DISPERSION
Dispersion
(from to scatter, as from to gather) is used collectively in the Septuagint and the NT for the Jews settled abroad. The most important NT reference occurs in Joh 7:35 : Whither will this man go that we shall not find him? Will he go unto the Diaspora among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? This splenetic utterance was an unconscious prophecy of the course our Lord actually followed, when, having reached the goal of His public ministry, and having received all authority in heaven and on earth, He went on to make disciples of all the nations.* [Note: The secret which malice had divined within the Saviours lifetime (Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 18).] The first line of advance was already marked out by the Diaspora. It was the bridge between the Jew and the Greek, and soon the sound of many feet speeding over it with their message of good tidings was heard; or it was the viaduct by which the living waters that went forth from Jerusalem were led to the cities of the Roman Empire.
The Diaspora partly originated from causes over which the Jews had no control, and was partly the result of a spontaneous movement outwards. It was largely due to the policy adopted by the great conquerors of antiquity of deporting into exile a considerable number of the population of the countries which they subdued. The various trans-plantations suffered by the Jews need not be recounted here. But their dispersion was still more largely due, in Greek and Roman times, to voluntary emigration from Palestine. The conquests of Alexander the Great turned what had hitherto been barred avenues and dangerous tracks into safe and open roads, and the Jews were not slow to take advantage of the openings, both in the direction of secular culture and of commercial enterprise, that lay before them. In NT times, they were domiciled in all the countries along the shores of the Mediterranean. The accounts of Philo and Josephus, of which the substantial accuracy is attested by inscriptions (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 92a), enable us to see how much at home the Jews were in Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Greek cities and islands, and all the data now available afford grounds for believing that they numbered at this period from three to four and a half millions, and that they formed about seven per cent of the population of the Roman Empire (Encyclopaedia Biblica i. 1112; Harnack, Mission and Expansion2, i. 10, 11).
Following Jeremiahs advice to the exiles in Babylon, they sought the peace of the cities they settled in, without, however, amalgamating with the other inhabitants. The dislike created by their aloofness gave way a little before the involuntary respect commanded by their intelligence, their aptitude for work, and their exemplary family life, but was never completely overcome. Yet they had the art of conciliating the great, and of gaining powerful patrons, Several of the Syrian and Egyptian kings were their warm friends. Amongst their friends must also be included Julius Caesar, who with the prescience of genius saw in them the true connecting link between the East and West, and would not have relished their being made the butt of Roman wits. Their mourning for his death (noctibus continuis bustum frequentarunt, Suet. C. Iulius Caesar, 84) reminds us of the mourning of the Jews in London for Edward VII.
The Jews could not carry on their sacrificial worship in foreign lands-we may let pass the schismatic attempt to do so at Leontopolis in Egypt-but they kept in full communion with Jerusalem by making pilgrimages to the great feasts, and by sending the yearly poll-tax of half a shekel for the upkeep of the Temple (cf. Mat 17:24). The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms went with them everywhere, but in the Greek Diaspora strict canonicity was accorded only to the Torah (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ii. 580b). The observance which attracted moat notice from their Gentile neighbours was that of the Sabbath rest. On the day of rest all classes of the Diaspora were gathered into one, and felt that they were indeed the people of the God of Abraham.
That Julius Caesar had regarded them as his friends was not forgotten by those who came after him. It was a precedent that proved of immense advantage to the Jews settled in Rome. The freedom he granted them in the exercise of their religious customs was endorsed by his grand-nephew Augustus (Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, xvi. 6), and, after weathering some dangerous storms, became the settled policy of the Empire. In Roman law, Jewish societies were collegia licita, privileged clubs or gilds. Meetings in their synagogues, or , or (op. cit. xvi. 6.2) were not hampered with any troublesome restrictions. They could settle matters pertaining to their law without going to the Roman tribunal (cf. Act 18:14-15), and were apparently permitted to inflict punishment for what they looked upon as schism or apostasy (Act 26:11, 2Co 11:24). They had a coinage of their own for sacred purposes (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 57a). In the region beyond the Tiber, in the neighbourhood of the wharfs where the barges from Ostia were accustomed to unlade (F. W. Farrar, Life and Work of St. Paul, 1 vol., 1897, p. 585), many of them found employment, or drove a brisk trade. The only occasion on which they were seriously threatened with the loss of their privileges occurred under Claudius, who, in the words of the historian, Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit (Suet. Claud. 25). The meaning of these words is uncertain (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iv. 307a, v. 98a Encyclopaedia Biblica i. 757; Jewish Encyclopedia iv. 563; Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 40; Zahn, Introd. to NT, i. 433), but if they refer to tumults in the Jewish quarter caused by the preaching of the gospel, we may conjecture that Aquila, a Jew of the Dispersion, had been one of its preachers (Act 18:2). The edict of Claudius was probably found unworkable (Ramsay, St. Paul, 254). This Emperor seems to have been as favourable to the Jews as his predecessors (Jos. Ant xix. 5. 2, 3).
