^^THE MOSAIC CALENDAR." 



153 



and the two feasts of Purini (Esther ix) and the Dedication of 

 the Temple (i Mace, iv, 59 ; ii Mace, i, 18 ; John x, 22). 



2. The months, which are simply numbered in the Mosaic 

 Calendar, are now named. 



3. The beginnings of the months and the beginnings of the 

 years are computed : not derived directly from observa- 

 tion. 



4. The first month of the year is not the Paschal month, but 

 Tishri, which in the Mosaic Calendar is the seventh month. 



Now all these changes are the necessary consequence of one 

 series of events ; nami.ely, the overthrow of the Jewish kingdom 

 by the Chaldseans, the destruction of the City of Jerusalem, and 

 especially of the Temple, and the carrying into captivity or 

 dispersion of the bulk of the Jewish people. 



The four fasts referred to m Zechariah viii are commemorative 

 of the successive stages of that terrible catastrophe. The feasts 

 of the Mosaic Calendar, so far as they are commemorative, hold 

 the memory of another event : " when Israel went out of Egypt ": 

 they recall the Exodus. 



Up to the Captivity, none of the Babylonian month names are 

 ever mentioned in any part of the Old Testament. In Zechariah, 

 Esther and Nehemiah these names occur frequently, no fewer 

 than seven of them being named, and these three books are 

 avowedly and admittedly post-exilic. 



The extract from the Talmud given on pp. 147, 148 is sufficient 

 to show that a great effort was made to preserve the method of the 

 Mosaic Calendar in making actual observations for the begmnings 

 of the months. This method, so simple and easy, so long as the 

 J ews were in their own land and under the heel of no conqueror, 

 became impossible not long after the time of Gamaliel. In the 

 xeign of Hadrian, Jerusalem was again destroyed, and so far as 

 -was possible the Jewish race was extirpated, or at least exiled, 

 from their fatherland. It was no longer possible for the 

 'Sanhedrin to meet in " the Hall of Polished Stones," and receive 

 the witnesses to the appearance of the crescent, and, by pro- 

 nouncing the formula "it is consecrated," decide that the new 

 month had begun, for City and Temple and Sanhedrin had all 

 been swept away. 



Yet with a courage and tenacity unexampled in history, the 

 Jewish rabbis, even after this overthrow, were taking measures, 

 before long, to meet the necessities of their hard case. The new 

 moons could no longer be declared from observation at the 



