CHAPTER I.
THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST - THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE EAST.

Among the outward means by which the religion of Israel was preserved, one of the most important was the centralisation and localisation of its worship in Jerusalem. If to some the ordinances of the Old Testament may in this respect seem narrow and exclusive, it is at least doubtful, whether without such a provision Monothsiem itself could have continued as a creed or a worship. In view of the state of the ancient world, and of the tendencies of Israel during the earlier stages of their history, the strictest isolation was necessary in order to preserve the religion of the Old Testament from that mixture with foreign elements which would speedily have proved fatal to its existence. And if one source of that danger had ceased after the seventy years’ exile in Babylonia, the dispersion of the greater part of the nation among those manners and civilisation would necessarily influence them, rendered the continuance of this separation of as great importance as before. In this respect, even traditionalism had its mission and use, as a hedge around the Law to render its infringement or modification impossible.

Wherever a Roman, a Greek, or an Asiatic might wander, he could take his gods with him, or find rites kindred to his own. It was far otherwise with the Jew. He had only one Temple, that in Jerusalem; only one God, Him Who had once throned there between the Cherubim, and Who was still King over Zion. That Temple was the only place where a God-appointed, pure priesthood could offer acceptable sacrifices, whether for forgiveness of sin, or for fellowship with God. Here, in the impenetrable gloom of the innermost sanctuary, which the High-Priest alone might enter once a year for most solemn expiation, had stood the Ark, the leader of the people into the Land of Promise, and the footstool on which the Schechinah had rested. From that golden altar rose the cloud in incense, symbol of Israel’s accepted prayers; that seven-branched candlestick shed its perpetual light, indicative of the brightness of God’s Covenant Presence; on that table, as it were before the face of Jehovah, was laid, week by week, ‘the Bread of the Face⁵⁵    Such is the literal meaning of what is translated by ‘shewbread.’ ,’ a constant sacrificial meal which Israel offered unto God, and wherewith God in turn fed His chosen priesthood. On the great blood-sprinkled altar of sacrifice smoked the daily and festive burnt-offerings, brought by all Israel, and for all Israel, wherever scattered; while the vast courts of the Temple were thronged not only by native Palestinians, but literally by ‘Jews out of every nation under heaven.’ Around this Temple gathered the sacred memories of the past; to it clung the yet brighter hopes of the future. The history of Israel and all their prospects were intertwined with their religion; so that it may be said that without their religion they had no history, and without their history no religion. Thus, history, patriotism, religion, and hope alike pointed to Jerusalem and the Temple as the centre of Israel’s unity.

Nor could the depressed state of the nation alter their views or shake their confidence. What mattered it, that the Idumæan, Herod, had usurped the throne of David, expect so far as his own guilt and their present subjection were concerned? Israel had passed through deeper waters, and stood triumphant on the other shore. For centuries seemingly hopeless bondsmen in Egypt, they had not only been delivered, but had raised the God-inspired morning-song of jubilee, as they looked back upon the sea cleft for them, and which had buried their oppressors in their might and pride. Again, for weary years had their captives hung Zion’s harps by the rivers of that city and empire whose colossal grandeur, wherever they turned, must have carried to the scattered strangers the desolate feeling of utter hopelessness. And yet that empire had crumbled into dust, while Israel had again taken root and sprung up. And now little more than a century and a half had passed, since a danger greater even than any of these had threatened the faith and the very existence of Israel. In his daring madness, the Syrian king, Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion, sought to destroy their sacred books, with unsparing ferocity forced on them conformity to heathen rites, desecrated the Temple by dedicating it to Zeus Olympios, what is translated by ‘shewbread.’ a constant sacrificial and even reared a heathen altar upon that of burnt-offering.⁶⁶    1 Macc. i. 54, 59; Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 4. Worst of all, his wicked schemes had been aided by two apostate High-Priests, who had outvied each other in buying and then prostituting the sacred office of God’s anointed.⁷⁷    After the deposition of Onias III. through the bribery of his own brother Jason, the latter and Menelaus outvied each other in bribery for, and prostitution of, the holy office. Yet far away in the mountains of Ephraim⁸⁸    Modin, the birthplace of the Maccabees, has been identified with the modern El-Medyeh, about sixteen miles northwest of Jerusalem, in the ancient territory of Ephraim. Comp. Conder’s Handbook of the Bible, p. 291; and for a full reference to the whole literature of the subject, see Schürer (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 78, note 1). God had raised for them most unlooked-for and unlikely help. Only three years later, and, after a series of brilliant victories by undisciplined men over the flower of the Syrian army, Judas the Maccabee, truly God’s Hammer⁹⁹    On the meaning of the name Maccabee, comp. Grimm’s Kurzgef. Exeget. Handb. z. d. Apokr. Lief. iii., pp. ix. x. We adopt the derivation from Maqqabha, a hammer, like Charles Martel. had purified the Temple, and restored its altar on the very same day¹⁰¹⁰    1 Macc. iv. 52-54: Megill. Taan. 23. on which the ‘abomination of desolation’¹¹¹¹    1 Macc. l. 54. had been set up in its place. In all their history the darkest hour of their night had ever preceded the dawn of a morning brighter than any that had yet broken. It was thus that with one voice all their prophets had bidden them wait and hope. Their sayings had been more than fulfilled as regarded the past. Would they not equally become true in reference to that far more glorious future for Zion and for Israel, which was to be ushered in by the coming of the Messiah?

