lieft to their latest Times: In the Days of Saul, these Days were kept as High-Feafts, on which a Person who used to fit there, was fure to be miffed, if abfent from the King's Table (c): They are mentioned as held by David and Solomon amongst the folemn Festivals (d). As fuch Hezekiah afterwards provided for the Obfervance of them (e): The Prophets mention them in like manner (f), and Ezra took care to revive them at the Return from the Captivity (g); and it appears to have been the Cuftom of all the Ifraelites who feared God, to obferve these Days amongst the Feasts of the Houfe of Ifrael, as is evident from the Character given to Judith, amongst other things, for her Care in this matter (b). In their later Days the Jews fixed the Days of thefe Feafts, by the Appearance of the New-Moon (i), and great pains were taken to begin the Month and the Moon together (k): and this was the Practice, when the Author of the Book of Ecclefiafticus wrote; for he tells us, that from the Moon is the Sign of Feafts (m); and the Jewish Writers fay, that Mofes appointed this Practice, and that the Ifraelites proceeded by it, from the Beginning of the Law (2): The

(c) 1 Sam. xx. 5. (d) 1 Chron. xxiii. 31. 2 Chron. ii. 4. viii. 13. (e) 2 Chron. xxxi. 3. (f) Ifa. i. 13, 14. lxvi. 23. Èzek. xlvi. 1. Hof. ii. 11. Amos

viii. 5. (g) Ezra iii. 5. (b) Judith viii. 6. (i)

Talmud in Tract. Rofh. Hafhanah. Maimonides in Keddufh. Hachod. Selden de anno civili veterum Judæorum. Scaliger. Can. Ifagog. Lib. 3. p. 222. Clem. Alexand. Stromat. Lib. 6. p. 760. Edit. Oxon. (k) The English Reader may fee the Tranflation of Jurieu's Hiftory of the Doctrines and Worship of the Church. Vol. I. p. 2. c. 8. Prideaux Connect. Pref. to Vol. I. (m) Ecclus. xliii. 7. (*) Vid. Spen. de Leg. Heb. p 810.

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LXX

LXX indeed seem to have been of this Opinion, and accordingly, except in three or four Places only (0), in their Tranflation of the Hebrew Scriptures, they render the Expreffion for the Beginnings of the Months by the Greek Word νεμηνία or (p) νεομηνία, the Term conftantly ufed by the heathen Writers for the Festival of the New-Moons obferved by them (q): And we have followed the LXX, and do generally call the first Days of the Months, the New-Moons in our English Bibles: But if the ancient Ifraelites fixed thefe Festivals in this manner, they could not compute their Months and 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 fall in no Agreement to one another. The most learned Dean Prideaux has given a full Account of the manner of the Jewish Year in their later Ages: It confifted of twelve lunar Months, made up alternately of twenty nine or of thirty Days, and brought to as good an Agreement as fuch a Year could have with the true Solar Year, by an Intercalation of a thirteenth Month every fecond or third Year (r): And fome Year of this fort the Ifraelites must have used, in and from the Times of Mofes, if they had obferved the NewMoons from his Times, making them the Directors of the Beginnings of their Months, and keeping their Feafts according to them.

(0) Vid. 2 Chron. viii. 13. Ifa. lxvi. 23. Amos viii. 5.

(p) Numb. x. 10. xxviii. II. I Sam. xx. 5. 2 Kings iv. 23. I Chron. xxiii. 31. Pfalm lxxxi. 3. & paffim. (9) Vid. Herodot. Lib. de Vit. Homer. c. 33. Plutarch. de vitand. ære alieno. p. 828. Theophraft. Character. Ethic. iv. Lucian. in Icaro Menip. p. 731. (r) Prideaux's

- Connect. Pref. to Part I.

But

But I would obferve, 1. That it cannot be conceived, that Mofes had any Notion of computing Months according to this lunar Reckoning; five fucceffive Months in his Account were deemed to contain one hundred and fifty Days (s); but had he computed by lunar Months, 148 Days would have been the higheft 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 fo frequently as in every second or third Year, neither would twelve Captains in David's, nor the fame Number of Officers of the Houfhold in Solomon's Time have been fufficient, by waiting each Man his Month, to have gone throughout all the Months of the Year in their Waitings (t): No Man of them waited more than one Month in any one Year (u), and therefore no Years at this Time had more than twelve Months belonging to them: But the best Writers feem fully fatisfied in this Point: "It "can never be proved, fays Archbishop Uber, "that the Hebrews ufed lunary Months before "the Babylonian Captivity (w)": Petavius feems to think, not till after the Times of Alexander the Great, when they fell under the Government of the Syro-Macedonian Kings (x). 2. It is not probable, that God fhould command the Ifraelites 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 Conftitution of it, would have been calculated

