6. T*he DUpenion^ rf Auunropd (2 Mace. i, 27; James i, 1 ; 1 Pet. i, 1 ; John rii, 86 ; Josephus, Ant, xii, 1, 8, etc. ; Sept for ty^b^, which it also renders iiroiKtaf /icro(jr€<r(a, alxfMKu*(ria\ is the collective name given to all those descendants of the twelve tribes (James i, 1 ; t6 SutBiKa^vXoVf Acts xxvi, 7) who lived without the confines of Palestine (e(w,l Cor.T,18, etc.; Tt^'^^ia O;^!, 7?J?V ^?^"> Talmudic Mukna\ during the time of the second Temple. The number of exiles, mostly of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin (Ezra 1, 6, etc.), who availed themselves of the permission of Cy- rus to return from their captivity in Babylon to the land of their fathers, scarcely exceeded, if indeed it reached, the number of 60,000 [the total stated both in Ezra and Nehemiah is, exclusive of the slaves, 42,860; but the sum of the items given— with slight differ- ences—in both documents, fidls short of 80,000]. Old Jewish authorities see in this surplus Israelites of the ten tribes (oomp. Seder Olam RMak, ch. xxix), and among these few but the lowest and humblest, or such as had yielded to authority, were to be found (comp. Mishna, Kiduslun, iv, 1 ; Gem. Ixxi, 1). The great bulk of the nation remained scattered over the wide dominions of the Persian empire, preferring the new homes in which they enjoyed all tlie privileges of na- tive-bom subjects, and where they had in many cases acquired wealth and honors, to the dangers «nd diffi- culties of a recolonization of their former country. But whUe, by the hands of the despised minority who had bravely gone forth, was to be recreated not only the Temple, the visible centre of Judaism, but also the still more imposing and important edifice of the Jew- ish law and Jewish culture, to the much larger section which remained behind, and gradually diffused itself over the whole of the then known world, it was given to participate in the intellectual life and the progress in civilization of all the nations with whom their lot was cast. To the Dispersion is thus due the cosmopol- itan element in Judaism wliich has added so vastly not only to its own strength and dtirability, but also, geo- graphically at least, to the rapid spread of Ohristianity. So for, however, from the dispersion paving the way for the new faith by relaxing the rigor of Jewish law, written or oral— as has been assumed by some— one of the strongest ties by which these voluntary exiles were bound to F^estine and Jerusalem consisted in the very regulations and decisions on all ritual and legal points which they received from the supreme re- ligious authorities, eitiier brought back by tiieir own delegates, or transmitted to them by special messen- gers ftt>m the Central Court, the Sanhedrim (Acts xxviii, 21). Generally it might be said of the whole Diaspora, as Philo {Flace. § 7) said of that of Egypt : that while they looked upon the country in which they had been bom and bred as their home, still they never ceased, so long as the Temple stood, to consider Jem- salem as the spiritual metropolis to which their eyes and hearts were directed. Many were the pilgrimages undertaken thither from their fiir-distant lands (Acts ii, 6, a-11 ; Joseph. War, vi, 9, 8, etc.). The Talmud (Jer, Meg, iii, 76 ; comp. Toe, Meg, c. 2) speaks of no less than 880 synagogues in Jerusalem, besides the Temple, all belonging to different communities of the Dispersion (comp. also Acts vi, 9). Abundant and far ^4:eeding the normal tax of half a shekel {8hek, vii,
4) were the gifts they sent regularly for the suppait of the holy place (gold instead of silver and copper, Toe, Skek, c 2), and still more liberal wei« the mooe- tary equivalents for sacrifices, propitiatory offerings ixlrpay PhiloX for vows, etc., which flowed fh»m all countries into the sacred treasury. The Sanhedrim again regulated the year, with all its subdlvisioos, tliroughout the wide circle of the Dispersion ; the fact that the commencement of the new month had been officially recognised being announced either by bea- con-fires to the a4}oinipg countries, or by messengen to places more remote. That, in general, there exist- ed, as far as circumstances permitted, an uninterrupt- ed intercourse between the Jews abroad and those in Palestine cannot be doubted. Probably, owing to this very connection, two foreign academies only seem to have existed during the time of the second Temfde; the youth of the Dispersion naturally preferring to re- sort to the fountain-head of learning and religious m- straction in the Holy City. The final destraction of the Temple and Jerusalem was thus a blow hardly less sensibly felt by the Dispersion than by their brethren of Jerusalem Uiemselves. From that time forward no visible centre bound the widely-scattered members of the Jewish nation together ; nothing remained to them but common memories, common hopes, and a common faith.
(a.) Foremost in the two or tiiree chief sections into which the Dispersion has been divided stands the Bab- ylonian (t^p E^^panp/, Josephus, Ant, xv, 8, 1), em- bracing all the Jews of the Persian empire, into every part of which (Esth. iii, 8) — Babylonia, Media, Vet- sia, Susiana, Meso|)otamia, Assyria, etc. — they pene- trated. The Jews of Babylonia proper prided them- selves on the exceptional purity of their lineage — a boast uniformly recognised throughout the nation. What Judna, it ¥ras said, was with respect to the Dis- persion of other countries — as pure flour to dough — that Babylonia was to Judasa (Jems. Talm. Kid, vi, 1). Herod pretended to have sprang frt>m Babylonian an- cestors (Joseph. AnL xiv, 1, 8), and also bestowed the high-priesthood upon a man from Babylon (Joseph. Ant, XV, 2, 4). In the messages sent by the Sanhe- drim to the whole Dispersion, Babylonia received the precedence {Sank. 11) ; although it remained a stand- ing reproach against the Babylonians that they had held aloof fh>m the national cause when their brethren returned to Palestine, and thus had caused the weak- ness of the Jewish state (Foma, 9) ; as indeed living in Palestine under any circumstances is enumerated among the (613) Jewish ordinances (Nachmanides, Coinm, to Maimonides's Sepher Hammizvoik). The very territory of Babylonia was, for certain ritual purposes, considered to be as pure as Palestine itself. Very little is known of the history of the Babylonian Dkuptra; but there is no reason to suppose that Its condition was, under Persian as well as under Selen- ddian and Parthian rule, at most times other than flourishing and prosperous; such as we find that H was when it ofltsred Hyrcanus "honors not inferior to those of a king" (Joseph. Ani. xv, 2, 2). Of Alexan- der the Great, Josephus records expressly that he con- firmed the former privileges of the Jews in Babylonia (Joseph. Ani. xi, 8, 5), notwithstanding their firm re- fusal to assist in rebuilding the temple of Belos at Babylon (Hecat. ap. Joseph. Ap, i, 22). Two great cities, Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and Nehardea on the Euphrates, where the moneys intended for transmis- sion to Jerusalem were deposited (Joseph. AnU xviil, 9, 1, 8, 4, etc.), as was the case also at Apamoa in Asia Minor, Laodicea in Phrygia, Porgamus and Adra- myttium in jfiolis — seem to have been entirely their own, and for a number of years they appear even to have enjoyed the undisputed possession of a whole principality (jh, 5). Great calamities, however, befell them, both about this time under Mithridates (»&. 9), and later under Caligula, through the Jealousy of the