Long before they had acquired a political status in Rome, a great inward change had been working among the Jews of the Dispersion. As may be inferred from the fact already mentioned, that strict canonicity was accorded only to the Torah, they carried abroad with them an intensely legal conception of their religion. It was conceived as consisting simply in the observance of a definite code of laws as to worship and life, given by God on Mount Sinai. So long as this conception predominated, their relations with their non-Jewish neighbours were little more than ordinary business relations. But as soon as the stimulus exerted by the higher culture of the Greeks was felt, an inward change began to work. Habitual intercourse with a people so advanced in civilization could not fail to have its effect. They were captivated by the freedom and range of Greek thought. They recognized in their philosophical and ethical ideas a manifestation of the Divine Wisdom. There was thus evolved a tendency to tone down what was repellent in Judaism in order to bring their faith into harmony with the Greek mind. Illustrations of this tendency are found in the Prophetic and Wisdom literature, in the modification of OT anthropomorphism by the Septuagint , in the serious attempt or Philo to find the philosophy of Plato and the Stoics in the narratives of Genesis by the method of allegorical interpretation (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 199). The Septuagint itself was the outcome of the keen desire to make their religion understood, as well as to guard and preserve it from influences hostile to it. The favourable reception which it met with brought to the front an aspect of their religion yet scarcely apprehended, viz. that it was a religion of hope for mankind. The words of the prophets concerning the future of the human race began to be read with a more open mind. There it was found that Israel was called to be the missionary to the nations. Many in the Dispersion realized that they were in a specially favoured position for undertaking this missionary duty. In spreading the knowledge of their faith, they laid stress, not upon ritual details, but upon the great central principles of the unity of God, and the cleansing and saving power of His word. As they went on communicating those spiritual principles to others, they became more spiritual themselves, and also more expectant of the good things to come. A large number of high-minded Greeks were convinced of the truth of their doctrine of God. Those whom they won over, the or of the Apostolic Age, were already far on their way to the more complete satisfaction of their spiritual wants that was to be found in Christianity.
From the founding of Alexandria and Antioch, the Jews were (cives), but in the older Greek cities, except those of which the constitutions were altered by Alexander or his successors (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 104f.; Expositor 7th ser., ii. 37f.), they were simply (incol, residents). The Jews of Rome whom Cicero mentions as possessing the Roman civitas (pro Flacco, 28) probably belonged to the class of libertini or enfranchised slaves (cf. Act 6:9). Jews of Ephesus, Sardis, Delos, etc., had the Roman civitas, as appears from the edicts preserved by Josephus (Ant. xiv. 10). St. Pauls citizenship (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) of the Hellenistic city of Tarsus (Act 21:39) is to be distinguished from his Roman citizenship (Act 22:25; cf. Act 16:37). The latter right may have been conferred by some Roman potentate on certain important Tarsian families (Ramsay, Expositor, 7th ser., ii. 144, 152; cf. Schrer, Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 103f.). It was not the least important of St. Pauls providential equipments for the Apostleship, and was recognized as entitling him to respect from Roman officials. The laws of the Empire had a high moral value for the Apostle, and he repaid what he owed to them by fervent intercessions for those who administered them (Rom 13:1-7, 1Ti 2:1-2).
In St. Paul himself-his training, his conversion, his missionary calling, his Christian achievement-we can study, as in a single picture, the service rendered by the Dispersion to the free course of the gospel. Himself a Jew of the Dispersion, educated in a strict Rabbinical school, he had the two-fold advantage of becoming proficient in Judaism, the religion of his fathers (Gal 1:13), and of growing up in his Cilician home under the penetrating influence of Greek civilization. The question of Rom 3:29, Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles, also? was one that he must have often asked himself in his Pharisaic days; and when the sight and the call of Jesus had given him the decisive answer, Yea, of the Gentiles also, this became the moving force of his strenuous life (cf. Joh. Weiss, Paul and Jesus, p. 67). He had been a traveller from his youth, for the journey from Tarsus to Jerusalem was not a short one; but now he took a wider circuit (Rom 15:19), and would fain have embraced the whole world in his travels (v. 24), so anxious was he to proclaim what he believed to be the religion of redemption for all mankind. The highest service that the Dispersion has up till now rendered to the world is its becoming the starting-point of the aggressive Christian movement of St. Paul and his fellow-apostles; what further service it may be designed to render, in the form in which it now exists, is yet hidden in the counsels of the Eternal.
It may cause some surprise that St. Paul never visited Alexandria, where the freest development of pre-Christian Judaism took place. This development, however, was in many respects alien to St. Pauls mind. Alexandrian Judaism was a cultured Unitarianism with strong ethical convictions. The old dream of a theocracy was forgotten, and Messianism aroused no interest (Inge, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics i. 309; cf. Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, i. 177). This brief account must be qualified, however, by the statement in Acts (18:28), that it was a gifted Alexandrian Jew, Apollos, who, after the way of God had been expounded to him more carefully, demonstrated the Messiahship of Jesus publicly, before the Jews in Corinth, with energy and success (cf. Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, p. 121). The illustrious Church of Alexandria must have been founded, like other churches, on the Rejected Stone.
