretold things to come by the observation of the Stars They attempted to ascribe them an absolute Empire over the nature of Men allowing to each of them several Offices and Employments to dispense good and evil and that lest that dreadful power which they ascribed to them should be kept in the only extent of their spheres they had very much enlarg'd the bounds of their Dominions submitting to them not only the several parts of the Earth and the Elements not only the Fortunes Inclination and Secrets of the most close Men overthrow of States Plagues Deluges and a thousand other things of that nature but endeavoured also to set them up for the absolute Masters of time allowing a Planet to preside over each year another to each month to each week each day each hour and perhaps to each moment From thence each day of the week has took the name of the Planet ruling over it and Monday which is in Latin dies Luna i. e. the day of the Moon was so called because the Moon presides that day dies Martis i. e. the day of Mars which was under the direction of Mars dies Mercurii ruled by Mercury dies Jovis under the conduct of Jupiter dies Veneris under the direction of Venus dies Saturni under that of Saturn dies Solis ruled by the Sun 'T is true that the order that the Planets

There are yet three Medals to be seen where Cybele is otherwise represented One is of the Emperor Severus where she is represented holding with one hand a Scepter and with the other a Thunder-bolt and her Head covered with a Turret She rid upon a Lyon flying through the Air. The other Medal is of the Emperor Geta stampt after the same manner with this Inscription Indulgentia Augustorum The third is of Julia who represents the Mother of the Gods crown'd with Turrets attended by two Lions and sitting upon a Throne she holds with her right hand a branch of Pine-tree and lays her left hand on a Drum with this Motto Mater Deum This Goddess is also represented with a great many Breasts to shew that she feeds Men and Beasts and carries Turrot on her Head and has two Lions under her Arms. CYCLOPES The Cyclopes a race of fierce and haughty Men who have but one Eye in the middle of their Forehead Poets have given this Name to some Inhabitants of Sicily whom they feign'd to be Vulcan's Assistants in the making of Jupiter's Thunder-bolts they made also the Arms of Achilles and Aenca● They were so named because they had but one round Eye in the middle of their Forehead They are the Sons of Heaven and Earth as Hesiod tells us or of Neptune and Amphitrits as Euripides and Lucian say Those of most note among them are Polyphemus Brontes Steropes and Pyracman Apollo kill'd them with his Arrows to revenge the death of his Son Aesculapius whom Jupiter had kill'd with a Thunderbolt made by these Cyclopes Poets say also that Polyphemus was Shepherd to Neptune and Galatea's Lover and that Ulysses put out his Eye with a Fire-brand to revenge the death of his Companions whom the Cyclopes had eaten CYCLUS SOLIS The Cycle of the Sun or of the Dominical Letters is a revolution of 28 Years which being expired the same Dominical Letters return again in the same order To understand this well it must be observed that the Year being composed of Months and Weeks every Day of the Month is markt in the Calendar with its Cypher and one of these seven Letters A B C D E F G. The first Letter begins with the first Day of the Year and the others follow in a perpetual Circle to the end Wherefore these Letters might be unalterable to denote every Holy-day or every Day of the Week as they are in respect to the Days of the Months if there was but a certain and unvariable number of Weeks in the Year and as A marks always the first of January B the 2 C the 3 so A should mark always Sunday B Munday c. But because the Year is at least of 365 Days which make up 52 Weeks and a Day over it happens that it ends with the same day of the Week with which it began and so the following Year begins again not with the same Day but with the next to it And from thence it follows that A which answers always the first of January having noted the Sunday for one Year for which reason 't is called the Dominical Letter it will note the Monday in the following Year and G will note the Sunday and so forward 'T is plain by what has been said that if the Year had but 365 Days this Circle of Dominical Letters should end in seven Years by retrograding G F E D C B A. But because every four Years there is a Leap-Year which has one Day more two things must needs happen First That the Leap-Year has two Dominical Letters one of which is made use of from the first of January to the 25th of February and the other from that Day till the end of the Year The reason of it is plain for reckoning twice the 6th of the Kalends the Letter F which notes the Day is also reckoned twice and so fills up two Days of the