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, following the precedents of Hadrian, 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 Judean Sanhedrin to observe Jewish holidays 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 declare the year a leap year, 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 to their mother country and to the patriarchate. In Christian tradition According to Epiphanius of Salamis Hillel II was secretly baptized on his deathbed. The Christian convert Joseph of Tiberias was one of his disciples. See also Hillel the Elder Hebrew calendar References Talmud rabbis of the Land of Israel 4th-century rabbis Sanhedrin