Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days for three and a half years, and took the Babylonian reckoning of twelve months of thirty days, then three and a half years gives us twelve hundred and seventy-five days, or, omitting any allowance for intercalation, twelve hundred and sixty days. If, then, "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" means two thousand three hundred _half_ days, we have _one hundred and ten days too many_ for the three and a half years. And if the phrase means two thousand three hundred _full_ days, that gives us (counting thirty intercalary days for _Ve-adar_) too little for seven years by two hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a mystic intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the elect's sake be shortened.[581] Some commentators reckon seven years roughly, from the elevation of Menelaus to the high-priesthood (Kisleu, B.C. 168: 2 Macc. v. 11) to the victory of Judas Maccabæus over Nicanor at Adasa, March, B.C. 161 (1 Macc. vii. 25-50; 2 Macc. xv. 20-35). In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of xii. 12, 13. Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive comment have been written on these combinations, but by no reasonable supposition can we arrive at close accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was difficult of attainment in those days, and was never a matter about which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled themselves. We do not know either the _terminus a quo_ from which or the _terminus ad quem_ to which the writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it is perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equiparate the three and a half years (vii. 25), the "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" (viii. 14), the seventy-two weeks (ix. 26), and the twelve hundred and ninety days (xii. 11). Yet all those dates have this point of resemblance about them, that they very roughly indicate a space of _about_ three and a half years (more or less) as the time during which the daily sacrifice should cease, and the Temple be polluted and desolate.[582] Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the Maccabee cleansed[583] ("justified" or "vindicated," viii. 14) the Temple on Kisleu 25 (December 25th, B.C. 165). If we reckon back two thousand three hundred _full_ days from this date, it brings us to B.C. 171, in which Menelaus, who bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest, robbed the Temple of some of its treasures, and procured the murder of the high priest Onias III. In this year Antiochus sacrificed a great sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and sprinkled its broth over the sacred building. These crimes provoked the revolt of the Jews, in which they killed Lysimachus, governor of Syria, and brought on themselves a heavy retribution.[584]