Anyhow, it is a fact that the remnant in the land grew and grew until, about a century and a half later, in the times of the Maccabees, and again about a century and a half later still, in the time of our Lord, we find "the Jews" in Palestine, a comparatively large nation, numbering millions; while from the time of the downfall of the Persian Empire we hear but very little more of the Israelite exiles in ancient Assyria or Babylon. By the conquest of Alexander, who to this day is a great favourite among the scattered nation, the regions of ancient Babylonia and Media were brought comparatively near, and a highway opened between East and West. From about this time settlements of "Jews" began to multiply in Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete, on the coasts and islands of the Ægean; in Macedonia and other parts of Southern Europe; in Egypt and the whole northern coast of Africa; whilst some made their way further and further eastward as far as India and China. There is not the least possibility of doubt that many of the settlements of the Diaspora in the time of our Lord--both north, south, and west, as well as east of Palestine--were made up of those who had never returned to the land of their fathers since the time of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, and who were not only descendants of Judah, as Anglo-Israelism ignorantly presupposes, but of all the _Twelve Tribes scattered abroad_ (James i. 1). As a matter of fact, long before the destruction of the second Temple by Titus, we read of currents and counter-currents in the dispersion of the "Jewish" people. Thus Artaxerxes III., _Ochus_, on his way to re-conquer Egypt, "having taken Apodasmus in Judea, conveyed the Jewish population into Hyrcania near the Caspian Sea." When he made himself master of Egypt we read of his finding Jews there, and, being incensed against them on account of a stubborn defence against him of places entrusted to their keeping, "he sent part of them into Hyrcania, in the neighbourhood of the country which the tribes already inhabited, and left the rest at Babylon"; while soon after many thousands were taken to Egypt by Alexander; and Ptolemy Soter, one of his chief generals, who had become King of Egypt, and had invaded Syria and taken Jerusalem in B.C. 301, carried off one hundred thousand of them, and forced them to settle chiefly in Alexandria and Cyrene. THE CONDITION OF THINGS AT THE TIME OF CHRIST. To summarise the state of things in connection with the Hebrew race at the time of Christ, it was briefly this:-- I. For some six centuries before, ever since the partial restoration in the days of Cyrus and his successors, the descendants of Abraham were no longer known as divided into tribes, but as one people, although up to the time of the destruction of the second Temple, tribal and family genealogies were for the most part preserved, especially among those who were settled in the land.