From the time of the post-exilic prophets Judaism developed in three main streams, one flowing from Jerusalem, another from Babylon, the third from Egypt.  Alexandria soon took precedence of existing settlements of Jews, and became a great centre of Jewish life.  The first Ptolemy, to whom at the dismemberment of Alexander’s empire Egypt had fallen,[2] continued to the Jewish settlers the privileges of full citizenship which Alexander had granted them.  He increased also the number of Jewish inhabitants, for following his conquest of Palestine (or Coele-Syria, as it was then called), he brought back to his capital a large number of Jewish families and settled thirty thousand Jewish soldiers in garrisons.  For the next hundred years the Palestinian and Egyptian Jews were under the same rule, and for the most part the Ptolemies treated them well.  They were easy-going and tolerant, and while they encouraged the higher forms of Greek culture, art, letters, and philosophy, both at their own court and through their dominions, they made no attempt to impose on their subjects the Greek religion and ceremonial.  Under their tolerant sway the Jewish community thrived, and became distinguished in the handicrafts as well as in commerce.  Two of the five sections into which Alexandria was divided were almost exclusively occupied by them; these lay in the north-east along the shore and near the royal palace—­a favorable situation for the large commercial enterprises in which they were engaged.  The Jews had full permission to carry on their religious observances, and besides many smaller places of worship, each marked by its surrounding plantation of trees, they built a great synagogue, of which it is said in the Talmud, “He who has not seen it has not seen the glory of Israel."[3] It was in the form of a basilica, with a double row of columns, and so vast that an official standing upon a platform had to wave his head-cloth or veil to inform the people at the back of the edifice when to say “Amen” in response to the Reader.  The congregation was seated according to trade-guilds, as was also customary during the Middle Ages; the goldsmiths, silversmiths, coppersmiths, and weavers had their own places, for the Alexandrian Jews seem to have partially adopted the Egyptian caste-system.  The Jews enjoyed a large amount of self-government, having their own governor, the ethnarch, and in Roman times their own council (Sanhedrin), which administered their own code of laws.  Of the ethnarch Strabo says that he was like an independent ruler, and it was his function to secure the proper fulfilment of duties by the community and compliance with their peculiar laws.[4] Thus the people formed a sort of state within a state, preserving their national life in the foreign environment.  They possessed as much political independence as the Palestinian community when under Roman rule; and enjoyed all the advantages without any of the narrowing influences, physical or intellectual, of a ghetto.  They were able to remain an independent body, and foster a Jewish spirit, a Jewish view of life, a Jewish culture, while at the same time they assimilated the different culture of the Greeks around them, and took their part in the general social and political life.