To be sure, they were intensely Jewish, these communities of strangers. Like our scattered
colonists in distant lands, they would cling with double affection to the customs of their home,
and invest with the halo of tender memories the sacred traditions of their faith. The Grecian Jew
might well look with contempt, not unmingled with pity, on the idolatrous rites practised around,
from which long ago the pitiless irony of Isaiah had torn the veil of beauty, to show the
hideousness and unreality beneath. The dissoluteness of public and private life, the frivolity and
aimlessness of their pursuits, political aspirations, popular assemblies, amusements - in short, the
utter decay of society, in all its phases, would lie open to his gaze. It is in terms of lofty scorn,
not unmingled with indignation, which only occasionally gives way to the softer mood of
warning, or even invitation, that Jewish Hellenistic literature, whether in the Apocrypha or in its
Apocalyptic utterances, address heathenism.
From that spectacle the Grecian Jew would turn with infinite satisfaction - not to say, pride - to
his own community, to think of its spiritual enlightenment, and to pass in review its exclusive
privileges.3 It was with no uncertain steps that he would go past those splendid temples to his
own humbler Synagogue, pleased to find himself there surrounded by those who shared his
descent, his faith, his hopes; and gratified to see their number swelled by many who, heathens
by birth, had learned the error of their ways, and now, so to speak, humbly stood as suppliant
`strangers of the gate,' to seek admission into his sanctuary.4 How different were the rites which
he practised, hallowed in their Divine origin, rational in themselves, and at the same time deeply
significant, from the absurd superstitions around. Who could have compared with the voiceless,
meaningless, blasphemous heathen worship, if it deserved the name, that of the Synagogue, with
its pathetic hymns, its sublime liturgy, its Divine Scriptures, and those `stated sermons' which
`instructed in virtue and piety,' of which not only Philo,5 Agrippa,6 and Josephus,7 speak as a
regular institution, but whose antiquity and general prevalence is attested in Jewish writings,8 and
nowhere more strongly than in the book of the Acts of the Apostles?
3. St. Paul fully describes these feelings in the Epistle to the Romans.
4. The `Gerey haShaar,' proselytes of the gate, a designation which some have derived from the
circumstance that Gentiles were not allowed to advance beyond the Temple Court, but more likely to be
traced to such passages as Ex. xx. 10; Deut. xiv. 21; xxiv. 14.
5. De Vita Mosis, p. 685; Leg ad Caj. p. 1014.
6. Leg. ad Caj. p. 1035.
7. Ag. A pion ii. 17.
8. Comp. here Targ. Jon. on Judg. v. 2, 9. I feel more hesitation in appealing to such passages as Ber. 19
a, where we read of a Rabbi in Rome, Thodos (Theudos?), who flourished several generations before
Hillel, for reasons which the passage itself will suggest to the student. At the time of Philo, however,
such instructions in the Synagogues at Rome were a long, established institution (Ad Caj. p. 1014).
And in these Synagogues, how would `brotherly love' be called out, since, if one member
suffered, all might soon be affected, and the danger which threatened one community would,
unless averted, ere long overwhelm the rest. There was little need for the admonition not to