Week From whence it follows that the Letter that till then had fallen upon Sunday falls then but upon Monday and that the foregoing Letter by retrograding comes to note Sunday The second thing to be observed is that that having thus two Dominical Letters every fourth Year the Circle of these Letters doth not end in seven Years as it would do but in four times seven Years which is 28. And this is properly called the Cycle of the Sun which before the correction of the Kalendar began with a Leap-Year whereof the Dominical Letters were G F. CYCLUS LUNARIS The Cycle of the Moon It was no less difficult to determine by a certain Order the Days of the New Moons in the course of the Year To this purpose a great many Cycles were proposed which afterwards Experience shewed to be false and they were obliged to receive this Cycle of 19 Years Invented by Methon of Athens called the Golden Number to make the Lunar Year agree with the Solar for at the end of them the New Moons returned again on the same Days and the Moon began again her course with the Sun within an Hour and some Minutes or thereabouts This Number was called the Golden Number either for its excellency and great use or because as some say the Inhabitants of Alexandria sent it to the Romans in a Silver Calendar where these Numbers from 1 to 19 were set down in Golden Letters This Number has been called the great Cycle of the Moon or Deceunovennalis and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 19 Tears or Methonicus from the Name of its Author This Golden Number has been of great use in the Calendar to shew the Epacts and New Moons ever since the Nicene Council ordered that Easter should be kept the first Sunday after the Full Moon of March However this Cycle was not settled every where according to the same manner in the Calendar for the Western Christians called Latins imitating the Hebrews reckon'd the Golden Number 1. on the first day of January of the first Year But the Christians who Inhabited Asia under the name of Christians of Alexandria placed the Golden Number 3. at the same day CYCNUS A Swan a Bird living in or about the Waters very fine to behold with a long and straight Neck very white except when he is young Ovid in the 12th Book of his Metamorphosis says that Cycnus was King of Liguria and kin to Phaeton who for the grief of his death was changed into a Bird of his name 'T is said that Swans never sing but when they are at the point of death and then they sing very melodiously Tully in his Tusculans tells us that Swans are dedicated to Apollo the God of Divination who being sensible of their approaching death rejoice and sing with more harmony than before I ucian on this account laughs at the Poets in his Treatise of Amber or the Swans I also expected says he to have heard the Swans warbling all along the Eridanus having learn'd that the Companions of Apollo had been there changed into Birds who

Temple to Jupiter Feretrius FERIAE Holy-days when People rested from labour from the Verb feriari i. e. to rest to cease from work for the Feriae of the Ancients were festival-Festival-days Now the Church marks the days of the Week by the word Feria secunda feria tertia c. tho' these days are not Holy-days but working-working-days the occasion thereof was that the first Christians to shew their Joy at the celebrating of Easter were used to keep the whole Week holy and forbear from all servile work that they might give themselves wholly to the contemplation of the Mysteries contained therein wherefore they called the Sunday the first Holy-day the Monday the second Holy-day the Tuesday the third Holy-day and so forth and from thence the days of every week were afterwards called Feriae in the common Language of the Church tho' they are not to be kept Holy The Romans had two kinds of Feriae the publick Feriae common to all the People in general and the private Feriae which were only kept by some private Families The publick Feriae were four-fold Stativae unmoveable and Holy-days Imperativae commanded Conceptivae moveable Nundinae days for keeping Fairs Stativae Feriae were set Holy-days mark'd in the Calendar which always fell out upon the same day the three chiefest thereof were Agonalia Carmentalia and Lupercalia I shall give an account of them in their order Conceptivae were Holy-days appointed every Year upon uncertain days according to the Pontiffs will such were Feriae Latinae Paganales Sementinae and Compitales Imperativae commanded or extraordinary Holy-days kept according as the occasions of the Commonwealth required either to give thanks to the Gods for some extraordinary Favours or to pacific their Wrath and pray to them to keep the People from publick misfortunes Unto these kind of Holy-days the Processions Games Lectisternium or the Bed of the Gods may be referred Nundinae days for Fairs and extraordinary