~ 40 ~
thing. The Graeco-Roman world, it might be held, all agog for Oriental imported cults, seized upon Sabbath-keeping as one of especial note and having further somehow imbibed the belief that it was concerned with the planet Saturn, proceeded to build upon it a planetary system. Indeed it was fairly obvious that if a day consecrated to Saturn recurred every seventh day, the six intervening days would be assigned to the other six planets. Once constructed the theory would soon forget its Jewish origin and hold the world captive on its merits. This view, of course, assumes a comparatively late origin for the planetary week.
Neither of these views is to my mind satisfactory or on examination tenable, though both, particularly the second, may contain an element of truth.
My objection to the first rests on the fact that the allusions to the Sabbath, especially in the first century, are far more abundant than the allusions either to the planetary week as a whole or to Saturn's day in particular. The way in which Horace, Ovid, Seneca and later Juvenal and many other writers speak of the Jewish observance shews that in spite of certain misconceptions they thought of it as a definitely Jewish practice, not as a mere variation of a pagan superstition. Tibullus' words on one interpretation, as well as the other passages where the Sabbath is called Saturn's day with undoubted reference
