314

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XXI.

BeforeChrist 100

andria* A numerous colony of Jews had been.invited, by the favour of the Ptolemies , to settlein their new capital . 0 While the bulk of thenation practised the legal ceremonies, and pur-sued the lucrative occupations of commerce, afew Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devotedtheir lives to religious and philosophical con-templation. p They cultivated with diligence,and embraced with ardour, the theological sys-tem of the Athenian sage. But their nationalpride would have been mortified by a fair con-fession of their former poverty : and they bold-ly marked, as the sacred inheritance of theirancestors, the gold and jewels which they hadso lately stolen from their Egyptian masters.One hundred years before the birth of Christ, aphilosophical treatise, which manifestly betraysthe style and sentiments of the school of Plato ,was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, andunanimously received as a genuine and valuablerelic of the inspired wisdom of Solomon / 1 Asimilar union of the mosaic faith and the Gre-cian philosophy distinguishes the works ofPhilo , which were composed, for the most part,

n Brncker, Hist. Philosoph . tom. i, p. 1349-1357. The Alexandriansehool is celebrated by Strabo (1. xvii) and Ammianns (xxii, 6).

” Joseph. Antiquitat. 1. xii, c. 1-3 ; Basnage, Hist, des Jtiifs, 1.vii, c. 7.

p For the origin of the Jewish Philosophy, see Eusebius , Proeparat.Evangel, viii, 9, 10. According to Philo , the Therapentae studied phi-losophy ; and Brucker has proved (Hist. Philosoph . tom. ii, p. 787)that they gave the preference to that of Plato .

q See Cahnet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii, p. 277. The bookof the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of the fathers as thework of the monarch ; and although rejected by the protestants forwant of a Hebrew original, it has obtained with the rest of the Vulgate ,the sanction of the council of Trent,