causes for the dispersion of the Jews. Ptolemy, the Macedonian king of Egypt, having taken Jerusalem from the Syro-Macedonians, led away many from the hill-country of Judea, from Samaria and Mount Gerizim, into Egypt, where he made them settle; and after he had given them at Alexandria the rights of citizens in equal privilege with the Macedonians, not a few of the rest, of their own accord, moved into Egypt, allured partly by the richness of the land, and partly by the good will that Ptolemy had shown towards their nation. Afterwards, Antiochus the Great, the Macedonian king of Syria, about the thirtieth year of his reign, two hundred years before the Christian era, brought out two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia, whom he sent into Phrygia and Lydia with the most ample privileges, that they might hold to their duty the minds of the Greeks, who were then inclining to revolt from his sway. These were from Asia Minor, spread abroad over the surrounding countries, between the Mediterranean sea, the Euphrates and Mount Amanus, on the frontiers of Cilicia. Besides, others afterwards, to escape the cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes, betook themselves to foreign lands, where, finding themselves well settled, they and their descendants remained. Moreover, many, as Philo testifies, for the sake of trade, or other advantages, of their own accord left the land of Israel for foreign countries: whence almost the whole world was filled with colonies of Jews, as we see in the directions of some of the general epistles, (James i. 1: 1 Peter i. 1.) Thus also Tarsus had its share of Jewish inhabitants, among whom were the family of Paul." (Witsius in Vit. Paul, § 1. ¶ v.)
Nor were the solid honors of this great Asian city, limited to
the mere favors of imperial patronage. Founded, or early enlarged
by the colonial enterprise of the most refined people of ancient
times, Tarsus, from its first beginning, shared in the glories
of Helleno-Asian civilization, under which philosophy, art, taste,
commerce, and warlike power attained in these colonies a highth
before unequalled, while Greece, the mother country, was still far
back in the march of improvement. In the Asian colonies arose
the first schools of philosophy, and there is hardly a city on the
eastern coast of the Aegean, but is consecrated by some glorious
association with the name of some Father of Grecian science.
Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, and many others of the earliest
philosophers, all flourished in these Asian colonies; and on the
Mediterranean coast, within Cilicia itself, were the home and
schools of Aratus and the stoic Chrysippus. The city of Tarsus
is commemorated by Strabo as having in very early times attained
great eminence in philosophy and in all sorts of learning, so that
"in science and art it surpassed the fame even of Athens and Alexandria;
and the citizens of Tarsus themselves were distinguished
for individual excellence in these elevated pursuits. So great
was the zeal of the men of that place for philosophy, and for the
rest of the circle of sciences, that they excelled both Athens and
Alexandria, and every other place which can be mentioned, where
there are schools and lectures of philosophers." Not borrowing
the philosophic glory of their city merely from the numbers of
strangers who resorted thither to enjoy the advantages of instruction
there afforded, as is almost universally the case in all the
