Section 344
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.43% accurate
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 313 netary course. But that (segment) before this, they call the last of the months, the twelfth segment, and the last dodecatemorium, and the end of the planetary revolution. Hence, also, those that place the first month in it, and that fix the fourteenth of the month by it, commit, as we think, no little and no common blunder. But neither is this our opinion only, but it was also known to the Jews anciently, and before Christ, and was chiefly observed by them, as we may learn from Philo, Josephus, and Musasus ; and not only from these, but also from those still more ancient, i. e. the two Agathobuli, commonly called the masters, and of Aristobulus, that most distinguished scholar, who was one of the seventy that translated the holy Scriptures from the He brew for Ptolemy Philadelphus, and his father, and dedicated his exposition of the law of Moses to the same kings. These, when they resolve inquiries on Exodus, say that all ought to sacrifice the passover alike after the vernal equinox, in the mid dle of the first month. But this is found to be when the sun passes through the first segment of the solar, or, as some call it, the zodiacal circle. But this Aristobulus also adds, it was re quisite that not only the sun should have passed the equinoctial segment for the feast of the passover, but the moon also. For as there are two equinoctial segments, the vernal and the au tumnal, and diametrically opposite to each other, and since the day of the passover is given on the fourteenth of the month at the evening, the moon will stand diametrically opposite to the sun, as may be seen in full moons. Thus the sun will be at the vernal equinox, the moon, on the contrary, at the autumnal equi nox. " Many other matters, I know, have been discussed by him ; some of them with great probability, others established with the most certain demonstrations, in which he attempts to show that the festival of the passover, and of unleavened bread, ought to be observed altogether after the equinox ; but I shall omit de manding such full demonstrations of matters from which the veil of the Mosaic law has been removed ; and it now remains for us, in this uncovered surface, to contemplate, as in a mirror, the reflected doctrines and sufferings of Christ. But that the first 2R