Like our scattered colonists in distant lands, they would cling with double affection to the customs of their home, and invest with the halo of tende memories the sacred traditions of thir faith. The Grecian Jew might well look with contempt, not unmingled with pity, on the idolatrous rites practised around, from which long ago the pitiless irony of Isaiah had torn the veil of beauty, to show the hideousness and unreality beneath. The dissoluteness of public and private life, the frivolity and aimlessness of their pursuits, political aspirations, popular assemblies, amusements, in short, the utter decay of society, in all its phases, would lie open to his gaze. It is in terms of lofty scorn, not unmingled with idignation, which only occasionally gives way to the softer mood of warning, or even invitation, that Jewish Hellenistic literature, whether in the Apocrypha or in its Apocalyptic utterances, address heathenism.

From that spectacle the Grecian Jew would turn with infinite satisfaction, not to say, pride, to his own community, to think of its spiritual enlightenment, and to pass in review its exclusive privileges. [1 St, Paul fully describes these feelings in the Epistle to the Romans.] It was with no uncertain steps that he would go past those splendid temples to his own humbler Synagogue, pleased to find himself there surrounded by those who shared his descent, his faith, his hopes; and gratified to see their number swelled by many who, heathens by birth, had learned the error of their ways, and now, so to speak, humbly stood as suppliant 'strangers of the gate,' to seek admission into his sanctuary. [1 The 'Gerey haShaar,' proselytes of the gate, a designation which some have derived from the circumstance that Gentiles were not allowed to advance beyond the Temple Court, but more likely to be traced to such passages as Ex. xx. 10; Deut. xiv. 21; xxiv. 14.] How different were the rites which he practised, hallowed in their Divine origin, rational in themselves, and at the same time deeply significant, from the absurd superstitions around.