Graeco-Roman world): the members met in the worship of a common deity (or deities), and their unity lay in

their participation in the same religion. It was, therefore, as utterly impossible for a Jew to belong to an

ordinary Tribe, as it was for him to belong to an ordinary Hellenic city.

But, just as it was possible for a group of Jewish aliens to reside in a Greek city and practise their own

religious rites in a private association, so it was possible to enroll a body of Jewish citizens in a special

"Tribe" (or equivalent aggregation), which was united without any bond of pagan religion. That this must

have been the method followed by the Seleucid kings is practically certain (so far as certainty can exist in

that period of history), though the fact cannot everywhere be demonstrated in the absence of records.

Josephus mentions that in Alexandria the "Tribe" of the Jews was called "Macedonians," i.e. all Jews who

possessed the Alexandrian citizenship were enrolled in "the Tribe Macedones": this "Tribe" consisted of

Jews only, as Josephus' words imply, and as was obviously necessary (for what Greek would or could

belong t o a Tribe which consisted mainly of the multitude of Jews with whom the rest of the Alexandrian

population was almost constantly at war?).

The example of Alexandria may be taken as a proof that, by a sort of legal fiction, an appearance of

Hellenism was given to the Jewish citizens in a Greek City-State. It was of the essence of both Ptolemaic and

Seleucid cities that they should be centres of Hellenic civilisation and education. In the period of which we

are treating the term "Hellenes" did not imply Greek blood and race, but only language and education and

social manners. The Jews could never be, in the strict sense, Hellenes, for their manners and ways of

thinking were too diverse from the Greek; but by enrolling them in a "Tribe," and giving this "Tribe" a Greek

name and outward appearance, the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings made them members of a city of Hellenes.

But the other difficulty remained. There was a religious bond uniting the whole city. The entire body of

citizens was knit together by their common religion; and the Jews stood apart from this city cultus,

abhorring and despising it.

The Seleucid practice trampled under foot this religious difficulty by creating an exception to the general

principle. The Jews were simply declared by the founder of the dynasty, Seleucus, and his successors to be

citizens, and yet free to disregard the common city cultus. They were absolved from the ordinary laws and

regulations of the city, if these conflicted with the Jewish religion: especially, they could not be required to

appear in court, or take any part in public life, on the Sabbath. Certain regulations were modified to suit

Jewish scruples. When allowances of oil were given to the citizens, the royal law ordered that an equivalent

in money should be given to the Jewish citizens, whose principles forbade them to use oil that a Gentile had

handled or made. Their Hellenic fellow-citizens were never reconciled to this. It seemed to them an outrage

that members of the city should despise and reject the gods of the city. This rankled in their minds, a wound

that could not be healed. Time after time, wherever a favourable opportunity seemed to offer itself, they

besought their masters --Greek king or Roman emperor--to deprive the Jews of their citizenship: for example,

their argument to Agrippa in 15 BC was that fellow-citizens ought to reverence the same gods.

Therein lay the sting of the case to the Greeks or Hellenes. The Jews never merged themselves in the

Hellenic unity. They always remained outside of it, a really alien body. In a time when patriotism was

identified with community of religion, it was not possible to attain true unity in those mixed States. A

religious revolution was needed, and to be effective it must take the direction of elevating thought. Then

one great man, with the true prophet's insight, saw that unity could be introduced only by raising the

Gentiles to a higher level through their adoption of the Jewish morality and religion; and to that man's mind

this was expressed as the coming of the Messiah, an idea which was very differently conceived by different

minds. Elsewhere we have attempted to show the effect upon St. Paul of this idea as it was forced on him in

his position at Tarsus, which was pre -eminently the meeting-place of East and West.

It follows inevitably from the conditions, that there can never have been a case of a single and solitary

Jewish citizen in a Hellenic city. It was impossible for a Jew to face the religious difficulty in an ordinary

Greek city. He could not become a member of an ordinary "Tribe": he could become a member of a Hellenic