marrying, always consulted the official archives in Jerusalem to ascertain the purity of descent of their intended wives, [c Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 7.] The Palestinians designated it contemptuously as 'the house of Chonyi' (Onias), and declared the priesthood of Leontopolis incapable of serving in Jerusalem, although on a par with those who were disqualified only by some bodily defect. Offerings brought in Leontopolis were considered null, unless in the case of vows to which the name of this Temple had been expressly attached, [d Men. xiii. 10, and the Gemara, 109 a and b.] This qualified condemnation seems, however, strangely mild, except on the supposition that the statements we have quoted only date from a time when both Temples had long passed away.
Nor were such feelings unreasonable. The Egyptian Jews had spread on all sides, southward to Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and westward to, and beyond, the province of Cyrene. In the city of that name they formed one of the four classes into which its inhabitants were divided, [e Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7, 2.] A Jewish inscription at Berenice, apparently dating from the year 13 B.C., shows that the Cyrenian Jews formed a distinct community under nine 'rulers' of their own, who no doubt attended to the communal affairs, not always an easy matter, since the Cyrenian Jews were noted, if not for turbulence, yet for strong anti-Roman Roman feeling, which more than once was cruelly quenched in blood. [1 Could there have been any such meaning in laying the Roman cross which Jesus had to bear upon a Cyrenian (St. Luke xxiii. 26)? A symbolical meaning it certainly has, as we remember that the last Jewish rebellion (132-135 A.D.), which had Bar Cochba for its Messiah, first broke out in Cyrene. What terrible vengeance was taken on those who followed the false Christ, cannot here be told.] Other inscriptions prove, [2 Jewish inscriptions have also been found in Mauritania and Algiers.] that in other places of their dispersion also the Jews had their own Archontes or 'rulers,' while the special direction of public worship was
always entrusted to the Archisynagogos, or 'chief ruler of the Synagogue,' both titles occurring side by side. [3 On a tombstone at Capua (Mommsen, Inscr. R. Neap. 3,657, apud Schurer, p 629). The subject is of great importance as illustrating the rule of the Synagogue in the days of Christ. Another designation on the gravestones seems to refer solely to age, one being described as 110 years old.] It is, to say the least, very doubtful, whether the High-Priest at Leontopolis was ever regarded as, in any real sense, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt. [4 Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. i. p. 345.] In Alexandria, the Jews were under the rule of a Jewish Ethnarch, [5 Marquardt (Rom. Staatsverwalt. vol. i. p. 297). Note 5 suggests that may here mean classes, ordo.] whose authority was similar to that of'the Archon' of independent cities, [a Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2] But his authority [6 The office itself would seem to have been continued. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.)] was transferred, by Augustus, to the whole 'eldership.' [b Philo, in Flacc. ed. Mangey, ii 527] Another, probably Roman, office, though for obvious reasons often filled by Jews, was that of the Alabarch, or rather Arabarch, who was set over the Arab population. [7 Comp. Wesseling, de Jud. Archont. pp. 63, &c, apud Schurer, pp. 627, 628.] Among others, Alexander, the brother of Philo, held this post. If we may judge of the position of the wealthy Jewish families in Alexandria by that of this Alabarch, their influence must have been very great. The firm of Alexander was probably as rich as the great Jewish banking and shipping house of Saramalla in Antioch. [c Jos. Antxiv. 13. 5; War. i. 13, 5] Its chief was entrusted with the management of the affairs of Antonia, the much respected sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, [d Ant. xix 5. 1] It was a small thing for such a man to lend King Agrippa, when his fortunes were very low, a sum of about 7,0001. with which to resort to Italy, [c Ant. xviii. 6.3] since he advanced it on the guarantee of Agrippa's wife, whom he highly esteemed, and at the same time made provision that the money should not be all spent before the Prince met the Emperor. Besides, he had his own plans in the matter. Two of his sons married daughters of King Agrippa; while a third, at the price of apostasy, rose successively to the posts of Procurator of Palestine, and finally of Governor of Egypt, [f Ant. xix. 5. 1; xx. 5. 3] The Temple at Jerusalem bore evidence of the wealth and munificence of this Jewish millionaire. The gold and silver with which the nine massive gates were covered, which led into the Temple, were the gift of the great Alexandrian banker.
