The enormous extent of the Jewish Diaspora in comparison with the petty mother country presents an enigma to historical inquiry which it is unable to solve with certainty. In any case, various factors must have co-operated to bring about the result in question. In the time of the Assyrians and the Chaldzeans forcible deportations to the Euphrates districts took place, and a process of the same kind was repeated even in the Persian period, under Artaxerxes Ochus. At the beginning of the Greek period the rulers sought, in the interests of the consolidation of their dominions, to effect the greatest possible intermixture of populations, and with a view to this they incited and favoured general migrations, by guaranteeing certain privi- leges and by other means. Pressure from above and the prospect of gain, in particular the interests of trade, combined to produce an ebbing and flow- ing of the peoples scattered over the wide dominions of the Diadochi. It is to this period that we ought presumably to assign a large proportion of those Jewish migrations, whose occurrence we can only infer from their results in the Roman period. But all this is hardly sufficient to account fully for the fact before us. Is it possible that the small com- munity, which under Ezra and Nehemiah organ- ized itself around Jerusalem, and which even about the year B.C. 200 had not spread beyond the terri- tory of Judzea (in the narrower sense), should have produced merely by natural increase the many thousands, nay millions, who at the latest in the Ist cent. A.D. are found scattered over the whole world? This is highly improbable. We are thus compelled to suppose that it was not only to migration and natural reproduction, but also to numerous conversions during the Greek period, that Judaism owed its wide diffusion over the whole world, and the great number of adherents whose existence we can prove in general with complete certainty, although we cannot give the actual figures. :
In the present article we shall describe (1) the extent of the dispersion of the Jews; (2) the organization of the communities ; (3) the measure in which they enjoyed toleration and recognition by the State ; (4) the share of the Jews in citizen- ship; (5) their religious and intellectual life in general.
i. EXTENT OF THE DIASPORA.—We have general testimony to the wide dispersion of the Jewish people, commencing with the middle of the 2nd cent. B.C. In the Third Book of the Sibylline Oracles, composed probably about B.c. 140, 1b is said that ‘every land and every sea is filled with
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them’ (Orac. Sibyll. iii. 271, maca dé yata oédev mdipns Kai aca Oddacoa). In the time of Sulla we are told by Strabo that the Jewish people had already ‘come into every city; and one cannot readily find any place in the world which has not received this tribe and been taken possession of by it? (ap. Jos. Ant. XIv. vii. 2). According to Josephus, there is ‘no people in the world with- out a fragment of us’ (BJ I. xvi. 4 [Niese, § 398]: ob yap or éml rijs olkousevns O7jjuos 6 Ln motpay huerépav éxwv). The fullest details are found in the survey given by Philo in the letter of Agrippa to Caligula (Legatio ad Gaium, § 36 [ed. Mangey, ii. 587]): ‘Jerusalem is the metropolis not only of Judza, but of most countries. This is owing to the colonies which on suitable occasions she has sent to the neighbouring lands of Egypt, Phe- nicia, Syria, Cole-Syria; to the remoter Pam- phylia, Cilicia, most parts of Asia, as far as Bithynia; and to the farthest corners of Pontus, as well as to Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Mace- donia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, to the most and the fairest parts of the Peloponnesus. And not only is the mainland covered with Jewish settlements, but also the principal islands: Eubea, Cyprus, Crete. Ileave unnamed the lands beyond the Euphrates, for, with the exception of a small portion, all this district, including Babylon and the satrapies that embrace the fertile territory lying around, has Jewish inhabitants.’ We are not able to test the correctness of this testimony in every detail. But the more our knowledge is enlarged by new discoveries, the more do we find the accu- racy of the above description established. Coming now to particulars, the following are the most im- portant testimonies :—
1. THE EUPHRATES DISTRICTS.—The earliest Diaspora of the Jews is that found in these regions (Assyria, Media, Babylonia). Large masses were deported by the Assyrians from the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, and by the Chaldzans from the kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians settled those whom they had carried away ‘in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes’ (2 K 178 18"), z.e. in the northern part of the region watered by the Euphrates, to the west of Nineveh (see the articles on the various localities just named). The Chaldeans brought their captives to the region of Babylon. It is true that large companies of the Judahites and Benjamites who had been carried to Babylon, afterwards returned to their native land and founded a new community there. But there was no such thing as a complete return of the Baby- lonian exiles. Still less was this the case with the members of the Ten Tribes deported by the Assyrians. Practically, the whole of these re- mained in foreign parts. This is not only implied in the biblical narrative, which knows nothing of a return on their part, but is expressly testified to by later writers (Jos. Ant. XI. v.2: ai dé déxa pudal népay elaly Hippdrov éws dedpo, mupiddes darecpor Kal apOus yuodjvac wh Svvduevar; cf. 4 Ezr 13°47; Origen, Hpist. ad Africanwm, § 14; Commodian, Carmen Apologet. 936-939). As late as the time of R. ‘Akiba, the Rabbis continued to dispute whether the Ten Tribes would ever return or not (Mishna, Sanhedrin, x. 3 fin.; tradition vacillates regarding the authorities who supported the dif- ferent views [see Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, j. 143f.)).