Many traits of the Diaspora mentioned above are illustrated by the Acts and the Epistles. The long list of foreign Jews present at Pentecost shows how widely scattered their settlements were. Was it by means of some of these (Act 2:10), returning to their native synagogue in the power of the Spirit, that the faith or Christ first reached the city of Rome? At Antioch, some Cyprian and Cyrenaean Christians were the first to take the bold step of speaking unto the Gentiles also, preaching Jesus as the Lord (Act 11:20, where the sense of the passage seems to require [Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 56n.]). The names of Barnabas of Cyprus, Philip of Caesarea, Lucius of Cyrene, Timothy of Lystra, Jason of Thessalonica, Sopater of Bera, Crispus of Corinth, Aquila of Pontus, illustrate how largely the Churchs assets consisted of Jews settled abroad. The tent-making of Aquila, in which St. Paul joined him, gives a glimpse into the industrial life of the Diaspora. Amongst his kinsmen in Asia and Europe the Apostle found some of his most efficient coadjutors; from them too, and not only from the unbelieving portion of them, there came some of his most fanatical opponents.
In Jam 1:1 St. James may be addressing the Christian Jews of the Eastern Dispersion, and in 1Pe 1:1 St. Peter those of the Western (J. B. Mayor, Ep. of James3, 1910, p. 30); but in 1Pe 1:1 it is much more probable that the whole body of Christians living at the time are addressed as being now, spiritually, the Israel of God (Gal 6:16; cf. Hort, First Epistle of Peter, I. 1-II. 17, 1898, p. 7).
There are few data to satisfy our curiosity about what happened to the Jewish Diaspora from a.d. 70 to 100. The rebellion against the Roman authority seems to have met with no sympathy on the part of the Jews of Rome. They had no share in the insurrections under Vespasian, Trajan, or Hadrian, and were left unmolested (Jewish Encyclopedia iv. 563).* [Note: Even the destruction of Jerusalem scarcely endangered the toleration of the Jews at Rome (Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 40).] We even hear that after a.d. 70 till perhaps 100, Judaism made many converts especially in Rome (Parting of the Roads, pp. 286, 305). Those Jews who had had their home in Jerusalem were compelled after a.d. 70 to live after the manner of their brethren of the Diaspora (Encyclopaedia Biblica ii. 2286). The story of the re-organization of Judaism on a non-sacerdotal basis by Jochanan ben Zakkai, the founder of the School of Jamnia near Joppa, and his successors, has recently been re-told by E. Levine in a manner that commands attention and respect (Parting of the Roads, 299f.). But to pursue this interesting line of study would take us far beyond the limits of the Apostolic Age.
Literature.-H. M. Gwatkin Early Church History to a.d. 313, 1909, i. 1-72; A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries2, 1908, i. 1ff., Acts of the Apostles 1909, p. 121; The Parting of the Roads, 1912, Essay iv.: Judaism in the Days of the Christ (Oesterley), Essay ix.: The Breach between Judaism and Christianity (Lavine); W. M. Ramsay, Expositor, 6th ser., v. [1902]: The Jews in the Graeco-Asiatic Cities, 7th ser., ii. [1906]: Tarsus, xi.-xvii.; H. Schultz, OT Theology, 1892, i. 423; J. Weiss, Paul and Jesus, 1909, pp. 59, 67; P. Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, 1903-04, i. 177; Th. Zahn. Introd. to NT, 1909, i. 433, ii. 134; articles on Dispersion or Diaspora in Encyclopaedia Biblica i. 1106 (Guthe), Dict. of Christ and the Gospels i. 465 (M Neile), J E iv. 559 (Reinach), Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) v. 91 (Schrer) Smiths Dict. of the Bible i. 787 (Westcott). See also Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ii. 608b (Sanday), iv. 307 (Patrick and Relton), v. 57a (Buhl), v. 199 (Drummond); Encyclopaedia Biblica ii. 2286 (Guthe), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics i. 309 (Inge), ii. 580b (von Dobschtz).
James Donald.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
DISPERSION
Of mankind was occasioned by the confusion of tongues at the overthrow of Babel, Gen 11:9. As to the manner of the dispersion of the posterity of Noah from the plain of Shinar, it was undoubtedly conducted with the utmost regularity and order. The sacred historian informs us, that they were divided in their lands: every one, according to his tongue, according to his family, and according to his nation, Gen 10:5; Gen 10:10; Gen 10:31. The ends of this dispersion were to populate the earth, to prevent idolatry, and to display the divine wisdom and power.
See CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Dispersion
(Gr. diaspora, “scattered,” James 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1) of the Jews. At various times, and from the operation of divers causes, the Jews were separated and scattered into foreign countries “to the outmost parts of heaven” (Deut. 30:4).
(1.) Many were dispersed over Assyria, Media, Babylonia, and Persia, descendants of those who had been transported thither by the Exile. The ten tribes, after existing as a separate kingdom for two hundred and fifty-five years, were carried captive (B.C. 721) by Shalmaneser (or Sargon), king of Assyria. They never returned to their own land as a distinct people, although many individuals from among these tribes, there can be no doubt, joined with the bands that returned from Babylon on the proclamation of Cyrus.
(2.) Many Jews migrated to Egypt and took up their abode there. This migration began in the days of Solomon (2 Kings 18:21, 24; Isa. 30:7). Alexander the Great placed a large number of Jews in Alexandria, which he had founded, and conferred on them equal rights with the Egyptians. Ptolemy Philadelphus, it is said, caused the Jewish Scriptures to be translated into Greek (the work began B.C. 284), for the use of the Alexandrian Jews. The Jews in Egypt continued for many ages to exercise a powerful influence on the public interests of that country. From Egypt they spread along the coast of Africa to Cyrene (Acts 2:10) and to Ethiopia (8:27).
(3.) After the time of Seleucus Nicator (B.C. 280), one of the captains of Alexander the Great, large numbers of Jews migrated into Syria, where they enjoyed equal rights with the Macedonians. From Syria they found their way into Asia Minor. Antiochus the Great, king of Syria and Asia, removed 3,000 families of Jews from Mesopotamia and Babylonia, and planted them in Phrygia and Lydia.
(4.) From Asia Minor many Jews moved into Greece and Macedonia, chiefly for purposes of commerce. In the apostles’ time they were found in considerable numbers in all the principal cities.
From the time of Pompey the Great (B.C. 63) numbers of Jews from Palestine and Greece went to Rome, where they had a separate quarter of the city assigned to them. Here they enjoyed considerable freedom.
Thus were the Jews everywhere scattered abroad. This, in the overruling providence of God, ultimately contributed in a great degree toward opening the way for the spread of the gospel into all lands.
Dispersion, from the plain of Shinar. This was occasioned by the confusion of tongues at Babel (Gen. 11:9). They were scattered abroad “every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations” (Gen. 10:5, 20, 31).
The tenth chapter of Genesis gives us an account of the principal nations of the earth in their migrations from the plain of Shinar, which was their common residence after the Flood. In general, it may be said that the descendants of Japheth were scattered over the north, those of Shem over the central regions, and those of Ham over the extreme south. The following table shows how the different families were dispersed:
– Japheth – Gomer Cimmerians, Armenians – Magog Caucasians, Scythians – Madal Medes and Persian tribes – Javan – Elishah Greeks – Tarshish Etruscans, Romans – Chittim Cyprians, Macedonians – Dodanim Rhodians – Tubal Tibareni, Tartars – Mechech Moschi, Muscovites – Tiras Thracians – Shem – Elam Persian tribes – Asshur Assyrian – Arphaxad – Abraham – Isaac – Jacob Hebrews – Esau Edomites – Ishmael Mingled with Arab tribes – Lud Lydians – Aram Syrians – Ham – Cush Ethiopans – Mizrain Egyptians – Phut Lybians, Mauritanians – Canaan Canaanites, Phoenicians
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Dispersion
(See CAPTIVITY.) Galuth (Jer 24:5; Ezr 6:16). Literally, “the spoliation,” those stripped of the temple and home of their fathers. Septuagint used diaspora, “dispersion,” in Deu 28:25; compare Deu 30:4, “driven out unto the outermost parts of heaven”; Jer 34:17; Joh 7:35, “the dispersed among the Gentiles.” They became, in God’s gracious providence, seed sown for a future harvest in the Gentile lands of their sojourn (1Pe 1:1). The dispersion included all the twelve tribes, the ten tribes carried away by the Assyrians as well as Judah carried to Babylon, though Judah alone returned to Palestine (Jam 1:1; Act 26:7).
“The pilgrim troops of the law became caravans of the gospel” (Wordsworth). The difficulties of literally observing the Mosaic ritual, while in Babylon and elsewhere, led them to see that they could be united by a common faith, though unable to meet at the same Jerusalem temple, and that the spirit of the law is the essential thing when the letter is providentially set aside. Still, connection with the temple was kept up by each Jew everywhere contributing the half shekel to its support (Mat 17:24). The three great sections of the dispersion at Christ’s coming were the Babylonian, the Syrian, and the Egyptian (including Alexandria where the Grecian element was strongest, and with African offshoots, Cyrene and N. Africa).
