inquiries which Ptolemy made into the literature of
the surrounding nations, in his search for accessions to his library, he
heard that the Jews had certain sacred writings in their temple at
Jerusalem, comprising a minute and extremely interesting history of
their nation from the earliest periods and also many other books of
sacred prophecy and poetry. These books, which were, in fact, the Hebrew
Scriptures of the Old Testament, were then wholly unknown to all nations
except the Jews, and among the Jews were known only to priests and
scholars. They were kept sacred at Jerusalem. The Jews would have
considered them as profaned in being exhibited to the view of pagan
nations. In fact, the learned men of other countries would not have been
able to read them; for the Jews secluded themselves so closely from the
rest of mankind, that their language was, in that age, scarcely ever
heard beyond the confines of Judea and Galilee.

Ptolemy very naturally thought that a copy of these sacred books would
be a great acquisition to his library. They constituted, in fact, the
whole literature of a nation which was, in some respects, the most
extraordinary that ever existed on the globe. Ptolemy conceived the
idea, also, of not only adding to his library a copy of these writings
in the original Hebrew, but of causing a translation of them to be made
into Greek, so that they might easily be read by the Greek and Roman
scholars who were drawn in great numbers to his capital by the libraries
and the learned institutions which he had established there. The first
thing to be effected, however, in accomplishing either of these plans,
was to obtain the consent of the Jewish authorities. They would probably
object to giving up any copy of their sacred writings at all.

There was one circumstance which led Ptolemy to imagine that the Jews
would, at that time particularly, be averse to granting any request of
such a nature coming from an Egyptian king, and that was, that during
certain wars which had taken place in previous reigns, a considerable
number of prisoners had been taken by the Egyptians, and had been
brought to Egypt as captives, where they had been sold to the
inhabitants, and were now scattered over the land as slaves. They were
employed as servile laborers in tilling the fields, or in turning
enormous wheels to pump up water from the Nile. The masters of these
hapless bondmen conceived, like other slave-holders, that they had a