After the close of the war in Palestine, new dis turbances were excited in Egypt by the Sicarii.
many of whom had fled thither. They endea voured to persuade the Jews to acknowledge no king but God, and to throw off the Roman yoke. Such persons as opposed their designs and ten dered wiser counsels to their brethren, they secretly assassinated, according to their custom. But the principal Jews in Alexandria having in a general assembly earnestly warned the people against these fanatics, who had been the authors of all the troubles in Palestine, about 60o of them were delivered up to the Romans. Several fled into the Thebaicl, but were apprehended and brought back. The most cruel tortures which could be devised had no effect in compelling them to ac knowledge the emperor for their sovereign ; and even their children seemed endowed with souls fearless of death, and bodies incapable of pain. Vespasian, when informed of these transactions, sent orders that the Jewish temple in Egypt should be destroyed. Lupus the prefect, however, only shut it up, after having taken out the consecrated gifts : but his successor Paulinus stripped it com pletely, and excluded the Jews entirely from it. This was in A. D. 75, being the 343d year from its erection by Onias.
St. Mark is said to have introduced the Chris tian religion into Alexandria, which early became one of the strongholds of the true faith. The Jews continued to form a principal portion of the inhabitants, and remained in the enjoyment of their civil rights till A.D. 415, when they incurred the hatred of Cyril the patriarch, at whose in stance they were expelled, to the number of 40,000, and their synagogues destroyed. However, when
Amrou, in A. D. 640, took the place for the caliph Omar, he wrote to his master in these terms :— I have taken the great city of the west, which contains 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres, m000 shops for the sale of vegetable food, and 40,00o tributary ,eats.' From that time the pros perity of Alexandria very rapidly declined ; and when, in 969, the Fatemite caliphs seized on Egypt and built New Cairo, it sunk to the rank of a secondary Egyptian city. The discovery of the passage to the east by the Cape, in 1497, almost annihilated its remaining commercial importance. The commercial and maritime enterprises of Me hemet Ali have again raised Alexandria to some distinction, and it is now an important station in the overland route to India, and a railway is now (1854) being constructed between it and Cairo. When Benjamin of Tudela visited the place (Ilia. i. 158, ed. Asher), the number of Jews was not more than 3000, and does not now exceed 500 (J. A. St. John, Egypt, ii. 384). The entire popu lation is about 6o,000 (Wilkinson's Modern Egypt; Hogg's Visit to Alexandria). [For details re garding Alexandrian learning and philosophy, Jewish and Christian, see Mime, Geschichtliche .Darstellung d. 7iidisch-Alexandrinischen Religion una' philosophie, Halle, 1834; Jost, Gesch. d. yuden thums, Leipz. 1857; Dorner, Entwichelungscesch. der Lehre von d. Person Christi, i. as ff., E. T. i. 16 ff. ; Grossmann, Quartiones Philonee, Lips. 1824 ; Neander, Ch. Hist. i. 67-93; ii. 261 ff.; Gieseler, Err!. Hist. 1. 45, 229 ; Kurz, Ch. Hist. p• 55, 137, 172, and art. PHILOSOPHY in this work.]