(s) Gen. vii. 12, 24. viii. (t) 1 Kings iv. 5. 1 Chron. xxvii. () Kings iv. 7. (w) Chronol. Pref. to the Reader. Vid. Scaliger. Emend. Temp. p. 151. (x) Petav. Rationar. Temp. Part. 2. lib. 1. c. 6. a 3

rather

rather to lead them into Danger of Idolatry, than to preferve them from it: The Practice of the later Jews in this Matter prompted an Author cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, to charge them with Idolatry (y); which Charge, tho' I cannot think it well grounded, yet abundantly hints to me, that a Feast of New-Moons is not likely to be a Precept of Mofes's Law: I fhould think God would not have directed him to inftitute any thing that could carry fuch an Appearance of Evil, especially when one great Design of the Manner of giving the Law is declared to be that the Ifraelites when they lifted up their Eyes to Heaven, and faw the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, even all the Hoft of Heaven, should not be driven to worship them (z): The Nations, whom the Ifraelites were to drive out, feem to have ferved thefe Gods, and in this manner; and it is not likely the Ifraelites fhould be required to do fo unto the Lord their God (a); rather it might be expected, that they fhould be inftructed in a Method of beginning their Months opposite to any Shew of Agreement with the heathen Superftitions: They were commanded not to ufe Honey in any of their Sacrifices (b); not to fow their Fields with mingled Seed (c); not to round the Corners of their Heads, nor mar the Corners of their Beards (d); these were things practifed by the Heathens as Rites of Religion, and therefore the Ifraelites were not allowed to do them: The Ifraelites were to be a peculiar People unto

(ν) Μηδὲ κατὰ Ἰεδαίος σέβεως, καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι μόνοι διό μενοι τόν Θεὸν γινώσκεν, ἐκ επίςαναι, λατρεύοντες αγγέλοις καὶ ἀρχαγέλοις, μηνὶ καὶ σελίῃ, καὶ ἐὰν μὴ σε λιών φανή, σάββατον ἐκ ἀγεσι τὸ λεγόμενον πρῶτον, ἐδὲ νεομηνίαν άγεσιν, ἔτε άζυμα, ὅτε ἐορίω, ἔτε μεγάλω uber. Clem. Alexand. Stromar. lib. 6. p. 270. (*) Deut. iv. 19. (a) Deut. xii. 31. (b) Levit. ii. 11. (c) xix. 19. (d) Ver. 27.

th

the Lord their God, and whilft there runs thro' the whole Law a vifible Defign of many of the Inftitutions of it, to feparate them from other Nations for this great Purpose, is it likely there fhould be a Direction for them to begin their Months with the Moon, which was worshipped by the Heathens as an high Deity? I dare fay, this Beauty of Heaven (e), lucidum Cali Decus, fays Horace (f), Queen of Heaven (g), Glory of the Stars (b), Horace expreffes it, Siderum Regina (i), was not a Regulator or Director of the religious Feftivals of the God of Ifrael; rather his chofen People were led into fome plainer Method of computing their Months, and that fuch a Method, as might fo vary the Beginnings 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 unto the Lord: The Author of the Book of Ecclefiafticus obferves of the Moon, that the Month is called after her Name (k); But this was not fo to an ancient Ifraelite: In our English Language the Words Moon and Month may have this Relation, and a like Thought is to be fupported in the Greek Tongue, in which the Author of Ecclefiafticus wrote his Book: Mñv, the Month, may be a Contraction from Mnvn, the Moon; tho I think it more natural to derive Mývn from My, than Myv from Mnvn: However, in the Hebrew, Jareach (1), or Lebanah (m) are the Words, that fignify Moon; and Cho

(g) See Jer. (k) Ecclus. Deut. iv. 19. Ecclus. xii. 2.

(e) Ecclus. xliii. 9. (f) Carm. feculare. vii. 18. (b) Ecclus. ubi fup. (i) Horat. ibid. xliii. 8. (4). Vid. Gen. xxxvii. 9. Joh. x. 12. Job. xxxv. 5. Pfalm. viii. 4. Ifai. xiii. 10. Jer. vii. 2. Ezek. xxxii. 7. Joel ii. 10, &c. (m) Cantic. vi. 10. Ifaiah xxiv. 23. xxx. 26.

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defe