Gunnell has pointed out that, unlike the Greeks, the Hebrews never tried to analyse the 'problem' of time as such. They seem neither to have conceptualized their experience of time nor formed an abstract idea of history. 'History was the space in which the drama of individual and social life unfolded according to the purpose of Yahweh, and cosmic time simply attested to the works of Yahweh and His power over the universe.'29 One of the most significant features characterizing the Hebrew experience of time was the 'contemporaneity of past and future'. In other words, for the Hebrews the present was never a clearly delimited unit with precise boundaries but was part of a continuum
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stretching from the beginning to the end of time and was continually influenced by both past and future. It is significant that the Old Testament contains no numbered dates, despite its concern with an intricate historical record. The covenant was not just an important past event preserved by tradition but was the theme of what Gunnell calls 'a communal drama played out between Yahweh--He who will be there--and His people in time', for in the words of Deuteronomy 5:3, 'The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.'
The outstanding feature that distinguishes Hebrew thought from Greek thought (particularly that of Aristotle) was the idea of the cosmos as a creation of God that actually had occurred in history. In Hebrew thought, unlike Greek, nature was not divine, and God transcended all phenomena. The sun, moon, and stars were all God's creatures and served to show his handiwork ( Psalm 19). Unlike the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Hebrews did not regard kingship as 'anchored in the cosmos'. In Hebrew religion, and in that religion alone, man was joined to God by a quasi-legal covenant, as a result of which the ancient bond between man and nature was destroyed.30 Because of this, the Jews have sometimes been regarded as the 'builders of time', whereas the Greeks were the 'builders of space', the Romans the 'builders of empire', and the Christians the 'builders of heaven'. Eric Voegelin has emphasized the fundamental difference between what he calls the 'cosmological' civilizations, which presupposed the political symbolization of the cosmos typified by Babylonia with its epic of Marduk, and 'eschatological' civilizations such as the Hebrew--but first exemplified by the Iranian--based on the religion of Zarathustra.31 Although the main emphasis in Jewish eschatology has always been on the fate of the nation, the doctrine of personal immortality (which originated with Zarathustra's passionate belief in the justice of God) seems to have been adopted by the Jews during or after their Babylonian exile. Belief in this doctrine was the greatest innovation of post-exilic Judaism. Irrespective of the precise role of linearity in the Hebrew notion of time, it was for long assumed that the eschatological nature of that concept greatly influenced, by way of Christianity, the development of our modern idea of time's unidirectional non-cyclic nature.
In recent years, however, there has been a growing tendency to question the assumption that, prior to the advent of Christianity, Israel was unique among the nations of antiquity in the significance it attached to history and the non-repeatability of events. For, not only did the
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explicit recognition of forward movement in time and the rejection of the idea of endless recurrence originate with Zoroastrianism, but in the last twenty years or so Old Testament scholars have drawn attention to the similarity between some passages in the Old Testament and certain Mesopotamian texts. As a result, J. Van Seters, Professor of Biblical Literature in the University of North Carolina, and others have argued that the idea of there being a unique 'divine plan of history' in the Old Testament has been 'greatly overstated'.32 In other words, the conviction of the Israelites that they were 'God's chosen race' is now generally regarded by scholars as not greatly different from the fundamental belief on which the Sumerian and Babylonian city-states had been based, namely, that the king was divinely elected.
The Hebrews were influenced by the Sumerians and Babylonians in other ways too, including the measurement of time. Consequently, their calendar was based on the moon. As among other peoples who count by lunations, the Hebrew month begins when the moon's slim crescent is first visible in the evening twilight. As early as the time of Saul the festival of the new moon was celebrated with great solemnity. Later, when Jerusalem was the capital, as soon as the appearance of the new moon had been proved by credible witnesses before the Sanhedrin, messengers were dispatched from there to announce the commencement of the new month.
Originally the Jewish year commenced at the autumn equinox. The Jewish civil year still begins at this time, but since the exodus from Egypt the Jewish ecclesiastical year has begun with the month Nisan at the spring equinox. By using years of different lengths, depending on the insertion or not of an intercalary month, reasonable agreement with the sun was maintained. Not only the new moon but the full moon too was regarded by the Hebrews as being of great religious significance, and the timing of Passover was determined by the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. As regards the numbering of their years, the Jews used the same era as the Seleucids of Syria from the time they came under their rule, in the second century BC, until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.
In some of the older parts of the Bible, particularly in those concerning the earlier prophets, the moon is frequently mentioned in connection with the Sabbath, which commemorated the seventh day of creation, when the Lord rested from his labours. In his book Rest Days Hutton Webster has drawn attention to the passage in 2 Kings 4:23, describing how, when the Shunammite woman wanted to go to the prophet Elijah
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to beg him for her son's life to be restored, her husband objected, saying 'Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.' As Webster goes on to point out, when study of the cuneiform records revealed that the Babylonian shabbatum (full-moon day) also fell on the fourteenth (or fifteenth) day of the month, we were presented with another survival of what must have been the primary meaning of the Hebrew term shabbath.