Pompey, upon occupying Jerusalem 63 B.C., took with him, and settled, many Jews in the trans-Tiberine quarter of Rome. The apostles in every city followed God’s order, as Paul told the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, “it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you” (Act 3:26; Act 13:46); so Rom 1:16, “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” In the assembly on Pentecost the several dispersions were represented:
(1) Parthians, Mesopotamia;
(2) Judaea (Syria), Pamphylia;
(3) Egypt, Greece;
(4) Romans. The converts from these pioneered the way for the subsequent labors of the apostles in their respective countries. Lucius of Cyrene and Simeon Niger (the black) from N. Africa were leading members of the church of Antioch. So we find Aquila from Pontus, Barnabas of Cyprus, Apollos of Alexandria, Clement probably of Rome. Besides the Jews, in the several cities there were the “devout” Gentiles who in some degree acknowledged the God of Israel. All these formed stepping stones for the ultimate entrance of the gospel among the idolatrous Gentiles. Forty years after Peter’s martyrdom, Pliny, Roman governor of Pontus and Bithynia, writing to the emperor Trajan, says: “the contagion (Christianity) has seized not only cities, but the smaller towns and country, so that the temples are nearly forsaken and the sacred rites intermitted.”
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
DISPERSION
During the centuries immediately before the New Testament era, Jews had become widely scattered across western Asia, eastern Europe and northern Africa. Some of these were descendants of people who had been taken captive to foreign lands by Assyria, Babylon and other invaders of Palestine. Some had fled as refugees in times of persecution; others had moved to different places in search of trade. All these people were known as Jews of the Dispersion or the scattered Jews (Joh 7:35; Jam 1:1; 1Pe 1:1).
By New Testament times many of these Jews had lived in foreign countries so long that they had little or no knowledge of Palestinian languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. Instead they spoke Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire, and so became known as Hellenists (from the word hellas, meaning Greece). At the same time they maintained their Jewish identity through keeping the Jewish law. Wherever they lived they built synagogues (Act 13:5; Act 13:14; Act 17:1; Act 17:10; Act 18:1-4) and kept the traditions of their ancestors. Usually they went to Jerusalem for the more important ceremonies and festivals (Act 2:1; Act 2:5; Act 21:27-29).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Dispersion
DISPERSION ().The word ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 of Joh 7:35, Jam 1:1; 1Pe 1:1) is a collective term denoting either the Jews resident outside their native country, or the lands in which they lived.
1. The Pharisees and chief priests sent officers to arrest our Lord, and He told them that in a little while He would go where they could not find Him or be able to come to Him. The Jews who were present asked where He could possibly go that they could not find Him. Would He go to the dispersion among the Greeks ( )* [Note: For the genitive, cf. 1Pe 1:1.] and teach the Greeks? i.e. would He make the dispersed Jews a starting-point for teaching the Greeks? Narrow-minded Jews, distinct from the people ( ) of Joh 7:31; Joh 7:40, they would not dream of defiling themselves by going out and mixing with Gentiles, and they sarcastically suggested that that was the only way in which Jesus could escape them.
2. It is unnecessary in this article to deal fully with the history and fortunes of the Dispersion; but a very brief sketch may be useful. In the time of Christ the Jews of the Dispersion were to be found in six main colonies: Babylonia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome.
(a) Babylonia.The Jews in the far East were the descendants of those who remained when small bodies returned under Zerubbabel and Ezra. And their numbers were afterwards increased by a transportation of Jews to Babylonia and Hyrcania under Artaxerxes III. Ochus (358338). Many have thought that 1Pe 5:13 refers to a community of Christians among the Jews in Babylon; but this is improbable (see Hort, 1 Peter, pp. 5 f., 167170). From Babylon, Jews moved in many directions to Elam (cf. Isa 11:11), Persia, Media, Armenia, and Cappadocia. The Babylonian Jews were the only portion of the Diaspora which maintained its Judaism more or less untouched by the Hellenism which permeated the West. Their remoteness, however, did not prevent the loyal payment of the annual Temple-tax, which was collected at Nehardea and Nisibis and sent to Jerusalem (see below).
(b) Egypt.Jews had migrated to Egypt as early as 586, when Johanan son of Kareah conducted a small body of them, including Jeremiah, to Tahpanhes (Jeremiah 42, 43). Jews also settled (Jer 44:1) in Migdol, Noph (Memphis), and Pathros (Upper Egypt). The great majority of the colonists in Alexandria must have settled there early in the period of the Ptolemies, in which case they may have been among the earliest inhabitants of Alexanders new city; and they undoubtedly received special privileges (Josephus circa (about) Apion. ii. 4; BJ ii. xviii. 7 f.). The kindness which they received in Palestine from Ptolemy I. Soter induced numbers of them to migrate to Egypt during his reign. And many more may have been transported as prisoners of war during the subsequent struggles between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. Philo (in Flace., ed. Mangey, ii. 525) less than ten years after our Lords death says that two entire quarters of Alexandria were known as the Jewish, and many more Jews were sprinkled over the rest of the city. Another congregation of Jews was formed at Lcontopolis in the nome of Heliopolis on the Eastern border of the Nile delta. The high priest Onias, son of Simon the Just, was granted permission by Ptolemy VI. Philometor to settle there when he fled with some adherents in 173 or 170 from his enemies Antiochus IV. Epiphanes and the sons of Tobias. He built a fortress, and within it a temple where the worship of Jehovah was carried on. This continued till a.d. 73, when the temple was destroyed by order of Vespasian (Josephus Ant. xiii. iii. 2, xiv. viii. 1; BJ i. ix. 4, vii. x. 24).
