ARTICLES

“The spirit of concession to paganism opened the way for a still further disregard of Heaven’s authority.  Satan, working through unconsecrated leaders of the church, tampered with the fourth commandment also, and essayed to set aside the ancient Sabbath, the day which God had blessed and sanctified (Gen. 2:2, 3), and in its stead to exalt the festival observed by the heathen as ‘the venerable day of the sun’” (Great Controversy, 52.)

After the Biblical calendar was outlawed, “the Jews went through ‘iron and fire’ [D. Sidersky, Astronomical Origin of Jewish Chronology.]  The Christian [papal Roman] emperors forbade the Jewish computation of the calendar, and did not allow the announcement of feast days” (G. Amadon, Final Report, Part V, 17.)

“Under the reign of Constantius (337-362) the persecutions of the Jews reached such a height that . . . the computation of the calendar [was] forbidden under pain of severe punishment” (excerpts from The Jewish Encyclopedia, “Calendar.”)

“Declaring the new month by observation of the new moon, and the new year by the arrival of spring, can only be done by the Sanhedrin.  In the time of Hillel II [4th century A.D.], the last President of the Sanhedrin, the Romans prohibited this practice”(www.torah.org, emphasis supplied.)