that in her earliest days, disputes could break out between the Hellenists and the Hebrews,
arising from suspicion of unkind and unfair dealings grounded on these sectional prejudices.25
24. Similarly we have (in Men. 110a) this curious explanation of Is. xliii. 6: `My sons from afar' - these are
the exiles in Babylon, whose minds were settled, like men, `and my daughters from the ends of the earth'
- these are the exiles in other lands, whose minds were not settled, like women.
25. Acts vi. 1.
Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were held by the leaders of Judaism.
Indeed, according to one view of it, Babylonia, as well as `Syria' as far north as Antioch, was
regarded as forming part of the land of Israel.26 Every other country was considered outside
`the land,' as Palestine was called, with the exception of Babylonia, which was reckoned as part
of it.27 For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the Tigris, were supposed to
have been in the territory which King David had conquered, and this made them ideally for ever
like the land of Israel. But it was just between the Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and
wealthiest settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later writer actually designated
them `the land of Israel.' Here Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed
from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue,
said to have been built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought from the Temple.28
In this fortified city the vast contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the Eastern
Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under escort of thousands of armed men.
Another of these Jewish treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even the fact that
wealth, which must have sorely tempted the cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in
these cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the Jewish population must have
been, and how great their general influence.
26. Ber. R. 17.
27. Erub. 21 a Gritt. 6 a.
28. Comp. Fürst, Kult. u. Literaturgesch d. Jud. in Asien, vol. i. p. 8.
In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in regard to this Eastern dispersion, that
only a minority of the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally returned from Babylon,
first under Zerubbabel and afterwards under Ezra.29 Nor was their inferiority confined to
numbers. The wealthiest and most influential of the Jews remained behind. According to
Josephus,30 with whom Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at millions, inhabited
the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge even by the number of those slain in popular risings
(50,000 in Seleucia alone31), these figures do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition
had it, that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian Empire, that Cyrus forbade the
further return of the exiles, lest the country should be depopulated.32 So large and compact a
body soon became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian monarchy, they were,
after the fall of that empire,33 favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the
Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire,34 the Jews formed, from their national
opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as