Nor are the Jewish
settlements confined to the mainland only; they are found also in
the more important islands, Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I do not insist
on the countries beyond the Euphrates, for with few exceptions all
of them, Babylon and the fertile regions around it, have Jewish
inhabitants."
In the west of Europe also they were not wanting; many thousands
of them lived in Rome. In those cities where they were at all
numerous they, during the imperial period, formed separate
communities; Josephus has preserved a great variety of documents
in which the Roman authorities recognise their rights and liberties
(especially as regards the Sabbath rest and the observance of
festivals). Of greatest importance was the community in Alexandria;
according to Philo a million of Jews had their residence there under
an ethnarch for whom a gerusia was afterwards substituted by Augustus
(In Flac., secs. 6, 10). The extent to which this diaspora was
helpful in the diffusion of Christianity, the manner in which the
mission of the apostles everywhere attached itself to the synagogues
and proseuchai, is well known from the New Testament.
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