The reckoning of authors [is] discordant. Hugh (in the Concentus, & on Daniel 9): from the divided land to the Lord’s passion, sets 28 Jubilees, 189 Sabbaticals, or 1400 years. Mercator, from the same beginning to the Babylonian Captivity, counts 123 Sabbaticals, 18 Jubilees, and four years of the beginning 19th [Jubilee]. Then, an interruption of these being made, again from the loosed chains of Babylon to the Roman Captivity, he reports 86 Sabbaticals; and the Jubilees (as I already touched in the foregoing question) he terminates much earlier, so that [there] were only 8 — when, however, if they had gone at an equal pace [with the Sabbaticals], they ought to be 12 full [ones]. But Scaliger commands [that], from the years of the world, first 2499 be cast away [subtracted]; then [that] the remaining [years], up to whatever time — whether of CHRIST the Lord being born, or suffering, or [both] born and suffered — be divided, by Arithmetic division, by 7; and the Sabbatical of that time will be had. But again, [that] all the same remaining years of the world be divided by 49, and likewise the Jubilee year will exist. For example, in the year 1599, [it] was the third year of the current 436th Sabbatical, and the completed tenth year of the current 63rd Jubilee — because the year of the world was 5546. But a wise and firm judgment on these matters depends on many [things] which are agitated with great contention of many [scholars], and have truly difficult explanations — but especially on the number of the years of the world, on the intermission or continuation of the Sabbaticals and Jubilees from the year of the Lord’s saving birth, and on many other similar [things], concerning which it is wont to be disputed throughout the whole series of the Bible and of Chronology. But because, to me — ἐν πλάνῃ [en planē, “though [perhaps] in error”] — the year of the division is the year of the world 2495, the course of the Sabbaticals and Jubilees begins in the year of the world 2496, in whatever
(col. 1131)
[whatever] later year of the world [is] given, let those 2495 be subtracted from the given [year]; and [those years] which remain (if indeed they can [be so divided] — which I say on account of the prior [years], for the first Sabbatical and Jubilee years), let them be divided by 7, and it will be had how-many-th Sabbatical is being transacted at that given time; let the same be divided by 50, and likewise it will be had how-many-th Jubilee runs. Let the example be the Nativity of the Lord, which, in my Chronology, falls in the year of the world 4155. From these I take away 2495; there remain 1660. These being divided by 7, the 237th Sabbatical is found elapsed, and [it was] the first year of the following 238th, when that heavenly and thrice-blessed day of the nascent Savior shone upon men. The same 1660 being divided by 50, the 33rd Jubilee exists [as] past, and the tenth year of the following 34th [is] running.
In the same way thou wilt see [that], in this year of the Lord 1604, there have hitherto been 466 Sabbaticals, and [that] now the first [year] of the following 467th Sabbatical is being transacted; but [that there] have been 65 Jubilees, and [that] the 13th year of the following 66th [Jubilee is] now proceeding. Whence [it is] perspicuous [that], if with the Rabbis Elias and Ase (cited in q. 14) we lead [count] the Jubilees from the beginning of the world, the Messiah, or Christ, has already long since come, according to their opinion — whether we count the 70 Babylonian years, and the other sevenths of the recovered liberty, or not. But again, if [one] should rather prefer to begin the 85 Jubilees of the same Rabbis from the division of the land, [then he] has indeed not yet come, but will come after 14 Jubilees — that is, 700 years — or after the 2340th year of CHRIST (who truly already long since came). But let them begin from the [creation of the] world, as indeed their words sound. And therefore [it is] to be confessed by the Jews [that] the Messiah — who is still vainly expected by them — came many years before. But the Rabbis — Abarbanel, Bachya, especially the Zohar (col. 210) — note manifold and excellent blessings which fall on the Jubilee, which the “Shekintha [Shekhinah]” concerns — that is, “πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης [pneuma hagiōsynēs],” or “the Spirit of holiness” — because [it] belongs most to CHRIST the Lord (Rom. 1).