sed the thirty-day month, but encountered
this calendar in commercial centres on the very borders of Palestine with
which they had close relations. The advantages of a system in which the
festivals came on fixed dates, instead of shifting within wide limits, as
they must in the lunar-solar year with its irregular intercalation, are
obvious,(79) and an attempt to reform the Jewish calendar accordingly may
have been made more than once and in more than one region. The peculiarity
of the system of the Book of Jubilees is not the uniform length of the
months, but the admission of only _four_ extra days, thus making an even
fifty-two weeks (364 days), which was of more concern to the author than
the increased error of a whole day in the solar year.(80) We do not know
whether the Dositheans of Abul-Fath and the Sadducees of Kirkisani (of
whom later) agreed in this point with Jubilees, or counted _five_ extra
days like the rest of the world. The former may be thought probable, but
it cannot be assumed as certain. The year of 365 days is also found in the
Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, c. 6.

Dr. Schechter quotes Epiphanius(81) on the Dositheans as saying, "some of
them abstain from a second marriage, but others never marry"; and,
although "the text is not quite certain on this point,"(82) is inclined to
perceive in the statement "at least an echo of the law of our sect
prohibiting a second marriage as long as the first wife is alive." The
passage in Epiphanius is more than obscure, and the text is for that
reason suspected. The passage runs: {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PS