Foremost in the two or three chief groups into which the dispersion has been divided, stands the Babylonian (tnrip EtiOpdr7p, Joseph. Antiq. xv. 3. i), embracing all the Jews of the Persian empire, into every part of which (Esth. iii. 8)—Babylo nia, Media, Persia, Lusiana, Mesopotamia, Assy ria, etc.—they penetrated. The Jews of Baby lonia proper prided themselves on the exceptional purity of their lineage—a boast uniformly recog nised throughout the nation. What Judaea, it was said, was with respect to the dispersion of other countries—as pure flour to dough—that, Babylonia was to (Jer. Kid. vi. 1). Herod pretended to have sprung from Babylonian ancestors (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. t. 3), and also bestowed the high priesthood upon a man from Babylon (Joseph. Antig. xv. 2. 4). In the messages sent by the Synedrium to the whole dispersion, Babylonia re ceived the precedence (Synh. ; although it re mained a standing reproach against the Babylo nians that they had held aloof from the national cause when their brethren returned to Palestine, and thus had caused the weakness of the Jewish state (Joma 9) ; as indeed living in Palestine under any circumstances is enumerated among the (613) Jewish ordinances (Nachmanides Comm. to Mai monides' Sefer Hammizwoth). The very territory of Babylonia was, for certain ritual purposes, con sidered to be as pure as Palestine itself. Very little is known of the history of the Babylonian diaspora ; but there is no reason to suppose that its condition was, under Persian as well as under Seleucidian and Parthian rule, at most times other than flourishing and prosperous ; such as we find that it was when it offered Hyrcanus honours not inferior to those of a king' (Joseph. Antiq. xv. 2. 2). Of Alexander the Great, Josephus records expressely that he confirmed the former privileges of the Jews in Babylonia (Joseph. Antig. xi. 8. 5), notwithstanding their firm refusal to assist in re building the Temple of Belus at Babylon (Hecat. ap. Joseph. c. Ap. t. 22). Two great cities, Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and Nehardea on the Euphrates, where the moneys intended for transmission to Jerusalem were deposited ( Joseph. xviii. 9. I, 3, 4, etc.), as was the case also at Apamea in Asia Minor, Laodicea in Phrygia, Pergamus and Adramythium in tEolis—seem to have been entirely their own, and for a number of years they appear even to have enjoyed the undisputed possession of a whole prin cipality (1. c. 5). Great calamities, however, be fell them, both about this time under Mithridates (I. c. 9), and later under Caligula, through the jealousy of the Greeks and Syrians ; and at both of these epochs they emigrated in large numbers. Whether they had in those times, as was after wards the case, a universally recognised Ethnarch at their head, is open to doubt, although Seder Olam Sutta enumerates the names of fifteen gene rations of such, down to the third century. The ties which linked Babylonia to Palestine were perhaps closer than in the case of any other por tion of the dispersion ; both on account of their greater proximity, which enabled them to com municate by beacons [Beth-Biltin being the last station on the frontiers ; Rosh Hash. 2, 7], and of their common Aramaic idiom. That this dis persion was not without an influence on the deve lopment of the Zoroastrian religion (cf. Anquetil, Spiegel, Intr. to Zenda-oesta), which in its turn again influenced Judaism (and, at a later stage, Gnosti cism), can hardly be doubted ; at the same time, it was Babylon, which, after the final destruction of the temple, by its numerous and far-famed aca demies, became for a long time the spiritual centre of the Jewish race, and was the seat of the Prince of the diaspora (Resh Gelutha).
