In the bare text of chapter 12 of Exodus [it] is nowhere clearly said which month it was in which the Passover was to be kept. But since the Lord was addressing the Israelites, who knew which month [they] were then keeping, [he] always points to that very month, saying “this month.” Most clearly, however — both from perpetual custom and usage, and from the consent of all — from the second day of the unleavened [feast] (on which the sheaf [manipulus] was to be offered), from the feast of Pentecost, and from other like [reckonings], [it] is gathered [that] it was [the month] which nearly answers to our March and April. But about it two [things] are signified in the same chapter. The one: [that it] was not of old the first in the order of the yearly months. Because, as I taught (Gen. 3), that was then held [to be] first in which the world had been created — which answered to our autumnal September, and was afterward called Tishri. Whence also (Exod. 23 & 24) the feast of Tabernacles is commanded to be kept “at the going-out of the year,” or “when the year returns.” The other: [that] thenceforth that month was to be held first in the yearly course. “This month,” [he] says, “[shall be] to you the beginning of months; [it] shall be the first among the months of the year.” That thing is wont to be held of great moment to which the beginnings of the years are given; and therefore by this very law the Lord willed [that] the memory of this benefit should never fall away by any length of time. Yet this beginning of the months was such that the other [beginning] was not thrust out from the first origins of the world; but both were kept, and [there] was among the Jews a double year. One [is] sacred — as regards, namely, the solemnities of the feasts; and the beginning of this is that month of which we treat: the other [is] civil and profane, as regards civil and hu—
(col. 570 — right column; printed “577”)
—man contracts and usages; and to this [year] the ancient beginning is in Autumn. Except that the Rabbis of the Jews rightly note [that] to this year also pertain the Sabbath of years, and the Sabbath of the Sabbatical years — that is, every seventh year, which by them is called shemitah, and the fiftieth year, which [is] the Jubilee. For since in such a year nothing is to be either sown or reaped, [then], had they begun it from March [spring], they could neither gather in the harvest of the prior year, nor make any sowing for the harvest of the following year; and so the harvest of two years would have vanished. But if that year be begun from the autumnal equinox, only one harvest — [that] namely of the prior year’s sowing — is lost; but that year being now elapsed, the seed is at once scattered, from which [comes] straightway the harvest of the following year. There is but one man, that I know of — Thomas Lydiat the Englishman, who (in [his] treatise On years, ch. 2, part 15) teaches [that] from the beginning of the world this paschal month was always first: but so [teaches it] that on that account, against all the versions of all [translators] and [against] the exposition, he would have the place of Exod. 12 rendered: “This month [shall be] to you the beginning of months; [it] itself [is] to you the first of the months of the year” — “[it] shall not be,” or “let [it] be.” But this [is] mere zeal for novelty, on account of which [he] is wondrously beaten by another Innovator — namely by Scaliger (Prolegomena to the Isagoge).
Furthermore, just as the cases of the Grammarians are called by a double name for the sake of the word — “the third case” and “the dative” — so the months of the Jews have double names. One [name] indeed [is] from the order which [they] hold in the series of the year; and thus this our [month] is called “first”: the other [is] from some effect and mark; and thus this [month] is called the month Abib (Exod. 34 v. 17, in the Hebrew) — that is, “the month of the ear [of grain]” or “of the ears,” because then, as [was] said above, in Palestine the crops have already grown up into ears, and the harvest is nearest at hand; or as the Seventy render [it], and our translator following them, “the month of the new fruits.” Yet in this same Latin of ours [there] is still added, for the sake of fuller explanation, the description “of the first [part] of the spring time.” But concerning it three questions common to the other months can be posed.
First. Whence was the beginning of this month taken? Whether from some calculation which — either written down (which is called חשבון [chesbon, “reckoning”]), or kept in the memory of the more skilled — [or] from the observation of the Moon itself.
Second. If from this [Moon], [whether] from its conjunction with the sun, or from [its] appearance or phasis and first sighting.