(c) Syria.The Egyptian Diaspora had been formed largely owing to the increased facilities for travel and intercourse resulting from Alexanders conquests. And the same causes operated in Syria. Damascus had received Israelite colonists in very early times (1Ki 20:34). In Neros reign there were, according to Josephus (BJ ii. xx. 2), no fewer than 10,000 Jews in the city. Antiochus IV. Epiphanes conceded to the Jews the right of free settlement in Antioch; and, owing to the successes and prestige of the Maccabees in Palestine, the neighbouring provinces of Syria received a larger admixture of Jews than any other country (BJ vii. iii. 3).
(d) Asia Minor.* [Note: It is convenient to use the term, although its first known occurrence is in Orosius (Hist. i. 2. 26), a.d. 417. He speaks as though it were his own coinage: Asia regio vel, ut proprie dicam, Asia minor.] Through Syria Jews passed to Asia Minor and the neighbouring islands, Cyprus, Crete, etc., where from b.c. 130 and onwards they flourished under Roman protection. See Hort, 1 Peter, Add. note, pp. 157184, and Acts 13-20.
(e) Greece.It is related in 1Ma 12:21 that the Spartans sent a letter to the high priest Onias saying it hath been found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews that they are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham. This, though legendary, implies that there was at least an acquaintance between members of the two races. Jewish inscriptions, moreover, have been found in Greece; and there were firmly established Jewish communities in Thessalonica, Bera, and Corinth when St. Paul visited them (Acts 17, 18).
(f) Rome.The first contact of the Jews with Rome was in the time of the Maccabees; embassies were sent by Judas and Jonathan, and a formal alliance was concluded by Simon in b.c. 140 (1Ma 14:24; 1Ma 15:15-24). A few Jews probably reached Rome as traders; but the first large settlement dates from the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey, b.c. 63. Julius and Augustus admitted them to a legal standing throughout the Empire (see the series of enactments in Josephus Ant. xiv. viii. 5, x. 18); the latter allowed them to form a colony on the further side of the Tiber; but they soon gained a footing within the city, and had synagogues of their own. Tiberius in a.d. 19 banished 4000 to Sardinia. In the early days of Claudius the Jewish cause was upheld at court by the two Agrippas; but before 52 Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome (Act 18:2)impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes (Suet. Claud. 23). Under Nero the Jews in Rome once more gained ground.
3. The Jews dispersed in these various settlements did not entirely cut themselves off from their national centre, Jerusalem. Even the Jews at Leontopolis, though their worship was strictly speaking schismatical, did not allow their religious separateness to quench their national feeling. They embraced Caesars cause in Egypt, contrary to their first impulse, because of the injunctions of Hyrcanus the high, priest at Jerusalem, and Antipater the Jewish general (Josephus Ant. xiv. viii. 1; BJ i. ix. 4).
There were two important links which bound the Diaspora in all parts of the world to their mother city.
(a) The annual payment of the Temple-tax (the half-shekel or didrachm), and of other offerings. One of the privileges which they enjoyed under the Diadochi and afterwards under the Romans was that of coining their own money for sacred purposes. [It was this sacred coinage that foreign Jews were obliged to get from the money-changers in exchange for the ordinary civil money, when they came to Jerusalem for the festivals, Mat 21:12, Mar 11:15, Joh 2:14 f. And it was this variety of coinage that enabled our Lord to give His absolutely simple but unanswerable decision on what the Jews thought was a dilemma; deep spiritual meaning, no doubt, underlay His words, but their surface meaning was sufficient to silence His opponents: Render to Caesar the civil coin on which his image is stamped, and render to God the sacred coin which belongs to Him and His Temple worship, Mat 22:21, Mar 12:17, Luk 20:25]. The sacred money was collected at different centres (cf. Mat 17:24 ) and carried under safe escort to Jerusalem (Philo, de Monarch, ii. 3). Josephus relates (Ant. xvi. vi.) that the Jews in Asia and Cyrene were ill-treated, and that the Greeks took from them their sacred money; but that decrees were issued by Augustus, Agrippa, and two proconsuls to the effect that the sacred money of the Jews was to be untouched, and that they were to be given full liberty to send it to Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews made use of the two strong cities Nehardea and Nisibis to store their sacred money till the time came to send it to Palestine. The Jews, depending on the natural strength of these places, deposited in them the half-shekel which everyone, by the custom of our country, offers to God, and as many other dedicatory offerings () as there were: for they made use of these cities as a treasury, whence at the proper time they were transmitted to Jerusalem (Ant. xviii. ix. 1). Sueh priestly dues as consisted of sacrificial flesh, which could not be sent to Jerusalem, were paid to any priest if there happened to be one at hand (Challa, iv. 79, 11; Yadaim, iv. 3; Chullin, x. 1; Terumoth, ii. 4).
