Chap. V Of Their Pentecost
This Feast was called πεντεκοστὴ, the Pentecost; which word signifieth the fiftieth day, because it was observed upon the fiftieth day after the second of the Passover, which was the sixteenth of Nisan. Here in the first place we must note, that the fourteenth of Nisan was τὸ πάσχα, the Passover; the fifteenth ἑορτὴ τοῦ πάσχα, the Feast of the Passover: or πρώτη τοῦ πάσχα,323 the first of the Passover: the sixteenth was δευτέρα τοῦ πάσχα, the second of the Passover; or the morrow after the Passover, Levit. 23. 11. which is all one, as if it had been said, the morrow after the feast of the Passover; for in those feasts which consisted in many daies, the first and the last were termed Sabbaths. Now these fifty daies were in truth the appointed time of their Harvest, their Harvest, being bounded as it were, with two remarkable daies, the one being the beginning, the other the end thereof: the beginning was δευτέρα τοῦ πάσχα the second of the Passover; the end was πεντεκοστὴ, the fiftieth day after, called the Pentecost. Upon the δευτέρα, then they offered324 a sheaf of the same fruits of their harvest, Levit. 23. 10. Upon the Pentecost, then they offered two wave loavs, Levit. 23. 17. the sheaf being an Oblation offered in the name of the whole Congregation, whereby all the after-fruits throughout the Land were sanctified,325 it being from thence afterward lawful, and not before, to reap the Corn, the two loavs being not only an Eucharistical Oblation, but also a token of the Harvest finished and ended. In the second place we are to know, that they did count these fifty daies by numbring the Weeks from the δευτέρα, whence it was called a Feast of weeks. The manner how they counted the weeks, was, according to the number of the Sabbaths following the δευτέρα. Thus the first Sabbath following they called δευτερόπρωτον σάββατον: the second, δευτεροδεύτερον: the third δευτερότριτον, &c. So that326 all the Weeks and Sabbaths, during the time of the Pentecost; as the first, second, third, and fourth, &c. took their denomination from δευτέρα, which observation giveth light to that of S. Luke, Luke 16. 1. where there is mention of a Sabbath termed δευτερόπρωτον, that is, the second first Sabbath, and by it is meant the Sabbath next after the sixteenth of Nisan, which was the δευτέρα. Seeing that these fifty daies did measure out the time of their Harvest, it will not be amiss to observe the difference betwixt their Harvest and ours, which chiefly consisted in their anticipation of time; for both the Canaanites and the Ægyptians began their Harvest about the first of April,327 it was quite finished in May.
Notes
323 Seniores appellabant hunc diem, πρώτην τῶν σαββάτων. Lev. 23. 11.
324 Scalig. de emend. temp. l. 6.
325 Καὶ τότε λοιπὸν δημοσίᾳ ἔξεστι πᾶσι καὶ ἰδίᾳ θερίζειν, Joseph. Antiq. l. 3. c. 10.
326 Scalig. lib. 6. de emend. temp. p. 260.
327 Plin. l. 18. cap. 18. Illud ipsum confirmat Leo Afr. testis αὐτόπτης Descript. Afr. lib. 8. c. 4.