It is thus evident that, while there was agreement in general, there was, down to the second century A.D., no authoritative list of the "Scriptures," and that about some of the books there were conflicting opinions among the learned of the most orthodox stamp. An interesting confirmation of this is the fact that in the first half of that century it was thought necessary to make a formal deliverance that the "Gospel and other writings of the heretics" are not Sacred Scripture. There are other indications that in that generation Jewish Christianity had a dangerous attraction for some even in rabbinical circles, and there was evidently ground for apprehension that the inspiration which the Christians claimed for the Scriptures of the New Covenant might impose upon well-meaning but uninstructed Jews. In the same connection it was decided, further, that Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) was not Holy Scripture, and that no books written from his time on (about 200 B.C.) were inspired, in accordance with the theory, found also in Josephus, that inspiration ceased in the age of Ezra and Nehemiah. By such decisions, recognizing the inspiration of books that had been challenged and excluding others for which inspiration had been claimed, the canon of the Scriptures, that is, the authoritative list of Sacred Books, was defined. The oldest catalogue we have, containing the titles of all the books, dates probably from the latter part of the second century, and is not concerned with the point of canonicity--which it takes for granted--but with the proper order of the Prophets and the Scriptures. The Jews had for centuries been widely distributed through the lands that had been included in the kingdoms of Alexander's successors. There were large numbers in Babylonia and the neighbouring provinces of the Parthian empire, and still more in the countries around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, in Syria and Asia Minor, in Egypt and Cyrene. In Alexandria the Jews had a whole quarter of the city to themselves, and Philo estimates their numbers in Egypt in his time (ca. A.D. 40) at a million.