HILLEL II., b. JEHUDAH M.,* succeeded to the presidential throne about 33o, which he occu pied about thirty-five years. He immortalized his name by the introduction of the calendar, which is followed by the Jews to the present day. Up to his time the beginning of the month was fixed in Palestine upon the testimony of two witnesses, who appeared before the Sanhedrim, and declared that they had seen the new moon. The new month was then proclaimed and celebrated, which was called y erinn tyrip, and the festivals which happened to occur during the month were fixed. As all the Jews who lived away from Jeru salem depended upon the authorities in the metro polis for their information about the time when the new moon began, it was arranged that if it be fixed that the closing month should have twenty-nine days, torches would be lighted on the mountain near Jerusalem, and thus, as if by telegmph, com municate the light, and with it the information from mountain to mountain throughout the land and beyond Judwa. If these lights did not ap pear, it was understood that the new month be gins on thirty-first of the closing month, so that the last month had thirty days (1111/0, t611), and the festivals which happened to occur during the new month were arranged accordingly. When, however, the Samaiitans out of spite kindled torches at improper times, and thereby led the Jews at a distance to begin their festivals at an im proper thne, the authorities in Jerusalem discarded the lights, and resolved henceforth to communicate the information through authorised messengers. But this, too, was attended with difficulties, as the mes sengers could not reach on the same day the places which were at a distance from Jerusalem, and hence led to the institution that those Jews who lived out oi Palestine were to double the festival days, because they could not know at once whether the closing month was to have twenty-nine days or thirty [FES TIVALS]. Now Hillel, by the introduction of his calendar, rendered the Jews, dispersed through so many lands, independent of all such decisions. The calculations of his calendar are so simple and certain, that they, with a little improvement, are adopted by the Jews to the present day. Accord ing to this calendar, the difference between the solar and lunar year, upon which the cycle of the Jewish festivals depends, is yearly made up ; the length of the month is made to approximate to the astronomical course of the moon ; and attention is also paid in it to the Halachic matters connected with the Jewish festivals. It is based upon the
cycle of nineteen years cron5r, mtrm), introduced by the Greek astronomer Meton, in which occur seven intercalary years. Each year has ten un changeable months of alternately twenty-nine and thirty days ; the two autumnal months, Cheshvan and Kislev, which follow the important month Tishri, are left changeable [HAPHTARAL because they depend upon certain astronomical phenomena and the following points of Jewish law:—i. That the month of Tishri is never to begin with the day which, to a great extent, belongs to the former month. 2. The Day of Atonement is not to fall on the day before or after Sabbath ; and 3. That the Hossana Day is not to be on a Sabbath. It is impossible now to say with certainty how much of this calen dar is Hillel's own, and how much he took from the national traditions, since it is beyond question that some astronomical rules were handed down by the presidents. This calendar Hillel introduced A.D. 359. That he convened a synod who fixed the epoch of the creation at the vernal equinox, 3761 years before the birth of Christ, which is the Jewish chronology of the present day, is simply conjecture. As to the story of his having embraced Christianity and been baptised on his death-bed by a neighbouring bishop, who ostensibly came to visit him in a medical capacity, and of there having been found in his coffer a Hebrew translation of the Gospel according to John, of the Acts of the Apostles, and of the Lord's genealogy as recorded by Matthew (Epiphanias, Adz/. Her. xxx. 4, etc.), this fact is entirely unknown to the Jews of Hillel's time, who, if it had actually taken place, would have execrated his name. It is, however, an in teresting fact connected with Biblical literature to know that a Hebrew translation of many portions of the N. T. existed at so early a period of Chris tianity. Comp. Graetz, Geschichte der yudeze, vol. iv., Berlin 1853, p. 386, ff. ; Oppenheim, in Fran kel's Monalschri v., p. 412, ff.—C. D. G.