Third. If from the conjunction, [whether] from the true or from the mean [conjunction]? To the first, the Rabbis say in the Talmud (tractate Rosh Hashanah) [that] the beginnings [of the months] were given from the observation of the Moon. And at the same time [they] answer to the second, [that] by the Magistracy — which they signify [by] “the house of Judgment” [Beth Din] — [there] were sent men whole of life and pure of crime, who from certain mountain-ridges would observe the Moon [as it was] being born, and thereupon report [it]. When this had been done by them, [it] was straightway acclaimed by the Judges: Meqquddash! Meqquddash! — that is, “[It is] Sanctified! [It is] Sanctified!” — the month, namely (as is added at the beginning of the book Moladoth & Tekuphoth [the Conjunctions & Seasons]); and the New Moon [Neomenia] was proclaimed by the blast of the trumpet. And that ancient usage could in some measure be proved from the assertion of the Jews of today, as often as—
(col. 571 — left column; printed “578”)
—[they] are questioned, why not seven but eight days of the Unleavened [feast] and of Tabernacles are kept [served]; from Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 6); from the small skill of the Israelites in Astrological [matters] at that time; from the Arabic [word] of the Turks today, hilāl [the crescent moon]; from the beginning of the cited book, where [it] is said [that] at a certain time [it] came about that some likeness of the Moon appeared in the clouds on the 27th [day] of the month, and then [it] was acclaimed by the people, Meqquddash meqquddash ha-chodesh [“Sanctified! Sanctified [is] the month!”]; and hence, on the authority of R. Simeon son of Gamaliel, [it] was done thereafter that the months were begun as comprehended by calculation from the synod [conjunction] of sun and moon. Yet I would rather think [that] the birth of the Moon was always observed by calculation than by sight. For [it] is not consonant to say [that] in so great a multitude of men — which followed God [as its] Leader and Teacher, which always had some [like] Moses, the Elders, prophets, wise men, and men skilled in the law — [there] was so great an ignorance of the stars. Had not God made the sun and moon for signs of the seasons? Was not Astrology, in Josephus, handed down to posterity through the pillars surviving the very flood? Are not the Issacharites handed down [to have] known the understanding of the times (1 Chron. ch. 12 v. 32)? [Is it] not [said], in the Song of Songs (ch. 7 v. 4), [that] there were of old scribes skilled in disputing of times, as the Targum asserts? Truly some one [man] could suffice for this business — [and] he who [was needed] in so great and such a people, how could [he] be lacking? Nay, [he] was not lacking, [as is] witness that very R. Simeon son of Gamaliel, saying [that] he had received from [his] parent the course of the Moon: [namely] that [it] is not renewed before the 29th day and a half, and two parts of an hour, and 73 moments [momenta], which the Hebrews call chalakim [“parts”]. But besides, [it] could hardly have been done that the aspect [phase] of the Moon should never be impeded by any clouds and storms, and [that], where that [Moon] had been seen, [it] should suddenly be reported first to Jerusalem, then into all the other cities of all the tribes and [their] regions. And yet, unless [this] were done, [it] would not be kept on the same New-Moon [day] by all the Jews; but [those] who had heard of the Moon’s phase sooner would keep it sooner, others later. [It] could also sometimes happen that the months would abound by more days than [is proper].
For let us suppose the orb of the Moon, on account of showers or some clouds, not [to be] seen on that day — [the Moon] which otherwise, having already departed from the Sun, could have been seen: what will be [done] about that day? Will [it] be added to some month, or not? If [it] be added, let us suppose the month to have been “hollow” [cavus, 29 days]; and [though] it ought to be of 29 days, [it] will now be 30; or let us suppose [it] to be “full,” and [though] [it] ought to be of 30 days, [it] will be 31. If [it] be not added, [there] will be many days in the year which are of no month, and which would confound the order of the other months and feasts. And these [things] will be still more absurd if for two or three days the new appearance of the Moon did not fall into the eyes [was not visible]. I know [that] in that cited chapter of the Talmud [it] is prescribed that, [even though] the Moon should refuse to be seen on the thirtieth night, nevertheless the New Moon [Neomenia] is to be begun. And indeed the Turks, if perchance the sky be cloudy and the day dark, betake themselves today to the Lunar calculation. But two [things] are held from this. The one: [that] the beginning of the month among the Jews [was] not always [taken] from the Moon’s phase, but from calculation — even in those times in which the phases [that one] looks for—
(col. 572 — right column; printed “579”)
—[the phases one] looks for, [they] hand down [that it] was sometimes sought [by calculation]. The other: [that] what once, twice, or thrice could be done from that prescript, could surely always have been done. And [it] is confirmed: because in the same chapter [it] is handed down [that] the Magistracy — which sent out those observers of the Moon — had a tsurat ha-levanah, which means “the figure of the moon.” But what other [is] this figure than that which is wont to be depicted in the epilogues [tables] of the seasons, that by it might be shown its course, [its] adolescence, advance, and old age according to the various approaches to, or recessions from, the sun? Let [it] therefore be [held] more probable [that] the Lunar months were always begun rather from the very conjunction with the sun than from the first brightness and appearance. But, [as to] what was asked in the third question, [it] is to be determined [that] the conjunction taken [as reference] was not that most-true [one] which the most accurate Astronomical demonstration indicates, but that which is wont to be called the “mean” [conjunction] — namely, accommodated to the use of men, and differing as little as possible from the former [true one]. For thus both in their ʿibbur [intercalation-reckoning] the Rabbis teach, and in their computations and planetary Theoretics [tables] our Astrologers [teach]. But the Arabs, and those of the Jews who are called Karaim [Karaites], dispute the New Moons ἀπὸ τῆς φάσεως [apo tēs phaseōs, “from the phase / appearance”], as Scaliger notes (bk. 2 On emendation, of the later edition, p. 144) — against whom, in some part (insofar as [held] commonly, unless the obscurity of the days stood in the way), [Scaliger] wishes (in the cited place, and bk. 3 of the Isagoge, p. 278) the months to be begun from the seen Moon: let these [things] be said [so]; but much more [is this to be said] against Moltherus, in the disputation On the unleavened [breads] (Num. 43) — who, from a Lutheran Superintendent at Fridberg, lately leapt over to the new Calvinism at Marburg: from Scylla into Charybdis, from the mud into the mire.