Adar followed by Nisan or even both Adars in an intercalary year were similarly limited, though the duration of the other months was by universal consent to be determined by observation.

'R. Hanina b. Kahana even asserted on the authority of Rabb that, since the time of Ezra, Elul had never had more than 29 days. In a like vein R. Simai testified in the name of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi that each of the Adars might be either 29 or 30 days in length. Both sides declared that the custom of the diaspora supported their view of the length of Adar. Whatever the theory may have been, there are several instances quoted in the Babylonian Talmud where Elul was actually given 30 days. It is therefore not surprising that what appears to have been the older expedient should also have received an expansion. R. Zera is said to have proposed in the name of R. Nahman to double the feast of the passover, and R. Johanan finally gave orders to double the festivals both in Nisan and in Tishri. The doubling of the festivals and the limitation of the duration of the preceding month would appear to be in the nature of things alternatives, each of which rendered the other unnecessary. It is therefore not a little remarkable that Jewish scrupulosity should have ultimately adopted both expedients."

Although the new moons in the ages represented by the Mishna and Talmuds were determined by observation, the Elephantine papyri show that among the Jews in Upper Egypt in the fifth century B.C. strict calendar rules were employed which aimed at making each month begin at the sunset following mean new moon. See my paper, A Reply to Professor Ginzel on the Calendar Dates in the Elephantine Papyri,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, lxxi (1911), pp. 661-3.

On the question of intercalation, I may perhaps be permitted to quote from an unpublished paper of my own :——

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The Jewish intercalation was still irregular, and was determined annually at the time represented by the Talmud. According to that work regard might be had to the state of the roads, the bridges, and the passover-ovens, to the possibility of pilgrims who had already started, arriving in time for the passover, to the growth of the goats, lambs and pigeons, of the corn and of the fruit, and to the number of days that had to elapse before the equinox. Intercalation, according to some rabbis, was to be avoided in a year of famine and in a sabbatical year, and a court might be influenced by the fact

that the next year would be or the last had been a sabbatical year. In fact almost anything might affect the decision except the place of the year in a cycle.

I know of no authority for regarding the Jubilee period as a cycle of intercalations.

I do not think Mr. Maunder has consulted the best authorities on early Babylonian intercalation. There are few subjects on which the older papers have been so completely superseded. The subject is very fully discussed in the light of our present knowledge in Father Kugler's Steinkunde und Steindienst in Babel, II Buch, 2 Teil, 1 Heft (1912) and Ergänzungen zum I and II Buch (1913), and Father Kugler's conclusion is that in the time of the first Dynasty of Babylon, contemporary with Abraham, intercalation was irregular.

I imagine that the tradition that Hillel's calendar contained rules observed, but kept secret, before its publication, is merely a part of a Jewish tendency, observable also in the so-called oral law to claim an immemorial antiquity for what was really a late development.

On p. 159 Mr. Maunder refers to Nehemiah ii, 1, as a departure from the Mosaic numeration of the months. I cannot admit that. There is no instance either in the Old Testament or in the Apocrypha of the months being numbered from any point except the new moon of Abib or Nisan. But it does not follow that the years were numbered from the same point. Nehemiah clearly numbers the years of Artaxerxes from the new moon of Tishri, and thus the ninth month comes before the first. Why not? It is curious that in the contemporary Elephantine papyri the Jewish month-names are always associated with years reckoned from the new moon of Nisan.

Rev. A. H. FINN: (p. 136) " for signs and for appointed assemblies (seasons). The Hebrew word Oth" means a sign, in the sense of a token which signifies (e.g., the rainbow was the sign of the Covenant with Noah; circumcision, of that with Abraham; the Plagues were signs as well as wonders); it can hardly be taken as equivalent to signals. Mo'ed" is used for "appointed time" where assemblies are out of the question (Gen. xvii, 21, xviii, 14, xxi, 2; II Sam. xx, 5).

* Babl. Talmud, Synhedrin 10-13, ed. Goldschmidt, vii (1902), pp. 32-43.

"Ohel Mo'ed"; in A.V. "the tabernacle of the congregation"; R.V., "the tent of meeting." Neither of these renderings are quite satisfactory. The A.V. would require the definite article before Mo'ed; the R.V. restricts the meaning. The verb Ya'ad seems to have for its root significance the idea to fix " or " to appoint." God promised to meet Moses and the Israelites at the Tent, but that was not its only purpose. It was the place appointed as God's Dwelling (Mishkan) where the Ark, the Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, and the Altar of Incense were appointed to be. It would seem better, then, to take Ohel Mo'ed as "the Tent of Appointment," i.e. the Appointed Tent.

