“Forty-eight cities” (Numbers 35:7). Similarly, if a scribe forgot the exact year, let him ask the tanna how many years does he teach have already been lost from the two thousand years that are designated for the days of the Messiah. And he should deduct forty-eight years from the number, correcting for the century, and in this manner he will find his number. And your mnemonic to remember that the tanna must add to the date of the scribe, while the scribe must deduct from the number of the tanna, is again: A scribe deducts, while a tanna adds on [tosfa’a].

§ Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, says: In the case of one who does not know which year of the seven-year Sabbatical cycle he stands in, he should add one year to the years that have passed since the destruction of the Temple in order to begin at the start of a Sabbatical cycle. And he should calculate the general years, i.e., the centuries, as Jubilee cycles, as every Jubilee concludes seven completed Sabbatical cycles of forty-nine years, and the details as Sabbatical cycles, i.e., he should divide the remaining years into seven-year Sabbatical cycles.

But as the Jubilee Year itself is counted as one year of a Sabbatical cycle, he should take, from every hundred years that passed, two years, and add it to the details, i.e., the remaining decades and single years. And then he should calculate with the details by dividing them into Sabbatical cycles. And from the remainder he will know how many years in the current Sabbatical cycle have passed. And your mnemonic that two years must be deducted from every century is the following verse: “For these two years the famine has been in the land” (Genesis 45:6).

Rabbi Ḥanina says: After the year 400 from the destruction of the Temple, if a person says to you: Purchase a field that is worth one thousand dinars for one dinar, do not purchase it. It is not a worthwhile investment, as the redemption will soon come and all fields will revert to their original owners. It was taught in a baraita: After the year 4,231 from the creation of the world, if a person says to you: Purchase a field that is worth one thousand dinars for one dinar, do not purchase it. The Gemara asks: What is the difference between these two dates? The Gemara answers: There is a difference between them of three years, as the baraita adds three years. The year 400 from the destruction of the Temple corresponds to the year 4,228 from the creation of the world.

§ The Gemara relates: There was a certain promissory note in which was written