Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/860

 DIATESSARON

776

DfAZ

XII, iii, 1.) Shortly after the transportation of Juda into Babylonia a number of Jews who had been left in Palestine voluntarily emigrated into Egypt. (Jar., xlii-xliv.) They formed the nucleus of the famous Alexandrine colony. But the great transportation into Egypt was effected by Ptolemy Soter. "And Ptolemy took many captives both from the moun- tainous parts of Judea and from the places about Jer- usalem and Samaria and led them into Egypt and settled them there" (Antiquities, XII, i, 1). In Rome there was already a community of Jews at the time of Caesar. It is mentioned in a decree of Caesar cited by Josephus (Ant., XLV, x, 8). After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus thousands of Jewish slaves were placed upon the market. They fonned the nucleus of settlements in Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul. At the time of the Apostles the number of Jews in the Dias- pora was exceedingly great. The Jewish author of the Sibylline Oracles (2nd century b. c.) could already say of his countrymen : " Every land and every sea is full of them" (Or. Sib., Ill, 271). Josephus mention- ing the riches of the temple says : " Let no one wonder that there was so much wealth in our temple since all the Jews throughout the habitable earth sent their contributions" (.\nt., XIV, vii, 2). The Jews of the Diaspora paid a temple tax, a kind of Peter's-pence ; a didrachma being required from every male adult. The sums transmitted to Jerusalem were at times so large as to cause an inconvenient drainage of gold, which more than once induced the Roman govern- ment either to stop the transmittance or even to con- fiscate it.

Though the Diaspora Jews were, on the whole, faithful to their religion, there was a noticeable difference of theological opinion between the Baby- lonian and Alexandrine Jew. In Mesopotamia the Jews read and studied the Bible in Hebrew. This was comparatively easy to them since Chaldee, their vernacular, was kindred to the Hebrew. The Jews in Egypt and throughout Europe, commonly called Hellenistic Jews, soon forgot Hebrew. A Greek ver- sion of the Bible, the Septuagint, was made for them. The consequence was that they were less ardent in the punctilious observance of their Law. Like the Samari- tans they showed a schismatic tendency by erecting a rival temple to that in Jerusalem. It was built by the son of Onias the high-priest in Leontopolis in Lower Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, 160 B. c, and was destroyed 70 b. c. (Ant., XIII, iii, §§ 2, 3). It is a curious fact that whereas Hellenistic Juda- ism became the soil in which Christianity took root and waxed strong, the colony in Babylonia remained a stronghold of orthodo.x Judaism and produced its famous Talmud. The deeply-rooted antagonism between the Jews and Greeks made the amalgamation of the two races impossible. Though some of the Seleucids and Ptolemies, such as Seleucus Nicator and Antiochus the Great, were favourable towards the Jews, there was constant friction between the two ele- ments in Syria and Egypt. Occasional pillage and massacre were the inevitable result. Thus on one oc- casion the Greeks in Seleucia and Syria massacred some 50,000 Jews (Ant., XVIII, ix, 9). On another occasion the Jews, getting the upper hand in Cyprus, killed the Greek inhabitants of Salamis and were in consequence banished from the island (Dio Cassius, LXVIII, 23). In Alexandria it was found necessary to confine the Jews to a separate quarter, or ghetto. The Roman Empire was on the whole well-disposed towards the Jews of the Diaspora. They had every- where the right of residence and could not be expelled. The two exceptions were the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Tiberius (Ant., XVIII, iii, 5) and under Claudius (Acts, xviii, 2). But both those in- stances were of short duration. Their cult was de- clared a religio licita. All communities had their Bynagogues, irpocrci/xai or aaPt^areta, which served

