II. HILLEL, the son of Judas the Holy, was a celebrated Rabbi among the Jews, Basnage Hist. des Juifs, t. 2. l. 4. c. 6.and of great reputation even among Christians. He is thought to be the person who fixed the Epoch of the Creation of the World, and computed the years from thence, as the Jews do still at this day. Before, they made use of different Epochs; the departure out of Egypt was the Æra of some; the Law delivered on Mount Sinai, was that of others. Some computed their years from the Dedication of the Temple; others from their Return from the Babylonish Captivity; nay, there were some who borrowed their Epoch from the Entrance of Alexander the Great into Jerusalem. But Hillel introduced the custom of reckoning their Years from the beginning of the World, a custom which has been regularly followed since the completion of the Gemara; and according to the calculation made by it, Jesus Christ was born in the year of the World 3760; whereas according to ours, he was born in the year 4000 from the creation of the World.
The Jews are accused with having designedly abridged the Chronology of the Old Testament, and diminished the number of years which had run out before Jesus Christ, that so they might be the better able to elude the prophecies which spoke of the Messiah’s coming. The incredulous Jews were perplexed with them, and particularly they were attacked with the prediction of one Elias, who affirmed, that the Messiah would be born, and the Law abolished, at the end of the fourth Millenary of the World: for he reckoned two thousand years under the Law of Nature, two thousand under the Law of Moses, and two thousand under the Messiah; after which the World was to have a conclusion. As this Tradition came from the Jews, and many of them were staggered at it, and became converts to Christianity; the second Hillel thought he should do an essential service to his Nation, in lessening the number of years which had expired from the creation of the World to the birth of Jesus Christ.
The Jews farther assert, that Hillel whom we are speaking of, composed a Cycle of nineteen years, whereby he reconciled the course of the Sun with that of the Moon, by the help of seven intercalations. He inserted a month at the third year, at the sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth. The Jews received this Cycle with so much the more readiness, as he was Prince Bartolocci Bibl. Rabbin. t. 2. p. 416, 548. Basnage Hist. des Juifs, t. 2. l. 4. c. 5. art. 15.of the captivity in the West, and he was always followed, till Sid reformed the Calendar in Spain, by King Alphonzo’s order. Hillel reformed likewise the Tekupha, that is to say, the Revolution of the year, by fixing the Solstices and Æquinoxes in a more exact manner than had been hitherto done; for example, the Autumnal Æquinox had been misplaced on the 7th of October: he resettled it at the 24th of December.
He is believed to have wrote a famous Bible with his own hand, which was preserved till the sixteenth Century. Kimchi says, that the Pentateuch belonging to it was kept at Toledo.
Origen. Epiphan.Origen was acquainted with Hillel II. and frequently consulted him. St. Epiphanius assures us, that before his death he was converted to Christianity; which particular is related after the following manner, as he learnt it from the mouth of Joseph, who had been an intimate friend of Hillel’s, Tutor to his son, and one of his Disciples. Eusebius of Verceil and St. Epiphanius going to see Joseph at Scythopolis, he told them, that Hillel, who was a descendant from Gamaliel, and had been Patriarch of the Jews, perceiving his end to be drawing near, sent for the Bishop of Tiberias, under pretence of consulting him about his disease, as a Physician of good experience; but ordering his servants to retire out of the room, he was at his own request privately baptized. This is thought to have happened about the year of Jesus Christ 310 or 312. He left a son under age in the tuition of two friends, who brought him up in the principles of the Jewish Religion: he was Patriarch or Prince, as his father had been before him. Joseph, one of his guardians, becoming a convert to Christianity, related these particulars to Epiphanius and Eusebius of Verceil, as we have before observed.