During the two centuries which preceded the appearance of Alexander upon the world’s stage, the Jews as a nation had become more and more the people of the Law. From the time of Ezra onwards this tendency had increased with ever-growing volume. “Ezra had set his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgements”[19]; his efforts were crowned with a great measure of success. By this means it was sought to preserve the Jewish religion and Jewish ethics uncontaminated by external influences, whether through contact with foreign peoples,[20] or with those who although they belonged to the Jewish race were not faithful to the ordinances of the Law.[21] This separation was successful at first; but with the rise and rapid spread of Hellenism it became increasingly difficult to maintain, especially as the influence of the Greek spirit was, with the exception of Egypt, nowhere stronger than on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. “Girt about by a Greek population, the Palestinian Jews, in spite of Ezra’s admirable organization, could not entirely resist the assaults of Hellenism. It is probable that not merely the Greek language, but also Greek philosophy, exerted a charm on some of the clearest Jewish intellects. But we are within the bounds of acknowledged fact in asserting that the ardour of Judæan piety, at least in the highest class, greatly cooled in the age subsequent to Ezra’s, and in ascribing this to Greek influences.”[22] Of far-reaching importance to the Jews of Palestine, though only indirectly, was the battle of Ipsus (B.C. 301); for one of the results of this battle was that among the territories assigned to the house of Ptolemy, according to the settlement agreed upon after the battle, was Palestine (Cœle-Syria); and there followed, for this country at any rate, a period of comparative peace which lasted for about a hundred years.[23] It was, in the main, during this century that the quiet and peaceful process of Hellenization among the Jews went on. The wise policy, as it was upon the whole, of the Ptolemys towards the Jews did much to favour this process. The Jews were placed upon the same footing as the Egyptian subjects; they were permitted absolute freedom in the exercise of their religion and religious customs; in political matters also the Jews found themselves in a position of perfect equality with their fellow-subjects; indeed, so much were they trusted that they not infrequently formed garrisons in the royal fortresses; of the existence, too, of Jewish soldiers in the Ptolemaic armies we have contemporary evidence.[24] Favourable treatment was also accorded to the Jews by Seleucus in the northern parts of Syria; they were, for example, here too granted the privilege of the rights of citizenship. This kindly treatment which the Jews received would naturally have had the effect of inclining them favourably towards their rulers; and