Nor were such the feelings of the Palestinian Jews only. These indeed were now a minority. The majority of the nation constituted what was known as the dispersion; a term which, however, no longer expressed its original meaning of banishment by the judgment of God,¹²¹²    Alike the verb {hebrew} in Hebrew, and διασπεͺρω in Greek, with their derivatives, are used in the Old Testament, and in the rendering of the LXX., with reference to punitive banishment. See, for example, Judg. xviii. 30; 1 Sam. iv. 21; and in the LXX. Deut. xxx. 4; Ps. cxlvii. 2; Is. xlix. 6, and other passages. since absence from Palestine was now entirely voluntary. But all the more that it referred not to outward suffering,¹³¹³    There is some truth, although greatly exaggerated, in the bitter remarks of Hausrath (Neutest. Zeitgesch. ii. p. 93), as to the sensitiveness of the Jews in the διασπορͺ, and the loud outcry of all its members at any interference with them, however trivial. But events unfortunately too often proved how real and near was their danger, and how necessary the caution ‘Obsta principiis.’ did its continued use indicate a deep feeling of religious sorrow, of social isolation, and of political strangership¹⁴¹⁴     St. Peter seems to have used it in that sense, 1 Pet. i. 1. in the midst of a heathen world. For although, as Josephus reminded his countrymen,¹⁵¹⁵    Jew. W ii. 16. 4. there was ‘no nation in the world which had not among them part of the Jewish people,’ since it was ‘widely dispersed over all the world among its inhabitants,’¹⁶¹⁶    vii. 3.3. yet they had nowhere found a real home. A century and a half before our era comes to us from Egypt¹⁷¹⁷     Comp. the remarks of Schneckenburger (Vorles ü. Neutest. Zeitg. p. 95). - where the Jews possessed exceptional privileges - professedly from the heathen, but really from the Jewish¹⁸¹⁸    Comp. Friedlieb, D. Sibyll. Weissag. xxii. 39. Sibyl, this lament of Israel -

Crowding with thy numbers every ocean and country -

Yet an offense to all around thy presence and customs!¹⁹¹⁹     Orac Sibyll. iii. 271,272, apud Friedlieb, p. 62.

Sixty years later the Greek geographer and historian Strabo bears the like witness to their presence in every land, but in language that shows how true had been the complaint of the Sibyl.²⁰²⁰    Strabo apud Jos. Ant. xiv. 7.2: ‘It is not easy to find a place in the world that has not admitted this race, and is not mastered by it.’ The reasons for this state of feeling will by-and-by appear. Suffice it for the present that, all unconsciously, Philo tells its deepest ground, and that of Israel’s loneliness in the heathen world, when speaking, like the others, of his countrymen as in ‘all the cities of Europe, in the provinces of Asia and in the islands,’ he describes them as, wherever sojourning, having but one metropolis - not Alexandria, Antioch, or Rome - but ‘the Holy City with its Temple, dedicated to the Most High God.’²¹²¹    Philo in Flaccum (ed. Francf.), p. 971. A nation, the vast majority of which was dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a special, and become a world-nation.²²²²    Comp. Jos. Ant. xii. 3; xiii. 10. 4; 13. 1; xiv. 6. 2; 8. 1; 10. 8; Sueton. Cæs. 85. Yet its heart beat in Jerasulem, and thence the life-blood passed to its most distant members. And this, indeed, if we rightly understand it, was the grand object of the ‘Jewish dispersion’ throughout the world.

