B.C.E. | B.C.E. | Death of Alexander 323 | Onias I, High Priest 332 | Division of Alexander's | Empire into four Kingdoms 323 | Judea part of Greco-Egyptian | realm (Ptolemaic) 301 | | Simon the Just, High Ptolemy II, Philadelphus 285 | Priest 300 | | The Septuagint (translation | of the Bible into | Greek) begun at Alexandria | about 250 | Ptolemy III Euergetes 247 | Joseph, Governor of Palestine 230 | Ptolemy IV Philopator 222 | Judea part of Greco-Syrian | realm 203 | Ptolemy VI Philometor 181 | Onias IV, builds a Temple | at Leontopolis, Egypt 160 | | Ben Sirach visits Egypt 132 CHAPTER II. GREEK AND JEW. Alexander the Great. The Greeks and the Jews have been the greatest contributors toward the higher civilization of mankind, the Greek in the intellectual and artistic realm, the Jew in the religious and moral. Therefore we discern the hand of Providence in bringing them together for they influenced each other. The meeting of Greek and Jew is one of the great events of history, greater than many of the battles that have decided the fates of empires. Greece had already lived her most thrilling epoch when the meeting began, but Plato, disciple of the moral philosopher, Socrates, had but recently passed away and Aristotle, profoundest philosopher of antiquity, still lived. Macedonia had absorbed other Greek principalities and Alexander, now sole master, carried his army eastward in the hope of founding a universal empire. Whenever he conquered a land, he colonized it with Greeks and thus spread Greek civilization. Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and ultimately Ethiopia and India fell successively before his triumphant approach.