C] favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire, [d 63 B.C.] the Jews formed, from their national opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as the year 40 A.D., the Roman legate shrank from provoking their hostility. [4 Philo ad Caj.] At thesame time it must not be thought that, even in these favoured regions, they were wholly without persecution. Here also history records more than one tale of bloody strife on the part of those among whom they dwelt. [5 The following are the chief passages in Josephus relating to that part of Jewish history: Ant. xi. 5. 2; xiv. 13. 5; xv. 2. 7; 3. 1; xvii. 2. 1-3; xviii. 9. 1, &c; xx. 4. Jew. W. i. 13.3.]

To the Palestinians, their brethren of the East and of Syria, to which they had wandered under the fostering rule of the Macedono-Syrian monarchs (the Seleucidae), were indeed pre-eminently the Golah, or 'dispersion.' To them the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intimated by fire-signals from mountain-top to mountain-top the commencement of each month for the regulation of the festive calendar, [1 Rosh. haSh. ii. 4; comp. the Jer. Gemara on it, and in the Bab. Talmud 23 b.] even as they afterwards despatched messengers into Syria for the same purpose. [2 Rosh. haSh. i. 4.] In some respects the Eastern dispersion was placed on the same footing; in others, on even a higher level than the mothercountry. Tithes and Terumoth, or first-fruits in a prepared condition, [3 Shev. vi. passim; Gitt. 8 a.] were due from them, while the Bikkurim, or first-fruits in a fresh state, were to be brought from Syria to Jerusalem. Unlike the heathen countries, whose very dust defiled, the soil of Syria was declared clean, like that of Palestine itself, [a Ohol. xxiii. 7.] So far as purity of descent was concerned, the Babylonians, indeed, considered themselves superior to their Palestinian brethren. They had it, that when Ezra took with him those who went to Palestine, he had left the land behind him as pure as fine flour, [b Kidd.