Markets Before Flavius made the Calendar publick the unmoveable Feasts were publish'd by the Curio's who waited the Nones of each Month upon the King of Sacrifices to know what Holy-days were to be kept that Month and then acquainted each Parish with the same And this was still practiced after the publishing of the Calendar As for the Ferae conceptivae and imperativae they were published in the publick places by a Herald in these words Lavatio Deûm Matris est hodie Jovis epulum cras est and the like And these Holy-days were so religiously kept that the opinion of the Pontiff Mutius Scaevola was says Macrobius that the breaking of a Holy-day was unpardonable unless Men had done it out of inadvertency and in this case they were acquitted by sacrificing a Hog FERIAE LATINAE The Latin Holyday Some Writers say that the Consuls Sp. Cassius and Posthumius Caminius instituted these Holy-days by a Treaty that they made with the Latius in the name of the Senate and the Roman People But Dionysius Hallicarnasseus and almost all the Writers tell us that Tarquinius Supurbus instituted them and that having overcome the Tuscans he made a league with the Latins and proposed them to build a Temple in common to Jupiter sirnamed Latialis where both Nations might meet every Year and offer Sacrifice for their common Conservation Wherefore they chose Mount Albanus as the center of these Nations to build there a Temple and instituted a yearly Sacrifice and a great Feast in common and among their Rejoycings they swore a mutual and eternal Friendship Each Town of both Latins and Romans provided a certain quantity of Meat Wine and Fruits for the Feast A white Bull was sacrificed in common and the Inhabitants of every Town carried home a piece thereof When this Ceremony was at first instituted it held but one day but after the Kings were expell'd out of Rome the People demanded that another day might be added to it afterwards the Senate added a third day a fourth and so on till they came to ten days After the Expulsion of Kings the Consuls appointed a time for the celebrating of this Feast during which the People left the guard of the City to a Governor called Praefectus Urbis While this Feast was celebrated on Mount Albanus there were Chariot-Races at the Capitol and the Conqueror was treated with a great draught of Wormwood-drink which is very wholsom as Pliny says La●norum feriis quadrigae certant in Capitolio victorque absynthium bibit credo sanitatem praemio dari homorificè FERONIA A Goddess of the Woods and Orchards This Divinity took her name from the Town of Feronia scituated at the foot of Mount Soracte in Italy where a Wood and a Temple were consecrated to her 'T is said that the Town and the Wood having both taken fire whereupon the People carrying away the Statue of the Goddess the Wood grew green again Strabo relates that the Men who offered her Sacrifices walked bare-footed upon burning Coals without burning themselves She was honoured by freed-men as their Protectrefs because they received in her Temple the Cap that was the Token of their Liberty FESTUM and FESTA Holy-days The Romans kept many Feasts as it appears by their Calendar We shall speak of them according to their Alphabetick Order They were very careful of observing Feasts and during that time they did forbear to work Tibellus tells us that the Romans abstain from working upon the days of Expiations and Lustrations of the Fields Quisquis adest faveat fruges lustramus agros ...... Omnia sint operata Deo non audeat ulla Lanificam pensis imposuisse manum These words express the true end of ceasing from work to employ themselves to the service of the Gods and Religious Duties 'T is not certain if Pl●●ghmen rested from all kind of work during the Holy-days Virgil relates many exercises and other small things that Men were allowed to do in Holy-days Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus Fas jura sinunt Rivos deducere nulla Relligio vetuit segeti praetendere sepem Insidias avibus moliri incendere vepres Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri Saepè oleo tardi costas agitator aselli Vilibus aut onerat ' pomis Georg. lib. 1. v. 270. as to make Drains to drain the water inclose a Field with Hedges laying snares for Birds set Thorns on fire wash a Flock in the River and load an Ass with Fruits These works were not disagreeable to the celebrating of the Holy-days And yet working was not left to the liberty or humours of Men's fancy but were regulated by the Laws and Ordinances of the Pontiffs who ruled matters of Religion They were so exact in keeping Holy-days that the following day was accounted a day of bad Omen to undertake any thing Wherefore the Romans and the Greeks have consecrated the next day after the Holy-days to the Genij or the dead And they were so careful of ceasing from work that the keeping of their