Note Note 264 — Chapter XIV · THE PHILOSOPHIC OPPOSITION

265. I undertake with some diffidence to revive a conjecture made before without much success, that the 30th Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. One remarkable misunderstanding of the Sabbath institution was that it was a fast-day. When we consider the number and activity of the Roman Jews, it seems scarcely credible that so many otherwise well-informed persons supposed that the Jews fasted once a week. Augustus in his letter to Tiberius seems to do so (Suet. Aug. 76). Pomp. Trogus (Justinus), xxxvi. 2, explicitly states it. Cf. also Petronius (Bücheler, Anth. Lat. Frg. 37) and Martial, iv. 4. But at least one man, Plutarch, not only knew that it was not so, but was aware that, if anything, the Sabbath was a joyous feast-day (Moralia ii., Quaest. Con. v. 2). To this testimony must be added that of Persius, Sat. v. 182 seq. It is in the highest degree surprising that Reinach (p. 265, n. 3) could have accepted the theory that the pallor alluded to is the faintness brought on by fasting. The tunny fish on the plate should have convinced him of his error. It may be remembered that fish in all its forms was one of the chief delicacies of the Romans. Tunny, however, was a very common fish, and one of the principal food staples of the proletariat.

Persius writes from personal experience. Of the other writers it is only Pompeius Trogus who makes the unqualified statement that the Sabbath as such was a fast-day. When Strabo writes that Pompey is said to have taken Jerusalem τὴν τῆς νηστείας ἡμέραν τηρήσας (xvi. 40), he is assumed to have been guilty of the same confusion. But it is not easy to see why he should have hesitated to say the Sabbath if he meant the Sabbath. Nor is it so certain that Josephus is mechanically copying Strabo (Reinach, p. 104. n. 1) when he says (Ant. XIV. iv. 3) that Jerusalem was taken περὶ τρίτον μηνα τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ. The details of Josephus are vastly fuller than those of Strabo, and he is not guilty of the latter’s error regarding Jewish observance of the Sabbath in times of war (Ant. XIV. iv. 2). Besides, the siege lasted several weeks—more 400than two months—so that Pompey’s maneuver, if it depended wholly upon the Sabbath, might have been performed at once.

Hilgenfeld’s supposition (Monatsschrift, 1885, pp. 109-115) that the day was the Atonement, is better founded than Reinach would have us think. In the mouth of Josephus, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα can scarcely have any other sense. And if Josephus believed that Jerusalem fell on the Kippur, he believed so from more intimate tradition than the writings of Strabo.

Now, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα, the great fast of the Jews, must have been as marked a feature in their life two thousand years ago as to-day. While all the other feasts have individual names, it does not appear that this one did. יום הכפורים (Lev. xxiii. 27; LXX, ἡμέρα ἐξιλασμοῦ) seems rather a descriptive term than a proper name. Josephus (Ant. IV. x.) has no name for it, although he has for the others. In the Talmud, it is ימא “the Day,” יומא רבא “the Great Day,” צומא רבא, “the Great Fast.” In Acts xxvii. 9 we meet the phrase ἡ νηστεία, “the fast κατ’ ἐξοχήν.” Similarly in Philo, De Septenario, all the festivals have names except this, which is referred to simply as “the Fast.” It must be, however, evident that with the institution of other fasts, ἡ νηστεία would hardly be adequate. As a distinctive appellation, some other name had to be chosen.

In the Pentateuch the term (שבת שבתון) is used of ordinary Sabbaths (Ex. xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2, Lev. xxiii. 3) as well as of the Atonement (Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 32). But the LXX expressly distinguishes the application of it to ordinary Sabbaths from its application to the Atonement. The former, it renders σάββατα ἀναπαύσεως, the latter σάββατα σαββάτων. This latter term may therefore be considered the specific designation of the Atonement Day, and it is so used by Philo, De Septen. 23, σάββατον σαββάτων, τῶν ἁγίων ἁγιώτεραι (ἑβδόμαδες).

We may, therefore, assume that in the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Rome, σάββατα σαββάτων, “the Great Sabbath,” was the common designation—or at least a familiar designation—of the Day of Atonement. In that case it could scarcely be otherwise than familiar to those who had any dealings whatever with the Jews.

401Fuscus pretends to share a very general observance, and on the strength of it to be disinclined to discuss any personal matters with his friend. Can that day have been a simple Sabbath? The tone indicates a rarer and more solemn occasion. Besides, we are definitely told that it is a special Sabbath, the “thirtieth.”

The Jews at that time seem to have reckoned their festivals by strict lunar months (Josephus, Ant. IV. x.) and their civil year by the Macedonian calendar. The thirtieth Sabbath, if we reckon by the Roman calendar, might conceivably have fallen on the Atonement. By the Macedonian or Athenian it could not have done so. However, as the Roman calendar was a solar one, the correspondence of the thirtieth Sabbath with the Atonement can only have been a fortuitous one in a single year. Tricesima sabbata can hardly apply to that.

It is just possible that the reason for the word “thirtieth” is to be found in the widely and devoutly pursued astrology of that time. The number thirty had a certain significance in astrology, Firmicus Maternus, IV. xvii. 5; xxii. 3. If for one reason or another the mansio of the moon, which coincided with the second week of the seventh lunar month (cf. Firm. Mat. IV. i. seq. for the importance of the moon in astrology), bore the number thirty, then tricesima sabbata, to initiated and uninitiated, might bear the portentous meaning required for the Horatian passage.

Whether that is so or not, the only Sabbath which we know to have been specially singled out from the rest of the year, was this σάββατα σαββάτων, the Day of Atonement. Whatever reason there was for calling it the thirtieth, the mere fact of its being particularly designated makes it likely that Horace referred to that day.

Nearly every one of the festivals in Tishri has already been suggested for the phrase, but these results have been reached by elaborate and intricate calculations, which bring the thirtieth Sabbath on the festival required. The main difficulty with all such calculations has been noted. The coincidence can only have been exceptional, and an exceptional coincidence will not help us here. Some especially rigorous Jews undoubtedly fasted every week like the Pharisee in Luke xviii. 11-20, but that was intended as a form of asceticism. The custom 402survived in some Christian communities, notably in Rome, which elevated it almost to a dogma, so that Augustine had to combat the point with especial vigor. (Ep. xxxvi., and Casulanum, Corp. Scr. Eccl. xxxiv. pp. 33 seq.) It may be interesting to remember that from a passage of this epistle referring to this Sabbath fast (xiv. 32) is derived the famous proverb, “When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

266. Sat. I. iv. 18.

267. Sat. I. v. 97.

268. Apellas is a common name for a slave or freedman. Cic. ad Fam. vii. 25; C. I. L. x. 6114. That a Jew should bear a name derived from that of Apollo, is not at all strange. Cf. ch. IX., n. 6.

269. Cf. Ep. I. vi. 1 seq. The nil admirari of the first line is Horace’s equivalent for the ἀταραξία of Epicurus.