The second great and pre-eminently important group of the dispersion we find in Egypt. Of the original immigrations from Palestine (cf. Zech. x. t), and of those which took place in the times of the last kings of Judah (Jer. xli. 17, 42), we have no more certain traces than of those under Artax erxes Ochus (Joseph. Ap. 1, etc.) It was only after Alexander the Great, who first settled S000 Jewish soldiers in the Thebais, and peopled a third of his newly-founded city Alexandria with Jews, and Ptolemmus, the son of Lagius, after him, who increased the number of Egyptian Jews by fresh importations from Palestine, that the Egyptian dispersion began to spread over the whole country, from the Lybian desert in the north to the boun daries of Ethiopia in the south (Philo c. El. ii. 523),
over the Cyrenaica and parts of Lybia (Joseph. An tiq. xvi. 7. 2), and along the borders of the African coast of the Mediterranean. They enjoyed equal rights with their fellow-subjects, both Egyptian and Greek (Joseph. Ap. ii. 4, etc.), and were admitted to the highest offices and dignities. The free development which was there allowed them enabled them to reach, under Greek auspices, the highest eminence in science and art. Their artists and workmen were sent for to distant coun tries, as once the Phoenicians had been (Joma 3. 8, a. ; Erach. to, b.) In Greek strategy and Greek statesmanship, Greek learning and Greek refine ment, they were ready disciples. From the num ber of Judxo-Greek fragments, historical, didactic, epic, etc. (by Demetrios, Malchos, Eupolemos, Artapan, Aristaeos, Jason, Ezechielos, Philo the Elder, Theodot, etc. ; collected in Muller, Fragnt. Hist. Grac. ui. 207-230), which have survived, we may easily conclude what an immense literature this Egyptian dispersion must have possessed. To them is owing likewise the Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint, which, in its turn, while it estranged the people more and more from the language of their fathers, the Hebrew, gave rise to a vast pseudo-epigraphical and apocryphal literature (Orphica, Sybillines, Pseudophoclea ; poems by Linus, Homer, Hesiod ; additions to Esther, Ezra, the Maccabees, Book of Wisdon., Baruch, Jeremiah, Susannah, etc.) Most momen tous of all, however, was that peculiar Grxco Jewish philosophy, which sprang from a mixture of Hellenism and Orientalism, and which played such a prominent part in the early history of Christianity. The administrative government of this Egyptian or rather African dispersion, which, no less than all other branches, for all religious purposes looked to Jerusalem as the head, was, at the time of Christ, in the hands of a Gerousia (Succah. 51, b. ; Philo c. Fl. ii. 5, 28), consisting of seventy members and an Ethnarch (Alabarch), chosen from their own body, of priestly lineage. These sat at Alexandria, where two of the five divisions of the city, situated on the Delta (the site best adapted for navigation and com mercial purposes), were occupied exclusively by Jews (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. 7. 2). Of the splendour of the Alexandrine temple, there is a glowing account in 7erus. Suk. so. b., and when, in consequence of the Syrian oppression in Palestine, Onias, the son of the last high-priest of the line of Joshua, had fled to Egypt, where Ptolemy Philometor gave him an extensive district near Heliopolis : a new temple (Beth Chonjo) had arisen at Leontopolis (Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 3. 2, 180 s.c., which bade fair to rival the temple of Jerusalem. Such, indeed, was the influence of the Jews in Egypt, whom Philo (c. Fl. 6) in his time estimates at a million, that this new temple was treated with consideration even by the Synedrium (Menach. 109, a.) Their condition, it may easily be inferred, was flourishing both under the Seleucidian and Roman sway, but under Caligula, and still more under Nero (Joseph. Bell.
ii. 18. 7), they, like their brethren in other parts of the Roman empire, suffered greatly from sudden outbursts of the populace, prompted and counte nanced, in some instances, by their rulers. From Egypt the diaspora spread southwards to Abyssinia, where some remnants of it still exist under the name of the Falasha, and in all likelihood east wards to Arabia (Mishna, Shab. 6. 6), where we find a Jewish kingdom (Yemen) in the south (Tabari ap. Silv. de Sacy Mem. de 1 'Acad. d. Instr. T, 78), and a large Jewish settlement (Chaibar) in Hedjas in the north.