In the Pentateuch the term (שבת שבתון) is used of ordinary Sabbaths (Ex. xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2, Lev. xxiii. 3) as well as of the Atonement (Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 32). But the LXX expressly distinguishes the application of it to ordinary Sabbaths from its application to the Atonement. The former, it renders σάββατα ἀναπαύσεως, the latter σάββατα σαββάτων. This latter term may therefore be considered the specific designation of the Atonement Day, and it is so used by Philo, De Septen. 23, σάββατον σαββάτων, τῶν ἁγίων ἁγιώτεραι (ἑβδόμαδες).
We may, therefore, assume that in the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Rome, σάββατα σαββάτων, “the Great Sabbath,” was the common designation—or at least a familiar designation—of the Day of Atonement. In that case it could scarcely be otherwise than familiar to those who had any dealings whatever with the Jews.
Fuscus pretends to share a very general observance, and on the strength of it to be disinclined to discuss any personal matters with his friend. Can that day have been a simple Sabbath? The tone indicates a rarer and more solemn occasion. Besides, we are definitely told that it is a special Sabbath, the “thirtieth.”
The Jews at that time seem to have reckoned their festivals by strict lunar months (Josephus, Ant. IV. x.) and their civil year by the Macedonian calendar. The thirtieth Sabbath, if we reckon by the Roman calendar, might conceivably have fallen on the Atonement. By the Macedonian or Athenian it could not have done so. However, as the Roman calendar was a solar one, the correspondence of the thirtieth Sabbath with the Atonement can only have been a fortuitous one in a single year. Tricesima sabbata can hardly apply to that.
It is just possible that the reason for the word “thirtieth” is to be found in the widely and devoutly pursued astrology of that time. The number thirty had a certain significance in astrology, Firmicus Maternus, IV. xvii. 5; xxii. 3. If for one reason or another the mansio of the moon, which coincided with the second week of the seventh lunar month (cf. Firm. Mat. IV. i. seq. for the importance of the moon in astrology), bore the number thirty, then tricesima sabbata, to initiated and uninitiated, might bear the portentous meaning required for the Horatian passage.
Whether that is so or not, the only Sabbath which we know to have been specially singled out from the rest of the year, was this σάββατα σαββάτων, the Day of Atonement. Whatever reason there was for calling it the thirtieth, the mere fact of its being particularly designated makes it likely that Horace referred to that day.
Nearly every one of the festivals in Tishri has already been suggested for the phrase, but these results have been reached by elaborate and intricate calculations, which bring the thirtieth Sabbath on the festival required. The main difficulty with all such calculations has been noted. The coincidence can only have been exceptional, and an exceptional coincidence will not help us here. Some especially rigorous Jews undoubtedly fasted every week like the Pharisee in Luke xviii. 11-20, but that was intended as a form of asceticism. The custom survived in some Christian communities, notably in Rome, which elevated it almost to a dogma, so that Augustine had to combat the point with especial vigor. (Ep. xxxvi., and Casulanum, Corp. Scr. Eccl. xxxiv. pp. 33 seq.) It may be interesting to remember that from a passage of this epistle referring to this Sabbath fast (xiv. 32) is derived the famous proverb, “When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
[266]. Sat. I. iv. 18.
[267]. Sat. I. v. 97.
[268]. Apellas is a common name for a slave or freedman. Cic. ad Fam. vii. 25; C. I. L. x. 6114. That a Jew should bear a name derived from that of Apollo, is not at all strange. Cf. ch. IX., n. 6.