What has been said applies, perhaps, in a special manner, to the Western, rather than to the Eastern ‘dispersion.’ The connection of the latter with Palestine was so close as almost to seem one of continuity. In the account of the truly representative gathering in Jerusalem on that ever-memorable Feast of Weeks,²³²³    Acts ii. 9-11   the division of the ‘dispersion’ into two grand sections - the Eastern or Trans-Euphratic, and the Western or Hellenist - seems clearly marked.²⁴²⁴    Grimm (Clavis N.T. p. 113) quotes two passages from Philo, in one of which he contradistinguishes ‘us,’ the Hellenist Jews, from ‘the Hebrews,’ and speaks of the Greek as ‘our language.’ In this arrangement the former would include ‘the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia,’ Judæa standing, so to speak, in the middle, while ‘the Bretes and Arabians’ would typically represent the farthest outrunners respectively of the Western and the Eastern Diaspora. The former, as we know from the New Testament, commonly bore in Palestine the name of the ‘dispersion of the Greeks,’²⁵²⁵    St. John vii. 35. and of ‘Hellenists’ or ‘Grecians.’²⁶²⁶    Acts vi. 1; ix. 29; xi. 20. On the other hand, the Trans-Euphratic Jews, who ‘inhabited Babylon and many of the other satrapies,’²⁷²⁷    Philo ad Cajum, p. 1023; Jos. Ant. xv. 3.1. were included with the Palestinians and the Syrians under the term ‘Hebrews,’ from the common language which they spoke.

But the difference between the ‘Grecians’ and the ‘Hebrews’ was far deeper than merely of language, and extended to the whole direction of thought. There were mental influences at work in the Greek world from which, in the nature of things, it was impossible even for Jews to withdraw themselves, and which, indeed, were as necessary for the fulfillment of their mission as their isolation from heathenism, and their connection with Jerusalem. At the same time it was only natural that the Hellenists, placed as they were in the midst of such hostile elements, should intensely wish to be Jews, equal to their Eastern brethren. On the other hand, Pharisaism, in its pride of legal purity and of the possession of traditional lore, with all that it involved, made no secret of its contempt for the Hellenists, and openly declared the Grecian far inferior to the Babylonian ‘dispersion.’²⁸²⁸    Similarly we have (in Men. 110a) this curious explanation of Is. xliii. 6: ‘My sons from afar’ - these are the exiles in Babylon, whose minds were settled, like men, ‘and my daughters from the ends of the earth’ - these are the exiles in other lands, whose minds were not settled, like women. That such feelings, and the suspicions which they engendered, had struck deep into the popular mind, appears from the fact, that even in the Apostolic Church, and that in her earliest days, disputes could break out between the Hellenists and the Hebrews, arising from suspicion of unkind and unfair dealings grounded on these sectional prejudices.²⁹²⁹    Acts vi. 1.

Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were held by the leaders of Judaism. Indeed, according to one view of it, Babylonia, as well as ‘Syria’ as far north as Antioch, was regarded as forming part of the land of Israel.³⁰³⁰    Ber. R. 17. Every other country was considered outside ‘the land,’ as Palestine was called, witht the exception of Babylonia, which was reckoned as part of it.³¹³¹    Erub. 21 a Gritt. 6 a. For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the Tigris, were supposed to have been in the territory which King David had conquered, and this made them ideally for ever like the land of Israel. But it was just between the Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and wealthiest settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later writer actually designated them ‘the land of Israel.’ Here Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue, said to have been built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought from the Temple.³²³²    Comp. Fürst, Kult. u. Literaturgesch d. Jud. in Asien, vol. i. p. 8. In this fortified city the vast contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the Eastern Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under escort of thousands of armed men. Another of these Jewish treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even the fact that wealth, which must have sorely tempted the cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in these cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the Jewish population must have been, and how great their general influence.

