Janus, the god with two faces

Janus, the god with two faces

Keywords: Janus, New Year's Day, calendar, Nisan, Tishri, Rosh Hashanah
Janus is a Roman god who presides over beginnings and passages. He is depicted with two faces, one looking to the past and the other towards the future. 

Janus Head
Br 551 Sully 
Room 32
called bronzes
E1 window
 

 Janus Louvre

 Janus Louvre

This head probably crowned a wooden shaft. Janus, one of the oldest Roman gods, was represented with two opposite faces, one looking forward and the other backward.
God first place in the Roman hierarchy (diuum deus), Janus has the privilege to be invoked before all other deities. As the god Portunus with introducer is "god of gates" presiding at the opening of the year and season of war. The doors of the temple were closed when Rome was at peace. In 46 av.n.è. Julius Caesar decided that 1 January is New Year's Day.
Janus Vatican Museum Wikipedia
The Romans devoted themselves this day to Janus,
the god of doors
and
beginnings.
In 487 CE,
the Christian Church sanctified the New Year
   Janus is
represented along with two faces,
one faces the past and the other
turned
to the future.

 Janus Vatican Museum

It is also represented the left hand holding a key, and the right one yard to mark that he is the guardian of the gates (januae), and he chairs the paths. His statues often mark the right hand the number of three hundred, and left the sixty-five, to express the extent of the year. According to another tradition stemming from the Bronze Age, the Aboriginal Italic peoples (non-Indo-European), Janus would be the "God of Gods," the first divine being born of Chaos.
Architecture Ruins with the arc of Janus,
the Temple of Vesta and
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius Inv 409 Giovanni Paolo Pannini Plaisance 1691 Denon 1st floor room 22 Painting in Rome second half of the seventeenth century
This table is a "whim" involving several ancient monuments and fragments of ruins
of Rome which are actually far from
each other.
Its counterpart,
a preacher in the middle of the ruins in Rome (INV. 411), is on deposit with Paris, as President of the Senat
Is there a porter in heaven? In Roman mythology, Janus, the god of gods, was the great guardian of the gates, both in heaven and on earth. Besides, the temple still stands north of the Roman Forum, near the Curia, though no longer come to worship him.
 Is there
porter
in heaven?
" I give you the keys of the
kingdom
of heaven "
Mat. 4:19
"And to the angel of the congregation in Philadelphia write: These things he said, he that is holy, that is true, who has the key of David, who opens so that no one can shut, and closes so that no one opens. " Apocalypse 3: 7

Janus and the New Year's Day

In 46 av.n.è, Julius Caesar decided that 1st January  would be the New Year's Day. He also decreed that the Roman calendar would now be solar and lunar either. This Julian calendar based on the calculations of the Greek astronomer Sosigene consisted of 12 months of arbitrary length, the ordinary year including 365 days and begins on 1st January. He also introduced leap years by adding an extra day every four years to compensate for the shift of a fraction day compared to the tropical year which lasts a little less than 365 days 1/4.
Jules César MR 1978 Nicolas COUSTOU
Lyon, 1658
Richelieu Entresol Cour Puget
In 1582,
Pope Gregory XIII introduced
a reform
of the Julian calendar;

leap years were maintained all
four years,
except for century years
not divisible by 400.
Was suppressed 10 days that year. October 4 was immediately followed October 15.
The Gregorian calendar
is now used in most countries of the world.
Commissioned in 1696 for the park of Versailles as
a counterpart to the Hannibal Slodtz.

Paid in 1713. Transferred from the room of the Louvre Antiques in the Tuileries Gardens in 1722, a date that is given
to this marble statue
On January,
New Year's Day,
A modern innovation  
In the Middle Ages most European countries used the Julian calendar and celebrated the New Year on the day of the Annunciation, March 25, even after the reform of Julius Caesar. With the reform of the Gregorian calendar in the sixteenth century, most European countries, except Russia, have designated January 1 as the first day of the year; Scotland in 1600, England in 1752.
Jewish month ranged from one new moon to another (Is 66:23). The Hebrew word? Odhèsh, "month" (Gen 7:11), comes from a root meaning "new," while another word rendered "months," Yera? Means "lunation." The Israelites were watching a lunisolar calendar. This is evident from the fact that God made starting their religious year by the month of Abib or Nisan in the spring. Before the Exodus the Israelites were to start the calendar year in the fall. - Exodus 12:2

 Jewish Calendar

In Israel facts thus using a double calendar: the religious and the civil or agricultural. (Exodus 11:16 p.m.; 34:22; Leviticus 11:34 p.m.). After the Exile on 1 Tishri, in the second half of the year, marked the beginning of the calendar year, and the Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashanah ("head of the year") is still celebrated to this date.
Jewish Calendar: religious and civil
The etymology of Janus is formed on the root * ia Itself from the Indo-European root root * ei- ("go"), abstract term corresponding to the concept of "pass". This etymology corresponds to the direction given to him by the Ancients. Janus responds to the concept of "passing" and it is usually honored as an introducer god.
The ceremonies marking the transition to the new year are as diverse as the communities that celebrate them, but they all have in common a " rite of passage ", marking the end of a life cycle, and the beginning of a new cycle.
In 487 CE the Christian Church sanctified the New Year. The Saturnalia and the first of the year probably formed one festive event. Instead Christianize the heathen, these customs have paganized Christians.