n Jair; but
again the trace of influence is indirect. On the other hand, the
Christian writers from the time of Clement in the second century quote
him freely, make anthologies of his beautiful sayings, and in their
more imaginative moments acclaim him the comrade of Mark and the
friend of Peter. The rise of the Christian Church, which coincided
with the downfall of the nation, caused the rabbis to emphasize the
national character of Judaism in order to preserve the old faith of
their fathers in the critical condition in which exile, persecution,
and assimilation placed it. The first century was a time of feverish
dreams and wild hopes that were not realizable: men had looked for the
coming of the days of universal peace and good-will, and the
Alexandrian Jews in particular hoped for the spreading of Judaism over
the world. The rabbis recognized that this consummation was far away,
and that Judaism must remain particularist for centuries in the hope
of a final universalism. Meantime it must hold fast to the law and, in
default of a national home, strengthen the national religious life in
each Jewish household. They regarded Greek as not only a strange but a
hostile tongue, and the allegorical exegesis of the Bible, which had
led to the whittling away of the law, as a godless wisdom. The
Septuagint translation, which had offered a starting point for
philosophical speculation, was replaced by a new Greek version of the
Old Testament made by Aquila, a proselyte, in the first century. It
gave a baldly literal translation of the Hebrew text, sacrificing form
and even lucidity to a faithful transcript. With unconscious irony the
rabbis, who rejoiced in its truth to the Hebrew, said of Aquila, "Thou
art fairer than the children of men, grace is poured into thy
lips"[329] (Ps. xlv). In truth the work was utterly innocent of
literary grace. A translation of the Bible marked the end, as it had
marked the beginning, of Jewish-Hellenistic literature, but if the
first had suggested the admission, so the other suggested the
rejection of Greek philosophy from the interpretation of Judaism and a
return to the exclusive national standpoint. The rabbinical
appreciation of Aquila's work shows that, while the Jews were in
Palestine, many still required a Greek translation of the Bible; but
when in the third century C.E. the centre of the religion was moved to
Babylon, Greek was forgotten, and the rabbis for a period lost sight
of Greek cul