1 six months after; as the first required the eating of the Paschal Lamb, and the offering up of the wave-sheaf, as the first-fruits of their barley harvest-the second, the offering of the two wave-loaves, as the first-fruits of their wheat harvest-and the third, being the time fixed for the ingathering of all the fruits of the earth, "the Passover could not be observed till the lambs were grown fit to be eaten, and the barley fit to be reaped; nor the Pentecost, till the wheat was ripe ; nor the feast of the Tabernacles, till the ingatherings of the vine-yard and olive-yard were over." Hence the necessity of INTERCALATING their lunar year, which was done in the following manner : ic Whenever, according to the course of the common year, the fifteenth day of Nisan happened to fall before the day of their vernal equinox, then they intercalated a month, and then the Paschal solemnity was thereby carried one month farther into the year, and all the other festivals with it. This intercalary month, being added at the end of the year, after the last month, Adar, they called Veadar, or the second Adar, which made that year consist of thirteen months, or three hundred and eighty-four days. This intercalation either took place on the second or third year, as the case might be, and formed the Jewish leap year, from the institution of the Passover under Moses, down to the time of the Captivities. We deem it incontrovertible, therefore, that, according to the Mosaical law, as their year during the last named period, was made up of months purely lunar, it 1. Lev. xxiii., 34-39. could in no other way be made to harmonize with solar time than by an intercalary month. Not, however, that it is pretended that their months can be fixed to any certain day in the Julian calendar, they falling always within the compass of thirty days, sooner or later therein, as will appear from the following: III. After the captivities, and when the Jews became dispersed through all nations, they were forced to make use of Cycles and astronomical calculations for the fixing of their new moons and intercalations, and the times of their feasts, fasts, and other observances, that so they might be everywhere uniform herein. The first Cycle they made use of for this purpose1 was that of eighty-four years: by this they fixed their Paschal feast, and by that their whole year besides; and the use hereof the primitive Christians borrowed from them, and for some of the first centuries, fixed their Easter in every year according to it: but this, after some time, being 1. Vide Bucherium de antiquo Paschali Judæorum Cyclo. 2 found to be faulty, Meto's Cycle of nineteen years 1 was, after the council of Nice, brought into use by them for this purpose instead of the other; and the Jews, following their example herein, almost about the same time, came into the same usage also; and on this Cycle is founded the present form of their year. The first who began to work it into this shape, was Rabbi Samuel, rector of the Jewish school at Sora, in Mesopotamia: Rabbi Adda, who was a great astronomer, pursued his scheme; and after him, Rabbi Hillel, about A. D. 360, brought it to that perfection in which it now is; and being Nasi, or prince of their sanhedrim, he gave it the authority of his sanction, and by virtue thereof it hath ever since been observed by them, and they say always is to be observed to the coming of the Messiah. According to this form there are, within the compass of the said nineteen years Cycle, seven intercalated years, consisting of thirteen months, and twelve common years, consisting of twelve months. The intercalated years are the third, the sixth, the eighth, the eleventh, the fourteenth, the seventeenth, and the 3 1. Epistola Ambrosii 83 ad episcopus per Æmiliam constitutos. It was by the council of Nice referred to the church of Alexandria, every year to fix the time of Easter, and they did it by Meto's Cycle of nineteen years. 2. Juchasin; Shalsheleth Haccabala; & Zemach David, & ex iisdem Morinus in exercitat. Prima in Pentateuchum Samaritanum, cap. 3. 3. Talmud in Rosh Hasshanah. Maimonides in Kiddush Hachodesh, & Seldenus de Anno Civili veterum Judæorum. L 1 nineteenth of that Cycle; and when one round of this Cycle is over, they begin another; and so constantly, according to it, fix their new moons (at which all their months begin) and all their fasts and feasts in every year. And this form of their year, it must be acknowledged, is very exactly and astronomically contrived, and may truly be reckoned the greatest piece of art and ingenuity that is to be found among that people." And," since the Jewish calendar hath been fixed by Rabbi Hillel, upon the certain foundations of astronomy, tables may indeed be made, which may point out to what day in that calendar every day in the JULIAN YEAR shall answer; and the same rule, if applied to the time which preceded A. D. 360, regulates the otherwise inaccurate intercalary time of the Jewish reckoning, as arising both from the inartificial mode of their intercalations, by the phasis and appearance of the moon, or by their Cycle of eighty-four years. But, as of the Jewish ecclesiastical, so of their civil year. Their Jubilees, which were celebrated every fiftieth year, were periods of seven sabbaths of years complete, with an independent year added on, completing half a century, when seven sabbaths were numbered again, and so on; the following account of which we have in the book of Leviticus: Says the Lord to Moses, 66 a Jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you - ye shall not sow. In the of this Jubilee ye shall return, every man unto his possession." 2 year 1. Prideaux, vol. i., pp. 98, 99. 2. Lev. xxv., 19—13. 2 Now, it is plain from the following, viz. :-"When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord: six years shalt thou sow thy fields, but in the seventh shall be a sabbath of rest unto the Lord, &c.," that the direction for counting the seven sabbatical years that precede the Jubilee is the same as that of the single sabbatical year one command serves for all. Nor are we left to conjecture as to whether the first sabbatical year of the series begins with a Jubilee; that being directly contrary to the Divine command, which prohibits all sowing and reaping on that year. Nor is it at all necessary to the completion of the fifty years Jubilee, that the first in the series should be a Jubilee. This is evident from its analogy with the feast of Pentecost, for the calculating of which the following direction was given :- "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, &c., seven sabbaths shall be complete, even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days." "Now from the morrow after the first sabbath, to the morrow after the seventh sabbath, both inclusive, are fifty days, independent of the sabbath from which the period is really dated; but from which it is carefully separated in the direction for the mode of reckoning." 3 On the subject of Jubilees, "Dr. Prideaux both makes the Jubilee the fiftieth year, and allows also six years of sowing to each septenary, without mutilating 1. Lev. xxv., 3, 4. 2. Lev. xxv., 11--13. |