Although the Hebrew seven-day week ending with the Sabbath (the only day to which a name was given) resembles the Babylonian seven-day period ending with an 'evil day', there are imporant differences. For the latter cycle was always directly associated with the moon, whereas the Hebrew week was not but was continued from month to month and year to year regardless of the moon. Moreover, the Babylonian evil day was observed only by the king, priests, and physicians, whereas the Hebrew Sabbath was observed by the whole nation. As Webster points out, 'To dissever the week from the lunar month, to employ it as a recognized calendrical unit, and to fix upon one day of that week for the exercises of religion were momentous innovations which, until evidence to the contrary is found, must be attributed to the Hebrew people alone.'33
By the time that Israel became part of the Roman empire, the idea was already widespread among the various religious sects that the 'End of the World' was at hand, although it was only for the Essenes of Qumran that this belief assumed a definite form; that, whereas the First Judgement at the time of Noah had been destruction by water, the Last Judgement would be destruction by fire. The Essenes, an extremely ascetic sect who withdrew to the desert region of Judaea near the Red Sea, appear to have originated in the middle of the second century BC at the time of the Maccabean revolt against the misguided Hellenizing reforms of the Seleucid ruler of Palestine Antiochus IV. He had recently taken over this region, which had previously been subject to the Ptolemies in Egypt. The Essenes were not only greatly inclined to apocalyptic views and legalism, but they were frantically anti-Hellenistic. Following the conquests of Alexander, Egypt and the rest of the area that we now call the Middle East were dominated by Hellenistic customs and views. Greek became the lingua franca of this region and remained so during the time of the Roman empire. Because of this, the books of the New Testament appeared in Greek, although the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples had been Aramaic.
Many Jews, especially outside Pa
lestine, became Hellenized, but inside
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that country only the Sadducees were sympathetic to Hellenic culture. As the most intellectually enlightened of the sects, they were on the side of the ruling power. Their name signified 'sons of Zadok', the high priest at the time of David who was thought to be a descendant of the younger son of Aaron. They were the main enemies of the predominant sect, the Pharisees, who believed that salvation would only come if they adhered strictly to the Mosaic law, as originally set out in Deuteronomy where it was made clear that the chosen people must be a 'clean' people. The Deuteronomic standpoint was later canonized in the Torah and in the books of the prophets and became central in Jewish life. Indeed, of the books of the Old Testament so far found to have been in use among the Qumran sect, with the exception of Isaiah and the Psalms, most are copies of Deuteronomy.34
It is of particular interest to us today that the rivalry of Pharisees and Sadducees extended to their differing views concerning the way time should be measured. For, whereas the Pharisees adhered to the lunar year (with intercalary months so that the agricultural year kept pace with the sun), the Sadducees adopted the luni-solar year used by the Greeks. Each sect accused the other of wishing to observe the prescribed religious festivals at the wrong times, although in practice they had to keep to the same dates. Because the Pharisees were the predominant sect, few Sadducee writings have survived. Among those that have, particular interest attaches to the Book of Jubilees, which was probably composed about the year 110 BC.35 The basis of this calendar of jubilees seems to have been the famous Pythagorean right-angled triangle of sides three, four, and five.36 The sum of the first two gives the number of days in the week, the sum of all three gives the number of months in the year, and the sum of their squares gives the number fifty. According to Philo of Alexandria, a first-century Graeco-Judaic philosopher who wrote many works that still survive, including commentaries on the Old Testament, fifty was regarded as the holiest of numbers and 'the principle of the generation of the universe' ( De vita contemplativa, 65). The significance of a fifty-year cycle in Jewish life, with the remission of debts, the release of slaves, etc., was eventually responsible for the practice that has been followed by successive Popes, since 1300, in declaring a Jubilee of the Roman Church every fifty years.
Imperial Rome and early Christendom
Because of the way in which it began, Christianity inherited the peculiar Jewish view of time with its hope of redemption from successive
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oppressors. At first Christians looked upon the risen Jesus as the Messiah whose return was imminent and would bring to an end the existing world-order. Gradually, as time passed without this return occurring, Christians had to cope with a world that continued to exist, its end being postponed to an indefinite future. If Jesus were the Messiah, then he had already come and a new interpretation was necessary. The birth of Jesus thus came to be regarded as dividing time into two parts, because it ended the first phase of the divine purpose and initiated the second. Unlike adherents of other contemporary religions in the Roman empire, except Judaism, Christians regarded their religion as expressing the purpose of God in history; but whereas Judaism was concerned primarily with the fortunes of Israel, Christians considered their faith to be of universal significance. The crucifixion was considered by them to be a unique event not subject to repetition. Consequently, time must be linear rather than cyclic. This essentially historical view of time, with its particular emphasis on the non-repeatability of events, is the very essence of Christianity. It is brought out clearly, and even contrasted with the Hebrew view, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 9: 25-6: 'Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.'
