The Ptolemies.1 Notwithstanding his obscure origin Ptolemy I. Soter, known also as the son of Lagus, is one of the most conspicuous figures of the period next succeeding Alexander. It was a sagacious choice that secured to him, as one of the latter's most successful officers, the satrapy of Egypt, where, in a measure apart from the quarrels of his fellow generals, he might lay the foundations of the empire which he projected. While skillfully avoiding conflict, as far as possible, he knew how to defend himself when attacked, as against Perdikkas in B. C. 321, and more than once against Antigonus, until the decisive battle of Ipsus, B. C. 301. He assumed the title of king in B. c. 305. The bounds of his empire he extended by uniting to it Cyrene on the East, and, after B. C. 301, Palestine and Cole-Syria on the West. The island of Cyprus, too, came at this time into the permanent possession of Egypt. The native Egyptians he left in the undisturbed enjoyment of their social and religious customs, but admitted none of them to the ruling class, which was distinctively Macedonian. His relation to the Jews, and the influence of Greek civilization under him and his successors, will be later considered. Apparently in order to guard against any possible dispute over the succession, Ptolemy I. Soter, two years before his death (B. C. 284), abdicated in favor of his youngest son, Ptolemy II. Philadelphus. The second Ptolemy was perhaps the most distinguished of the name. Less hindered than his father had been by the necessity of defending the empire against the ambi- Ptolemy II. tious designs of the Syrian rulers, he was able to devote himself with all the im- Philadel phus. mense resources at his command to the object of making his capital the brilliant, undisputed centre of literature and of commerce for the entire civilized world. Alexandria became at this time, in fact, intellectually and commercially what Rome became two centuries later politically, the world's metropolis. Its magnificent lighthouse, which gave its name to all subsequent structures of the kind; its world-renowned museum and library, the depository even during the present reign, it is said, of 700,000 papyrus rolls; the home of artists and scholars from every land, among whom history mentions a Stilpo of Megara, Strato the Peripatetic, Theodore, Euclid, Diodorus, Theophrastus, and Menander; the breadth of its culture, which found room for every kind of human learning and furnished us the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, this was the most fitting tribute which the successors of Alexander could have paid to his grand designs, the most splendid monument they could have reared to his memory. Ptolemy III successors. Ptolemy III. Euergetes, as eldest son, succeeded his father on the throne of Egypt (B. C. 246-221). Under him the empire reached the highest pitch of its prosperity. During a brilliant campaign against Antiochus II. of Syria he pushed his way as far as Antioch and Babylon, securing in the latter place some of the trophies and his which Cambyses had carried away from Egypt three hundred years before, and received, in consequence, from his grateful subjects the surname of "Benefactor," which he ever afterwards bore. Under Ptolemy IV. Philopator, the next monarch (B. c. 221–204), the period of degeneration set in. He preserved, indeed, the integrity of the empire, signally defeating in the noted battle of Raphia (B. C. 217) the skillful and energetic Antiochus III. the Great, but in his private life was effeminate and sensual in the extreme, and by oppressive measures provoked among his Egyptian subjects the first rebellion that had broken out since the Greeks had begun to rule. His only son, Ptolemy V. Epiphanes, a child of five years, succeeded him. Antiochus III. the Great now found the opportunity for which he had been waiting, to retrieve the disaster of Raphia. Joining his forces with those of Philip III. of Macedon he attacked those of Egypt under Skopas in the Valley of the Jordan near Paneas (B. C. 199), and won a victory by which Phoenicia and Cole-Syria, with Judæa, passed out of the hands of the Ptolemies into those of the Seleucidæ. In this world's debate," as Stanley 2 calls the series of conflicts between the kings of Syria and Egypt, "Palestine was the principal stage across which the kings of Affairs in the South,' the Alexandrian Ptolemies, and the kings of the North,' the Seleu- Palestine. 1 Cf. Letronne, Recherches pour servir à l'Histoire de l'Egypte, etc.; Lepsius, Königsbuch der alten Ægypter; Geier, De Prolemai Lagida Vita; Champollion-Figeac, Annales des Lagides, and review of the same by St. Martin: Nourekes Recherches sur l'Epoque de la Mort d'Alexandre et sur la Chronologie des Ptolémées; Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, also, Ptolemaus Lagi, der Gründer der 32sten agyptischen Dynastie; Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken; Sharpe. History of Egypt from the Earliest Times; Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur. So too the various classical writers of the period, and the exceedingly interesting records of the monuments. English translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian monuments have been published by Bagster and Sons, under the title Records of the Past, of which eleven vols. have already appeared. See, especially, vol. viii., pp. 81–90. 