In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in regard to this Eastern dispersion, that only a minority of the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally returned from Babylon, first under Zerubbabel and afterwards under Ezra.³³³³    537 b.c., and 459-’8 b.c. Nor was their inferiority confined to numbers. The wealthiest and most influential of the Jews remained behind. According to Josephus,³⁴³⁴    Ant. xi. 5. 2; xv. 2. 2; xviii. 9. with whom Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at millions, inhabited the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge even by the number of those slain in popular risings (50,000 in Seleucia alone³⁵³⁵    Jos. Ant. xviii. 9. 9. ), these figures do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition had it, that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian Empire, that Cyrus forbade the further return of the exiles, lest the country should be depopulated.³⁶³⁶    Midrash on Cant. v. 5, ed. Warsh. p. 26 a. So large and compact a body soon became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian monarchy, they were, after the fall of that empire,³⁷³⁷    330 b.c. favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire,³⁸³⁸    63 b.c. the Jews formed, from their national opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as the year 40 a.d., the Roman legate shrank from provoking their hostility.³⁹³⁹    Philo ad Caj. At the same time it must not be thought that, even in these favoured regions, they were wholly without persecution. Here also history records more than one tale of bloody strife on the part of those among whom they dwelt.⁴⁰⁴⁰    The following are the chief passages in Josephus relating to that part of Jewish history: Ant. xi. 5. 2; xiv. 13. 5; xv. 2. 7; 3. 1; xvii. 2. 1-3; xviii. 9. 1, &c.; xx. 4. Jew. W. i. 13. 3.

To the Palestinians, their brethren of the East and of Syria - to which they had wandered under the fostering rule of the Macedono-Syrian monarchs (the Seleucidæ) - were indeed pre-eminently the Golah, or ‘dispersion.’ To them the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intimated by fire-signals from mountain-top to mountain-top the commencement of each month for the regulation of the festive calendar,⁴¹⁴¹    Rosh. haSh. ii. 4; comp. the Jer. Gemara on it, and in the Bab. Talmud 23 b. even as they afterwards despatched messengers into Syria for the same purpose.⁴²⁴²    Rosh. haSh. i. 4. In some respects the Eastern dispersion was placed on the same footing; in others, on even a higher level than the mother country. Tithes and Terumoth, or first-fruits in a prepared condition,⁴³⁴³    Shev. vi. passim; Gitt. 8 a. were due from them, while the Bikkurim, or first-fruits in a fresh state, were to be brought from Syria to Jerusalem. Unlike the heathen countries, whose very dust defiled, the soil of Syria was declared clean, like that of Palestine itself.⁴⁴⁴⁴     Ohol. xxiii. 7. So far as purity of descent was concerned, the Babylonians, indeed, considered themselves superior to their Palestinian brethren. They had it, that when Ezra took with him those who went to Palestine, he had left the land behind him as pure as fine flour.⁴⁵⁴⁵    Kidd. 69 b. To express it in their own fashion: In regard to the genealogical purity of their Jewish inhabitants, all other countries were, compared to Palestine, like dough mixed with leaven; but Palestine itself was such by the side of Babylonia.⁴⁶⁴⁶    Cheth. 111 a. It was even maintained, that the exact boundaries could be traced in a district, within which the Jewish population had preserved itself unmixed. Great merit was in this respect also ascribed to Ezra. In the usual mode of exaggeration, it was asserted, that, if all the genealogical studies and researches⁴⁷⁴⁷    As comments upon the genealogies from ‘Azel’ in 1 Chr. viii. 37 to ‘Azel’ in ix. 44. Pes. 62 b. had been put together, they would have amounted to many hundred camel-loads. There was for it, however, at least this foundation in truth, that great care and labour were bestowed on preserving full and accurate records so as to establish purity of descent. What importance attached to it, we know from the action on Ezra⁴⁸⁴⁸    Chs. ix. x. in that respect, and from the stress which Josephus lays on this point.⁴⁹⁴⁹    Life i.; Ag Apion i. 7. Official records of descent as regarded the priesthood were kept in the Temple. Besides, the Jewish authorities seem to have possessed a general official register, which Herod afterwards ordered to be burnt, from reasons which it is not difficult to infer. But from that day, laments a Rabbi, the glory of the Jews decreased!⁵⁰⁵⁰    Pes. 62 b; Sachs, Beitr. vol. ii. p. 157.

