The assumption that Jews discourage proselytes has been refuted in chaps. xii and xiv. It is certainly not true of the Alexandrian Jews who were most zealous in their missionary efforts. They not only felt that it was the mission of the Jew to carry his message to the world; they did it. The translation of their Scriptures into Greek, the presentation of the message of their faith in the form of Sibylline oracles, and the allegorizing away of many of their ceremonials were all employed for the bringing of Judaism to the Gentile. So successful were their efforts, that just when the Jewish state was dying, many heathens were seeking this Faith of their own accord, attracted by its ethics and repelled by heathen uncleanliness. Philo says that the adoption of Judaism by many heathens immediately resulted in a marked moral improvement in their lives. The number of female proselytes in Damascus, Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome steadily grew. Pagan writers remark it. Josephus writes:--"There is not any city of the Greeks or of the barbarians ... to which our custom of resting on the seventh day has not been introduced and where our fasts and dietary laws are not observed." He adds further how enthusiastically these converts fulfilled all Jewish rites. A zealous Jewish missionary converted Helen, the queen of Adiabene, a province on the Tigris, and all her family. She made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, sent valuable gifts to the Temple, and helped the people in the time of famine. So, although Judaism was a religion that imposed on its followers severe restraints and, although the Jews were a very small people, whom some heathens despised, still, many knocked at its doors to be admitted into the fold, even for fifty years after its Temple was destroyed and its nationality overthrown--tragedies which we shall presently have to tell. Yes, many of the very people that overthrew it--the Romans--accepted the Jewish faith. The Emperor Domitian made severe laws against proselytes to Judaism, in order to discourage the practice. Indeed, a cousin of the emperor, who was also a senator and consul, together with his wife, accepted Judaism. But ultimately the stream of converts was diverted to the new creed, born of Judaism, Christianity--more particularly as in its second stage it sent its missionaries to the heathen world proclaiming that acceptance of Jesus as savior and divinity would bring them salvation without conforming to the burdensome Jewish Law. Furthermore it became a doctrine of the new religion that the death of Jesus abrogated the Law. Thus, salvation made easy, brought thousands to the fold. The Jewish missionaries had really simplified the task for the Christian missionaries who followed later. They prepared the soil.