also as hbraries and places of assembly. The most famous was that in Antioch (De bell. Jud., VII, iii, 3). They had their cemeteries; in Rome, like the t'hris- tians, they buried their dead in catacombs. They were allowed freely to observe their sabbaths, festi- vals, and dietary laws. They were exempt from the emperor-worship and from military service. Many Jews enjoyed Roman citizenship, e. g. St. Paul (Acts, xvi, 37-39). In many places the Jewish community formed a recognized organization with administrative, judicial, and financial powers. It was ruled by a council called yepovcrta, composed of elders, Trpea^urepoi, at the head of which was the archon. Another token of the freedom which the Jews enjoyed through- out the empire was their active prop.agandism (cf. Matt., xxiii, 15). The neophytes w'ere called <po^oi- ixevoi or (T€§bp.evoi,, i. e. God-fearing (Acts, xiii, 16, 26, 43; Antiquities, XIV, vii, 2). Their number ap- pears to have been very great. St. Paul met them in almost all the cities he visited. Josephus, praising the excellence of the Law, says: "the multitude of man- kind itself has had a great inclination to follow our re- ligious obsei-vances. There is not a city of the Gre- cians or Sabarians, where our customs and the pro- hibition as to our food are not observed" etc. (Contra Apion., II, xl). Many of the converts were distin- guished persons, e. g. Aguila, the chamberlain of the Queen of Candace (Acts, viii, 26 sq.); Azizas, King of Emesa, and Polemo, King of Cilicia (.Vnt., xx, vii) ; the patrician lady Fulvia (Ant., XVII I. iii, .">).

Jeivish Encuc. s, V, Dispersian; S<ti .' ' .'■■!,fi- Jr.^ i'nli-

schm Volkes (Leipzig, 1890); Gum, ' ' .'. r ./«/.»,

Renan, Les Apdtres; Mommsen, Th. /',,-;,,. ../ /;„: lionhiu Empire (tr. London, 1886). A list of the CDuntries of tlie Dia- spora is given by Philo, Leg. ad Caium. 36.

C. Van den Biesen. Diatessaron. See Tatian. Diaz, Blessed Fr.^ncisco, O. P. See China.

Diaz, Pedro, missionary, b. at Lupia, Diocese of Toledo, Spain, in 1546; d. in Mexico, 12 Jan., 1618. Though but twenty years of age when he joined the Society of Jesus he had already been a teacher of phil- osophy for two years. In 1572 he was sent by St. Francis Borgia to Mexico with the first band of Jesuits assigned to that mission, and was the first master of novices of the Province of Mexico. His distin- guished merits as a preacher and a superior were en- hanced by a great reputation for holiness. As rector of the colleges of Ciuadalajara ami Mexico, superior of the professed house, pro\'incial, and founder of the colleges of Oaxaca and Guadalajara in Mexico, and of Merida in Yucatan, and twice procurator to Rome, he occupies a prominent place in the early history of the Jesuits in Mexico. He was also the first to start the mission work of his brethren among the Indians of New Spain. The only contribution we have from his pen is "Letteras de Missionibus per Indiam Occiden- talem a Nostris de Societate Institutis per annos 1590 et 1591." Several biographical encyclopedias con- found hull with Pedro Dias, a Portuguese Jesuit of the sixteenth century.

Alegre, Histma de la c. de J. en Nucva Esvana (Me.vico, 1842), II, 112; BANCRorr, History of Mexico (ban Francisco, 1883), II. xxxii; Alegamba, Bibl. Scriptoriml S. J. (.\ntwerp, 1643), 380; Sommervogel, Bibl. de la c. de J., Ill, 46; Alca- zar, Chron. hist, de la prov. de Toltde, 11, 401; BoERO, Meno- logio, 1, 244-6; De Backer, 1, l.'iSS.

Edw.\rd p. Splllane.

Diaz del Castillo, Bernal (corruption of Bernar- do), Spanisli lii.storian, one of the chief chroniclers of tile c(iii(|ucst uf Mexico by the Spanianls, b. at Me- dina del Campo, Spain, c. 1498; d. after 1568. Born of poor parents, he began his mihtan,' career as a com- mon soldier. In 1514, he went to .\merica with Pe- drarixs Davihi who had shortly before been .appointed governor of Darien. Thence he betook him.self to Cuba and enlisted in the expedition to Yucatan under