We cannot easily determine on what day the patriarchal sabbath was kept, Hesiod’s reason being the birth day of Apollo, pleads for Sunday; Porphyry’s for saturday, consequent to which thus Martial XII. 63.
In Saturnum.
Antiqui Rex magne poli, mundique prioris,
Sub quo pigra quies, nec labor ullus erat.
But both shew evidently the antiquity of the hebdomadal division of time, and the planetary names of the week days, and the primæval sabbatical rest. Pausanias in atticis writes, at Megara was a statue of Apollo carrying the Docimæ or tithe, another patriarchal usage.
The work of Phut’s building an enormous serpentine temple, was call’d killing or overcoming the huge serpent Python, properly son of the earth.
——Et te quoque maxime Python
Tum genuit: populisque novis incognita serpens
Terror eras. Tantum spatii de monte tenebas. Ovid. Met.
Publick sacrifices, games, hymns, a sabbatical observance being there celebrated; we have just reason to think all the like were observ’d by our Druids at Abury, especially considering they were of Phœnician original.