Outlines of Jewish History from B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885 — John Shaqi
Outlines of Jewish History from B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885Magnus, Katie, Lady
History
Outlines of Jewish History from B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885
Magnus, Katie, Lady
Jews -- History; Jews -- History -- 70-
all these tasks, the energy and earnestness of the people found yet
another channel. They set about formulating a ritual, that is a regular
arrangement of prayer and service.
=3. Alexandrian Jews.=――In the time of Alexander of Macedon,
Alexander the Great, as he is called, the city of Alexandria, in Egypt,
was founded in his honour. A great many Jews joined the Greek and
Egyptian colonists, and were among the early settlers in the city.
By degrees these Alexandrian Jews grew to be a little less Jewish than
the Judean Jews. They had exactly the same rights and privileges as the
Macedonians. Greek culture, Greek habits of thought, were in the very
air they breathed, and they breathed it in more lustily, perhaps, than
those to whom it was native. They spoke Greek, and after a while they
neglected their national tongue, and were unable even to understand
the Scriptures when read in synagogue. But though they let the language
of their fathers grow strange to them, and were somewhat lax and
unobservant, yet they never ceased to be Jews. Whether they were
regular worshippers we do not know, but they certainly had a large and
magnificent synagogue of their own; and in Heliopolis, another city of
Egypt, there was a temple somewhat similar to the temple in Jerusalem.
And it is further related in the Apocrypha that some 300 of these
Egyptian Jews were once staunch enough to their faith to choose to be
trampled to death by wild elephants rather than become converts. The
sequel sounds a little legendary, as the elephants, it is added on the
same authority, could not be induced to make martyrs of the Jews. They
wisely turned aside, and trampled on the spectators instead of on the
intended victims.
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