transformed by and blended with Greek elements. But besides these the purely Greek worship also gained an entrance, and in many places entirely supplanted the former. Unfortunately our sources of information do not furnish us the means of separating the Greek period proper from the Roman; the best are afforded by coins, and these for the most part belong to the Roman. On the whole however the picture, which we obtain, holds good for the pre-Roman period also, nor are we entirely without direct notices of this age. … In the Jewish region proper Hellenism was in its religious aspect triumphantly repulsed by the rising of the Maccabees; it was not till after the overthrow of Jewish nationality in the wars of Vespasian and Hadrian, that an entrance for heathen rites was forcibly obtained by the Romans. In saying this however we do not assert, that the Jewish people of those early times remained altogether unaffected by Hellenism. For the latter was a civilising power, which extended itself to every department of life. {1639} It fashioned in a peculiar manner the organization of the state, legislation, the administration of justice, public arrangements, art and science, trade and industry, and the customs of daily life down to fashion and ornaments, and thus impressed upon every department of life, wherever its influence reached, the stamp of the Greek mind. It is true that Hellenistic is not identical with Hellenic culture. The importance of the former on the contrary lay in the fact, that by its reception of the available elements of all foreign cultures within its reach, it became a world-culture. But this very world-culture became in its turn a peculiar whole, in which the preponderant Greek element was the ruling keynote. Into the stream of this Hellenistic culture the Jewish people was also drawn; slowly indeed and with reluctance, but yet irresistibly, for though religious zeal was able to banish heathen worship and all connected therewith from Israel, it could not for any length of time restrain the tide of Hellenistic culture in other departments of life. Its several stages cannot indeed be any longer traced. But when we reflect that the small Jewish country was enclosed on almost every side by Hellenistic regions, with which it was compelled, even for the sake of trade, to hold continual intercourse, and when we remember, that even the rising of the Maccabees was in the main directed not against Hellenism in general, but only against the heathen religion, that the later Asmonaeans bore in every respect a Hellenistic stamp-employed foreign mercenaries, minted foreign coins, took Greek names, etc., and that some of them, e. g. Aristobulus I., were direct favourers of Hellenism,—when all this is considered, it may safely be assumed, that Hellenism had, notwithstanding the rising of the