127. Summary of the Diffusion
This history of the week is one of the striking instances of institutional diffusion. An ancient west Asiatic mystic valuation or magical cult of the number seven led on the one hand to an observance of taboo days, on the other to an association with the earliest astronomical knowledge, polytheistic worship, and divination. A European people learned the combination and built on it for further scientific progress, only to have this gain utilized for new playing by the astrologers. The planetary week, the creation of these mathematical diviners, was reintroduced into Europe and became connected with the calendar and civil life. Christianity recontributed the old idea of regularly recurring holy or taboo days. Mohammedanism took over this concept along with the period, but without the polytheistic and astrological elements. Eastern Asia, on the other hand, was chiefly interested in the latter. With us, the significance is becoming increasingly economic. Names have changed again and again, but their very variations evidence their equivalence. In about three thousand years from its first beginnings and half as many from its definitive establishment, the institution of the week by 1492 had spread over all the earth except the peripheral tracts of Asia and Africa and the peripheral continents of Oceania and America.