. They naturally acquired Greek customs, and along with them
Hellenic vices. The bacchanalia of Athens were enthusiastically imitated
in Jerusalem, and, as a matter of course, in Alexandria. This point
reached, Roman civilization asserted itself, and the people sought to
affiliate with their Roman victors, while the rabbis devoted themselves
to the Law, not, however, to the exclusion of scientific work. In the
ranks of physicians and astronomers we find Jewish masters and Jewish
disciples. Medicine has always been held in high esteem by Jews, and
Samuel could justly boast before his contemporaries that the intricate
courses of the stars were as well known to him as the streets of
Nehardea in Babylonia.[22]

The treasures of information on pedagogics, medicine, jurisprudence,
astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, and last, though not least, on
general history, buried in the Talmud, have hitherto not been valued at
their true worth. The rabbis of the Talmud stood in the front ranks of
culture. They compiled a calendar, in complete accord with the Metonic
cycle, which modern science must declare faultless. Their classification
of the bones of the human body varies but little from present results of
the science of anatomy, and the Talmud demonstrates that certain Mishna
ordinances are based upon geometrical propositions, which could have
been known to but few mathematicians of that time. Rabbi Gamaliel, said
to have made use of a telescope, was celebrated as a mathematician and
astronomer, and in 289 C. E., Rabbi Joshua is reported to have
calculated the orbit of Halley's comet.

The Roman conquest of Palestine effected a change in the condition of
the Jews. Never before had Judah undergone such torture and suffering as
under the sceptre of Rome. The misery became unendurable, and internal
disorders being added to foreign oppression, the luckless insurrection
broke out which gave the deathblow to Jewish nationality, and drove
Judah into exile. On his thorny martyr's path he took naught with him
but a book--his code, his law. Yet how prodigal his contributions to
mankind's fund of culture!

About five hundred years later Judah saw springing up on his own soil a
new religion which appropriated the best and the most beautiful of his
spiritual possessions. Swiftly rose the vast political and intellectual
structure of Mohammedan power, and as before with Greek, so Jewish
thought now allied itself with Arabic endeavor, bringin