re were at this time about a million of Jews in Egypt. In Alexandria
they seem to have been about one-third of the population, as they
formed the majority in two wards out of the five into which the city was
divided. They lived under their own elders and Sanhedrim, going up at
their solemn feasts to worship in their own temple at Onion; but, from
their mixing with the Greeks, they had become less strict than their
Hebrew brethren in their observance of the traditions. Some few of them,
however, held themselves in obedience to the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and
looked upon the temple of Jerusalem as the only Jewish temple; and these
men were in the habit of sending an embassy on the stated solemn feasts
of the nation to offer the appointed sacrifices and prayers to Jahveh
in the holy city on their behalf. But though the decree by Caesar, which
declared that the Jews were Alexandrian citizens, was engraved on a
pillar in the city, yet they were by no means treated as such, either by
the government, or by the Greeks, or by the Egyptians.

[Illustration: 027.jpg ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE.]

When, during the famine, the public granaries seemed unable to supply
the whole city with food, even the humane Germanicus ordered that the
Jews, like the Egyptians, should have no share of the gift. They were
despised even by the Egyptians themselves, who, to insult them, said
that the wicked god Typhon had two sons, Hierosolymus and Judaeus, and
that from these the Jews were descended.

In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, on a hill near the shores of the
Lake Mareotis, was a little colony of Jews, who, joining their own
religion with the mystical opinions and gloomy habits of the Egyptians,
have left us one of the earliest known examples of the monastic life.
They bore the name of Therapeutae. They had left, says Philo, their
worldly wealth to their families or friends; they had forsaken wives,
children, brethren, parents, and the society of men, to bury themselves
in solitude and pass their lives in the contemplation of the divine
essence. Seized by this heavenly love, they were eager to enter upon the
next world, as though they were already dead to this. Every one, whether
man or woman, lived alone in his cell or monastery, caring for neither
food nor raiment, but having his thoughts wholly turned to the Law and
the Prophets, or to sacred hymns of their own composing. They had their
God always in their thoughts, and even the broken sent