2 iii 243. cidæ from Antioch, passed to and fro with their court intrigues and their incessant armies, their Indian elephants, their Grecian cavalry, their Oriental pomp." Cole-Syria, including Judæa, on the partition of Alexander's empire, had been assigned to Laomedon. It was taken from him by Ptolemy I. Soter, in the year following his victorious campaign against Perdikkas (B. c. 320), and the walls of Jerusalem, which he entered on the Sabbath, were razed to the ground. At the same time, if the historians of the period are to be trusted, as many as a hundred thousand Jews were carried off to Egypt, becoming permanent settlers there, a part in Alexandria, and others in Cyrene, Libya, and even more distant districts of Africa. But the wooded heights of Lebanon and the sea-coasts of Phoenicia were a prize too much coveted to be left uncontested in the hands of Ptolemy. They were wrested from him by Antigonus in the year B. c. 314, to be won back in the great battle of Gaza, two years later, which period (B. c. 312), moreover, was rendered still more memorable as the beginning of the Seleucian era. Singularly enough, Seleucus himself was at this time a fugitive in the camp of Ptolemy, where he served as one of the royal guards. The latter's triumph, in turn, was of short duration. Demetrius, who had been defeated at Gaza, having united his forces with those of his father, succeeded in driving the Egyptians once more from the debatable provinces, and retained possession of them until the eventful battle of Ipsus (B. C. 301), from which time, for the next hundred years, dates the permanent rule of the Ptolemies in Palestine. It was a fearful scourge to which this little land had been exposed during the twenty-two years of almost incessant war between the forces of Syria and Egypt. It does not surprise us to learn that in addition to those who were forcibly removed, great numbers of Jews voluntarily exiled themselves from their native land. Ptolemy II. Philadelphus manumitted 130,000 who, as the result of the wars under the previous reign, had been brought as slaves into his empire. It was no less an act of political sagacity than of humanity. As loyal and useful subjects of Persia and of Alexander the Jews had proved their worth as a support to the throne. Alexander himself had accorded them equal rights with the Macedonians as citizens of Alexandria. They were known as a people that could safely be trusted. They had the fear of God before them, and their moral purity and steadfastness were something that, as elements of political strength, even an Oriental monarch knew how to appreciate. In Palestine during the entire reign of the Ptolemies the people were left, for the most part, in the uninterrupted enjoyment of civil and religious freedom. Their peculiarities of belief and social usages seem to have been carefully respected. The high priest remained undisturbed in his more than royal prerogatives. If the twenty Syrian talents of silver appointed as yearly tribute were regularly paid, the rest was a matter of comparative indifference. The high priests. The following is a list of those who held the high priest's office in the period extending from the death of Alexander to the reign of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes: Onias I. (B. C. 331-299); Simon I. the Just (B. c. 299-287); Eleazer (B. C. 287-266); Manasse (B. C. 266-240); Onias II. (B. C. 240-227); Simon II. (B. C. 226–198); Onias III. (B. C. 198-175); Jason. Under Onias I., was made the treaty of the Jews with the Lacedemonians, an account of which, in an embellished form, is given in 1 Macc. (xii. 2023). During the term of office of the next high priest, Simon I., nothing of note occurred. It was under Eleazer that the translation of the Septuagint was undertaken in Alexandria. Onias II., who seemed, at least in his later years, to have represented the Syrian as over against the Egyptian party in Palestine, came near having serious difficulty with the latter country. For once, the usual tribute was refused. The energetic measures of his ambitious nephew Joseph, who himself collected the money and carried it to the Egyptian court, alone averted the catastrophe. After the battle of Raphia, Ptolemy IV. Philopator, elated by his victory, entered the temple at Jerusalem, and not only offered sacrifices there, but in spite of the remonstrances of the priests, and the consternation and tears of the entire people, forced his way into the Holy of Holies. What actually took place there in consequence it is not possible to learn, the account in 3 Maccabees (i. 9, ii. 24) being wholly legendary. But it is certain that he left Jerusalem, inflamed with the deepest hatred towards the Jewish people, and proceeded to vent the same on their innocent brethren in Egypt. A similar case occurred under Onias III. Palestine being at that time already joined to Syria, Heliodorus, the treasurer of Seleucus IV. Philopator, inspired by the hope of booty, also made an attempt to force his way into the Holy of Holies, but, as we are informed, was miraculously 1 Jos., Antiq., xii. 1, § 1. 