The vicissitudes and revolutions also, to which this people, even from the beginning, were exposed, were calculated to make them and their religion known. They were carried, or spread, into different countries at periods when the several nations, among whom they were placed, had attained great eminence by their advancement in civilization and science, as into Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Italy, so that they must have attracted notice at the very time at which it was most important that they should be observed. The intercourse with other parts of the world which resulted from the fame and the commercial enterprizes of David and Solomon, and the facilities of communication with the Jews, afforded in later times by their dispersion and continued abode in Assyria, Egypt, and other countries, to which there was a great resort, were very extensive *.

The greater part of the ten tribes remained after the captivity, in Assyria, declining to return with those, who went back under the conduct of Ezra and Nehemiah. Notwithstanding indeed the decree of Cyrus was

14.

*Euseb. præp. Evang. 1 Chron. xiv. 2 Chron. ix. 12

Talmud Babylon in Kiddush, and Calmet Com. vol. vi.

addressed to all the people of Israel*, only four of the twenty-four courses of the sons of Aaron were re-established, though in order to keep up the number, each of the four courses subdivided itself into six. Josephus states that but two tribes were subject to the Romans in Asia and Europe, and that the rest remained in unnumbered multitudes beyond the Euphrates. Schools were established at Babylon and other places, and, according to the account of this historian, many of the Jews were to be found in Babylon in his. time. They were to be found also at Seleucia and at Susa.

It appears from a letter of Eleazar to Ptolemy, preserved by Josephus, that the distinct character of the tribes was long after maintained: since he professes to have sent six elders from each tribe to assist in the Septuagint version +.

Different writers represent colonies of Jews to have spread through almost all countries, as Syria, lower Asia, and Greece, so that it was difficult to find a place in the habitable

* Ezra i. 3.; vii. 13.

Joseph. Antiq. lib. xi. c. 5. p. 482. Edit. Hudson. Prideaux's Connect. Part I. Book i. Acts ii. 9.

Antiq. lib. xii. c. 2. Acts xxvi. 7.

world which had not admitted them. They state, that the Egyptians, Cyrenæans, and other people, imitated their way of living, and maintained great bodies of them, growing up to greater prosperity with them, and sometimes making use of their laws; and that the Jews had places assigned to them in Egypt, which they inhabited, beside what was particularly allotted to their nation at Alexandria, where they had a large part of the city *

The ten tribes had heen carried principally into Media and Persia †. Descendants of these, and probably of the other two tribes, were to be found dispersed through the East; who repaired occasionally to Jerusalem §, and were addressed by the apostles when Christianity was introduced ||.

Benjamin Tudela, in his Itinerary published towards the close of the 12th century, states, probably with some exaggeration, that there were fifty cities of Jews in the mountainous parts of Media; and it is said that some Jews are still to be found in Tartary, the

* Philo, Legat. ad Caium. Antiq. lib. xiv. c. 7.

+1 Chron. v. 26. 2 Kings xvii. 6.

Joseph. Antiq. 1. xi, c. 5, 6.

§ Acts ii. 5-11.

1 Pet. i. 1. James i. 1.

descendants possibly of those who were transported into the northern countries beyond the Bosphorus, and from whom they derived some Jewish customs; while others of the same race are supposed by Major Rennel to exist among the Afgans *.

There is an account given in the second book of Esdras, which may claim some notice, though the book indeed is not of great authority among those who reject the decisions of the Romish Church. It is there related that "the tribes took this counsel among "themselves, that they would leave the mul❝titude of the heathen to go forth into

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а further country, where never mankind "dwelt, that they might there keep their "statutes, which they never kept in their ❝own land, and they entered into Euphrates

by the narrow passages of the river, for "the Most High then shewed signs for "them, and held still the flood 'till they

66

66

were passed over, for through that coun

try there was a great way to go, namely, "of a year and a half, and the same region " is called Arsareth †.”

Eldad, a Jew of the 13th century, places

* Rennel's Geograph. Syst. of Herodot. p. 390.

2 Esdras xiii. 41-45.

the ten tribes in Ethiopia, others in Assyria, others in Arabia, and some in the East Indies; while some writers have conceived that they have discovered traces of them in Africa, and even in America †.

Some proofs might perhaps be adduced of revealed knowledge, transmitted to the heathens by oral tradition from the Patriarchs, to whom they were originally committed; or derived from the Jews, by whom they were preserved, or possibly from written memorials, which might have retained an authority after many corruptions had been introduced, among those who mingled idolatry with the service of the true God.

The inspired writers mention books and chronicles distinct from their own sacred records. The effects of this traditional or written information are discernible in the convictions and maxims which the heathens professed, and they are to be perceived also in the prophetic apprehensions of futurity, which they entertained. Such were those general expectations built on the promises with respect to the Messiah and the future

* See Modern Travels.

+ Newton on Prophecy, and Basnage's Hist. of Jews, Book vi. 2, 3. Universal History, &c.