Nor was it merely purity of descent of which the Eastern dispersion could boast. In truth, Palestine owed everything to Ezra, the Babylonian,⁵¹⁵¹    According to tradition he returned to Babylon, and died there. Josephus says that he died in Jerusalem (Anti. xi. 5. 5). a man so distinguished that, according to tradition, the Law would have been given by him, if Moses had not previously obtained that honor. Putting aside the various traditional ordinances which the Talmud ascribes to him,⁵²⁵²    Herzfeld has given a very clear historical arrangement of the order in which, and the persons by whom, the various legal determinations were supposed to have been given. See Gesch. d. V. Isr. vol. iii. pp. 240 &c. we know from the Scriptures what his activity for good had been. Altered circumstances had brought many changes to the new Jewish State. Even the language, spoken and written, was other than formerly. Instead of the characters anciently employed, the exiles brought with them, on their return, those now common, the so-called square Hebrew letters, which gradually came into general use.⁵³⁵³    Sanh. 21 b. ⁵⁴⁵⁴    Although thus introduced under Ezra, the ancient Hebrew characters, which resemble the Samaritan, only very gradually gave way. They are found on monuments and coins. The language spoken by the Jews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramæan, both in Palestine and in Babylonia;⁵⁵⁵⁵    Herzfeld (u. s. vol. iii. p. 46) happily designates the Palestinian as the Hebræo-Aramaic, from its Hebraistic tinge. The Hebrew, as well as the Aramæan, belongs to the Semitic group of languages, which has thus been arranged: 1. North Semitic: Punico-Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic (Western and Eastern dialects). 2. South Semitic: Arabic, Himyaritic, and Ethiopian. 3. East Semitic: The Assyro-Baylonian cuneiform. When we speak of the dialect used in Palestine, we do not, of course, forget the great influence of Syria, exerted long before and after the Exile. Of these three branches the Aramaic is the most closely connected with the Hebrew. Hebrew occupies an intermediate position between the Aramaic and the Arabic, and may be said to be the oldest, certainly from a literary point of view. Together with the introduction of the new dialect into Palestine, we mark that of the new, or square, characters of writing. The Mishnah and all the kindred literature up to the fourth century are in Hebrew, or rather in a modern development and adaptation of that language; the Talmud is in Aramæan. Comp. on this subject: DeWette-Schrader, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Eink. (8 ed.) pp. 71-88; Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol. i. 466, 468; v. 614 &c., 710; Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Jud. pp. 7-9; Herzfeld, u.s. pp. 44 &c., 58&c. in the former the Western, in the latter the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of students and of the Synagogue. Even there a Methurgeman, or interpreter, had to be employed to translate into the vernacular the portions of Scripture read in the public services,⁵⁶⁵⁶    Could St. Paul have had this in mind when, in referring to the miraculous gift of speaking in other languages, he directs that one shall always interpret (1 Cor. xiv. 27)? At any rate, the word targum in Ezra iv. 7 is rendered in the LXX. by ͺρμηνεͺω. The following from the Talmud (Ber. 8 a and b) affords a curious illustration of 1 Cor. xiv. 27: ‘Let a man always finish his Parashah (the daily lesson from the Law) with the congregation (at the same time) - twice the text, and once Targum.’ and the addresses delivered by the Rabbis. This was the origin of the so-called Targumim, or paraphrases of Scripture. In earliest times, indeed, it was forbidden to the Methurgeman to read his translation or to write down a Targum, lest the paraphrase should be regarded as of equal authority with the original. It was said that, when Jonathan brought out his Targum on the Prophets, a voice from heaven was heard to utter: ‘Who is this that has revealed My secrets to men?’⁵⁷⁵⁷    Megill. 3 b. Still, such Targumim seem to have existed from a very early period, and, amid the varying and often incorrect renderings, their necessity must have made itself increasingly felt. Accordingly, their use was authoritatively sanctioned before the end of the second century after Christ. This is the origin of our two oldest extant Targumim: that of Onkelos (as it is called), on the Pentateuch; and that on the Prophets, attributed to Jonathan the son of Uzziel. These names do not, indeed, accurately represent the authorship of the oldest Targumim, which may more correctly be regarded as later and authoritative recensions of what, in some form, had existed before. But although these works had their origin in Palestine, it is noteworthy that, in the form in which at present we possess them, they are the outcome of the schools of Babylon.

