482 THE JEWS. 



in Rome ; they were allowed to worship their own gods ; 

 the religions of the Empire were regularly licensed ; 

 Egyptian temples and Syrian chapels sprang up in 

 all directions. But though the Romans considered it 

 right that Egyptians should worship Isis, and that 

 Alexandrines should worship Serapis, they justly con- 

 sidered it a kind of treason for Romans to desert 

 their tutelary gods. For this reason, foreign religions 

 were sometimes proscribed. It was also required from 

 the subjects of the empire that they should offer 

 homage to the gods of Rome, and to the genius or 

 spirit of the emperor ; not to the man, but to the soul 

 that dwelled within. The Jews alone were exempt 

 from these regulations. It was believed that they 

 were a peculiar people, or rather that they had a 

 peculiar god. While the other potentates of the 

 celestial world lived in harmony together, Jehovah 

 was a sullen and solitary being, who separated his 

 people from the rest of mankind, forbade them to eat 

 or drink with those who were not of their own race, 

 and threatened to punish them if they worshipped any 

 gods but him. On this account the Roman govern- 

 ment, partly to preserve the lives of their subjects, and 

 partly out of fear for themselves, believing that Jehovah, 

 like the other gods, had always an epidemic at his 

 command, treated the Jews with exceptional indulgence. 

 These people were scattered over all the world ; they had 

 their Ghetto or Petticoat Lane in every great city of the 

 empire ; their religion, so superior to that of the pagans, 

 had attracted much attention from the Gentiles. Ovid, 

 in his Art of Love, counsels the dandy who seeks a 

 mistress to frequent the theatre, or the Temple of Isis, 

 or the synagogue on the Sabbath day. But the Jews 

 in Rome, like the Jews in London, did not attempt to 



