Among Græco-Jewish writers none can compare in importance with Philo of Alexandria. His great aim was to try to harmonize Hebrew and Greek thought. The preservation of the large number of his works is due to their popularity among the early Church Fathers. By the Jewish leaders he was not regarded as orthodox. Scarcely anything is known of the life of Philo excepting what can be gained from his works, and this is little enough. In the short account given of the philosophy of Philo it is seen that this is permeated with the spirit of the Greek philosophers. CHAPTER IV Traces of Greek Influence in the Old Testament and in the Apocrypha [LITERATURE.—See the books cited in the footnotes.] I. REFERENCES TO THE GREEKS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT There are some few passages in the Old Testament which witness to a knowledge of the Greeks on the part of the Jews; these may be briefly alluded to by way of introduction. The Hebrew form for the land of the Ionians, or Greeks, is _Javan_; this is mentioned, though without further detail, in Genesis x. 2; 1 Chronicles i. 5, 7. As early as the eighth century B.C. the Greeks pressed forward to the east.[91] Again, in the lamentation for Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 13) it is said: “Javan, Tubal and Meshech, they were thy traffickers; they traded with the persons of men and vessels of brass for thy merchandise” (cp. also verse 9). This subject is referred to again in Joel iii. (Heb. iv.) 6-8, in a woe pronounced against Tyre and Zidon, and the Philistines: “The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the sons of the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border ...”; these last words, “far from their border,” suggest that the reference is to the Greek colonies in the far west. From the fifth century B.C. onwards Syrian slaves, among whom Jews must be reckoned, were much sought after by the Greeks.[92] In Isaiah xxiv. 14, 15 it is probable that “the songs of praise which the Jews in far countries raise in honour of Jahweh were the result of Alexander the Great’s victorious march through Asia Minor in B.C. 334.”[93] Mention is made of Javan in Isaiah lxvi. 19, it is there reckoned among those nations to whom the glory of Jehovah shall be declared; according to Zechariah ix. 13-15, on the other hand, Judah and Ephraim are to be Jehovah’s instruments for the punishing of the sons of Javan. And, once more, in Daniel viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2, there are references to the Græco-Macedonian empire. In addition to these there are two or three references to the Greeks in the Septuagint which are not without significance. In Isaiah ix. 12 (11) it is said that Syria from the east and the Hellenes from the west are the destroyers of Israel; in the Hebrew text “Philistines” stands for “Hellenes,” which is doubtless the right reading; but the Septuagint rendering is of interest as showing that, when the translation was made, the real danger for the Jews was the Greek nation.