7---το.
75
a > , ‘ , κατοικοῦντες THY Μεσοποταµίαν, ᾿Ιουδαίαν τε καὶ Καππαδοκίαν,
Πόντον καὶ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν, 10. Φρυγίαν τε καὶ Παμφυλίαν, Αἴγυπτον
καὶ τὰ µέρη τῆς Λιβύης τῆς κατὰ Κυρήνην, καὶ οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες
Mang., ii., 587). All commentators seem to be agreed in regarding the list as framed to some extent on geo- graphical lines, beginning from Parthia the furthest east. Mr. Page holds that the countries named may be regarded as grouped not only geographically but his- torically. Of the Jews of the Dispersion there were four classes: (1) Eastern or Babylonian Jews, corresponding in the list to Parthians, Medes, Elamites; (2) Syrian Jews, corresponding to Judza, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia ; (3) Egyptian Jews, corre- sponding to Egypt and the parts of Libya over against Cyrene; (4) Roman Jews. (1) Parthia, mentioned here only in the N.T., is placed first, not only because of the vast extent of its empire from India to the Tigris, but because it then was the only power which had tried issues with Rome and had not been de- feated, ‘‘Parthia” B.D. (Rawlinson). In Mesopotamia, Elam, and Babylonia were to be found the descendants of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes and of the kingdom of Judah, transported thither by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, now and until the reign of Trajan the subjects of the Parthians, but always of political importance to Rome from their position on the eastern borders of the Empire (Schiirer, ubi supra, div. ii., vol. ii., pp. 223, 224 E.T.). At the head of (2), Ιονδαίαν is placed by Mr. Page, {.ε., at the head of the group with which in his view it is geographically connected. Of Asia, as of Syria, it could be said that Jews dwelt in large numbers in every city, and the statement that Jews had settled in the most distant parts of Pontus is abund- antly confirmed by the Jewish inscrip- tions in the Greek language found in the Crimea. Seleucus Nicator granted to the Jews in Syria and Asia the same privileges as those bestowed upon his Greek and Macedonian subjects (Jos., Ant., xii., 31); and to Antiochus the Great was due the removal of two thousand Jewish families from Mesopo- tamia and Babylonia to Lydia and Phry- gia (Schiirer, J. c., and ‘‘ Antiochus ΠΠ.) B.D.?; Jos., Ant., xii., 3, 4). Mr. Page uses the word ᾿Ιονδαία as equivalent to the land of the Jews, i.e., Palestine and per- haps also to some part of Syria. In the former sense the word could undoubtedly
be employed (Hamburger, “ Judaa,” Real-- Encyclopddie des Fudentums, i., 5; so too by classical writers and by Strabo, “Judea,” B.D.). But it is very doubtful how far the term can be extended to in- clude any part of Syria, although Josephus (B.F., Π., 3, 5) speaks of the maritime places of Judzea extending as far as Ptole- mais. It may well be that Syria was regarded as a kind of outer Palestine, intermediate between it and heathendom (Edersheim, Sketches of Fewish Social Life, pp. 16-19, 71,73). St. Jerome reads Syria instead of Judza, a reading to which Blass apparently inclines. Tertullian conjectured Armenia, ο. ¥ud., vii., and Idumza (so again Spitta), Bithynia and India have been proposed. It is often very difficult to say exactly what is meant by Asia, whether the term refers to the entire Roman province, which had been greatly increased in the first cen- tury B.C. since its formation in 133 B.c., or whether the word is used in its popular sense, as denoting the /®gean coast lands and excluding Phrygia. Here the term is used with the latter signification (Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, Ρ. 150, and also “Asia” in Hastings, B.D.). At the head of (3) stands Egypt, where the Jewish Dispersion, especially in Alexandria, played so important a part in the history of civilisation. The greatest prosperity of the Jews in Egypt began with Alexander the Great, but long be- fore his time, in the seventh century B.c., Jewish immigrants were in the country (Schirer, ubz supra, pp. 226, 227, and “‘ Alexandria,” B.D.?). From Egypt the Dispersion penetrated further westward (Schiirer, u. s., pp. 230, 231, and note), and in Libya Cyrenaica or Pentapolitana, the modern Tripoli, the Jews were very numerous ; ¢f. for their history in Cyrene r Macc. xv. 23; 2 Macc. il. 23; Jos., Ant., xvi., 6, I, 5, and Acts vi. ϱ, xi. 30, xiii. 1; Schiirer, u. s., p. 232, and Merivale, Romans under the Emfire, ΡΡ. 364, 365. The expression used here, τὰ µέρη τῆς A. τῆς κατὰ K., affords a striking parallel to that used by Dio Cassius, ἡ πρὸς Κνυρήνην Λιβύη, liii., 13: befinvalso)) Josi, πε, νι δι: “Cyrene,” B.D.?, and Hastings’ B.D. In (4) we have οἱ ἐπιδ. Ῥωμαῖοι. There is no ground for supposing that any Jews dwelt permanently in Rome before the