OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 77 



all things ; and [he will anger] all the gods and goddesses and demi- 

 gods, and the lady queen herself. For the depositing of any other 

 corpse [together] with these is forbidden once for all. 



Here it is impossible not to see that the maker of all things is the 

 Hebrew god, and that he is classed with the gods of the heathens. 

 Now in order to understand this apparently incongruous medley of 

 Judaism and Heathenism, it is to be borne in mind that even before 

 the commencement of the Christian era many of the Gentiles of 

 Western Asia, especially the women, adopted the religion of Moses.* 

 Sober-minded and austere people, it would seem, preferred Jewish 

 morality to heathen licentiousness. Circumcision was not required of 

 the converts at first. The stricter of the Jews, however, regarded it 

 as one of the essentials of religion, f Proselytes to Judaism were 

 called by the Greek Jews ol 'lovbat^ovrfs, Judaizers, oi ae^o^evoi tov 

 6e6v, or simply ol (rel36fj,evoi, the worshippers of god, that is, of the god 

 of the Jews. J Among these converts, it is natural to suppose, there 

 were some who, although willing to venerate and even to give the 

 precedence to the god of the hated and despised nation, were by no 

 means ready to admit that he was the only god in existence. They 

 could not see why the addition of a barbarian god to the received list 

 rendered it necessary for them to discard the gods of their forefathers. 

 And such seems to have been the author of the Magnesian inscription 

 before us. People of this liberal tendency are not wholly unknown 

 in the East even now. Thirty years ago there was a Mussiilman in 

 Cairo who believed that Christ was as good as Mohammed. His 

 Greek friends, who could not conceive of religious sincerity unac- 

 companied by intolerance, applied to him the epithet deoixTraixrrjs (from 

 deos, efjLTraiCd)), the mocker of God. It is hardly necessary to mention 



* Joseph. Ant. 20, 2, 1 Tau 'ASia^rjvmv ^aaiXls 'EXei^ koL 6 irais avrris 

 'I^ar;js els ra lovbalav edrj tov ^'lov /xere/3aXXoi/. Ibid. 20, 2, 3 et seq. Bell. 

 Jud. 2, 20, 2 ESeSoiKfcrai' be [oi Aa/^acr/cTyi/oi] ras eavrmv yvvoLKas UTrdaas 

 ir\T]i>'6\iyci>v virr^yjievas ttj 'lovSdiKfj dprja-Kfla. 7, 3, 3 'Aet re npocrayofjievoi 

 Tois 6pr](TKeiai.s iTo\v TrKrjdos 'EXXjji'wi', koL eKeivovs rponu) tiv\ p-olpav avratv 

 TreirnirjPTo. 



INT. Act. 15, 1. 16, 1 seq. Joseph. Ant. 20, 2, 4, Izates is circumcised. • 

 Tacit. Histor. 5, 5. 



t NT. Act. 1.3, 4.3. 50. 17, 4. 17. 18, 7. Joseph. Ant. 14, 7, 2 ndvTav 

 Tav Kara ttjv olKOvp.evr}v lov8ai<ov Koi cre^opLfvav tov deov. Bell. Jud. 2, 18, 2 

 Tovs tovdat^ovras eixov ev VTZo^ia. 



