Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

8 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMthe throne of the Pharaohs, a large colony of Jewswas drawn to their new capital, a quarter assigned tothem, ample privileges granted, and almost a Jewishnationality gradually established in Egypt. Thitherthe richly-endowed university drew the most learnedGreeks, and beside them grew up a school of Judaicphilosophy, which, using as its own the language ofGreece, and appropriating its culture, strove to penetratethe heathen wisdom with the divine wisdom ofMoses. The sacred books had long been translatedinto that language which was used in cultivated societythroughout the East. Moreover, Jews in no smallnumber were settled for commercial purposes in allthe great cities of the West; Agrippa speaks to theEmperor Caius of his city Jerusalem as the metropolisof innumerable colonies in every region of the habitableworld, in Europe, in Asia, so far as the Satrapiesbeyond the Euphrates, and in Africa.1 We may besure that they were generally among the most prosperousof the population, and that they commonlyunited learning and refined taste with their commercialpursuits. One of such men was Philo ; and he possessesfor us an unique interest in his still existingworks as a representative of Jewish knowledge, penetratedwith Greek culture, who had attained ripe manhood,say fifty years, at the time of our Lord's teaching.The prosperity which he describes belonged preciselyto that time in which the Three Years' Ministry tookplace, and the infant Church arose. His prodigioussuperiority in every moral point of view to the contemporarypagan authors is at once apparent to any1 Legation to Caius, sec. 36. Compare Acts ii. 5, 9-11 : theenumerations in the two cases bear a marked resemblance to eachother.