The importance of this institution will be apparent if it is considered what moral and social advantages would accrue to the commmiity from the sacred observ- ance of it. 1. It would prevent the accumulation of land on the part of a few to the detriment of tlie com- munity at large. 2. It would render it impossible for any one to bo bom to absolute po\-erty, since every one had liis hereditary land. 3. It would "preclude those in- equaUties which are produced by extremes of riches and poverty, and which make one man domineer over an- otlier. 4. It would utterly do away with slavery. 5. It would afford a fresh opportunity to those who" were reduced Ijy adverse circiunstances to begin agani their career of industry-, in the patrimony which they had temporarily forfeited. C. It wonld periodically rectify the disorders which crept into the state in the course of tune, preclude the division of the people into nobles and plebeians, and preserve the tlieocracv inviolate.
A'l. Literature.— 'Yhd Mi.shna {Krachin, ch. viii, ix) gives verj' important enactments of a verj' ancient date respecting tlie jul)ilec. In Maimonides {Jod Jfa-Che- cakii. especially the tract so often almve referred to as lliMioih .Shemila Ve-Jobd, ch. x-xiii) an ejiitome will be found of the .Jewish information on this subject which is scattered through the Talmud and Midrashim. or the modern productions are to be mentioned the val- uable treatises of Cuiweus, Le liej). IJtbr. chap, ii, sec. iv
(in the Crifici Sacri, ix, 278 sq.), and Mej'er, Be Tem- por. et Diebus Hebrceorum (in Ugoliiii Thesaurus, i, 708, 1755), p. 341-360 ; Michaelis, Commentaries on the Laus of Moses (Engl, version, Lond. 1814), vol. i, art. Ixxxiii, p. 376 sq. ; Ideler, Ilandbuch der Chronologie (Berl. 1825), i, 502 sq ; the excellent prize essays of Kranold, De A nno Hebr.Jubikeo (Gtitting. 1837), and Wolde, De anno Hebr. Jubilceo (Gottingen, 1837) ; Biihr, Symbolik des Mosa- ischen Cultus (Heidelberg, 1839), i, 572 sq.; Ewald, Die A Iterthibner des Volkes Israel (Getting. 1854), p. 415 sq.; Saalschtitz, Das Mosaische Recht (Berlin, 1853), i, 141, etc.; and Archdologie der Ilebider (Konigsb. 1856), ii, 224, etc. ; Herzfeld, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Nord- hausen, 1855), i, 463, etc. ; Keil, Handbuch der Biblischen Archaoloffie (Frankf. a. M. 1858), i, 374, etc. Hupfeld (Commentatio de Hebrceonim Festis, part iii, 1852) has lately dealt with it in a wilful and reckless style of crit- icism. Vitringa notices the prophetical bearing of the j ubilee in lib. iv, c. 4 of the Obserratiojies Sacrn. Light- loot {Harm. Eranr/. in Lite, iv, 19) pursues the subject in a fancifid mamier, and makes out that Christ suffered in a jubilee year. For further details, see Wagenseil, De anno Jubilceo Hebr. (Altdorf, 1700) ; J. C. Buck, De anno Ilebrceoi: jubil(to (Yiteb. 1700) ; Carpzov, De anno jubi- lceo (Lips. 1730; also in his Apparat. crit.ip. 447) ; Ode, De anno Heb. jubilceo (Traj. a. R. 1736 ; also in Oelrich's Collectio, ii, 421-508) ; Laurich, Lerjislutio Mosaica de anno semiseculari (Altenb. 1794) ; also Slarck, Syllog. dissert. 302 ; Bauer, Gottesd. Verfass. ii, 277 ; Hullmann, Urc/esch. des Staats, 73 ; A"an der Hardt, Dejubil. Mosis (Helmstadt, 1728) ; Jochanan Salomo, De jubil. Hebr. (Danz. 1679) ; Meier, De mysterii Jobekci (Brem. 1700) , Eeineccius, De oriyine JuMlceonan (Weissenfels, 1730) ; Stemler, De anno Jobeheo (Lips. 1730) ; Van Poorteren, Juhilaus Hebrceorum (Cob. 1730) ; Walther, De Jubilceo Judceorum (Sodin. 1762). Other monographs, relating, how^ever, rather to later times, are cited by Volbediug, Index, p. 128, 162. See Sabbatical Year.
JUBILEE, or JUBILEE YEAR, an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, the name of which is bor- rov/ed from that of the Jewish jubilee (see above). The Catholic jubilee is of two kinds, ordinary and extraor- dinary. The ordinary jubilee is that which is celebra- ted at stated intervals, the length of which has varied at different times. Its origin is traced to pope Boniface Till, who issued, for the year 1300, a bull grantmg a plenarj' indulgence to all pilgrim-visitors of Rome dur- ing that j^ear on condition of their penitently confessing their sins, and visiting the church of St. Peter and St. Paul fifteen times if strangers, and thirty times if resi- dents of the city. The invitation was accepted with marvellous enthusiasm. Innumerable troops of pilgrims from every part of the Church flocked to Rome. Gio- vanni Yillani, a contemporary chronicler, states that the constant number of pOgrims in Rome, not reckoning those who were on the road going or returning, during the entire year, never fell below 200,000. Boniface, finding the jubilee a success, and having been informed, so the storA' goes, by a hoarj' patriarch, who, at the age of 107, attended it, that a hundred years ago a like ju- bilee had been held, now ordered that it should there- after be held everj^ hundredth year. The great gain which the occasion afforded to the churches at Rome induced Clement VI to abridge the time to fifty years. His jubilee accordingly took place in 1350. and was even more numerously attended than that of Boniface, the average number of pilgrims, until the heats of summer suspended their frequency, being, according to jMatthew Yillani, no fewer than 1,000,000 ! The term of interval was still further abridged by Urban YI; but in the stormy days of his pontificate the jubilee could not take place, and his successor, Boniface IX, improved this to his advantage, and ordered it to take place in 1390. Ten years later he repeated it, and, besides, instituted extra years of jidiilee, and permitted their observance also in foreign cities provided the worshippers would pay into the Roman treasury the cost of a journey to