There were at this time about a million of Jews in Egypt. In Alexandria they seem to have been about one-third of the population, as they formed the majority in two wards out of the five into which the city was divided. They lived under their own elders and Sanhedrim, going up at their solemn feasts to worship in their own temple at Onion; but, from their mixing with the Greeks, they had become less strict than their Hebrew brethren in their observance of the traditions. Some few of them, however, held themselves in obedience to the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and looked upon the temple of Jerusalem as the only Jewish temple; and these men were in the habit of sending an embassy on the stated solemn feasts of the nation to offer the appointed sacrifices and prayers to Jahveh in the holy city on their behalf. But though the decree by Cæsar, which declared that the Jews were Alexandrian citizens, was engraved on a pillar in the city, yet they were by no means treated as such, either by the government, or by the Greeks, or by the Egyptians.
When, during the famine, the public granaries seemed unable to supply the whole city with food, even the humane Germanicus ordered that the Jews, like the Egyptians, should have no share of the gift. They were despised even by the Egyptians themselves, who, to insult them, said that the wicked god Typhon had two sons, Hierosolymus and Judæus, and that from these the Jews were descended.
In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, on a hill near the shores of the Lake Mareotis, was a little colony of Jews, who, joining their own religion with the mystical opinions and gloomy habits of the Egyptians, have left us one of the earliest known examples of the monastic life. They bore the name of Therapeutæ. They had left, says Philo, their worldly wealth to their families or friends; they had forsaken wives, children, brethren, parents, and the society of men, to bury themselves in solitude and pass their lives in the contemplation of the divine essence. Seized by this heavenly love, they were eager to enter upon the next world, as though they were already dead to this. Every one, whether man or woman, lived alone in his cell or monastery, caring for neither food nor raiment, but having his thoughts wholly turned to the Law and the Prophets, or to sacred hymns of their own composing. They had their God always in their thoughts, and even the broken sentences which they uttered in their dreams were treasures of religious wisdom. They prayed every morning at sunrise, and then spent the day in turning over the sacred volumes, and the commentaries, which explained the allegories, or pointed out a secondary meaning as hidden beneath the surface of even the historical books of the Old Testament. At sunset they again prayed, and then tasted their first and only meal. Selfdenial indeed was the foundation of all their virtues. Some made only three meals in the week, that their meditations might be more free; while others even attempted to prolong their fast to the sixth day. During six days of the week they saw nobody, not even one another. On the seventh day they met together in the synagogue. Here they sat, each according to his age; the women separated from the men. Each wore a plain, modest robe, which covered the arms and hands, and they sat in silence while one of the elders preached. As they studied the mystic powers of numbers, they thought the number seven was a holy number, and that seven times seven made a great week, and hence they kept the fiftieth day as a solemn festival. On that day they dined together, the men on one side and the women on the other. The rushy papyrus formed the couches; bread was their only meat, water their drink, salt the seasoning, and cresses the delicacy. They would keep no slaves, saying that all men were born equal. Nobody spoke, unless it was to propose a question out of the Old Testament, or to answer the question of another. The feast ended with a hymn of praise.
The ascetic Jews of Palestine, the Essenes on the banks of the Dead Sea, by no means, according to Philo, thus quitted the active duties of life; and it would seem that the Therapeutas rather borrowed their customs from the country in which they had settled, than from any sects of the Jewish nation. Some classes of the Egyptian priesthood had always held the same views of their religious duties. These Egyptian monks slept on a hard bed of palm branches, with a still harder wooden pillow for the head; they were plain in their dress, slow in walking, spare in diet, and scarcely allowed themselves to smile. They washed thrice a day, and prayed as often; at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. They often fasted from animal food, and at all times refused many meats as unclean. They passed their lives alone, either in study or wrapped in religious thought. They never met one another but at set times, and were seldom seen by strangers. Thus, leaving to others the pleasures, wealth, and lesser prizes of this life, they received from them in return what most men value higher, namely, honour, fame, and power.
The Romans, like the Greeks, feeling but little partiality in favour of their own gods, were rarely guilty of intolerance against those of others; and would hardly have checked the introduction of a new religion unless it made its followers worse citizens. But in Rome, where every act of its civil or military authorities was accompanied with a religious rite, any slight towards the gods was a slight towards the magistrate; many devout Romans had begun to keep holy the seventh day; and Egypt was now so closely joined to Italy that the Roman senate made a new law against the Egyptian and Jewish superstitions, and, in A.D. 19, banished to Sardinia four thousand men who were found guilty of being Jews.
Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now made to feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its silver much alloyed with copper. But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his reign, altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the other cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no more coins, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Cæsar, which seem hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some peculiar occasions the emperor’s adoption by his stepfather. The Nubian gold mines were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so far worked out as to be no longer profitable. For fifteen hundred years, ever since Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been higher in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries. But this was now no longer the case. Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the latter Ptolemies; and by this time it is probable that both wages and prices were higher in Rome.