218 



MRS. WALTER MAUNDER, ON ASTRONOMICAL 



days inserted at the beginning of each quarter, which consisted 

 of thirteen weeks each. Certainly this is not the Jewish length 

 of year, which varied from 353 days to 385. 



More significant still, Pseudo-Enoch writes of the moon : — 



i; Her days are like the days of the sun, and when her light is 

 uniform it amounts to the seventh part of the sun. And thus she 

 rises. And her first phase in the east comes forth on the thirtieth 

 morning ; and on that day she becomes visible and constitutes for 

 you the first phase of the moon on the thirtieth day, together with 

 the sun in the portal where the sun rises." 



Most of this about the moon is unintelligible, but where any 

 meaning can be got out, it is hopelessly and appallingly wrong. 

 For a Jew to state that the new moon is first visible when 

 rising in the east, shows that he knew nothing of the 

 practical service of the Temple ; it also shows that he knew 

 nothing of practical astronomy. If what he meant was that the 

 new moon ought to be visible in the east, he was not capable of 

 becoming a practical astronomer. If the Temple were still 

 standing, and he, a Jew, lived in Palestine or Parthia or else- 

 where, he never attended at the feasts of the new moon, nor at 

 any of the Great Feasts at which every male of the House of 

 Israel should appear on pain of being cut off from the nation. 

 Indeed, throughout the Book there is not a single reference to 

 the Sabbath, or to any of the Great Feasts ; the only reference 

 to Temple worship is : 



"They began again to place a table before the tower, but all the 

 bread on it was polluted and not pure. And as touching all this 

 the eyes of those sheep were blinded, so that they saw not, and 

 their shepherds likewise .... all the sheep were dispersed." — 

 (Eth. En., LXXXIX, 73-74.) 



Pseudo-Enoch's calendar, therefore, was not a Hebrew one ; lie 

 took no part of it from that in use in Palestine. Did he derive 

 it from Parthia ? 



He did derive it from Parthia, but he modified it. Pseudo- 

 Enoch gives 360 days with four intercalary days, one at each 

 quarter, Xew Year's Day beginning at the spring equinox. 

 The Bundahis gives 360 days together with five extra (Gatha) 

 days, which are inserted all together immediately before the 

 beginning of the new year, which is fixed at the spring equinox. 

 This coincidence, in itself, would not be enough to prove the 

 connection, but there is further that which can be no mere 

 chance coincidence, for just as did the Bundahi-s, so does Pseudo- 



