Part 25 (1/2)
CHAPTER III
THE MONTH
The shortest natural division of time is the day. Next in length comes the month.
As was pointed out in the chapter on the Moon, the Hebrews used two expressions for month--_Chodesh_, from a root meaning ”to be new”; and _Yerach_, from the root meaning ”to be pale.”
_Chodesh_ is the word most commonly employed, and this, in itself, is sufficient to show that the Hebrew calendar month was a lunar one. But there are, besides, too many references to the actual new moons for there to be any doubt on the question.
Every seventh day was commanded to be held as a sabbath of rest, and on it were sacrificed four lambs, instead of the two offered up, the one at the morning and the other at the evening sacrifice of the six working days. But the new moons are also mentioned as holy days, and are coupled with the sabbaths. The husband of the Shunamite asked her why she wished to go to Elisha, as ”it is neither new moon, nor sabbath.” Isaiah, speaking in the name of the Lord, says--
”The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of a.s.semblies, I cannot away with; . . . your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth”; and again, ”From one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to wors.h.i.+p.”
Amos speaks of degenerate Israel, that they say--
”When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?”
As late as Apostolic times, St. Paul refers to the feasts of the new moons, saying, ”Let no man therefore judge you . . . in respect . . . of the new moon.”
The ordinances respecting the observance of the new moons--the ”beginnings of months”--were explicit. Trumpets were blown over the burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of the peace offerings, and the nature of these offerings is given in detail in the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Numbers. The ordinances were reiterated and emphasized in the days of David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah. Amongst the Jews of the present day the trumpets are not blown at new moons; extra prayers are read, but the burnt and peace offerings are of necessity omitted.
Beside the ”new moons” and the sabbaths, the ancient Hebrews had three great festivals, all defined as to the time of their celebration by the natural months.
The first was the Feast of the Pa.s.sover, which lasted a week, and began with the killing of a lamb ”between the two evenings”; on the 14th day of the month Abib, the first month of the year--that is to say, on the evening that the first moon of the year became full. This feast corresponded to our Easter. The second was that of Pentecost, and was bound to the Feast of the Pa.s.sover by being appointed to occur seven weeks after the consecration of the harvest season by the offering of the sheaf on the second day of the Pa.s.sover. We still celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, keeping it in remembrance of the birthday of the Christian Church. This feast lasted but a single day, and did not occur at either the new or the full of the moon, but nearly at first quarter.
The third festival was threefold in its character. It began with special sacrifices besides those usually offered at the new moon:--
”In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing of trumpets unto you.”
This then was especially dependent on the new moon, being on the first day of the month.
On the 10th day of the month was the Day of Atonement, when the people should afflict their souls. On the 15th day of the month began the Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the night that the moon was full, and lasted for a week.
We have no special religious seasons in the Christian Church to correspond with these.
We thus see that with the Hebrews all the days of the new moons, and two days of full moon (in the first and in the seventh months), were days for which special ordinances were imposed. And there is no doubt that the beginnings of the new months were obtained by direct observation of the moon, when weather or other conditions permitted, not by any rule of thumb computation. The new moon observed was, necessarily, not the new moon as understood in the technical language of astronomy; _i. e._ the moment when the moon is in ”conjunction” with the sun, having its dark side wholly turned towards the earth, and being in consequence completely invisible. ”The new moon” as mentioned in the Scriptures, and as we ordinarily use the term, is not this conjunction, but the first visible crescent of the moon when it has drawn away from the sun sufficiently to be seen after sunset for a short time, in the twilight, before it sets; for the moon when very slender cannot be seen in daylight. It may, therefore, be first seen any time between about 18 hours and 40 hours after its conjunction with the sun; in other words, it may be first seen on one of two evenings. But for the ecclesiastical rites it was necessary that there should be an authoritative declaration as to the time of the commencement of the month, and, moreover, the great feasts were fixed for certain days in the month, and so were dependent on its beginning.
During the period of the Jewish restoration, up to the destruction of Jerusalem by t.i.tus, the Sanhedrim used to sit in the ”Hall of Polished Stones” to receive the testimony of credible witnesses that they had seen the new moon. If the new moon had appeared at the commencement of the 30th day--corresponding to our evening of the 29th--the Sanhedrim declared the previous month ”imperfect,” or consisting only of 29 days.
If credible witnesses had not appeared to testify to the appearance of the new moon on the evening of the 29th, the next evening, _i. e._ that of the 30th--according to our mode of reckoning--was taken as the commencement of the new month, and the previous month was then declared to be ”full,” or of 30 days.
Early in the Christian era, it was enacted that no testimony should be received from unknown persons, because, says the Talmud, the Baithusites wished to impose on the Mishnic Rabbis, and hired two men to do so for four hundred pieces of silver.
It is clear, therefore, that about the time of the Christian era the beginnings of the months were determined astronomically from the actual observation of the new moons, and we may safely conclude that it was the same also from the earliest times. It was the actual new moon, not any theoretical or fict.i.tious new moon, that regulated the great festivals, and, as we have seen, there was often some considerable uncertainty possible in the fixing of the dates. The witnesses might give conflicting testimony, and the authoritative date might be proved to be in fault. We have an instance of such conflicting authority in the different dating, on one occasion, of the Day of Atonement by the Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbon Gamaliel, the president of the Sanhedrim, grandson of the Gamaliel at whose feet Paul sat.
According to a statement in the Mishna, dating from the second century of our era, the appearance of the new moon at Jerusalem was signalled to Babylonia during the century preceding the destruction of the Holy City by t.i.tus, and perhaps from earlier times. The dispersion of the Jews had therefore presented them with an additional difficulty in fixing the beginning of their months. The problem is much more intricate to-day, seeing that the Jews are dispersed over the whole world, and the new moon, first visible on one evening at Jerusalem, might be seen the evening before, according to the reckoning of places west of Jerusalem, or might be invisible until the following evening, according to the reckoning of places east of it. We have the same problem to solve in finding the date of Easter Sunday. The Prayer Book rule for finding it runs thus:--
”Easter day is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon, or next after, the 21st day of March; and if the full moon happens on a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after.”
But the ”moon” we choose for the ecclesiastical calendar is an imaginary body, which is so controlled by specially constructed tables as to be ”full” on a day not differing by more than two or three days at most from the date on which the actual moon is full. This may seem, at first sight, a very clumsy arrangement, but it has the advantage of defining the date of Easter precisely, without introducing any question as to the special meridian where the moon might be supposed to be observed. Thus, in 1905, the moon was full at 4{h} 56{m} Greenwich mean time on the morning of March 21. But Easter Day was not fixed for March 26, the next Sunday following that full moon, but a month later, for April 23. For the calendar moon, the imaginary moon, was full on March 20; and it may be added that the actual moon, though full on March 21 for European time, was full on March 20 for American time. There would have been an ambiguity, therefore, if the actual moon had been taken, according to the country in which it was observed, an ambiguity which is got rid of by adopting a technical or imaginary moon.