For us, however, the prime importance lies in the sharp contrast between the Greek and the Jewish attitude. Upon the philosophically cultured man, the reasoning of Epiphanes could not fail to produce a certain impression. In the case of the seven sons of Hannah, while many elements are repeated (IV Macc. viii. 17 seq.), the writer has in mind the appeal to the flesh, which Hellenism made. “Will you not change your mode of life for that of the Greeks and enjoy your youth to the full?” asks Antiochus (_ibid._ viii. 8); and that no doubt was the whisper that came to the heart of many a young man, surrounded by the bright and highly colored life of the Hellenic communities in which he dwelt. There is no exchange of vituperation. The denunciations hurled against Antiochus are impersonal, indeed are generic. He is the type of tyrant, another Busiris or Phalaris, a bowelless despot. And the one word which alternates with “senseless” in the mouths of Antiochus and his executioners is “mad.” The actual events described are of course quite unhistorical. But we do not find here any of the various forms in which racial animosity or personal spleen exhibited itself against the Jews. In spite of the setting, the controversy is, judged by disputation standards, quite decorous. The terms that qualify the Jewish doctrine as “irrational” are almost controversial commonplaces. The martyrs do not resent the epithet. They seem to accept it as the logical inference of the carnal philosophy of their oppressors and claim to be justified by a higher wisdom. Jewish and Greek life began to touch each other at many points in the six or seven generations that intervened between Alexander and Caesar. Hellenism dominated the political and social culture of the Eastern Mediterranean, although the nationalities it covered were submerged rather than crushed. In Egypt the indigenous culture maintained itself successfully, and forced concessions from the conqueror, which made the Hellenism of that country a thing quite different from that of the other lands within the sphere of Greek influence. The resistance of the Jews also took the form of successful insurrection, and in their case enabled an independent political entity to be constituted. The dispersal of the Jews was already considerable at this time. It differed from the dispersal of the Syrians in the fact that the bond of union of the Jewish congregations existed in the common cult and the common interest in the fortunes of the mother-country. On the other hand, the Syrians of Rome and of Naples shared nothing except the quickly effaced memory of a common racial origin.[229]