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Thus Mo'ed means that which is appointed, either of time or place, and as it is used quite generally of time in Gen. i, 14, to introduce assemblies," reads into the text more than it actually says. Appointed times," as in Lev. xxiii, 4, is the preferable rendering. P. 139, “the month does not supply so close an analogy with the day as does the year." But the lunar month also has its two parts. In Burma the days are never reckoned for a complete month; it is always, Such and such a day of the Waxing, or of the Waning, as the case may be. Is not the fixing of the 15th day (the day after full moon) for the beginning of Passover and Tabernacles a recognition. of this division ?

P. 138, “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months suggests that some other reckoning had been in use previously. Exod. xxiii, 6 places the feast of ingathering at the end of the year," and xxiii, 22, “the revolution (or circuit) of the year" agrees. May it not then be that, until the Exodus, the Israelites went by the agricultural year ending with the completion of harvest? That would account for the present Jewish civil year beginning with the festival of Rosh-ha-Shanah in the autumn. There may be a trace of this earlier still. The Deluge began on the 17th day of the second month (Gen. vii, 11), and the waters began to decrease on the 17th day of the seventh month (viii, 3, 4).* If these months. were reckoned from the end of harvest, they would correspond roughly to November and April, and the prevalence of the waters could correspond to the winter period (still termed in Arabic Shitta, the

* Does not the equating of these 5 months to 150 days imply a year of 360 days?

Rain) beginning with "the former rain" and ending with "the latter."

If this year was the ancient system, and the transference of the beginning of months" was due to God's decree concerning the Passover, then the arrangement by which the calendar was automatically adjusted to the luni-solar year is of Divine origin.

The commencing of the year with the slack time (after harvest) agrees with the Oriental practice of commencing a day with the previous eve (see Gen. i, 8).

P. 155. Was not the Jubilee cycle one of 50 years? The Jubilee year was proclaimed in the 49th, but the Jubilee year was the 50th (Lev. xxv, 10). Would this affect the reckoning of the intercalary months, or did that run on independently of the Jubilee ?

Lt.-Col. G. MACKINLAY: Mr. Maunder's explanation of the details of the Mosaic calendar are most instructive, and expressed in clear, terse language. His consequent deduction of the early date of the Pentateuch therefore seems to be correct.

It is stated in the book of Leviticus (xxiii, 10, 15, 16) that the feast of harvest was as long as seven weeks after the waving of the sheaf," the firstfruits of your harvest." Where is the parallel to this observance in the Babylonian Calendar ?

But this arrangement readily follows from the conditions described in the Pentateuch of the wave sheaf, commemorating the season of the first Passover observed in Egypt, just before which we are told the barley was in the ear, but the wheat and the rie were not. . . grown up" (cp. Ex. ix, 32 with xii, 14).

In the Promised Land the climate of the hot Jordan Valley resembles that of Egypt (Gen. xiii, 10). Sheaves could therefore be sent from thence for the wave offering at an early time in the year, while the main harvest in the Judæan plains, some thousands of feet higher, would come much later.

Surely the Jewish celebrations connected with harvest point to some ancient connection between the Holy Land and Egypt, and not to a more recent influence of the Babylonian Calendar? If so, the antiquity of the Pentateuch is thus further demonstrated.

611TH ORDINARY MEETING.

HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL,
WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, JUNE 16TH, 1919,
AT 4.30 P.M.

THE REV. PREBENDARY H. E. Fox, M.A., IN THE CHAIR. The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read, confirmed and signed. The CHAIRMAN read a letter from the President, Lord Halsbury, who was to have given the Annual Address, explaining the cause of his absence, due to Lady Halsbury's serious illness.

The Chairman expressed his own sympathy and regret, and that of the Meeting, at the President's absence, but they rejoiced to hear that Lady Halsbury's health was improving.

Prebendary Fox referred briefly to the objects of the Institute, and called on Col. Mackinlay to read his valuable paper.

THE LITERARY MARVELS OF ST. LUKE. THE ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, JUNE 16TH, 1919,

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By Lt.-Col. G. MACKINLAY, late R.A.

PART I.

HERE is full proof that the same author wrote both the third Gospel and the book of Acts. We shall accept the unanimous tradition that he was St. Luke; this is quite in accord with various indirect Scriptural statements. It is not a matter of importance for the purposes of our investigation to know the actual name of the author, but it is convenient to adopt one.

The study of the methods of expression of the Scriptural writers is worthy of our earnest attention; this is specially true with regard to the works of St. Luke, whose beauties of diction are very striking. His style is said to resemble that of Thucydides, and Renan has pronounced the third Gospel to be the most beautiful book ever written. St. Luke's inspired writings have been examined with minute care by many modern scholars, and they have afforded a rich mine for research, which is by no means exhausted. We shall confine ourselves in the following pages to the consideration of a few of his literary arrangements. The line of investigation which we shall take has the advantage that it can be followed by anyone of ordinary intelligence technical training is not a necessity.