Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum; caet.

[Page 8].—Fish of the Nile.] Athen. vii. 312. φέρει δὲ ὁ Νεῖλος γένη πολλὰ ἰχθύων καὶ πάντα ἤδιστα.—Diod. i. 36. The fish of Egypt are regretted, along with its vegetables, by the murmuring Israelites. (Numb. xi. 5.) In the hot weather the languid appetite relishes scarcely any food but this.—Harmer, ii. 327.

[Page 8].—Posture at table.] “Cœnantes ita decumbebant, ut capite leviter erecto, dorsoque pulvinis suffulto, lævo cubito inniterentur. Singulos lectos terni solebant occupare; primus pedes dorso secundi, secundus tertii dorso proximos habebat. Primus dicebatur summus, qui ad hujus pedes tertius imus erat, qui medius inter illos accumbebat dignissimus habebatur.”—Quistorpius de Terra Sancta; Fascic. Opusc. ix. 542.

[Page 8].—Blessing the bread.] The prayers of the Jews before their meals beginning with the words ברוך אהה יהוה the word to bless, (εὐλογεῖν) came to be used, as we find it F.pn +1 in the New Testament, for giving of thanks before a meal, and was applied to the food itself, though properly referring to God. (Kuinöel on Luke ix. 16.) What is here said respecting the ceremonies with which the meal was accompanied must be understood to rest on Rabbinical authority, or the practice of the later Jews. See Calmet Dict. Prayer; Diss. sur le Manger des Hébreux, i. p. 350. Buxtorf. Synagoga Judaica, 7.

[Page 10].—“Happy the people,” &c.] These words will not be found in our version of Psalm lxxxix. 15., but “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound.” The author has followed the version of Dathe and others. “O beatum populum, qui novit clangorem tubæ.” “Israelitis dies solemnes et festivi clangore tubæ annunciabantur, Lev. xxiii. 24. qui deinde ad eos peragendos in loco sacro conveniebant. Laudat igitur poeta felicitatem populi ex eo, quod hæc sacra ex præscripto Deo peragere possit.” Dathe. The modern Jews repeat this verse, when the trumpet is blown in the synagogue at the Feast of Trumpets.—Jenning’s Jewish Ant. ii. 253.

[Page 11].—History of the Jews in Egypt.] According to the account of Aristeas, to whom we owe the fable of the origin of the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Jews had settled in Egypt as early as the time of Psammetichus, 670 B. C. This, however, is not confirmed by ֖more credible authors. Herodotus mentions only Ionian and Carian mercenaries, (ii. 152.) as having served Psammetichus; Diodorus (i. 66.) does indeed add Arabians, under whom Jews may have been included; but there is nothing in the sacred volume to countenance the supposition. After the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had left in command over the remnant of the people, was murdered by Ishmael, a prince of the house of Judah, who had taken refuge with the king of Ammon. The people, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined to take refuge in Egypt. Jeremiah, who endeavoured to dissuade them from it, was compelled to accompany them in their flight, and probably died in Egypt. (Jer. xli. xlii. xliii.) The fugitives took up their abode in the country adjacent to Pelusium, (Jer. xliv.) at Memphis and Thebes. It was predicted by Jeremiah that they should be cut off, but we know not in what manner the prophecy was fulfilled: probably from this time to that of Alexander the Great, a considerable number of Jews remained in the principal cities of Egypt. Alexander, when he founded the city which bore his name, brought a great number of Jews to settle there, (Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 18. 7. cont. Apion. ii. 4.) allowed them to be called Macedonians, and gave them a quarter of the city, adjoining the palace, for their peculiar residence, that they might observe their national customs without molestation. Ptolemy Lagi, the founder of the kingdom of Egypt, endeavoured to possess himself of Palestine, but was driven out by Antigonus, and in his retreat carried with him a great number of Jewish families; (B. C. 312) some of whom he placed in his garrisons, others he sent to Cyrene, (Jos. Apion. ii. 4.) but the greater part he settled at Alexandria, continuing to them the privileges which had been granted to them by Alexander. After the battle of Ipsus, (301) Judæa remained in the hands of Ptolemy, and many more of the Jews were attracted to the new capital of Egypt. (Jos. Ant. xii. 1.) Their number must have been very great, if we could rely on the account given by Josephus, that 120,000 of them were ransomed from slavery by Ptolemy Philadelphus, (B. C. 277, Ant. xii. 2. 1.) when he caused the Jewish law to be translated into Greek. The succeeding princes of this family treated the Jews with great kindness, desirous probably of attaching their countrymen in Palestine, and thus securing their possession of that region, so eagerly contested between them and the kings of Syria.[[133]] In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, Onias, whose father, the third high-priest of that name, had been murdered, fled into Egypt, and rose into high favour with the king and Cleopatra, his queen. The high-priesthood of the temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his family, having passed from it to the family of the Maccabees, by the nomination of Jonathan to this office, (B. C. 153) Onias used his influence with the court to procure the establishment of a temple and ritual in Egypt, which should entirely detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the temple at Jerusalem. The king readily complied with the request, hoping thus to assimilate the Jews more completely with his subjects, and to retain at home the gifts and tributes which they sent to the temple at Jerusalem. It was a bold innovation on the Jewish law, which had prescribed that sacrifices should be offered at one place only, for which purpose Jerusalem had long been appropriated. But on the other hand it might be urged that this law was given only in the contemplation of the Israelites living altogether in their own land, and that the case of a large number of Jews dwelling in a foreign country, not having been in the view of the lawgiver, was to be provided for when it arose. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple, Onias is said to have alleged a passage in Isaiah, (xix. 18, 19.) of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The place which he chose for the purpose was a ruined temple of Bubastis, at Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and eighty stadia from Memphis; and the king having granted it to him, he repaired it, built a city resembling Jerusalem in miniature, (Jos. Bel. Jud. i. 1.) and erected an altar in imitation of that in the temple, constituted himself high-priest, and appointed priests and Levites from among the Jewish settlers. The king granted a tract of land around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till destroyed by Vespasian. (Jos. Ant. xiii. 3. xx. 9. Bell. Jud. vii. 11.) The chief seat of the Jews in Egypt, after Alexandria, appears to have been the district in which this temple stood, and which was called, from the founder, Ὀνίου Χώρα. (Jos. Ant. xiv. 8.) Onias was also a great warrior, and jointly with another Jew, Dositheus, was intrusted by Ptolemy with the management of all his civil and military affairs. When, after the death of Philometor, a dispute arose between Cleopatra and Ptolemy Physcon about the succession, Onias raised an army of Jews, and came to her assistance. During the reign of this voluptuous and cruel prince, (145-117 B. C.) the Jews in Egypt probably suffered in common with the other inhabitants of Alexandria, who were more than once in open rebellion against him; but nothing particular is related respecting them, if we except the circumstance mentioned in the preceding note, which the Latin translation of Josephus contra Apionem refers to the reign of Ptolemy Physcon. His queen Cleopatra associated with herself in the kingdom her eldest son, Ptolemy Lathyrus, and they were jointly sovereigns of Egypt at the time when the pilgrimage of Helon is supposed to take place. Cleopatra, jealous of Lathyrus, whom she had been compelled to take as her partner in the regal power, instead of his younger brother Alexander, (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10. 4.) gave her whole confidence to Hilkias and Ananias, sons of that Onias, by whom the temple of Leontopolis was built, gave them the command of the army, and was guided in every thing by their advice. The attachment of the Jews appears to have been the great support of Cleopatra’s power, almost all the other persons whom she employed going over to the side of Ptolemy. Thus favoured by the ruling powers, the Jews seem to have increased in population and wealth, so as to form no inconsiderable proportion of the inhabitants of Alexandria. Τῆς τῶν Αλεξανδρέων πόλεως ἁφώριστο μέγα μέρος τῷ ἔθνει τουτῷ. Strabo ap. Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2. Philo, Leg. ad Caium, says they were μυριάδες πόλλαι. Besides the enjoyment of their own religion, they had their own Ethnarch, who administered justice among them, according to their own law; so that, according to Strabo, they formed a sort of independent community in the bosom of the state. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.) It seemed desirable to present the reader with this connected view of the origin and state of the Jews in Egypt, as it is disclosed only gradually, and by allusion, in the work itself.

