they had regard to the ripening of the corn and "fruit of trees, which, if they proved more back"ward than common, occasioned the year on their "account to be intercalated, so that sometimes

they intercalated two years together *. This "shews, that, after the Jews used lunar months, "their intercala ions could not be regular, because

they annually depended both on the day of the "month on which the winter solstice fell, which

day was moveable, and on the maturity of the "barley harvest in the sixteenth day of Nisan, " which was sometimes before and sometimes after "the vernal equinox; and yet the passover was "fixed to the fourteenth day of the month Nisan. "The Jews, who first used the lunar months, seem

"Intercalant annum super Thecuphas, modo Thecupho "contigerit a vicesimo die mensis Tebeth, et infra. Morinus "adds, Si solstitium hybernum commissum fuerit vicesimo die "mensis Tebeth (Decembris), vel posthæc, intercalatur annus,

nulla habita spicarum et frugum ratione: nam tum certum "est ex consueto naturæ ordine ista non satis matura fore,

ut decima quinta Nisan spicarum manipulus Deo offeratur. "Si vero solstitium hybernum citius committatur, tum frugum “ratio habetur, et intercalatio fit, ambæ si serotinæ fuerint. Hinc nonnunquam apud eos duobus annis continuis intercala "batur.

Fundamentum et clavem intercalationis propter Thecupham posteriores Judæi a decima sexta. Nisan de"duxerunt: sed priores a vicesima Tebeth," In Pentateuch, Samar. Exercit, i. p. 39, 40, 51, 52.

to have principally minded to make the new moon "of Nisan that which was nearest to the vernal equinox, whether before or after it; that the passover might fall on the full moon, which was "either at or after it. And, as the use of lunar "months made the keeping of the passover very

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irregular, we may with the greatest reason con"clude that the original Jewish year and months "both before and after their exodus were solar

only

"In the intercalary year, the thirteenth month, "called Ve-Adar, which was a second Adar of 29* days*, was added after Adar; which then had 30 days, and made the year 384 days. In a cycle of 19 years they must have seven intercalary months to bring the fifteenth of Nisan to the

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*« Qui annus fiebat uno mense longior, is intercalaris ap◄ et pellabatur: sed nullus addebatur unquam anno alius quam "mensis Adur. Itaque anno intercalari menses Adar bini «continuabantur, atque iidem Adar primus et Adar secundus ❝dicebantur. Quid ita vero? nimirum ut haberetur una 16 cum messe Pascha, quippe cum in Lege sit, Observato mensem novarum frugum; hujus enim verbi vis ea fuit, ut temporis observandi rationem teneres eam, quæ mensem hunc ad messem adduceret: atque nisi alterum anno mensem "Adar adderes, tum Pascha hybernis tum æstivis accideret "temporibus." Maimon. de rat. intercal. c. iv. p. 356. "Anno intercalari, quoniam Adar numerantur duo, primus eorum sit plenus, alter cavus." c. viii. p. 376.

"equinoctial

"equinoctial point, as the law required: and therefore, if they followed in their lunar year the cycle "of Meton of 19 years, as some Jewish and many "Christian writers suppose, they could keep the passover, as the law required, on the fifteenth of "Nisan and at the equinox, once only in the space "of 19 years. Had the Jews, when they used the "lunar year, intercalated it with sometimes ten and "sometimes eleven days after the twelfth month "annually, they would have always kept the fif"teenth of Nisan to the vernal equinox, which was "the original institution of Moses. But, as they "thought they ought not to celebrate the passover "till the corn was ripe and the berries of trees were "ready for gathering, although the equinox hap

pened before the sixteenth day of Nisan; if these "" were not then ripe, they intercalated a whole "month*.

"The intercalated years in the Jewish cycle of "19 years were, as Maimonides relates †, the

"Jam si seges esset tardior quam ut posset ad Pascha "meti, nec dum baccas, quæ solebant tempore paschali, pro"fuderant arbores; hac duplici de causa concilium itidem annum faciebat uno mense longiorem, licet decimum et "sextum diem mensis æquinoctium antecederet." Maimon. de rat. intercal. p. 357. The intercalary month had 29 or 30 days, as the council pleased that appointed it.

De rat. intercal. c. vi. p, 370.

"third,

third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seven"teenth, and nineteenth .ca vetta *."

2. Much the same remarks are made by Dr. Prideaux relative to the Hebrew mode of intercalating lunar years, when the use of those years was adopted.

"The Jews had their common years perfectly "lunar, consisting of twelve lunar months; and so "had the Greeks, only with this difference, that, "whereas the Jews' lunar months were strictly "lunar as being observed by the phasis, the Greeks, "mistaking a lunar month to consist exactly of 30

days, in compounding their year of 12 of them, "made it amount to 360 days, which exceeded its "true astronomical measure almost 6 days. But, "besides the common years, they had also interca"lated years intermixed with the common years,

which reduced all to the solar form; for, what 86 was defective of it in the common years, was " restored in the intercalated years. And this the "Jews, as well as the Greeks, were necessitated to "by their festivals: for the Nisan of the Jewish

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year, which began their ecclesiastical year, being pinned down by their passover (which was always "celebrated in the middle of it) to the time of the beginning of their harvest; and the month of

* Jackson's Chronol. Antiq. Vol. ii. p. 15–23.

"Tisri,

Tisri, which began their civil year, being likewise "" pinned down by the feast of tabernacles (which

was always celebrated in the middle of that "month) to the time of the ending of their vintage; "this necessitated them to fling in an intercalary "month, whenever their year fell short of these seasons. And the Greeks were likewise neces"sitated to do the same thing for the sake of their "festivals, especially for the sake of their Olym

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piads. For, the fixed time for the celebration of 66 those games being the first full moon after the summer solstice, it always fell within the compass "of one lunar month, either sooner or later, in the "solar year: and, there being just four years be"tween Olympiad and Olympiad, these necessa

rily made these years to be solar years; and cy"cles and rules of intercalation were invented of purpose to bring them to it: and the same is to "be said of all other nations which used the like "form. Although they might measure their months.

by the motion of the moon, they always regulated "their years according to that of the sun-All

among them, that had lunar years, had also in"tercalated years to make amends for their de "fects: and therefore, whatsoever any of their years might be in their singular numbers, they

were always solar in their collective suns

* Prideaux's Connection. part i. b. v. p. 292.