Open AccessChristian Influence on the Roman Calendar. Comments in the Margins of C. Th. 9.35.4 = C. 3.12.5 (a. 380)1/ Wpływ chrześciaństwa na kalendarz rzymski. Uwagi na marginesie C. Th. 9.35.4 = C. 3.12.5 (a. 380)
Author(s) -
Jacek Wiewiorowski
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
studia prawnicze kul
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2719-4264
pISSN - 1897-7146
DOI - 10.31743/sp.10615
Subject(s) - torture , conviction , politics , problem of universals , human rights , philosophy , law , history , religious studies , theology , classics , ancient history , political science , epistemology
The text analyses Christianisation of the Roman calendar in the light or the Roman imperial constitutions in the 4th century. The author first of all underlines that only humans recognise religious feasts despite that human perception of time is not that remote from the apperception of time in the case of other animals and that the belief in the supernatural/religion and rituals belong to human universals, the roots of which, together with the judiciary, are to be sought in the evolutionary past of the genus Homo. Furthermore, the author deduces that the first direct Christian influence on the Roman official calendar was probably C. Th. 9,35,4 = C. 3,12,5 (a. 380), prohibiting all investigation of criminal cases by means of torture during the forty days which anticipate the Paschal season, contesting the opinion that dies solis were regarded as dies dominicus (Christian Sunday) already in C. Th. 2,8,1 and C. 3,12,2 (a. 321). Finally, on the margin of the Polish debate concerning the limitation of legal trade during Sundays, when Constantinian roots of dies dominicus were quoted frequently and with great conviction, the limitations of politics of memory are underlined.