II. Part of the nation was in Palestine, but by far the larger number were scattered far and wide, and formed innumerable communities in many different lands, north and south, east and west.[1] But wherever dispersed and to whatever tribe they may have belonged, they all looked to Palestine and Jerusalem as their national centre, and, with the exception of those (and they were no doubt many) who had ceased to cherish "the hope of Israel" and were gradually assimilating with their Gentile neighbours, were all one in heart with their brethren in the Holy Land. "They felt they were of the same stock, stood on the same ground, cherished the same memories, grew up under the same institutions, and anticipated the same future. They had one common centre of worship in Jerusalem, which they upheld by their offerings; and they made pilgrimages thither annually in great numbers at the high festivals." Thus Philo could represent to the Roman Emperor Caligula that "Jerusalem ought not to be considered only as the metropolis of Judea, but as the centre of a nation dispersed in infinite places, who were able to supply him with potent succours for his defence. He reckoned among the places that were still stored with Jews, the isles of Cyprus and Candia, Egypt, Macedonia, and Bithynia, to which he added the empire of the Persians, and all the cities of the East, except that of Babylon, from whence they were then expelled."
There is ample confirmation on this point in the New Testament. Thus, for instance, we are incidentally told in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, that among the representatives from the Diaspora who were found in Jerusalem at that memorable feast of
- ↑ Thus Strabo (quoted by Josephus in "Ant." xiv. 7, 2) could already say in his day that "these Jews had already gotten into all cities; and it is hard to find a place in the habitable earth that hath not admitted this race and is not mastered by it."
