year, as I have intimated; for in a calendar formed according to what I have offered, the new-moons and first days of the months would not agree with one another. The most learned Dean Prideaux has given a full account of the manner of the Jewish year in their later ages. It consisted of twelve lunar months, made up, alternately, of twenty-nine or of thirty days; and brought to as good an agreement as such a year could have with the true solar year, by an intercalation of a thirteenth month every second or third year." And some year of this sort the Israelites must have used, in and from the time of Moses, if they had observed the new moons from his time, making them the directors of the beginning of their months, and keeping their feasts according to them. But I would observe, 1. That it cannot be conceived, that Moses had any notion of computing months according to this lunar reckoning; for five successive months in his account were deemed to contain one hun Prideaux's Connect. Pref. to part i, dred and fifty days; but had he computed by lunar months, one hundred and fortyeight days would have been the highest amount of them. In like manner, twelve months only made a Jewish year until, at least, after the times of David and Solomon; for had there been in their times a thirteenth month added to the year, and that so frequently as in every second or third year, neither would twelve captains in David's, nor the same number of officers of the houshold in Solomon's time have been sufficient, by waiting each man his month, to have gone throughout all the months of the year in their waitings. No man of them waited more than one month in any one year, and therefore no years at this time had more than twelve months belonging to them. But the best writers seem fully satisfied in this point. "It can never be proved, says Archbishop Usher, that the Hebrews used lunary months before the Babylonian cap tivity."" Petavius seems to think, not till after the times of Alexander the Great, when they fell under the government of the Syro-Macedonian kings." 2. It is not probable, that God should command the Israelites to regulate their months by the moon, or to keep a feast upon the particular day of the new-moon; for the law, if this had been a constitution of it, would have been calculated rather to lead them into danger of idolatry, than to preserve them from it. The practice of the later Jews in this matter prompted an author, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, to charge them with idolatry; which charge, though I cannot think it well grounded, yet abundantly hints to me, that a feast of new moons is not Chronol. Pref. to the reader. Emend. Temp. p. 151. Vid. Scaliger. "Petav. Rationar. Temp, part ii. lib. i. c. 6. * Μηδε κατα Ιωδαίος σεβεσθαι, καὶ γαρ εκείνοι μόνοι διοικενοι τον Θεον γινωσκειν, εκ επιςανται, λατρευονίες αγγέλοις και αρχαίγελοις, μηνι και σεληνη, και εαν μη σεληνη φανη, σαββαίον εκ αγόσι το λεγόμενον πρωτον, 888 νεομηνίαν άγεσιν. αζυμα, ότε εορίην, στο μεγάλην ημεραν.—Clem. Alexand. Stromat. lib.6. p. 270. 4. likely to be a precept of Moses' law. I think GOD would not have directed him to institute any thing, which could carry such an ap pearance of evil: especially when one great design of the manner of giving the law is declared to be, that the Israelites when they lifted up their eyes to heaven, and saw the sun, and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should not be driven to worship them. The nations, whom the Israelites were to drive out, seem to have served these gods, and in this manner; and it is not likely the Israelites should be required to do so unto the LORD their GOD; rather it might be expected, that they should be instructed in a method of beginning their months opposite to any show of agreement with the heathen superstitions. They were commanded not to use honey in any of their sacrifices; not to sow their fields with mingled seed; not to round the corner of their heads, "nor mar the corners of their beards; which things were prac Deut. iv. 19. Id. xii. 31. Levit. ii. 11. Id. xix. 19. * Ver: 27. tised by the heathens as rites of religion, and therefore the Israelites were not allowed to do them. The Israelites were to be a peculiar people unto the LORD their GOD; and whilst there runs through the whole law a visible design of many of its institutions. to separate them from other nations for this great purpose; is it likely there should be a direction for them to begin their months with the moon, which was worshipped by the heathens as a high deity? I dare say, this beauty of heaven, lucidum cæli decus, says Horace, queen of heaven, glory to the stars, Horace expresses it, · siderum regina," was not a regulator or director of the religious festivals of the GOD of Israel; rather his chosen people were led into some plainer method of computing their months, and that such a method, as might so vary the beginning of them from a determined relation to any light of heaven, as to evidence, that the appointed holy-days, which they kept, they did indeed keep only Ecclus. xliii. 9. 'See Jer. vii. 18. Carm. Seculare. |