(b) The pilgrimages made to Jerusalem by immense numbers of foreign Jews at the three annual festivalsPassover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Josephus says that Cestius Gallus had a censns made during the Passover, and the priests reckoned 2,700,000 people (BJ vi. ix. 3), in round numbers three millions (id. ii. xiv. 3).
In reading the Acts it is evident that, had there been no foreign dispersion of the Jews, the rapid progress of Christianity could not have been what it was. At the feast of Pentecost there were gathered Jews from the four quarters of the Diasporathe far and near East, Europe, and Africa; and soon afterwards Jews received Apostolic teaching at many centres, and when converted helped to spread it throughout the known world. But it is important to remember that before that time One greater than the Apostles came, more than once, into immediate contact with the masses of pilgrims who visited Jerusalem for the festivals. As a boy of twelve He first met them (Luk 2:42), and He probably attended many festivals in the 18 years which intervened before His ministry (see Luk 2:41). At a Passover He displayed to them His Divine indignation at the desecration of Gods sanctuary (Joh 2:13-17), and many believed on Him when they saw His miracles (Joh 2:23). It would seem as though the longing seized Him to bring all these thousands of foreigners to His allegiance at one stroke, by revealing to them His true nature. If we may say it reverently, it must have been a temptation to Him to send them back over many countries to tell all men that God had become man. But His own Divine intuition restrained Him (Joh 2:24 f.). Immediately before another Passover He saw the crowds moving along the road on their way to Jerusalem; and they came to Him, and He fed them (Joh 6:4-18). Here, again, the temptation offered itself in their wish to make Him king; but He resisted it, and was able to persuade them to leave Him (Joh 6:14 f.). At a feast of Pentecost (so Westcott) He suddenly appeared in their midst at Jerusalem, and many believed Him to be the Messiah when they heard His preaching (Joh 7:2; Joh 7:10-31; Joh 7:40 f.). Yet again at a Passover the crowds of pilgrims gave Him another opportunity of becoming king (Mat 21:1-9, Mar 11:1-10, Luk 19:35-38, Joh 12:12-15), but He chose rather to gain His kingdom through death. It was for their benefit that the inscription upon the cross was trilingualAramaic, Greek, and Latin (Joh 19:20). A Jew from Africa, on his way into the city, was forced to perform an office which few envied him at the time, but which has never been forgotten by the Christian Church (Mar 15:21). Thus time after time the accounts of His miracles and preaching, and finally of His patient suffering and His death, and perhaps also reports of His resurrection, would be carried back by wandering Jews into every nation under heaven.
4. One colony of the Diaspora possesses a special importance in connexion with Christianity. Among the Alexandrian Jews originated the Greek translation of the OTthe version used by our Lord, the Apostles, and the great majority of the early Church. It remained in almost complete supremacy among Christians until it was superseded by the Vulgate. See art. Septuagint. The importance of Alexandria in connexion with the Fourth Gospel would be enormous if the contention of some writers were true, that St. John derived his doctrine of the Logos from Alexandrian philosophy. The doctrine, however, has affinities rather with Jewish than with Alexandrian thought. The most that can be said is that St. John may have employed the term because it already had a wide currency among both Jews and Greeks (see Westcott, Gospel of St. John, pp. xvxviii, and art. Logos in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ).
Literature.Besides the authorities cited in the article, see artt. Diaspora in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (Extra Vol.), Dispersion in Encyc. Bibl. (with the literature there), and in Smiths DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] . Much illustrative matter may be gathered from Jewish histories, especially Schurer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] . See also E. R. Bevan, The House of Seleucus; J. P. Mahaffy, The Empire of the Ptolemies.
A. H. MNeile.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Dispersion
DISPERSION.The name (Gr. Diaspora) given to the Jewish communities outside Palestine (2Ma 1:27, Joh 7:35, Jam 1:1, 1Pe 1:1). It is uncertain when the establishment of these non-Palestinian communities began. It appears from 1Ki 20:34 that an Israelltish colony was established in Damascus in the reign of Ahab. Possibly the similar alliances of David and Solomon with Phnicia had established similar colonies there. In the 8th cent. Tiglath-pileser III. carried many Israelites captive to Assyria (2Ki 15:29), and Sargon transported from Samaria 27,290 Hebrews (cf. KIB [Note: IB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek.] ii. 55), and settled them in Mesopotamia and Media (2Ki 17:6). As the Deuteronomic law had not at this date differentiated the religion of Israel sharply from other Semitic religions (cf. Israel), it is doubtful whether these communities maintained their identity. Probably they were absorbed and thus lost to Israel.
