We find (Acts ii, 10) that, among those who came up to Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost, there were Jews, devout men from Egypt, and the parts of Libya about Cyrene. Of this city, Apollos, the elo- quent convert, was a native (Acts xviii, 24) ; and of the Jews that disputed with Stephen and put him to death, many were Alexandrians, who, it seems, had a syna- gogue at that time in Jerusalem (Acts vi, 9). Philo estimates them in his time at little less than 1,000,000 (In Flacc. $ (I, p. !)71 ) ; and adds that two of the five districts df Alexandria were called " Jewish districts," and that many Jews lived scattered in the remaining three (ib. § 8, p. 973). Julius Ca>sar (Josephus, Ant. xiv, 10, 1) and Augustus confirmed to them the privi- leges which they had enjoyed before, and they retain- ed them, with various interruptions, of which the most important, A.D. 39, is described by Philo (1. e.), during the tumults and persecutions of later reigns (Josephus, Ap. ii, 4; War, xii, 3, 2). They wen' represented (at least from the time of Cleopatra to the reign of Claudius, .Tost, Gesch. >l. .hrl, nth. p. 363) by their own officer [see Alabarch] (tQvapxris, Strab. ap. Jose- phus, Ant. xiv, 7, 2; a\a(Sapxqs, #. xviii, 7, 3; 9,
1 ; xix, 5, 1 ; comp. Rup. ad Juv. Sat. i, 130 ; yivdp\i]c, Philo, In Flacc. § 10, p. 975), and Augustus appointed a council (ytpovaia, i. e. Sanhedrim ; Philo, 1. c.) " to superintend the affairs of the Jews," according to their own laws. The establishment of Christianity altered the civil position of the Jews, but they maintained their relative prosperity ; and when Alexandria was taken by Amrou, 40,000 tributary Jews were reckoned among the marvels of the city (Gibbon, cli). They enjoyed their privileges undisturbed until the time of Ptolemy Philopator, who, being exasperated at the re- sistance he had met with in attempting to enter the temple at Jerusalem, wreaked his wrath upon the Jews of Alexandria on his return to Egypt. He reduced to the third or lowest class all but such as would consent to offer sacrifices to the gods he worshipped ; but of the whole body only 300 were found willing to aban- don their principles in order to preserve their civil ad- vantages. The act of the general body in excluding the 300 apostates from their congregations was so rep- resented to the king as to move his anger to the ut- most, and he madly determined to exterminate all the Jews in Egypt. Accordingly, as many as could be found were brought together and shut up in the spa- cious hippodrome of the cit^-, with the intention of let- ting loose 500 elephants upon them ; but the animals refused their horrid task, and, turning wildly upon the spectators and soldiers, destroyed large numbers of them. This, even to the king, who was present, seemed so manifest an interposition of Providence in favor of the Jews, that he not only restored their priv- ileges, but loaded them with new favors. This story, as it is omitted by Josephus and other writers, and only found in the third book of Maccabees (ii-v), is considered doubtful.
The dreadful persecution which the Jews of Alex- andria underwent in A.D. 39 shows that, notwithstand- ing their long establishment there, no friendly rela- tions had arisen between them and the other inhabi- tants, by whom, in fact, they were intensely hated. This feeling was so well known that, at the date indi- cated, the Roman governor, Avillius Flaccus, who was anxious to ingratiate himself with the citizens, was persuaded that the surest way of winning their affec- tions was to withdraw his protection from the Jews, against whom the emperor was alreadj' exasperated by their refusal to acknowledge his right to divine honors, which he insanely claimed, or to admit his images into their synagogues. The Alexandrians soon found out that they would not be called to account for any pro- ceedings they might have recourse to against the Jews. The insult and bitter mockery with which they treat- ed Herod Agrippa, when he came to Alexandria before proceeding to take possession of the kingdom he had received from Caligula, gave the first intimation of their dispositions. Finding that the governor connived at their conduct, thej' proceeded to insist that the em- peror's images should be introduced into the Jewish synagogues ; and on resistance being offered, they de- stroyed most of them, and polluted the others by intro- ducing the imperial images by force. The example thus set by the Alexandrians was followed in other cities of Egypt, which contained at this time about a million of .lews ; and a vast number of oratories — of which the largest and most beautiful were called syn- agogues— were all either levelled with the ground, con- sumed by tire, or profaned by the emperor's statues ( Philo, in Flacc. p. 968-1009, ed. 1640 ; De Leg. ix ; Euseb. ( hron. 27. 28). Flaccus soon after published an edict depriving the Jews of the rights of citizenship, which they had so long enjoyed, and declaring them aliens. The Jews then occupied two out of the five quar- ters (which took their names from the first five letters of the alphabet) into which the city was divided ; and as they were in those times by no means remarkable for their submission to wrong treatment, it is likely that they made some efforts toward the maintenance of their