But Palestine owed, if possible, a still greater debt to Babylonia. The new circumstances in which the Jews were placed on their return seemed to render necessary an adaptation of the Mosaic Law, if not new legislation. Besides, piety and zeal now attached themselves to the outward observance and study of the letter of the Law. This is the origin of the Mishnah, or Second Law, which was intended to explain and supplement the first. This constituted the only Jewish dogmatics, in the real sense, in the study of which the sage, Rabbi, scholar, scribe, and Darshan,⁵⁸⁵⁸     From darash, to search out, literally, to tread out. The preacher was afterwards called the Darshan. were engaged. The result of it was the Midrash, or investigation, a term which afterwards was popularly applied to commentaries on the Scriptures and preaching. From the outset, Jewish theology divided into two branches: the Halakhah and the Haggadah. The former (from halakh, to go) was, so to speak, the Rule of the Spiritual Road, and, when fixed, had even greater authority than the Scriptures of the Old Testament, since it explained and applied them. On the other hand, the Haggadah⁵⁹⁵⁹    The Halakhah might be described as the apocryphal Pentateuch, the Haggadah as the apocryphal Prophets (from nagad, to tell) was only the personal saying of the teacher, more or less valuable according to his learning and popularity, or the authorities which he could quote in his support. Unlike the Halakhah, the Haggadah had no absolute authority, either as to doctrine practice, or exegesis. But all the greater would be its popular influence,⁶⁰⁶⁰    We may here remind ourselves of 1 Tim. v. 17. St. Paul, as always, writes with the familiar Jewish phrases ever recurring to his mind. The expression διδασκαλͺα seems to be equivalent to Halakhic teaching. Comp. Grimm, Clavis N. T. pp. 98, 99. and all the more dangerous the doctrinal license which it allowed. In fact, strange as it may sound, almost all the doctrinal teaching of the Synagogue is to be derived from the Haggadah - and this also is characteristic of Jewish traditionalism. But, alike in Halakhah and Haggadah, Palestine was under the deepest obligation to Babylonia. For the father of Halakhic study was Hillel, the Babylonian, and among the popular Haggadists there is not a name better known than that of Eleazar the Mede, who flourished in the first century of our era.

After this, it seems almost idle to inquire whether, during the first period after the return of the exiles from Babylon, there were regular theological academies in Babylon. Although it is, of course, impossible to furnish historical proof, we can scarely doubt that a community so large and so intensely Hebrew would not have been indifferent to that study, which constituted the main thought and engagement of their brethren in Palestine. We can understand that, since the great Sanhedrin in Palestine exercised supreme spiritual authority, and in that capacity ultimately settled all religious questions - at least for a time - the study and discussion of these subjects should also have been chiefly carried on in the schools of Palestine; and that even the great Hillel himself, when still a poor and unknown student, should have wandered thither to acquire the learning and authority, which at that period he could not have found in his own country. But even this circumstance implies, that such studies were at least carried on and encouraged in Babylonia. How rapidly soon afterwards the authority of the Babylonian schools increased, till they not only overshadowed those of Palestine, but finally inherited their prerogatives, is well known. However, therefore, the Palestinians in their pride or jealousy might sneer,⁶¹⁶¹    In Moed Q. 25 a. sojourn in Babylon is mentioned as a reason why the Shekhinah could not rest upon a certain Rabbi. that the Babylonians were stupid, proud, and poor (‘they ate bread upon bread’),⁶²⁶²    Pes. 34 b; Men. 52 a; Sanh. 24 a; Bets. 16 a - apud Neubauer, Géog. du Talmud, p. 323. In Keth. 75 a, they are styled the ‘silly Babylonians.’ See also Jer. Pes. 32 a. even they had to acknowledge that, ‘when the Law had fallen into oblivion, it was restored by Ezra of Babylon; when it was a second time forgotten, Hillel the Babylonian came and recovered it; and when yet a third time it fell into oblivion, Rabbi Chija came from Babylon and gave it back once more.’⁶³⁶³    Sukk. 20 a. R. Chija, one of the teachers of the second century, is among the most celebrated Rabbinical authorities, around whose memory legend has thrown a special halo.

