_must_ admit even a vague Greek influence. The inquiring spirit was present in the class of ‘wise men’ even before the Exile, and the circumstances of the later Jews were, from the Exile onwards, well fitted to exercise and develop it. Hellenic teaching was in no way necessary to an ardent but unsystematic thinker like Koheleth.”[112] It is largely a question of the probabilities of the case; for, in discussing the whole question of the presence or otherwise of traces of Hellenistic influence in some of the later books of the Old Testament,[113] we must keep before our minds the fact of the spread of the Hellenistic spirit from the death of Alexander the Great onwards, and the way in which (as we have seen in a previous chapter) it affected the Jews in manifold directions. The important evidence of 1 Maccabees i. 11 is worth recalling here: “In those days 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.” Two points come out clearly here: there was evidently a strong Hellenistic party among the Jews in Palestine since these transgressors of the Law “came forth out of Israel”; the passage also shows that some time previously relations had existed between these Hellenistic Jews and the Gentiles, as the writer says, “since we parted from them.” The Maccabæan rising was, therefore, the culminating point of a movement that had been going on long before, viz., a conflict between orthodox and Hellenistic Jews, the latter being supported by the ruling powers; or if conflict is too strong a word to use, then let us say, at any rate, opposing tendencies. It is, moreover, highly probable that the action of Antiochus Epiphanes in seeking to stamp out Judaism was largely prompted by his knowledge of the existence of considerable numbers of Jews who were in sympathy with his plan; this seems clear from 1 Maccabees i. 13, where we read further: “And certain of the people were forward herein and went to the king (i.e., Antiochus Epiphanes), and he gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the Gentiles.” If the Jews of Palestine were thus surrounded by Gentiles, and were, as we have already seen to be the case, strongly influenced by the Hellenistic spirit, whether orthodox or not, it would be according to expectation to find marks of this influence in those books of the Old Testament which belong to the Hellenistic period. In the particular case of Ecclesiastes it is granted that analogies between Greek philosophy and its ideas exist[114]; it appears to us, therefore, more probable that these ideas, in view of what has just been said, were due to the influence of Greek thought rather than that they were independently reached. III. TRACES OF GREEK INFLUENCE IN THE APOCRYPHA There are only two books of the Apocrypha which come into consideration here, but they are the two most important.