Part 4 (2/2)

76 Not in the time of Alexander the Great, as Dr. Schechter has from Montgomery. Abul-Fath, indeed (and Adler's Chronicle after him), introduces this whole story before Alexander, and makes Simon a protege of Darius; but the testimony that Dositheus appeared after the time of Hyrca.n.u.s, which, as a matter of Samaritan history, may be conceived to rest on tradition, is not to be set aside because, in fitting his Samaritan traditions into the framework of universal history, Abul-Fath is in error by two or three centuries about the date of Hyrca.n.u.s. This used to be understood; see, e.g., De Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, vol. ii (1806), p. 209.

77 Epiphanius avers, on the contrary, that the Dositheans kept their festivals at the same time with the Jews.

78 See Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, vol. i, pp. 437 ff., 517; Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, vol. i, pp. 170 f., 287. On the calendar of Gaza, Schurer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes (3 ed.), vol. ii, pp.

88 f.

79 We have experience of the inconvenience of this system in the wandering of Easter and the Christian festivals dependent on it; a reform by which Easter should come on a fixed date in the solar year has repeatedly been proposed, and a movement is now on foot in Europe to bring this about by agreement of governments and churches.

80 The year of 364-days is found also in Enoch 72-82, and (by the side of the true solar year of 365- and the lunar year of 354 days) in the Slavonic Enoch. The intercalary days are introduced one at the beginning of each quarter of the year (Enoch 75 1); this is also the method in Jubilees; see 6 23. In effect this is equivalent to a year in which eight months have thirty days and four-those in which the equinoxes and solstices fall-have thirty-one (Enoch 72 13, 19). It is not impossible that this system is implied in the chronology of the flood in Genesis; see B. W. Bacon, Hebraica, vol. viii (1891-1892), pp. 79-88, 124-139; Charles, Jubilees, p. 56.

81 This is not the place to discuss the value of Epiphanius's testimony. His description of the Scribes and Pharisees at least admonishes to caution.

82 The text is certain enough, in the sense that all the ma.n.u.scripts. .h.i.therto collated have the same reading.

83 Nicetas, in reproducing Epiphanius's account of the Dositheans, has te???sa?, ”after having begotten children,” which also agrees very well with the context.

84 The familiar t.i.tle of Porphyry's book on vegetarianism, ?e?? ?p????

??????, will occur to every one. Epiphanius himself explains the word in Haer. 18, 1, ”they (Nasaraei) thought it unlawful to eat meat.”

85 Haer. 9, 3; cf. 30, 2: ”The Ebionites, like the Samaritans, avoid touching an outsider.” A still more extreme fastidiousness on this point is attributed by Josephus to the Essenes; cf. B. J. ii, 8, 10.

86 Photius, Bibliotheca Codic.u.m, cod. 280 (ed. Bekker, p. 285).

87 The Kitab al-Anwar was published in 937, not 637, as by a misprint on p. xviii.

88 Schechter's translation, Introduction, p. xviii.

89 Schechter, p. x.x.xvii, n. 21.

90 Founder of a Jewish sect which arose in Persia about the end of the seventh century.

91 On this point see above, p. 362.

92 Quoted in the original by Poznanski, Revue des etudes juives, vol.

xliv (1902). p. 162, n. 2.

93 Quoted by Poznanski, l. c., p. 170.

94 Harkavy attributed it conjecturally to Sahl ben Masliah; Poznanski, whom Dr. Schechter follows, thinks it more likely that the author was Hasan ben Mas.h.i.+ah.

95 As the Karaites do. See e.g. Mishna, Rosh ha-Shana, 1 7 ff., 2 1 f.

96 See Poznanski, Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x (1898), pp. 159, 248, 273.

97 Quoted in the original by Poznanski, Revue des etudes juives, vol.

xliv, p. 176.-The point is that the ”Zadokite” writings known to the author said nothing about fixing the beginning of the month by observation. Saadia doubtless based his a.s.sertion, not on anything he found in ”Zadokite” books, but on Rosh ha-Shanah 22 a-b.

98 Poznanski, l. c., p. 177; cf. also Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x, pp. 246 ff.-Saadia probably means that ”Zadok” argued from the fact that the 150 days of Gen. 7 24, 8 3, make an even five months (7 11, 8 4), that each month had thirty days (cf. Jubilees 5 27), while for the Karaites thirty days was only the extreme length of a lunar month. See Poznanski, Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x, p. 241.

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