Hebrew months were as followeth: first, Nisan, second, Iyar, third, Sivan, fourth, Tamuz, fifth, Ab, sixth, Elul, seventh, Tisri, eighth, Marchesvan, ninth, Cisleu, tenth, Tebeth, eleventh, Shebat, twelfth, Adar. And these twelve made their common year: but in their intercalated years there was another month added after Adar, which they called Veadar, or the second Adar; and then their year consisted of thirteen months. Sup posing, therefore, their vernal equinox should have been on the tenth of March (whereabout now it is,) and that the fifteenth of Nisan, the first day of their passover, should, in the common course of their year, happen to fall on the ninth of March, the day before the equinox; then, on their foreseeing of this, they intercalated a month, and after their Adar added their Veadar, which sometimes consisted of twenty-nine days, and sometimes of thirty, according as it happened; at present we will suppose it to be of thirty days, and then the first of Nisan, which is to begin this year, instead of being on the twenty-third of February (as otherwise it would,) must be carried on thirty days forward to the twenty-fifth of March, and their passover to the eighth of April following. But the next year after beginning eleven days sooner, for the reason I have mentioned, the first of Nisan must then have happened on the fourteenth of March, and the first day of the passover on the twenty-eighth of the same month; and, the next year after that, the first of Nisan, must for the same reason have happened on the third of March, and the first day of the passover on the seventeenth of March; and the next year after that, according to this calculation, the first of Nisan would have happened on the twentieth of February, and the first day of the passover on the sixth of March following. But this being before the equinox, another intercalation of the month Veadar must have been made. And so after the same manner it went through all other years; whereby it came to pass, that the first of Nisan, which was the beginning of their year, always was within fifteen days before, or fifteen days after the vernal equinox, that is, within the compass of thirty days in the whole, sooner or later;

VOL. I.

13

and according as that was fixed, so were fixed also the beginnings of all their other months, and all the fasts and feasts observed in them. But this inartificial way of forming their months and years, was in use among them only while they lived in their own land, and there might easily receive notice of what was ordained in this matter by those who had the care and ordering of it: for when they 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 every where uniform herein. The first cycle they made use of for this purpose* 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 found to be faulty, Meto's cycle of nineteen yearst 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 upon 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 now it 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

* Vide Bucherium de antiquo Paschali Judæorum Cyclo.

Epistola Ambrosii 83 ad episcopus per Emiliam 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.

Juchasin; Shalsheleth Haccabala; & Zemach David, & ex iisdem Mo

rinus in exercitat. Prima in Pentateuchum Samaritanum, cap. 3.

Talmud in Rosh Hasshanah. Maimonides in Kiddush Hachodesh, &

Seldenus de Anno Civili veterum Judæorum.

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 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. They who would thoroughly understand it, may read Maimonides' tract Kiddush Hachodesh, which hath been published in a very good Latin translation by Lewis de Veil, under the title, De Consecratione Calendarum, where he will find it very exactly and perspicuously described.

These having been the forms of the Jewish year, that is, the inartificial form used by the ancients in the land of Canaan, and the artificial and astronomical form now in use among the moderns throughout all their dispersions; according to neither of them can the days of the Jewish months be fixed to any certain days of the months in the Julian year; for, in both of them, the months being lunar, and the intercalations made of one whole lunar month at once, the days of those months, to the full extent of one full lunar month, fell sometimes sooner, and sometimes later in the solar form. 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: but this cannot be done for the time before; because, while they went inartificially to work in this matter by the phasis and appearance of the moon, both for the beginning of their months and years, and the making of their intercalations, they did not always do it exactly; but often varied from the astronomical truth herein. And this latter having been their way through all the times of which this History treats, we cannot, when we find the day of

any Jewish month mentioned either in the Scriptures, or in Josephus, reduce it exactly to its time in the Julian year, or there fix it any nearer, than within the compass of a month sooner or later. Kepler indeed holds, that the Jewish year was a solar year, consisting of twelve months, of thirty days each, and an addition of five days after the last of them; and our countrymen archbishop Usher, and Mr. Lydiat, two of the most eminent chronologers that any age hath produced, go into the same opinion. Such a year, I acknowledge, was in use among the Chaldeans, from whom Abraham was descended; and also among the Egyptians, with whom the Israelites long lived: and I doubt not, but that, before their coming out of the land of Egypt, they also reckoned their time by the same form. For the time of the flood is manifestly computed by it* in the book of Genesis, an hundred and fifty days being there made equal to five months, which proves those months to have been thirty-day months. But that the Israelites made use of this sort of year, after their coming out of Egypt, can never be made consisting with the Mosaical law. According to that, their year must be made up of months purely lunar, and could no otherwise, than by an intercalary month, be reduced to the solar form: and there being a necessity of making this intercalation for the keeping of their festivals to their proper seasons, by this means it comes to pass, that the beginnings of their months cannot be fixed to any certain day in the Julian calendar, but they fell always within the compass of thirty days sooner or later therein. That the thing may appear the clearer to the reader, I shall express it in this following scheme, wherein the first column gives the names of the Jewish months, and the second of the Julian months, within the compass of which the said Jewish months set over against them have always sooner or later their beginning and ending; and this is the nearest view that can be given of the correspondency of the one with the other.

*Chap. vii, 11, compared with chap. viii, 3, 4.

The thirteenth month called Veadar, or the second Adar, answered most the end of our March, it being then only intercalated, or cast in, when the beginning of Nisan would otherwise be carried back into the end of February.

I have, in the series of this History, taken no notice either of the jubilees, or the sabbatical years of the Jews, both because of the uselessness, and also of the uncertainty of them. They are useless, because they help not to the explaining of any thing, either in the holy Scriptures, or the histories of the times which I treat of; and they are uncertain, because it doth not appear when or how they were observed. It is acknowledged by most learned men, that the jubilees were no more regarded after the Babylonish captivity; and it is manifest from Scripture, that the sabbatical years were wholly neglected for many ages before it. For the desolation, which happened to the country of Judea, under that captivity, is said, in the second book of Chronicles, xxxvi, 21, to have been brought upon it for this very reason, that the land might enjoy its sabbaths, that is, those sabbatical years of rest, which the Jews, in neglecting the law of God concerning this matter, had deprived it of: and therefore, if we reckon to this desolation only the fifty-two years, that were from the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, to the end of the Babylonish captivity (in which the land was wholly desolated) this will prove the observing of those sabbatical years to have been neglected for three hundred and sixty-four years before that captivity. But, if we add hereto the other eighteen years of that captivity, in which it was only in part desolated, and take in the whole seventy years of it into this reckoning, it will then carry up the time of this neglect much higher, even to four hundred and ninety years before