Myron, in his usual hasty and decided manner, pressed his speedy reception as a proselyte, and his friends were desirous that this festival should be made still more solemn by his conversion. In later times accessions from among the heathens to the Jewish religion had become very common, and they were regarded as a pledge of the approach of the time when the promises of God should be fulfilled, which, as they understood them, implied the dominion of Israel over the whole earth. Iddo and the priest with whom Myron had lodged endeavoured to prevail on him, by submitting to circumcision, and baptism to become one of the family of Abraham and an heir of its promises, after which, on the offering of three turtle-doves, he would become a proselyte of righteousness, and be permitted to bring his sacrifice, like a native Jew, into the court of the priests. Myron was more inclined to become only a proselyte of the gate; and Helon took his part, and asked what more was necessary, since he could thus enjoy the benefits of the law, could partake in all the civil privileges of Israel, and dwell in their gates? “Would there not too,” he asked, “be danger that he should be seduced by the Hellenists to join the worship at Leontopolis, if he returned to Egypt in every respect a Jew?” On the following morning they conducted Myron before the tribunal which sat in the gate of Nicanor. In the presence of three witnesses, Helon, Selumiel, and the priest his host, he solemnly abjured idolatry, professed his belief in all the truths which are revealed in the law, and promised obedience to the seven Noachic precepts, as they were called; namely, to abstain from idolatry, to worship only the true God, to avoid incest, not to commit theft, or robbery, or murder, to maintain judgment and justice, and to abstain from blood and all that contained blood, consequently from things strangled. He then presented his offering, but he was not allowed to come any further than to the enclosure between the court of the Gentiles and the court of Israel. From this time he bore the name of a devout man, one that feared God, a stranger or proselyte of the gate. As Helon and Myron spent the last day but one of the feast in Iddo’s tabernacle on the mount of Olives, Helon read to him the description which Nehemiah gives of the first celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles after the captivity:[169] ----- Footnote 169: Neh. viii. 13. -----