2 Jos., Contra Ap., i ti. 5. struck down on the threshold as Ptolemy had been, and at last owed life itself to the friendly intercession of the high priest on his behalf.1 ture in Palestine. Grecian colonization had been one of the controlling ideas of Alexander. Aristotle wrote a book concerning him which he entitled, "Alexander, or about Colonies." 2 And Progress of a marked peculiarity of Alexander's colonies, as of Greek life in general, as it de- Greek culveloped itself in foreign lands, was the city. In this it particularly distinguished itself from that of the Asiatics. The one was distinctively ethnic (čovos), the other polite (Tóλis, Toxíτns), to use the word in its etymological sense. An old Ephesian inscription of the Roman period reads: Ἐφεσίων ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων αἱ ἐν τῇ Ασίᾳ κατοικοῦσαι πόλεις καὶ τὰ ἔθνη. It was in this way also, that the Greek civilization extended itself in Palestine. Perdik kas, who wore the signet ring of Alexander, showed his loyalty to the memory of his chief by engaging at once in the rebuilding and Grecizing of Samaria. Dan, to the extreme north, received the name of Paneas in honor of the god Pan, to whom also a temple was built on the neighboring slopes of Hermon. Bethshean, west of Jordan, became Scythopolis, under which name it is known in the second book of Maccabees (xii. 29). On the other side of the river sprang up new cities, with such names as Hippos, Gadara; and further to the south, Pella and Dion; forming with some others, the Decapolis of Josephus and the New Testament, and all being, as is evident from their names, of Macedonian or Greek origin. In honor of the second of the Ptolemies, the place known as Rabbath Ammon was changed to Philadelphia, and the ancient capital of the Moabites, Ar-Moab, received at about the same time the more euphonious title of Areopolis. Along the Phoenician coast, the evidences of Greek life were still more marked. Old cities were rebuilt and repeopled, and new cities founded with a zeal and rapidity unknown before in the Orient. Straton's Tower, afterwards known as Cæsarea on the sea,- Gaza, Dora, Apollonia, Anthedon, were some of the many seaports which sprang up during these eventful years, and drew to them across the blue Mediterranean, a swarming, adventurous population from the fatherland. In all these places Greek life dominated, the Greek language was spoken, the morals and the immorality of Hellas practiced with but little change. Of the whole of Palestine, Judæa alone remained, as yet, comparatively free from the transforming influence of Greek ideas. There was but little in its thin soil to tempt cupidity, and its people were not of the sort to take kindly to an influx of strangers. Still it was completely girdled with the new civilization. It could not shut wholly out, if it would, the silvery tones of the Greek tongue; it could not remain insensible to the charms of Greek art; it might even have its weak side for the feasts, games, and holiday extravagances of its neighbors from the West. It was, at least, a question whose answer could not long be delayed. The Jews in where. It is, however, by no means to be supposed that Judaism was confined to Judæa. We have already seen that as a result of the fearful devastations to which Palestine was continually subject under the successors of Alexander, large numbers of Jews were forced to seek an asylum in other lands. Of all the peoples of the Orient and elsenaturally the most seclusive and exclusive, they came, at last, by the mere force of circumstances, that is, the force of divine Providence, to rival the Greeks themselves in their capacity for diffusion and their cosmopolitan character. If we had reason to wonder that so many of them, two centuries before, firmly declined to return from their banishment in Persia and Babylon, much more is it now an occasion of surprise that they voluntarily leave their homes-it is true that emigration was also sometimes compulsory to go forth as merchants, bankers, artisans, but always as Jews, into every part of the inhabited globe, and that in all the great cities of Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, they make their homes side by side with the teeming colonists of Hellas and Macedon. The higher explanation is found in the fact that Judaism had something to give as well as to receive. We are *oo likely to forget, in contemplating the magnificent service which the Grecian language and philosophy did for the Jewish faith and people, the still more magnificent and beneficent service that a developed and transformed Jewish faith did for Greece and for all mankind. Especially in Alexandria did the Jewish influence make itself felt. The first colonists had been particularly favored with the friendship and patronage of Alexander and the early Ptolemies. If many went, at first, unwillingly into the land of their former bondage, a larger number soon followed them of their own choice. All