Such then was that Hebrew dispersion which, from the first, constituted really the chief part and the strength of the Jewish nation, and with which its religious future was also to lie. For it is one of those strangely significant, almost symbolical, facts in history, that after the destruction of Jerusalem the spiritual supremacy of Palestine passed to Babylonia, and that Rabbinical Judaism, under the stress of political adversity, voluntarily transferred itself to the seats of Israel's ancient dispersion, as if to ratify by its own act what the judgment of God had formerly executed. But long before that time the Babylonian ‘dispersion’ had already stretched out its hands in every direction. Northwards, it had spread through Armenia, the Caucasus, and to the shores of the Black Sea, and through Media to those of the Caspian. Southwards, it had extended to the Persian Gulf and through the vast extent of Arabia, although Arabia Felix and the land of the Homerites may have received their first Jewish colonies from the opposite shores of Ethiopia. Eastwards it had passed as far as India.⁶⁴⁶⁴    In this, as in so many respects, Dr. Neubauer has collated very interesting information, to which we refer. See his Géogr. du Talm. pp. 369-399. Everywhere we have distinct notices of these wanderers, and everywhere they appear as in closest connection with the Rabbinical hierarchy of Palestine. Thus the Mishnah, in an extremely curious section,⁶⁵⁶⁵    The whole section gives a most curious glimpse of the dress and ornaments worn by the Jews at that time. The reader interested in the subject will find special information in the three little volumes of Hartmann (Die Hebräerin am Putztische), in N. G. Schröder's some-what heavy work: De Vestitu Mulier. Hebr., and especially in that interesting tractate, Trachten d. Juden, by Dr. A. Brüll, of which, unfortunately, only one part has appeared. tells us how on Sabbaths the Jewesses of Arabia might wear their long veils, and those of India the kerchief round the head, customary in those countries, without incurring the guilt of desecrating the holy day by needlessly carrying what, in the eyes of the law, would be a burden;⁶⁶⁶⁶    Shabb. vi. 6. while in the rubric for the Day of Atonement we have it noted that the dress which the High-Priest wore ‘between the evenings’ of the great fast - that is, as afternoon darkened into evening - was of most costly ‘Indian’ stuff.⁶⁷⁶⁷    Yoma iii. 7.

That among such a vast community there should have been poverty, and that at one time, as the Palestinians sneered, learning may have been left to pine in want, we can readily believe. For, as one of the Rabbis had it in explanation of Deut. xxx. 13: ‘Wisdom is not “beyond the sea” - that is, it will not be found among traders or merchants,’⁶⁸⁶⁸    Er. 55 a. whose mind must be engrossed by gain. And it was trade and commerce which procured to the Babylonians their wealth and influence, although agriculture was not neglected. Their caravans - of whose camel drivers, by the way, no very flattering account is given⁶⁹⁶⁹    Kidd. iv. 14. - carried the rich carpets and woven stuffs of the East, as well as its precious spices, to the West: generally through Palestine to the Phoenician harbours, where a fleet of merchantmen belonging to Jewish bankers and shippers lay ready to convey them to every quarter of the world. These merchant princes were keenly alive to all that passed, not only in the financial, but in the political world. We know that they were in possession of State secrets, and entrusted with the intricacies of diplomacy. Yet, whatever its condition, this Eastern Jewish community was intensely Hebrew. Only eight days’ journey - though, according to Philo’s western ideas of it, by a difficult road⁷⁰⁷⁰    Philo ad Cajum, ed. Frcf. p. 1023. - separated them from Palestine; and every pulsation there vibrated in Babylonia. It was in the most outlying part of that colony, in the wide plains of Arabia, that Saul of Tarsus spent those three years of silent thought and unknown labour, which preceded his re-appearance in Jerusalem, when from the burning longing to labour among his brethren, kindled by long residence among these Hebrews of the Hebrews, he was directed to that strange work which was his life’s mission.⁷¹⁷¹    Gal. i. 17; And it was among the same community that Peter wrote and laboured,⁷²⁷²    1 Pet. v. 13. amidst discouragements of which we can form some conception from the sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third century it had not numbered among its members any convert to Christianity.⁷³⁷³    Pes. 56 a, apud Neubauer, u. s., p. 351. In what has been said, no notice has been taken of those wanderers of the ten tribes, whose trackless footsteps seem as mysterious as their after-fate. The Talmudists name four countries as their seats. But, even if we were to attach historic credence to their vague statements, at least two of these localities cannot with any certainty be identified.⁷⁴⁷⁴    Comp. Neubauer, pp. 315, 372; Hamburger, Real-Encykl. p. 135. Only thus far all agree as to point us northwards, through India, Armenia, the Kurdish mountains, and the Caucasus. And with this tallies a curious reference in what is known as IV. Esdras, which locates them in a land called Arzareth, a term which has, with some probability, been identified with the land of Ararat.⁷⁵⁷⁵     Comp. Volkmar, Handb. d. Einl. in d. Apokr. ii^te Abth., pp. 193, 194, notes. For the reasons there stated, I prefer this to the ingenious interpretation proposed by Dr. Schiller-Szinessy (Journ. of Philol. for 1870, pp. 113, 114), who regards it as a contraction of Erez achereth, ‘another land,’ referred to in Deut. xxix. 27 (28). Josephus⁷⁶⁷⁶    Ant. xi. 5.2. describes them as an innumerable multitude, and vaguely locates them beyond the Euphrates. The Mishnah is silent as to their seats, but discusses their future restoration; Rabbi Akiba denying and Rabbi Eliezer anticipating it.⁷⁷⁷⁷    Sanh. x. 3. ⁷⁸⁷⁸    R. Eliezer seems to connect their return with the dawn of the new Messianic day. Another Jewish tradition⁷⁹⁷⁹    Ber. R. 73. locates them by the fabled river Sabbatyon, which was supposed to cease its flow on the weekly Sabbath. This, of course, is an implied admission of ignorance of their seats. Similarly, the Talmud⁸⁰⁸⁰    Jer. Sanb 29 c. speaks of three localities whither they had been banished: the district around the river Sabbatyon; Daphne, near Antioch; while the third was overshadowed and hidden by a cloud.

