Now the Greeks of the fourth century knew of esoteric religious communities, and they knew of nations that professed to be especially attached to religious practices. But groups of mystae engaged in rapt spiritual converse were never coextensive with entire nations. And “religious” nations might be simply those among whom an elaborate state cult was punctiliously performed. Even theocracies were no unheard-of thing. Sidon was such a theocracy; _i.e._ theoretically ruled by the god and administered by his priest.[83] But that too was largely formal, not strikingly different from the patronage of Athena over Athens. The Jewish theocracy was a more intensely real matter than this, but that fact could not have been apparent to either merchant or traveler, from whom in the last analysis the information about Jews before 300 B.C.E. must have come. If, therefore, Greeks found something in the religious customs of the Jews that aroused immediate attention, it was the very general interest and participation of the masses in the theological discussion as it was carried on in the synagogues. This fact alone would justify the use of the term φιλόσοφοι, “philosophers.” Theology, the knowledge of the high gods, was an accredited branch of wisdom which the Platonic Socrates strove with a little too palpable irony to elicit from Euthyphro.[84] Those who busied themselves with it were properly termed philosophers, whatever may have been the conclusions they reached. If we venture to assume that the conclusions which the Jews had long reached were actually known, Theophrastus’ phrase could only have been confirmed. An exclusive monotheism was in every sense a philosophic and not a popular concept. A contemporary of Theophrastus was Clearchus of Soli in Cyprus. Of his writings none whatever has survived, except quotations in other books. Among other works he wrote dialogues more or less after the Platonic manner, in which his master Aristotle is interlocutor in place of Socrates. One of these dialogues was marked, no doubt as a subtitle, περὶ ὕπνου, “On Sleep,” and in this dialogue an encounter of Aristotle with a Hellenized Jew is described. We need not seriously consider the question whether such an encounter actually occurred. It is not in the least likely that it did. The only inferences that may be drawn from this passage are those that concern Clearchus. Aristotle is the narrator, and tells his story, as he takes pains to say, according to the rules formulated in Rhetoric.[85] He had met a man in Asia, a Jew of Coele-Syria by birth, but Grecized in speech and in soul. This Greek or Jew voluntarily sought out Aristotle and his associates, πειρώμενος αὐτῶν τῆς σοφίας, “to find out whether they were really as wise as their reputation.” On the whole, however, he had given rather than received edification.[86]