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Oneka and STrians ; and .at both of these epochs they emifprsted in large numbers. Whether they had in those times, as was afterward the case, a oniyersally rseognised ethnarch at their head, is open to doubt, altboogh 8tder (Mam 8nUa enumerates the names of fifteen generations of such, down to the third century. The ties wliich linked Babylonia to Palestine were perhaps closer than in the case of any other portion of the Dispersion, both on account of thek greater proxr imity, which enabled them to communicate by beacons (Betb-Biltin being the last station on the fh>ntierB ; BoA BoMk. ii, 7X and of their common Aramaic idiom. That this Dispersion was not without an influence on the development of the Zoroastrian religion (comp. Spiegel, Intr, to Zmtda9etta\ which in its turn again influenced Judaism (and, at a kter stage. Gnosticism), csa hardly be doubted; at the same time, it was Bab- yloB which, after the fini^ destruction of the Temple, by its numerous and £ur-&med academies, became for a long time the spiritual centre of the Jewish race, and was the seat oif the prince of the Diaspora (Besh Gelntha). See Babtlon.
(6.) The second great and pre-eminently important group of the Dispersion we find in Egypt Of the (viginal immigrations from Palestine (comp. Zech. x, 11% and of those which took place in the times of the lart kings of Judah (Jer. xli, 17, 42), we hare no more certain traces than of those under Artazerxes Ochus (Joeephns, Ap, 1, etc.). It was only after Alexander the Great, who first settled 8000 Jewish soldiers in the Thebais, and peopled a third of his newly-founded city Alexandria with Jews, and Ptolemasus, the son of Ligos, after him, who increased the Aumber of Egyp- tian Jews by firesh importations from Palestine, that the Egyptian Dispersion began to spread over the whole coontry, from the Libyan desert in the north to the boundaries of Ethiopia in the south (Philo, FL ii, 623), over the Cyrenaica and parts of Libya (Joseph. Ant, xri, 7, 2), and along the borders of the African coast of the Mediterranean. They enjoyed equal rights with their fbllow-aubjects, boih Egyptian and Greek (lAMfoXirf m, Joseph. Ap, ii, 4, etc), and were admit- ted to the highest offices and dignities. The free de- ▼ebpment which was there allowed them enabled them to reach, under Greek auspices, the highest emi- nence in science and art. Tlieir artists and workmen were sent for to distant countries, as once the Phcsni- dans had been {Yoma, iii, 8, a. ; Eraeh, 10, b). In Greek strategy and Greek statesmanship, Greek leam- mg and Greek refinement, they were ready disciples. From tile number of Judso-Greek fragments, hirtori- cal, didactic, epic, etc (by Demetrius, Malchus, £u- polemus, Artapan, AristsBus, Jason, Ezechielus, PhUo the Elder, Theodotion, etp. ; collected in Mailer, Fragm, HuL Grae. iii, 207-230), which haf e survived, we may essily conclude what an immense literature this Egyp- tian Dispersion must have possessed. To them is ow- mg likewise the Greek translation of the Bible known u the Septuagint, which, in its turn, while it estranged the people more and more fix>m the language of their Others, the Hebrew, gave rise to a vast pseudo-epi- grtphical and apocryphal literature (Orphica, Sybil- lines, Pseudophoclea; poems by Linus, Homer, He- liod ; additions to Esther, Ezra, the Maccabees, Book of Wisdom, Baruch, Jeremiah, Susannah, etc.). Most momentous of all, however, was that peculiar Grasco- Jewish philosophy which sprang ftrom a mixture of Hellenism and Orientalism, and which played such a prominent part in the early history of Christianity. The admmistrative government of this Egyptian, or, rather, African Dispersion, which, no less than all other bnndies, for all religious purposes looked to Jerusa- Isa as the head, was, at the time of Christ, in the hands of a Geroosia ^StMak, 51, b; PhUo, Fl. ii, 5, 28), consisting of seventy members and an ethnarch (alabarch), chosen frtnn their own body, of priestly liasage. These sat at Alexandria, where two of the • II.-H
five .divisions of the city, situated on the Delta (the site best adapted for navigation and commercial pur^ poses), were occupied exclusively by Jews (Josephus, AnL xiv, 7, 2). Of the splendor of the Alexandrine temple, tJiere is a glowing account in the Jems. Talm. (StJt, 10, b) ; and when, in consequence of the Syrian oppression in Palestine, Onias, the son of the last high-priest of the line of Joshua, had fled to Egypt, where Ptolemy Philometor gave him an extensive dis- trict near HeUopolis, a new temple (Beth Chonyo) had arisen at Leontopolis (Joseph. Ant, xiii, 8, 2,/.), B.C. 180, which bade fahr to rival the Temple of Jerusalem. Such, indeed, was the influence of the Jews in Egypt, whom Philo (/Y. 6) in his time estimates at a million, that this new temple was treated with consideration eren by the Sanhedrim {AfmacL 109, a). Their con- dition, it may easily be inferred, was flourishing both under the Seleucidian and Roman sway, but under Caligula, and still more under Nero (Joseph. War^ ii, 18, 7), they, like their brethren in other parts of the Roman empire, suffered greatly firom sudden outbursts of the populace, prompted and countenanced in some instances by their rulers. From Egypt the Diaspora spread soutiiward to Abyssinia, where some remnants of it still exist under the name of the Fakukot and in aU likelihood eastward to Arabia (Mishna, 8hab, vi, 6), where we find a Jewish kingdom (Yemen) in the south (Tabari ap. Silv. de Sacy, Mem, de VAcai, de Inscr, p. 78), and a large Jewish settlement (Chaibar) in Hc^Jat in the north. See Albxandbia.