Alongside of the settlement of tradition went another task, that of fixing the letters of the consonantal text of the Bible (by the Massora), its vowel pronunciation (by the punctuation), and its translation into the Aramaic vernacular (Targum).  Here also the Babylonians came after the Palestinians, yet of this sort of erudition Palestine continued to be the headquarters even after the 5th century.

With this task—­that of attaining to the greatest possible conformity to the letter and of continuing therein—­the inner development of Jewish thought came to an end. 1

*************************************** 1.  Compare F. Weber, System der altsynagagalen palaestinischen Theologie, Leipsic, 1880. ****************************************

The later Hebrew literature, which does not fall to be considered here, contributed very few new elements; in so far as an intellectual life existed at all among the Jews of the Middle Ages, it was not a growth of native soil but proceeded from the Mahometan or Latin culture of individuals.  The Kabbala at most, and even it hardly with justice, can be regarded as having been a genuine product of Judaism.  It originated in Palestine, and subsequently flourished chiefly in the later Middle Ages in Spain, and, like all other methodised nonsense, had strong attractions for Christian scholars.

16.  THE JEWISH DISPERSION.

Something still remains to be said with reference to the diaspora.  We have seen how it began; in spite of Josephus (Antiquities, xi. 5, 2), it is to be carried back not to the Assyrian but merely to the Babylonian captivity; it was not composed of Israelites, but solely of citizens of the southern kingdom.  It received its greatest impulse from Alexander, and then afterwards from Caesar.  In the Graeco-Roman period Jerusalem at the time of the great festival presented the appearance of a veritable Babel (Acts ii. 9-11); with the Jews themselves were mingled the proselytes (Acts ii. 11), for even already that religion was gaining considerable conquests among the heathen; as King Agrippa I. writes to the Emperor Caius (Philo, Legat. ad Gaium, sec. 36), “Jerusalem is the metropolis not only of Judaea but of very many lands, on account of the colonies which on various occasions (’epi xairwn) it has sent out into the adjoining countries of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Coelesyria, and into the more remote Pamphylia, Cilicia, the greater part of Asia Minor as far as to Bithynia and the remotest parts of Pontus; likewise into Europe—­Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, AEtolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, most parts (and these the fairest) of the Peloponnesus.  Nor are the Jewish settlements confined to the mainland only; they are found also in the more important islands, Euboea, Cyprus, Crete.  I do not insist on the countries beyond the Euphrates, for with few exceptions all of them, Babylon and the fertile regions around it, have Jewish inhabitants.”  In the west