c rulers treated the Jews naturally led
them to take a more favorable attitude toward Greek culture. Alexandria
itself was the scene of an intense intellectual activity. Attracted by the
munificence of the Ptolemies and by the opportunities offered by its great
library, many of the most famous Greek philosophers and rhetoricians of
the age found their home in the Egyptian capital. Public lectures, open
discussions, and voluminous literature were only a few of the many forms
in which this intellectual life was expressed. Hence it was at Alexandria
that Hebrew and Greek thought met on the highest plane and mingled most
closely.

III. The Jewish Temple at Leontopolis. After the murder of his father
Onias III near Antioch, whither he had fled from the persecutions of
Antiochus Epiphanes, Onias IV sought refuge in Egypt. Here, as the
legitimate head of the Jewish high-priesthood, he was favorably received
by Ptolemy and granted territory in the Nile Delta to the north of Memphis
in which to rear a temple to Jehovah. In the light of recent discoveries
at Elephantine it is evident that this step was not without precedent
(Section XCI:vii). Ptolemy's object was to please his Jewish subjects and
to attract others to the land of the Nile. Josephus's statement in _The
Jewish War_, VII, 10:4 favors the conclusion that the temple was built
two hundred and forty-three years (not 343) before its final destruction
in 73 A.D., that is, in 170 B.C. In any case it was probably built between
170 and 160 B.C., at the time when the persecutions of Antiochus
Epiphanes made pilgrimages to the Jerusalem temple impossible, and
threatened its continued existence. The plan of the Leontopolis temple
indicates that it was not intended to be a rival to the Jerusalem
sanctuary, but rather a common place of meeting for the Egyptian
Jews and of defence in case of attack. It never seriously rivalled the
Jerusalem sanctuary, although in later days it was viewed with jealousy
by the Jews of Palestine.

IV. Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Far more
significant than the building of the Leontopolis temple was the
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. The tradition preserved
by Josephus that the translation was made in seventy-two days by
seventy-two scholars, sent from Jerusalem by Eleazar the high priest at
the request of Ptolemy, is clearly unhistorical. The impossibility of
completing so vast a task in this limited time is obvio