The possession of such wealth, coupled no doubt with pride and self-assertion, and openly spoken contempt of the superstitions around, [1 Comp.for example, such a trenchant chapter as Baruch vi., or the 2nd Fragm. of the Erythr. Sibyl, vv. 21-33.] would naturally excite the hatred of the Alexandria populace against the Jews. The greater number of those silly stories about the origin, early history, and religion of the Jews, which even the philosophers and historians of Rome record as genuine, originated in Egypt. A whole series of writers, beginning with Manetho, [a Probably about 200 B.C] made it their business to give a kind of historical travesty of the events recorded in the books of Moses. The boldest of these scribblers was Apion, to whom Josephus replied, a world-famed charlatan and liar, who wrote or lectured, with equal presumption and falseness, on every conceivable object. He was just the man to suit the Alexandrians, on whom his unblushing assurance imposed. In Rome he soon found his level, and the Emperor Tiberius well characterised the irrepressible boastful talker as the 'tinkling cymbal of the world.' He had studied, seen, and heard everything, even, on three occasions, the mysterious sound on the Colossus of Memnon, as the sun rose upon it! At least, so he graved upon the Colossus itself, for the information of all generations. [2 Comp. Friedlander, u. s. ii. p. 155.] Such was the man on whom the Alexandrians conferred the freedom of their city, to whom they entrusted their most important affairs, and whom they extolled as the victorious, the laborious, the new Homer. [3 A very good
sketch of Apion is given by Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitg. vol. ii. pp. 187-195. There can be little doubt, that the popular favour was partly due to Apion's virulent attacks upon the Jews. His grotesque accounts of their history and religion held them up to contempt. But his real object was to rouse the fanaticism of the populace against the Jews. Every year, so he told them, it was the practice of the Jews to get hold of some unfortunate Hellene, whom ill- chance might bring into their hands, to fatten him for the year, and then to sacrifice him, partaking of his entrials, and burying the body, while during these horrible rites they took a fearful oath of perpetual enmity to the Greeks. These were the people who battened on the wealth of Alexandria, who had usurped quarters of the city to which they had no right, and claimed exceptional privileges; a people who had proved traitors to, and the ruin of every one who had trusted them. If the Jews,' he exclaimed, 'are citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods as the Alexandrians?' And, if they wished to enjoy the protection of the Caesars, why did they not erect statues, and pay Divine honor to them? [1 Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 4, 5, 6.] There is nothing strange in these appeals to the fanaticism of mankind. In one form or another, they have only too often been repeated in all lands and ages, and, alas! by the representatives of all creeds. Well might the Jews, as Philo mourns, [a Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf] wish no better for themselves than to be treated like other men!
We have already seen, that the ideas entertained in Rome about the Jews were chiefly derived from Alexandrian sources. But it is not easy to understand, how a Tacitus, Cicero, or Pliny could have credited such absurdities as that the Jews had come from Crete (Mount Ida, Idaei = Judaei), been expelled on account of leprosy from Egypt, and emigrated under an apostate priest, Moses; or that the Sabbath-rest originated in sores, which had obliged the wanderers to stop short on the seventh day; or that the Jews worshipped the head of an ass, or else Bacchus; that their abstinence from swine's flesh was due to remembrance and fear of leprosy, or else to the worship of that animal, and other puerilities of the like kind, [b Comp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 2-4; Plut. Sympos. iv. 5] The educated Roman regarded the Jew with a mixture of contempt and anger, all the more keen that, according to his notions, the Jew had, since his subjection to Rome, no longer a right to his religion; and all the more bitter that, do what he might, that despised race confronted him everywhere, with a religion so uncompromising as to form a wall of separation, and with rites so exclusive as to make them not only strangers, but enemies. Such a phenomenon was nowhere else to be encountered. The Romans were intensely practical. In their view, political life and religion were not only intertwined, but the one formed part of the other. A religion apart from a political organisation, or which offered not, as a quid pro quo, some direct return from the Deity to his votaries, seemed utterly inconceivable. Every country has its own religion, argued Cicero, in his appeal for Flaccus. So long as Jerusalem was unvaquished, Judaism might claim toleration; but had not the immortal gods shown what they thought of it, when the Jewish race was conquered? This was a kind of logic that appealed to the humblest in the crowd, which thronged to hear the great orator defending his client, among others, against the charge of preventing the transport from Asia to Jerusalem of the annual Temple-tribute. This was not a popular accusation to bring against a man in such an assembly. And as the Jews, who, to create a distrubance, had (we are told) distributed themselves among the audience in such numbers, that Cicero somewhat rhetorically declared, he would fain have spoken with bated breath, so as to be only audible to the judges, listened to the great orator, they must have felt a keen pang shoot to their hearts while he held them up to the scorn of the heathen, and touched, with rough finger, their open sore, as he urged the ruin of their nation as the one unanswerable argument, which Materialism could bring against the religion of the Unseen.
And that religion, was it not, in the words of Cicero, a 'barbarous superstition,' and were not its adherents, as Pliny had it, [a Hist. Nat. xiii. 4] 'a race distinguished for its contempt of the gods'? To begin with their theology.
