THE EEADERS FOR WHOM MATTHEW WROTE HIS GOSPEL. 181 



not be long delayed. They thought that while men of that 

 generation were yet living, the " Son of Man " would descend 

 from heaven in glory, accompanied by the Holy Angels. As Jews 

 they assumed that Judea would be the scene of His glory. 

 There would not seem to them any need of writmg an account for 

 the Jews of Palestine of what had taken place during their Lord's 

 life of Humiliation when that Humiliation would so soon be lost 

 sight of in the Glory of His second Advent. 



If not for the Jews of Palestine, for whom, then, was the 

 Hebrew Gospel written? Again, we have an analogue in 

 Josephus. In his Introduction to his " History of the Wars of 

 the Jews " he says he composed it "in the language of our 

 country and sent it ... to those of our own nation beyond the 

 Euphrates.'-' We are apt to forget the extent and importance of 

 this Eastern Diaspora. Without regarding as perfectly accurate, or 

 historic the picture given in the Book of Esther of the pervading 

 presence of the Israelites in the provmces of the Persian Empire, 

 there are many evidences of the number, size, and the importance 

 of the Jewish communities " beyond the Euphrates." Josephus 

 (Ant. XV. ii., 2), speaking of the later fate of John Hyrcanus II., 

 says: " Hyrcanus, having been brought (into Parthia), Phraates 

 the king permitted him to dwell in Babylon, where there was a 

 multitude of Jews." It must be remembered that the captives 

 of Nebuchadnezzar were not the first carried east from Judea. 

 Sennacherib claims (Schrader i. 286) to have led away captive 

 from the land of Judah 200,750 persons; when Esar-haddon took 

 Manasseh captive he would most likely take others also. The 

 successive bands of captives taken by Nebuchadnezzar along with 

 those earlier deportations imply a large Jewish community, , of 

 which only a small portion returned either with Zerubbabel or 

 Ezra. 



Although, so long as the Jewish state existed, Jerusalem was 

 the Qibla of Judaism, with the capture of the Holy City by Titus, 

 and later the crushing of Bar Cochba's rebellion, the national 

 centre of gravity passed eastward till it definitely rested in 

 Babylon. The official Targum of the Law, that of Onkelos, was 

 not accepted as such till it had received the imprimatur of 

 Babylon. The authoritative Talmud to the present day is Talmud 

 Babli, not Yerushalmi. Though this change of centre was not 

 completed till the 5th century, there must have been a large 

 number of Jews in those portions of the Parthian Empire that 

 abutted on that of Eome as early as the days of our Lord. The 

 importance of the Jewish community in Babylon was little likely 

 to be forgotten while the memory of Hillel, who had come from 

 thence, was yet green. 



Even had the apostles been liable to forget Eastern Jewry, 

 Pentecost would have forced it on their notice. There was peace 