The world in which Christianity originated was that of the Roman empire. The age was one in which a variety of religions flourished, many of oriental origin. In general it was an extremely superstitious age. On many days of the year the traditional religious calendar forbade business of any sort. In particular, on days of ill-omen ships could not set sail. Thus, no Roman skipper would move off from a port on 24 August, 5 October, or 8 November, and it was thought bad to be at sea at the end of the month.37
As Sir Ronald Syme has pointed out, the Romans had a special veneration for authority, precedent, and tradition, and they greatly objected to change unless it was thought to be in accord with ancestral custom, which meant in practice the sentiments of the oldest living senators. The Romans tended to be suspicious of novelty, and the word 'novus' had for them a sinister ring, although their memory of the past reminded them that change had often come about, although at first resisted. As Syme has remarked, ' Rome's peculiar greatness was due not to one man's genius or to one age, but to many men and the long process of time.'38
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One of the main inspirations of Roman historians was the cult of ancestors and the propensity of noble families to commemorate their deeds. Unlike the Greek historians, they made it their business as patriots to present a comprehensive survey of their country's past. The first history of Rome was, however, written by a Greek, Polybius, who lived in Rome in the second century BC. Later historians of note include Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Livy (c. 59 BC-AD 19) gave his history the title Ab urbe condita ('From the Foundation of the City') and began with Aeneas. Omens and prodigies abound in his work, so that compared with him Herodotus seems almost modern. The only Roman historian who can be compared to Thucydides is Tacitus (c. AD 55-117). Both were great stylists and for them history was the ultimate tribunal before which the actions of rulers and others can be judged, 'but where Thucydides was a magistrate, Tacitus was an advocate--the most brilliant, perhaps, who ever sought to determine the judgement of Time, but an advocate all the same'.39 Although much of his historical writing depended on oral testimony, he is of all ancient historians the one who most frequently cites the authors and documents that he has consulted. He had an exalted idea of history that is well illustrated by his claim ( Annals, iii. 65) that the historian's duty is 'to rejudge the conduct of men, that generous actions may be snatched from oblivion, and that the author of pernicious counsels, and the perpetrator of evil deeds may see, beforehand, the infamy that awaits them at the tribunal of posterity'. The Romans tended to regard the course of history as alternating between defection from and adherence to traditional values. As E. R. Curtius has pointed out, the pious attitude of the Romans to their past and their tendency to regard it as if it were a part of the present signified a kind of timelessness that excluded a genuinely historical view of the world and was very different from our sense of temporal perspective.40
Although the Romans respected the literary and other cultural achievements of the Greeks, they were puzzled by the importance assigned by them to mathematics. The outstanding exception to the general conclusion that the Romans were not really interested in science was Lucretius (c. 94-55 BC), whose De rerum natura is nowadays regarded as the greatest philosophical poem ever written. Although it impressed both Cicero ( 106-43 BC) and Virgil ( 70-19 BC), the Epicureanism on which it was based made little impression on the Romans, except for its hedonistic aspect. As regards the concept of time, the poem is remarkable for its modern point of view: 'Similarly, time by itself does not exist; but from things themselves there results a sense of what has already taken
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place, what is now going on and what is to ensue. It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time itself apart from the movement of things or their restful immobility.'41
Unlike Epicureanism, Stoicism had a considerable appeal for the more educated citizens. A famous passage in Virgil Fourth Eclogue gives expression to the concept of the 'Eternal Return': 'Now is come the last age of the song of Cumae; the great line of the centuries begins
anew . . . A second Tiphys shall then arise, and a second Argo to carry chosen heroes; a second warfare, too, there shall be, and again shall a great Achilles be sent to Troy.' The stoical attitude of philosophical resignation replaced the old Roman polytheism which had become more and more a meaningless formality. In so far as Jupiter survived he was the personification of Providence or Destiny. The deification of the Emperors, introduced by Augustus, was not taken too seriously and signified little more than in later ages was implied by the adjective 'Holy' in the title 'Holy Roman Emperor'.
Although for the upper classes the Pax Romana in the age of the Antonines ( second century AD) came as a great opportunity to concentrate on and uphold the customs of their local town or district, for humbler men it provided wider horizons and unprecedented opportunities for travel. As a leading authority on late antiquity has pointed out, 'merchants were constantly on the move, seeking opportunities in the underdeveloped territories of Western Europe, often settling far from their native towns'.42 Indeed, one merchant from Phrygia is known to have visited Rome no fewer than seventy-two times. This new freedom to travel safely far and wide had a profound effect not only on men's lives but also on their thoughts and beliefs; these men who were being uprooted provided 'the background to the anxious thoughts of the religious leaders of the late second century'.43 It was from them and no longer from the humble and oppressed, as in the previous century, that the converts to Christianity were now mainly recruited.
Time in History: Views of Time From Prehistory to the Present Day Page 8