which Hellenism found itself face to face in the ancient land of the
Pharaohs. It was the civilisation of Judæa, between which and Greek
thought a greater fusion was effected.


II.

From time immemorial the Hebrew race, with all its conservative
tendencies in religious matters, has been amenable to the influence
of foreign culture and civilian. Egypt and Phoenicia, Babylonia and
Assyria, Hellas and Rome have exercised an immense influence over it.
It still is and always has been endeavouring to bring into harmony
the exclusiveness of its national religion, with a desire to adopt the
habits culture, language, and manners of its neighbours; an attempt in
which it may be apparently successful, for a certain period at least,
but which must always have a tragic end. It is impossible to be
conservative and progressive at the same time, to be both national and
cosmopolitan. The attempts to reconcile religious formalism and free
reasoning have never succeeded in the history of human thought. It soon
led to the conviction that one factor must be sacrificed, and, as soon
as this was perceived, the party of zealots was quickly at hand to
preach reaction. In the times of the successors of Alexander, the
Diadochæ and Epigones, the Seleucidæ and the Lagidæ, who had divided the
vast dominion among them, Greek influence had spread all over Palestine.
Greek towns were founded, theatres and gymnasia established; Greek
art was admired and her philosophy studied. The Hellenic movement was
paramount, and the aristocratic families did their best to further it.
Even the high priests, like Jason and Menelaos, who were supposed to be
the guardians of the national exclusive movement, favoured Greek culture
and institutions.