[Page 14].—Irhaheres, Leontopolis.] Isaiah xix. 18. This is the passage which Onias is said to have alleged, in order to induce the Jews to acquiesce in the erection of the temple at Leontopolis. The words which stand in our common Hebrew Bibles are these, עִיר ההרס יאמר לאחת rendered in our translation “One shall be called, the City of Destruction.” Those who impute a misapplication of the passage to Onias, suppose that he read it ציר החרס, which, according to the meaning which the word bears, (Job ix. 7.) would signify City of the Sun, i. e. Heliopolis; and some modern interpreters consider this as the more probable reading. See Vitringa in loc. It is supported by Symmachus, who renders it πόλις ἡλίου· and Jerome “Civitas Solis vocabitur una.” The rendering of the Seventy is different from either, πόλις Ασεδὲκ κληθήσεται ἡ μία πόλις, as if they had read הצדק, whence Prideaux (Conn. Book iv. p. 377. Ann. 149.) infers that the translation of this prophet was made by the Jews who worshipped at Leontopolis, and that they corrupted the text to pay a compliment to the temple there. Our author has followed an interpretation different from any of the above, which is thus given by Dathe, who has adopted it in his translation: “Quæ sit עיר ההרם incertum non est, postquam Ikenius in Diss. Philol. Diss. xvi. p. 258, plane demonstravit eam esse Leontopolim; origo nominis superest in lingua Arabica, in qua דרם leonem significat. Templum vero illud Oniæ IV. de quo sine dubio propheta loquitur, in nomo Heliopolitano ad urbem Leontopolim extructum esse Josephus diserte testatur Antiq. xiii. 3.”

It may be observed that the prophecy of Isaiah might naturally be considered as a justification of the erection of a temple in Egypt, without either corruption or mistranslation, as it certainly speaks of an altar to Jehovah there.

[Page 20].—The Alijah.] See Shaw’s Travels, p. 214.; Taylor’s Heb. Concord. sub voce (עליה). It appears to have been the chamber over the gate, to which David (2 Sam. xviii. 33.) retired to weep for Absalom, and the ὑπερῶον (Acts ix. 37.) in which the corpse of Tabitha was laid.

[Page 21].—The Panium.] Ἔστι δὲ καὶ Πάνειον, ὕψος τὶ χειροποίητον, στροβιλοειδὲς, ἐμφερὲς οχθῳ πετρώδει, δια κοχλίου τὴν ἀνάβασιν ἔχον ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς κορυφῆς ἔστιν ἀπιδεῖν ὅλην τὴν πόλιν ὑποκειμὲνην ἀυτῷ πανταχόθεν· Strabo, xvii. p. 795. The Bruchium (a corruption of πυρουχεῖον, granary) was situated at the north-eastern angle of the city. See the plan of Alexandria, ancient and modern, in St. Croix Examen des Historiens d’Alexandre, ed. 2. p. 288. Alexandria had two principal harbours, the Great Harbour to the east, on which the Bruchium stood, and the Port of Eunostus to the west. The separation between them was made by the shallows between the Pharos and the land, afterwards covered by the mole of the Heptastadium. The modern city of Alexandria stands on the ground which has accumulated about the Heptastadium.