b. Middle Egypt. 'The more recent papyrus ‘finds’ have furnished information regarding the early settlement of Jews in Middle Egypt. Accord- ing to a document of the 3rd cent. B.C. discovered in the nome of Arsinoé (the modern Fayum), there had to be paid for the possession of slaves in the village of Psenyris a duty es ra amodox.a Ts Kwpmns mapa Tw Lovdawy Kat twv EAAqvev (The Flinders Petrie Papyri, ed. by Mahafty, pt. i. 1891, p. 43). In another, belonging to the same region and dating from 238-237 B.C., we meet with a [mapem]:dnuos os kat oupioTt Iwvabas [Kkaderrar] (op. cit. pt. ii. 1893, p- 23). Towards the end of the 2nd cent. B.C. a mpocevx?) Lovdalwy is mentioned at Arsinoé (Tebtwnis Papyri, ed. by Grenfell, Hunt, and Smyly, pt. i. 1902, No. 86). At Oxyrhynchus, south of Arsinoé,
documents have been found of the Roman Imperial period, in which a ‘Jews’ lane’ (appodos Lovdackn) is mentioned (The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, ed. by Grenfell and Hunt, pt. i. 1898, No. 100; pt. ii; 1899, No. 335).
c. Upper Egypt. Here there were Jews settled as early as the time of Jeremiah, for the Pathros of Jer 441 is Upper Egypt. A great many tax- receipts from the 2nd cent. B.C., written upon clay tablets (ostraca), have been found in the neigh- bourhood of Thebes. Among the names of the tax-collectors who grant such discharges there are many which are undoubtedly Jewish: ¢.g. Iwonmos ABdiov, Iwonmios, ZayBaravos ABinrov, Day.BaGaros Dorrovpos, Liywwy Iafapov, XVywwy APindov_ (see the collection in Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka, vol. i. 1899, p. 523f.). A papyrus emanating from the same time and place contains a fragment of a letter, from which we learn that a Jew, named Aavoovdos, had failed of his engagement to make delivery of a horse (Grenfell, An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment, 1896, p. 75). On tax-receipts of the time of Trajan we repeatedly encounter the name of one Avrwyios Madxavos who had charge of the harbour dues (?; opHodvdAakia) at Syene, on the southern border of Upper Egypt (Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka, ii. Nos. 302-304, cf. i. p. 278). As general evidence of the diffusion of the Jews ‘as far as the borders of Ethiopia,’ we have the above cited testimony of Philo. The great extent of their numbers in the Thebaid is best shown by the circumstance that in the time of Trajan they rose in arms here, as in the rest of Egypt, against the non-Jewish inhabitants (Euseb. Chron., ed. Schoene, ii. 164f.).*
6. CYRENAICA,—Here too the Jewish Diaspora was present in force. Even Ptolemy Lagi is said to have sent Jewish colonists thither (Jos. ¢. Apion. ii. 4 [Niese, § 44]). The Roman despatch of 1 Mac 153 presupposes the presence of Jewish inhabitants in Cyrene. According to Strabo, the population of the latter city in the time of Sulla fell into four classes: citizens, farmers, metoikoi, Jews (Strabo ap. Jos. Ant. XIV. vii. 2: rérrapes F Fioav ev 7H wodee tov Kupnvalov, } Te TOV TwodtTav Kal 7 THY yewpyur, tplrn 8 4 r&v perolkwy, Tera pry Oh Tv Iovdaiwy). At that time the Jews already played a prominent part in the disturbances which Lucullus, on the occasion of his incidental presence, had to allay (Strabo, /.c.). A Jewish rodrevua in the city of Berenike in Cyrenaica is brought to our knowledge by a lengthy inscription (C/G 5361; see more fully, below § ii). Augustus and Agrippa took measures in favour of the Jews of Cyrene (Jos. Ant. XVI. vi. 1, 5). We have a number of testimonies in the NT to the presence of Jews in Cyrenaica: Mt 27°, Mk 15*!, Lk 23% (Simon the Cyrenian); Ac 21° (Cyrenians present at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost) ; 6° (a synagogue of the Cyrenians at Jerusalem) ; 11% (Cyrenians come from Jerusalem to Antioch) ; 13! (Lucius of Cyrene a prominent member of the church at Antioch). In the time of Vespasian the Jewish sicariit also found adherents among their co-religionists in Cyrene (Jos. BJ VIII. xi. ; Vita, 76). The great rising of the Jews in Cyrenaica in the time of Trajan was marked by terrible violence (Dio Cass. Ixviii, 82; Euseb. HH iva):
7. NortH AFRICA,—Here we can demonstrate the presence of Jews, during the Roman period,
* The diffusion of Semites throughout Egypt in the earlier Ptolemaic period is witnessed to also by a papyrus probably of the year p.c. 240-239, in which a mcjor-domo makes a return of the personnel of his house for taxation purposes. He enumer- ates amongst others the yewpyol wioG Xofapos PayeroBeur LenB Kperepos Sirarxes MaravBanr (Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka, 1. 436, and also the correction on p. 823). But the Semites here named may be Phenicians or Philistines equally well with Jews. For Phenician inscriptions in Egypt, see CLS i. Nos. 97-113; Répertoire @ épigraphie sémitique, i. 1901, Nos. 1-4.
DIASPORA
from the border of Cyrenaica to the extreme west (cf., especially, Monceaux, ‘Les colonies juives dans l Afrique Romaine’ in REJ xliy. [1902] 1-28). We do not know when or how they came there. But, as the neighbouring Cyrenaica was largel settled by Jews as early as the Ptolemaic period, the colonization of Africa will also have begun then, at least that of proconsular Africa, and later that of Numidia and Mauretania.
a. Proconsular Africa, At Carthage there has heen discovered an extensive Jewish cemetery, containing more than 100 vaults, each with from 15 to 17 loculit. Its Jewish character is shown by the frequent portrayal of the seven- branched candlestick (see Delattre, Gamart ou la nécropole juive de Carthage, Lyon, 1895; for Latin inscrip- tions from this cemetery, see CIL viii. Suppl. Nos. 14097-14114), The work adv. Judeos, attributed to Tertullian, presupposes the presence of Jews in Carthage. At Hammim-Lif, not far from Carthage, the foundations of a synagogue of the Roman fedue have been discovered, upon the mosaic floor of which there are Jewish inscriptions in the Latin language (Renan, Revue archéol., trois, Série, i. [1883] 157-163, iii. [1884] 273-275,