departments of industry were open to them. While devoting themselves principally to trade, some also rose to eminence as soldiers, 1 See 2 Macc. iii. 4-40 2 Cf. Starke, p. 449, and Droysen, iii. (1), 82. statesmen, and men of learning. In the practice of their religion and the observance of their national customs they were, for a long time, unmolested. To such an extent did they thrive and increase that at the time of Philo they numbered a million souls, and two of the five wards of Alexandria were exclusively occupied by them. Not only were the Alexandrian Jews the most numerous of the Dispersion, they were also the most influential. Of this entire class, indeed, wherever they might be, Alexandria was the intellectual and spiritual centre, as was Jerusalem for the Jews of Palestine. The temple at Heliopo lis. It is a significant fact, on whatever ground it may rest, and looked at either from an Egyptian or Palestinian point of view, that in the ancient, sacred city of Heliopolis a rival temple could be erected (B. C. 160?), and that henceforth, until the time of Vespasian, it should continue to maintain its service and have its own priests, Levites, and landed property. No better evidence of the relaxing influence of Greek civilization could be desired than this willingness to accept a dilapidated shrine of heathenism as the basis of a temple to Jehovah, or of the growth of a new method of Scripture interpretation such as afterwards culminated in the writings of Philo, than the ability to twist the poetic language of Isaiah so that it should be made to contain a direct approval of this more than doubtful undertaking. It was regarded with distrust in Palestine, and although having no very deep or permanent influence in Egypt was still a marked symptom of the divisive spirit that characterized the later Judaism. Already under Ptolemy IV. Philopator, the Jews in Egypt, for reasons not difficult to conceive, had begun to lose favor alike with prince and people. Some envied them their prosperity. More hated them on account of their exclusiveness, their extravagant assumptions as an elect people, and especially, their ill-concealed disgust at the ignorant idolatry that prevailed about them. Hence, the favor of the court being withdrawn, the proverbial lawlessness of the Egyptians broke forth into open and bitter persecutions, some faint reflection of which has been preserved in the fabulous stories of the Third Book of Maccabees. We have already alluded to the brilliant constellation of learned men, who, from the times of the Ptolemies, for hundreds of years made Alexandria the acknowledged literary The Septua- metropolis of the entire world. Until the second century after Christ the most gint.2 renowned physicians, philosophers, astronomers, philologists, and even theologians, received here their training. The first five librarians, Zenodotus, Callimachus, Erastosthenes, Apollonius, and Aristophanes the Byzantine, were as distinguished for their culture as for the high position which they occupied. Two of the Ptolemies themselves did not think it beneath them to be reckoned with Manetho as writers of history. Among the poets may be mentioned Aratus, Nicander, and Theocritus. The a-tronomers of Alexandria were the first to reduce the science to a system, introduced the improved calendar at the time of Julius Cæsar, and gave the names and divisions to the fixed stars, which they still bear. Naturally, all this literary activity could not but make a deep impression on the hundreds of thousands of Israelites who had their home in the Egyptian capital. And among them too, at this period, sprang up a literature of no inconsiderable proportions, fragments of which still remain. They had their own historians: Demetrius, Eupolemus, Cleodemus, and Jason of Cyrene; and their own poets: the dramatist Ezekiel, Philo the elder, and Theodotus. Aristobulus, at the same time a Jewish priest and a disciple of Aristotle, as also a teacher or counselor to the king, even made the attempt to Hebraize the entire literature of Greece, inaugurating a movement whose best known representative before the Christian era was the younger Philo and whose culmination was in the Neo-Platonic philosophy of Ammonius Saccas in the third century after Christ. In the midst of this intellectual ferment it is scarcely needful to say that the Hebrew Scriptures, outside as well as inside the circle of those who invested them with a sacred character, attracted to themselves serious attention. That a demand arose for their complete translation into Greek, the language here universally spoken, was a necessity of the case. And the demand was not confined to Egypt. Greek colonization, in whose quick steps a Jewish colonization almost as extensive had followed, had gone into all lands to mark the favored spots for new life and prepare the way for it. Commerce with its thousands of white-winged messengers awaited its orders under the friendly shadow of the Alexandrian Pharos. The time was, evidently, already ripe for the first beginnings of the move 1 Cf. Stanley, iii. 251-254 2 Cf. Böhl; Frankel's Vorstudien; Fritzsche in Herzog's Real-Encyk., and