Later Jewish notices connect the final discovery and the return of the ‘lost tribes’ with their conversion under that second Messiah who, in contradistinction to ‘the Son of David’ is styled ‘the Son of Joseph,’ to whom Jewish tradition ascribes what it cannot reconcile with the royal dignity of ‘the Son of David,’ and which, if applied to Him, would almost inevitably lead up to the most wide concessions in the Christian argument.⁸¹⁸¹    This is not the place to discuss the later Jewish fiction of a second or ‘suffering’ Messiah, ‘the son of Joseph,’ whose special mission it would be to bring back the ten tribes, and to subject them to Messiah, ‘the son of David,’ but who would perish in the war against Gog and Magog. As regards the ten tribes there is this truth underlying the strange hypothesis, that, as their persistent apostasy from the God of Israel and His worship had cut them off from his people, so the fulfilment of the Divine promises to them in the latter days would imply, as it were, a second birth to make them once more Israel. Beyond this we are travelling chiefly into the region of conjecture. Modern investigations have pointed to the Nestorians,⁸²⁸²    Comp. the work of Dr. Asahel Grant on the Nestorians. His arguments have been well summarised and expanded in an interesting note in Mr. Nutt’s Sketch of Samaritan History, pp. 2-4. and latterly with almost convincing evidence (so far as such is possible) to the Afghans, as descended from the lost tribes.⁸³⁸³     I would here call special attention to a most interesting paper on the subject (‘A New Afghan Question’), by Mr. H. W. Bellew, in the ‘Journal of the United Service Institution of India,’ for 1881, pp. 49-97. Such mixture with, and lapse into, Gentile nationalities seems to have been before the minds of those Rabbis who ordered that, if at present a non-Jew weds a Jewess, such a union was to be respected, since the stranger might be a descendant of the ten tribes.⁸⁴⁸⁴    Yebam 16 b. Besides, there is reason to believe that part of them, at least, had coalesced with their brethren of the later exile;⁸⁵⁸⁵    Kidd. 69 b. while we know that individuals who had settled in Palestine and, presumably, elsewhere, were able to trace descent from them.⁸⁶⁸⁶    So Anna from the tribe of Aser, St. Luke ii. 36. Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. pp. 102, 103) argues that the ten tribes had become wholly undistinguishable from the other two. But his arguments are not convincing, and his opinion was certainly not that of those who lived in the time of Christ, or who reflected their ideas. Still the great mass of the ten tribes was in the days of Christ, as in our own, lost to the Hebrew nation.