Year in, year out. Why is January 1st New Year’s Day?

Last updated on: December 30, 2020 at 4:28 pm by Richard Ostling

Year in, year out. Why is January 1st New Year’s Day? 2020-12-30T16:28:38-05:00 Richard Ostling

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

THE QUESTION:

Why is January 1st New Year’s Day?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

There’s a religious angle here, as with almost any major aspect of human culture past and present. Our January 1 observance stems from ancient paganism. The numbering of “2021,” as with every year, reflects the global reach of Christianity. And the specific day everyone reckons to be January 1 was fixed by the Catholic Church during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation hostilities.

Alongside this conventional calendar, many faiths observe their own religious new years by calculations apart from the January 1 tradition.

The perpetually valuable Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that worship of the Roman god Janus, with his festival (on January 9th, not the 1st) in the month eventually named for him was practiced even before the legendary founding of the city of Rome in 753 B.C. Janus was the animistic divinity of doorways (januae) and archways (jani). The idea of auspicious entrances and exits, endings and beginnings, eventually applied to turn of the year. January 1 officially replaced March 1 as the start of Rome’s year in 153 B.C..

Due to this pagan background, much of Christian Europe came to reject January 1 observances and celebrated the new year on Christmas Day or March 25, the feast of the Annunciation (the angel Gabriel’s message to Mary that she would bear the divine Son).

The year is the length of time the earth makes one circuit around the sun, but the day upon which a year begins is an arbitrary choice. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar kept Rome’s January 1 starting point but reworked the “Julian calendar” to better fit with astronomy. The Julian system gained widespread use all the way until A.D. 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the “Gregorian calendar” cleanup that is universal today.

The Julian system figured that a year lasts roughly 365 days plus 1/4 of a day, so it added one day in the “leap year” every four years. However, this imperial system was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the precise sun-orbit year of 365.2424 days, so things gradually got out of whack. The 16th Century papacy solved that by deleting certain leap years (including 2000). Not bad, but they tell us that by A.D. 4818 the calculation will be off by one day. Gregory’s shuffle erased some days forever. October 4 was followed directly by October 15. The papal decree also regularized January 1 as the start of the new year.

The result was international confusion due to religious rivalry. Protestant and Eastern Orthodox lands mostly refused to acknowledge papal authority even on such a common-sense matter. Britain and its North American colonies refused to go Gregorian until 1752, and Orthodox Russia remained Julian until the Communist Revolution that overthrew the dynastic czars went Gregorian, which meant the “October Revolution” occurred in November.

Dividing the year into weeks of seven days is another arbitrary construct with no relation to astronomy, and there were weeks of various lengths in ancient times. The week of seven days in the Ten Commandments of biblical Judaism was taken worldwide by Christianity.

In 1929, the atheistic Communists established the Soviet Eternal Calendar, which proved no more eternal than the Soviet Union itself. It set a five-day week so factories could run non-stop with staggered shifts, which scrambled family life and Sunday worship. The system was so hated that the Soviets tried a six-day week, then finally adopted the customary seven days in World War Two.

In 1912, China became another of the last lands to adopt the Gregorian calendar when the old dynasty gave way to the republic led by its first President Sun-yat Sen, a Christian convert. Though that was the civil calendar, the Chinese New Year several weeks later remained a popular festival.

Later yet, two Muslim nations agreed to go Gregorian, Turkey in 1927 and Saudi Arabia in 2016, which till then used the Islamic religious calendar for civil purposes. The Islamic calendar has a short year because months strictly follow the rising of the moon and the sun-based year is ignored. Therefore the new year on the first day of the month of Muharram floats backward year by year. Another complication is that for believers who rely upon traditional naked-eye sightings instead of astronomic calculations, the new year cannot be fixed as a single date in advance.

Reviewing other calendric basics, a year is conventionally designated as B.C. — meaning “Before Christ,” signifying that the coming of Jesus Christ is the hinge of human history — or A.D., from the Latin Anno Domini meaning ‘the year of the Lord.” Actually, Christ was born “Before Christ” (!) due to the consensus of modern experts on when King Herod the Great died, because the Nativity occurred under his rule. For non-Christian and non-partisan scholarship purposes, years are often designated as either B.C.E. (“Before Common Era”) or C.E. (“Common Era”).

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 17, 2020

Perennial Christmas issue: Should the Bible's Isaiah 7:14 speak of a "virgin" birth?

Next Post

January 15, 2021 Should Europeans outlaw Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter for meat?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Four beasts rose from the sea—one like a lion with eagle's wings, one like a bear, one like a leopard, and a fourth terrifying beast. What did these represent?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Four ages Four judgments Four kingdoms Four kings