Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/42

38 ber of things, and those the most excellent.” Josephus, like the Jewish Hellenists of an earlier date. saw in Judaism a universal religion, which ought to be shared by all the peoples of the earth. Judaism was to Josephus, as to Philo, not a contrast or antithesis to Greek culture. but the perfection and culmination of culture.

The most curious efforts to propagate Judaism were, however, those which were clothed in a Sibylline disguise. In heathen antiquity, the Sibyl was an inspired prophetess whose mysterious oracles concerned the destinies of cities and nations. These oracles enjoyed high esteem among the cultivated Greeks, and, in the second century B. C. E., some Alexandrian Jews made use of them to recommend Judaism to the heathen world. In the Jewish Sibylline books the religion oi Israel is presented as a hope and a threat; a menace to those who refuse to follow the better life, a promise of salvation to those who repent.