any other single authority, or with any combination excluding the
Septuagint. Next to the Septuagint it agrees most often with the
Syriac or with combinations into which the Syriac enters. On the
other hand, its independence of the Septuagint is shown in a large
number of passages, where it has the support of the Samaritan and
Massoretic, or of these with various combinations of the Syriac
Vulgate and Onkelos. From these and other considerations we
may conclude that the textual evidence points to the composition
of our book at some period between 250 B.C. and A.D. 100, and at a
time nearer the earlier date than the later.
Date.—The book was written between 135 B.C. and the year of Hyrcanus’s breach with the Pharisees. This conclusion is drawn from the following facts:—(1) The book was written during the pontificate of the Maccabean family, and not earlier than 135 B.C. For in xxxii. 1 Levi is called a “priest of the Most High God.” Now the only high priests who bore this title were the Maccabean, who appear to have assumed it as reviving the order of Melchizedek when they displaced the Zadokite order of Aaron. Jewish tradition ascribes the assumption of this title to John Hyrcanus. It was retained by his successors down to Hyrcanus II. (2) It was written before 96 B.C. or some years earlier in the reign of John Hyrcanus; for since our author is of the strictest sect a Pharisee and at the same time an upholder of the Maccabean pontificate, Jubilees cannot have been written after 96 when the Pharisees and Alexander Jannaeus came to open strife. Nay more, it cannot have been written after the open breach between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees, when the former joined the Sadducean party.
The above conclusions are confirmed by a large mass of other evidence postulating the same date. We may, however, observe that our book points to the period already past—of stress and persecution that preceded the recovery of national independence under the Maccabees, and presupposes as its historical background the most flourishing period of the Maccabean hegemony.
Author.—Our author was a Pharisee of the straitest sect. He maintained the everlasting validity of the law, he held the strictest views on circumcision, the sabbath, and the duty of shunning all intercourse with the Gentiles; he believed in angels and in a blessed immortality. In the next place he was an upholder of the Maccabean pontificate. He glorifies Levi’s successors as high-priests and civil rulers, and applies to them the title assumed by the Maccabean princes, though he does not, like the author of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, expect the Messiah to come forth from among them. He may have been a priest.
The Views of the Author on the Messianic Kingdom and the Future Life.—According to our author the Messianic kingdom was to be brought about gradually by the progressive spiritual development of man and a corresponding transformation of nature. Its members were to reach the limit of 1000 years in happiness and peace. During its continuance the powers of evil were to be restrained, and the last judgment was apparently to take place at its close. As regards the doctrine of a future life, our author adopts a position novel for a Palestinian writer. He abandons the hope of a resurrection of the body. The souls of the righteous are to enjoy a blessed immortality after death. This is the earliest attested instance of this expectation in the last two centuries B.C.
Literature.—Ethiopic Text and Translations: This text was first edited by Dillmann from two MSS. in 1859, and in 1895 by R. H. Charles from four (The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees ... with the Hebrew, Syriac, Greek and Latin fragments). In the latter edition, the Greek and Latin fragments are printed together with the Ethiopic. The book was translated into German by Dillmann from one MS. in Ewald’s Jahrbücher, vols. ii. and iii. (1850, 1851), and by Littmann (in Kautzsch’s Apok. und Pseud. ii. 39–119) from Charles’s Ethiopic text; into English by Schodde (Bibl. Sacr. 1885) from Dillmann’s text, and by Charles (Jewish Quarterly Review, vols. v., vi., vii. (1893–1895) from the text afterwards published in 1895, and finally in his commentary, The Book of Jubilees (1902). Critical Inquiries: Dillmann, “Das Buch der Jubiläen” (Ewald’s Jahrbücher d. bibl. Wissensch. (1851), iii. 72–96); “Pseudepig. des Alten Testaments,” Herzog’s Realencyk.2 xii. 364–365; “Beiträge aus dem Buche der Jubiläen zur Kritik des Pentateuch Textes” (Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preussischen Akad., 1883); Beer, Das Buch der Jubiläen (1856); Rönsch, Das Buch der Jubiläen (1874); Singer, Das Buch der Jubiläen (1898); Bohn, “Die Bedeutung des Buches der Jubiläen” (Theol. Stud. und Kritiken (1900), pp. 167–184). A full bibliography will be found in Schürer or in R. H. Charles’s commentary, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (1902), which deals exhaustively with all the questions treated in this article. (R. H. C.)