The real Dispersion began with the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar transplanted to Babylonia the choicest of the Judan population (2Ki 24:12-16; 2Ki 25:11, Jer 52:15). Probably 50,000 were transported, and Jewish communities were formed in Babylonia at many points, as at Tel-abib (Eze 3:15) and Casiphia (Ezr 8:17). Here the Jewish religion was maintained; prophets like Ezekiel and priests like Ezra sprang up, the old laws were studied and worked over, the Pentateuch elaborated, and from this centre Jews radiated to many parts of the East (Neh 1:1 ff., Tob 1:9-22, Isa 11:11). Thus the Jews reached Media, Persia, Cappadocia, Armenia, and the Black Sea. Only a few of these Babylonian Jews returned to Palestine. They maintained the Jewish communities in Babylonia till about a.d. 1000. Here, after the beginning of the Christian era, the Babylonian Talmud was compiled.
In b.c. 608, Necho took king Jehoahaz and probably others to Egypt. In this general period colonies of Jews were living at Memphis, Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Pathros in Egypt (Jer 44:1). Papyri recently discovered prove the existence of a large Jewish colony and a Jewish temple at the First Cataract, in the 5th cent. b.c. Other Jews seem to have followed Alexander the Great to Egypt (Jos. [Note: Josephus.] BJ II. xviii. 8; c. Apion. ii. 4). Many others migrated to Egypt under the Ptolemys (Ant. XII. 1. 1, ii. 1 ff.). Philo estimated the number of Jews in Egypt in the reign of Caligula (a.d. 3841) at a million.
Josephus states that Seleucus I. (312280) gave the Jews rights in all the cities founded by him in Syria and Asia (Ant. XII. iii. 1). This has been doubted by some, who suppose that the spread of Jews over Syria occurred after the Maccaban uprising (168143). At all events by the 1st cent. b.c. Jews were in all this region, as well as in Greece and Rome, in the most important centres about the Mediterranean, and had also penetrated to Arabia (Act 2:11).
At Leontopolis in Egypt, Onias III., the legitimate Aaronic high priest, who had left Palestine because he hated Antiochus IV., founded, about b.c. 170, a temple which was for a century a mild rival of the Temple in Jerusalem. With few exceptions the Dispersion were loyal to the religion of the home land. Far removed from the Temple, they developed in the synagogue a spiritual religion without sacrifice, which, after the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, kept Judaism alive. All Jews paid the annual half-shekel tax for the support of the Temple-worship, and at the great feasts made pilgrimages to Jerusalem from all parts of the world (Act 2:10-11). They soon lost the use of Hebrew, and had the Greek translationthe Septuagintmade for their use. Contact with the world gave them a broader outlook and a wider thought than the Palestinian Jews, and they conceived the idea of converting the world to Judaism. For use in this propaganda the Sibylline Oracles and other forms of literature likely to interest Grco-Roman readers were produced.
George A. Barton.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Dispersion
The term applied to the nation of Israel as now scattered throughout the world. Est 3:8; Jer 25:34; Eze 36:19; Joh 7:35. It was to believers among them that the Epistles of James and 1 Peter were specially addressed.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Dispersion
Of the descendants of Noah
Gen 10
After building the tower of Babel
Gen 11:1-9; Deu 32:8
Of the Jews, foretold
Jer 16:15; Jer 24:9; Joh 7:35
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Dispersion
Dispersion, Jews of the. The “dispersed,” or the “dispersion,” was the term applied to those Jews who continued in other countries after the return from Babylon. Babylon thus became a centre from which offshoots spread; and colonies of Jews established themselves in Persia, Media, and other neighboring countries. The result of Greek conquest was to draw off Jewish settlers to the west. Hence they were found in the cities of Asia Minor, enjoying privileges from the Syrian kings. Settlements were also formed in Egypt, extending themselves along the northern coasts, and possibly also into the interior. See Jam 1:1; 1Pe 1:1. And, after the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey, Jews were introduced at Rome. The dispersed, however, all looked to Jerusalem as the metropolis of their faith; they paid the legal half-shekel towards the temple services: they had with them everywhere their sacred book, which thus became known to the Gentiles, Act 15:21; while a wholesome influence was perceptible on themselves.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
DISPERSION
(1) Of the Nations after the Flood
Gen 11:8; Deu 32:8
(2) Of the Jews
Lev 26:33; Neh 1:8; Est 3:8; Psa 44:11; Eze 6:8; Eze 36:19
Joh 7:35; Jam 1:1
–SEE Captivity, ISRAEL-THE JEWS
& ISRAEL-THE JEWS
(3) Of the Early Disciples
Mat 26:31; Act 8:1; Act 8:4; Act 11:19