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Important, however, as were the results of this earliest dispersion, they were exceeded by those which attended the policy of Alexander and his successors. That great conqueror, as we have seen, removed a great number of Jews to his new city of Alexandria138, and there conferred upon them many and important privileges, setting an example, which Ptolemy Soter and Philadelphus were alike not slow to follow139. To such an extent did the Egyptian Jews increase, that Philo estimates them in his time at little less than 1,000,000, and declares that two of the five districts of Alexandria derived their names from them. From Egypt they quickly spread along the coast of Africa to Cyrene (Acts ii.10), and the towns of the Pentapolis, and inland to the realms of Candace, queen of Ethiopia (Acts viii.27).

The Seleucidæ, in their turn, were equally anxious to locate colonies of Jews in the cities which they founded. Seleucus Nicator invited them to his new capital at Antioch140; Antiochus the Great removed 2000 Jewish families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia141. Led on by that love of trade which now began to distinguish them, they soon became numerous in the commercial cities of Western Asia, Ephesus and Pergamus, Miletus and Sardis. The Archipelago furnished a natural bridge whereby to cross over into the countries of Europe and to settle at Philippi (Acts xvi.12), Berœa (Acts xvii.10), and Thessalonica (Acts xvii.1); Athens (Acts xvii.17); and Corinth (Acts xviii.4); and the decree of Lucius142, the consul during the reign of Simon Maccabæus, gives us a vivid idea of the extent to which they spread themselves in every direction, and no less of the power of the Sanhedrin143 at Jerusalem, to which all Jews, wherever located, were amenable.