JUBILEE YEAR, an institution in the Roman Catholic
Church, observed every twenty-fifth year, from Christmas to
Christmas. During its continuance plenary indulgence is
obtainable by all the faithful, on condition of their penitently
confessing their sins and visiting certain churches a stated
number of times, or doing an equivalent amount of meritorious
work. The institution dates from the time of Boniface VIII.,
whose bull Antiquorum habet fidem is dated the 22nd of February
1300. The circumstances in which it was promulgated are related
by a contemporary authority, Jacobus Cajetanus, according to
whose account (“Relatio de centesimo s. jubilaeo anno” in the
Bibliotheca Patrum) a rumour spread through Rome at the close
of 1299 that every one visiting St Peter’s on the 1st of January
1300 would receive full absolution. The result was an enormous
influx of pilgrims to Rome, which stirred the pope’s attention.
Nothing was found in the archives, but an old peasant 107 years
of age avowed that his father had been similarly benefited a
century previously. The bull was then issued, and the pilgrims
became even more numerous, to the profit of both clergy and citizens.
Originally the churches of St Peter and St Paul in Rome
were the only jubilee churches, but the privilege was afterwards
extended to the Lateran Church and that of Sta Maria Maggiore,
and it is now shared also for the year immediately following that
of the Roman jubilee by a number of specified provincial churches.
At the request of the Roman people, which was supported by
St Bridget of Sweden and by Petrarch, Clement VI. in 1343
appointed, by the bull Unigenitus Dei filius, that the jubilee
should recur every fifty years instead of every hundred years as
had been originally contemplated in the constitution of Boniface;
Urban VI., who was badly in need of money, by the bull Salvator
noster in 1389 reduced the interval still further to thirty-three
years (the supposed duration of the earthly life of Christ); and
Paul II. by the bull Ineffabilis (April 19, 1470) finally fixed it at
twenty-five years. Paul II. also permitted foreigners to substitute
for the pilgrimage to Rome a visit to some specified church
in their own country and a contribution towards the expenses
of the Holy Wars. According to the special ritual prepared by
Alexander VI. in 1500, the pope on the Christmas Eve with
which the jubilee begins goes in solemn procession to a particular
walled-up door (“Porta aurea”) of St Peter’s and knocks three
times, using at the same time the words of Ps. cxviii. 19 (Aperite
mihi portas justitiae). The doors are then opened and sprinkled
with holy water, and the pope passes through. A similar ceremony
is conducted by cardinals at the other jubilee churches
of the city. At the close of the jubilee, the special doorway is
again built up with appropriate solemnities.
The last ordinary jubilee was observed in 1900. “Extraordinary” jubilees are sometimes appointed on special occasions, e.g. the accession of a new pope, or that proclaimed by Pope Leo XIII. for the 12th of March 1881, “in order to obtain from the mercy of Almighty God help and succour in the weighty necessities of the Church, and comfort and strength in the battle against her numerous and mighty foes.” These are not so much jubilees in the ordinary sense as special grants of plenary indulgences for particular purposes (Indulgentiae plenariae in forma jubilaei).
JÚCAR, a river of eastern Spain. It rises in the north of the
province of Cuenca, at the foot of the Cerro de San Felipe
(5906 ft.), and flows south past Cuenca to the borders of Albacete;
here it bends towards the east, and maintains this direction for
the greater part of its remaining course. On the right it is
connected with the city of Albacete by the Maria Cristina canal.
After entering Valencia, it receives on the left its chief tributary
the Cabriel, which also rises near the Cerro de San Felipe, in the
Montes Universales. Near Alcira the Júcar turns south-eastward,
and then sharply north, curving again to the south-east
before it enters the Mediterranean Sea at Cullera, after a total
course of 314 m. Its estuary forms the harbour of Cullera, and
its lower waters are freely utilized for purposes of irrigation.
JUD, LEO (1482–1542), known to his contemporaries as Meister Leu, Swiss reformer, was born in Alsace and educated
