Hillel II (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: הלל נשיאה, Hillel the Nasi), also known simply as Hillel, was an '' amora'' of the fifth generation in the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

. He held the office of '' Nasi'' of the

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic , a loanword from , 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 70 elders, existing at both a local and central level i ...

between 320 and 365 CE. He was the son and successor of Judah III. He is sometimes confused with

Hillel the Elder Hillel ( ''Hīllēl''; variously called Hillel the Elder or Hillel the Babylonian; died c. 10 CE) was a Jewish religious leader, Sage (philosophy), sage and scholar associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud and the founder of ...

, as the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

sometimes simply uses the name "Hillel".

Biography

In two instances his name is quoted in connection with important decisions in

Jewish law ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mit ...

: in one, Jose ben Abin expounds to him a law; in the other, Hillel cites a

mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

to establish a law. The emperor

Julian the Apostate Julian (; ; 331 – 26 June 363) was the Caesar of the West from 355 to 360 and Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism ...

was gracious to Hillel, whom he honored on a number of occasions. In an autograph letter to him, Julian assured him of his friendship and promised to ameliorate further the condition of the Jews. Before setting out for the war with Persia, Julian addressed to the Jewish congregations a circular letter in which he informed them that he had "committed the Jewish tax-rolls to the flames," and that, "desiring to show them still greater favors, he has advised his brother, the venerable patriarch "Julos", to abolish what was called the ' send-tax'".

Fixing of the calendar

He is traditionally regarded as the creator of the modern fixed

Jewish calendar The Hebrew calendar (), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel. It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as ''yahrzeits ...

. This tradition first appears in a responsum of R. Hai Gaon (written in 992) cited by R. Abraham bar Hiyya in his ''Sefer Ha'ibbur'' (written in 1123). The citation explicitly refers to the year that this event happened, 670 of the

Seleucid era The Seleucid era ("SE") or (literally "year of the Greeks" or "Greek year"), sometimes denoted "AG," was a Calendar era, system of numbering years in use by the Seleucid Empire and other countries among the ancient Hellenistic period, Hellenistic ...

, which corresponds to 358/9 CE. However, a number of documents have been found that indicate the calendar was not fully fixed in Hillel's time; most famously a letter found in

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Judaism, Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra ...

(from the year 835/6) indicates that the holidays were observed on different dates from those predicted by the current calendar.Bernard Dickman
The Beginning of the Jewish Calendar
/ref> The calendar did not reach its exact modern form until at least the years 922–924.J. Jean Ajdler
A Short History of the Jewish Fixed Calendar: The Origin of the Molad
/ref> According to modern scholar Sacha Stern, Hai Gaon only attributed the establishment of a 19-year cycle, and not other details of the calendar, to Hillel. The fixed calendar was of great benefit to Jews of his and subsequent generations. The

lunisolar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, that combines monthly lunar cycles with the solar year. As with all calendars which divide the year into months, there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of months ...

. That is, its months are synchronized with the phases of the moon, but its average year length approximates the mean length of a solar year. The

declared new months based on observations of the new moon, and added a 13th lunar month to certain years to ensure that holidays would continue to fall in the same seasons of the solar year. But

Constantius II Constantius II (; ; 7 August 317 – 3 November 361) was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civ ...

, following the precedents of

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

, prohibited the holding of such meetings as well as the vending of articles for distinctly Jewish purposes. The worldwide Jewish community depended on the calendar sanctioned by the

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

to observe

Jewish holidays Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' (, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed by Jews throughout the Hebrew calendar.This article focuses on practices of mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. ...

on the correct dates. However, danger threatened the participants in that sanction and the messengers who communicated their decisions to distant congregations. Temporarily, to relieve the foreign congregations, Huna ben Abin once advised Rava not to wait for the official intercalation: "When you are convinced that the winter quarter will extend beyond the sixteenth day of

Nisan Nisan (or Nissan; from ) in the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars is the month of the barley ripening and first month of spring. The name of the month is an Akkadian language borrowing, although it ultimately originates in Sumerian ''nisag' ...

declare the year a

leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) compared to a common year. The 366th day (or 13th month) is added to keep t ...

, and do not hesitate". But as the religious persecutions continued, Hillel decided to provide an authorized calendar for all time to come, though by doing so he severed the ties which united the Jews of the

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

to their mother country and to the

patriarchate Patriarchate (, ; , ''patriarcheîon'') is an ecclesiological term in Christianity, referring to the office and jurisdiction of a patriarch. According to Christian tradition, three patriarchates—Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria—were establi ...

In Christian tradition

According to

Epiphanius of Salamis Epiphanius of Salamis (; – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the Christianity in the 4th century, 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Churche ...

Panarion In early Christianity, early Christian heresiology, the ''Panarion'' (, derived from Latin , meaning "bread basket"), to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name ''Adversus Haereses'' (Latin: "Against Heresies"), is the most important o ...

'', chapter 30 Hillel II was secretly baptized on his deathbed. The Christian convert Joseph of Tiberias was one of his disciples.

References

{{Authority control Talmud rabbis of Syria Palaestina 4th-century rabbis Sanhedrin

Biography

Fixing of the calendar

In Christian tradition

See also

References