of local matters; they were mere ciphers without anything in the shape of civic responsibility. Individual responsibility had, it is true, been insisted upon in the domain of religion by Ezekiel[28]; but it was a new _rôle_ that the Jew was now called upon to fill in this individual capacity. As a member of a community organized according to Greek ideas he would feel that he had a real part to play and some contribution to offer for the general welfare; he would know that his decision would go towards affecting for good or ill the conditions under which he and his fellows lived. Such a new experience could not fail to generate in the Jew a new sense of personal responsibility, a realization of duty towards others, not only of his own race, and thus develop a wider outlook and a deeper insight into the world of his surroundings. Another thing which must have appealed strongly to the imagination of an oriental people like the Jews, though it would have affected them in a very different way, was the interest and fascination afforded by the shows and processions associated with the annual Greek festivals. That such sights had an alluring effect, and indeed something more, upon some considerable section of the people is evident, for the first book of Maccabees shows us that the question of the adoption of Greek polytheism was first raised in Judæa by apostate Jews themselves; the passage, to which we shall have to refer again later, is 1 Maccabees i. 11 f.: “In those days [i.e., in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes] came there forth out of Israel transgressors of the Law, and persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles that are round about us; for since we parted from them many evils have befallen us. And the saying was good in their eyes. And certain of the people were forward herein, and went to the king, and he gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the Gentiles. And they built a place of exercise (‘gymnasium’) in Jerusalem according to the laws of the Gentiles; and they made themselves uncircumcized, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the Gentiles, and sold themselves to do evil.” It is rightly pointed out that in this the promoters “had no doubt an eye to tactics in the way they chose to inaugurate their campaign. A gymnasium would appeal especially to youth; and if the Jewish youth could be won over to pagan practices, then the future was theirs.”[29] The gymnasium was, in truth, one of the most potent means whereby the Greek spirit was fostered, especially among those entering upon manhood. Mr. Edwyn Bevan writes so interestingly on this subject and so much to the point, that we cannot refrain from quoting his words. He says: “The gymnasiums were as much of the essence of a Greek state as the political assemblies; they expressed fundamental tendencies of the Greek mind—its craving for harmonious beauty of form, its delight in the body, its unabashed frankness with