JUBILEE, or Jubile, The year of. In Ezek. xlvi. 16, 17, there is indication of a law according to which “the prince” is at liberty to alienate in perpetuity any portion of his inheritance to his sons; but if he give a gift of his inheritance to any other of his subjects, then the change of ownership holds good only till “the year of liberty” (TΓ∏iΙ TW), after which the alienated property returns to its original possessor, the prince. This restriction upon the transfer of real property is applied to a greatly enlarged class of persons and cases in Lev. xxv. 8-55, which is by far the most important passage relating to this subject. It is again referred to in Lev. xxvii. 17-25, and the only other allusion to it in the Pentateuch occurs in Numb, xxxvi. 4. According to Lev. xxv. 8-12, at the completion of seven sabbaths of years, the trumpet of the jubilee (∏^∙1"∣^∣ ΠS1B*) is to be sounded “throughout the land,” on the tenth day of the seventh month, i.i., on the great day of atonement. The fiftieth year thus announced is to be “hallowed,” i.e., liberty ("ΠT∣) is to be proclaimed everywhere to every one, and the people are to return “every man unto his possession and unto his family.” The year in other respects is to resemble the sabbatical year; there is to be no sowing, nor reaping that which grows of itself, nor gathering of grapes. Coming to fuller detail,—as regards real property (Lev. xxv. 13—34), the law is that if any Hebrew under pressure of necessity shall alienate his property he is to get for it a sum of money reckoned according to the number of harvests to be reaped between the date of alienation and the first jubilee year; should he or any relation desire to redeem the property before the jubilee, this can always be done ...

among the Jews, denotes every fiftieth year; being that following the revolution of seven weeks of years; at which time all the slaves were made free, and all lands reverted to their ancient owners. The jubilees were not regarded after the Babylonish captivity. The political design of the law of the jubilee was to prevent the too great oppression of the poor, as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery. By this means the rich were prevented from accumulating lands for perpetuity, and a kind of equality was preserved through all the families of Israel. The distinction of tribes was also preserved, in respect both to their families and possessions; that they might be able, when there was occasion, on the jubilee year, to prove their right to the inheritance of their ancestors. Thus, also, it would be known with certainty of what tribe or family the Messiah sprung. It served, also, like the Olympiads of the Greeks, and the Lustra of the Romans, for the readier computation of time. The jubilee has also been supposed to be typical of the Gospel state and dispensation, described by Isaiah lxi, 1, 2, in reference to this period, as “the acceptable year of the Lord.” The word _jubilee_, in a more modern sense, denotes a grand church solemnity or ceremony celebrated at Rome, in which the pope grants a plenary indulgence to all sinners; at least, to as many as visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome. The jubilee was first established by Boniface VII., in 1300, which was only to return every hundred years; but the first celebration brought in such store of wealth, that Clement VI., in 1343, reduced it to the period of fifty years. Urban VI., in 1389, appointed it to be held every thirty-five years, that being the age of our Saviour; and Paul II. and Sixtus ...

JUBILEE YEAR, in the Roman Catholic Church, is observed every twenty-fifth year, from Christmas to Christmas. During its continuance plenary indulgence is obtainable by all Catholics, on condition of their penitently confessing their sins and visiting certain churches a stated number of times, or doing an equivalent amount of meritorious work. The institution does not go farther back than to the time of Boniface VIII., whose bull is dated April 22, 1300. The circumstances in which it was promulgated are related by a contemporary authority, Jacobus Cajetanus, according to whose account (“Relatio de centesimo s. jubilaeo anno” in the Bibliotheca Patrum) it had its origin in a wide-spread popular belief then prevalent, which had taken practical shape in an enormous influx of pilgrims to Rome from the 1st of January onwards. The advance upon the recently formulated doctrine of indulgences (see Indulgence) was indeed a natural one. Originally the churches of St Peter and St Paul in Rome were the only jubilee churches, but the privilege was afterwards extended to the Lateran Church and that of Sta Maria Maggiore, and it is now shared also for the year immediately following that of the Roman jubilee by a number of specified provincial churches. At the request of the Roman people, Clement VI. appointed that the jubilee should recur every fifty years instead of every hundred years as had been originally contemplated in the constitution of Boniface; Urban VI. reduced the interval still further to thirty-three years (the supposed duration of the earthly life of Christ); and by Paul II. it was finally fixed at twenty-five years. According to the special ritual prepared by Alexander VI. in 1500, the pope on the Christmas eve with which the jubilee commences goes in solemn ...

JUBILEES, Book of the. See Apocalyptic Literature, vol. ii. p. 176.