in Schenkel's Bib. Lex., ad voc.; and Smith's Bib. Dict., Art. "Septuagint." ment in whose crowning issue an apostle Paul afterwards found the goal and glory of his earthly life. There are stories enough concerning the origin of the LXX., but their utter untrustworthiness, in many respects, can easily be proved. They sprang from a natural desire to give to the translation the character of an authoritative, inspired work. It is, The LXX. (continued). perhaps, the wisest course to reject them all, in their details, and to fall back on the simple necessity that ruled the hour. The work was doubtless begun as early as under Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, and was essentially complete when the son of Sirach came to Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy VII. Physcon. That the translators were exclusively learned men, invited from Palestine to Egypt for this purpose, is incredible, almost as much so as that each one of the Seventy, without collusion with the others, made precisely the same version. The feeling in Palestine concerning it is better represented by the words used to signalize the day when it was first introduced into the synagogues of Alexandria and Egypt: "The Law is Greek! Darkness! Let there be a three days' fast!" Among the Jews of the worldcapital, on the other hand, the event was greeted with every expression of joy. Unlike their brethren of Palestine, they looked forward rather than backward and expected only the best results from a closer comparison of Moses with Pythagoras and Plato. Of the critical value of the version of the LXX. this is not the place to speak.2 And we reserve also, until a later period, a description of the various works of a mixed Jewish and Greek character, which followed close upon it and of which it was the more or less direct occasion. chus III. dæ. Antioand Seleu cus IV. It is now time to return to the political history of the Jews of Palestine, which we left at the point where, subsequent to the battle of Paneas (B. C. 199), it fell with Pho- The Seleucinicia and the whole of Cole-Syria into the hands of Antiochus III. the Great. This change of rulers well accorded with the wishes of the masses of the people, especially after the first mild treatment of the Syrian king led them to contrast it favorably with that to which they had more recently been subjected. But the satisfaction experienced was of short duration. Under Egyptian rule Palestine and especially Judæa, as we have seen, had been left, for the most part, to itself, except when the exigencies of the unceasing conflict with Syria called temporarily into it the armies of its rulers. So it could not remain under the Seleucidæ. Greek influence had already become too deeply rooted on every side. The social and commercial as well as geographical connections with Antioch and Damascus were other than those with Alexandria had been. From the first transferrence, therefore, of political allegiance from the kingdom of the South to that of the North, a strong Syrian party showed itself at Jerusalem. A Syrian party, it may be called, for that was the special direction which it took, although it aimed at nothing less than a radical modification, if not the total abolishment of that which had hitherto separated the Jews from their heathen neighbors, in short, a thorough Hellenizing of Judaism in its stronghold. What the immediate results would have been, if the sagacious Antiochus III. had been free to foster in the beginning this movement having its origin in a deteriorated popular taste, it is impossible to say. But his attention and entire resources were soon absorbed in the great campaign against the Romans under the two Scipios, which ended so disastrously for him at Magnesia (B. C. 190). And being now compelled to purchase a peace at the most extravagant pecuniary cost, he did not hesitate to lay his hands on the needed treasures wherever in his kingdom he could find them. He lost his life, in fact, while engaged in pillaging a temple (B. C. 187). The policy of his son, Seleucus IV. Philopator, significantly called in the book of Daniel (xi. 20) a “raiser of taxes," was not, on the whole, of such a nature in its relation to the Jews as to strengthen the hands of a Syrian party in Palestine, but quite the contrary. It was his treasurer, Heliodorus, of whom we have before spoken as having made an unsuccessful and humiliating attempt to secure for his master the supposed untold sums that were concealed in the temple on Mount Moriah. A short time subsequently (B. C. 176) the king perished at the hands of this same Heliodorus, after an unimportant reign of eleven years. It was during the sovereignty of his successor and brother, the unscrupulous Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, that affairs in Judæa reached the fearful crisis towards which they had long been tending. The importance of this reign in its bearings on the whole subsequent history of Ju 1 Cf. remarks in Introd. to Ecclesiasticus, under Date. 2 Cf. Kuenen, iii. 214-216; the works of Frankel cited in the Index of Authorities, and Thiersch, De Pentateuchi, oto. 8 See 1 Macc. i. 11, ff. |