Rest Days; A Sociological Study 135 



simplified if we assume that the Hebrews employed lunar seven- 

 day weeks perhaps for a long period anterior to the Exile, lunar 

 weeks ending with special observances on the seventh day, but 

 none the less tied to the lunar month. The change from such 

 lunar cycles to those unconnected with the month would not have 

 involved so abrupt and sudden a departure from the previous 

 system of time reckoning as that from a bipartite division of the 

 lunar month to a week running unfettered through the year. 



With the institution of a periodic week ending in a Sabbath 

 observed every seventh day, there would be no longer any 

 necessity for the observance of a new moon festival as a day of 

 general abstinence since the weeks would run continuously, and 

 the weekly Sabbath would take the place of a festival formerly 

 observed every seventh day from new moon or the beginning of 

 the month. Various writers have argued that the new moon 

 festival was deliberately thrust aside on account of the heathenish 

 superstitions which associated themselves with it.'** It is more 

 reasonable to suppose that the religious observance of New Moon 

 fell gradually into disuse with the adoption of the periodic seven- 

 day week ending in a Sabbath. Whatever significance it con- 

 tinued to have in the later period of Jewish history must be 

 ascribed to the fact that when all the great festivals were definitely 

 fixed to certain days, the new moon as marking the beginning 

 of the month, assumed a special importance in the sacred calendar. 



20. TABOOS OBSERVED ON THE SABBATH 



Nearly all the Sabbatarian regulations are meaningless except as 

 elucidated from the comparative point of view. Thus the rule 

 which required everyone to remain indoors on the Sabbath : 

 "Abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place 

 on the seventh day,"''^ is identical with the numerous rules enjoin- 



"Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 113; Robertson Smith, "Sabbath," in En- 

 cyclopaedia Britannica,^ xxi. 126; Hehn, op. cit., 117. 



*^ Exodus, xvi. 29. According to Origen, Dositheus, the head of an 

 ascetic Samaritan sect, based on this text the requirement that his fol- 

 lowers throughout the Sabbath day should preserve unchanged the posi- 



