Ar the time when Jesus Christ came into this world, the Jews were scattered over the whole surface of the earth. From the narrow valley in which their religious law had confined them for the designs of God, these people of little territory had overflowed into all the provinces of the Roman empire. Captivity had been Captivity had been the beginning of their dispersion. Numerous Israelitish colonists, who had formerly settled in the land of their exile, were still existing in Babylon, in Media, even in Persia; others had pushed their way further on to the extreme east, even as far as China. Finally, under the reign of Augustus, they are found everywhere.*

It was the solemn hour in which, according to the parable of the gospel, the Father had gone forth to sow the seed. The field, "that is the world," was filled with it already, and the time was not far distant when the Lord, "seeing the countries ripe for the harvest," would send out his journeymen

V. Remond, "Histoire de la Propagation du Judaïsme," Leipzig, 1789. Grost, "De Migrationibus Hebr. extra patriam," 1817. Jost, "Histoire des Israélites depuis les Machabées," etc.

to reap, and gather the wheat into his barns.

One of these families "of the dispersion," as they were styled, inhabited the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Of this once famous city nothing now remains but a few ruins, and the modern Tarsous falls vastly short of that high rank which the ancient Tarsus held among the cities of the East. Even at present, however, it is called the capital city of Caramania. Situated on a small eminence covered over with laurels and myrtles, at a distance of about ten miles from the Mediterranean sea, it is washed by the rapid and cold waters of the Kara-sou, and its population during winter amounts to more than thirty thousand souls. In summer it is almost a desert. Chased away by the burning heats which prevail at this season from the sea-coast, men, women and children abandon their homes and emigrate to the surrounding heights, where they fix their camp under lofty cedars, which afford them shelter, shade, and coolness.*

*P. Belon, "Voyages"-cité dans Malte-Brun

AT the time when Jesus Christ came into this world, the Jews were scattered over the whole surface of the earth. From the narrow valley in which their religious law had confined them for the designs of God, these people of little territory had overflowed into all the provinces of the Roman empire. Captivity had been the beginning of their dispersion. Numerous Israelitish colonists, who had formerly settled in the land of their exile, were still existing in Babylon, in Media, even in Persia; others had pushed their way further on to the extreme east, even as far as China. Finally, under the reign of Augustus, they are found everywhere.*

It was the solemn hour in which, according to the parable of the gospel, the Father had gone forth to sow the seed. The field, "that is the world," was filled with it already, and the time was not far distant when the Lord, "seeing the countries ripe for the harvest," would send out his journeymen

V. Remond, "Histoire de la Propagation du Judaisine," Leipzig, 1789. Grost, "De Migrationibus Hebr. extra patriam," 1817. Jost, "Histoire des Israelites depuis les Machabées," etc.

to reap, and gather the wheat into his barns.

One of these families "of the dispersion," as they were styled, inhabited the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Of this once famous city nothing now remains but a few ruins, and the modern Tarsous falls vastly short of that high rank which the ancient Tarsus held among the cities of the East. Even at present, however, it is called the capital city of Caramania. Situated on a small eminence covered over with laurels and myrtles, at a distance of about ten miles from the Mediterranean sea, it is washed by the rapid and cold waters of the Kara-sou, and its population during winter amounts to more than thirty thousand souls.. In summer it is almost a desert. Chased away by the burning heats which prevail at this season from the sea-coast, men, women and children abandon their homes and emigrate to the surrounding heights, where they fix their camp under lofty cedars, which afford them shelter, shade, and coolness.*

* P. Belon, "Voyages "-cité dans Malte-Brun

It were difficult to draw, from what it is at present, an exact picture of the ancient Tarsus. Instead of the sad, disconsolate look of a Turkish city, there was then in it the movement, the ardor, the splendor of the Greek city, proud of her politeness and her recollections. According to Strabo, Tarsus was a colony of Argos. As a proof of the high state of its culture, the Greeks related that the companions of Triptolemus, perambulating the earth in search of Io, stopped at that place, charmed by its richness and beauty. Others traced its origin further back, to the old kings of Assyria. At one of the gates of Tarsus there had been seen for a long time the tomb of Sardanapalus with the following inscription under his statue: "I, Sardanapalus, have built Tarsus in one day. Passenger, eat, drink, and give thyself a good time; the rest is nothing."* History, however, has written there other remembrances. It was not far from Tarsus that the intrepid Alexander had nearly perished in the icy waters of the Cydnus. It was there upon the sea, at the entrance of the river, that the memorable interview and the fatal alliance of Antony and Cleopatra had just taken place in the midst of voluptuous feasts. The wise providence that provides reparations for all our pollutions, had chosen the city of a Sardanapalus and of an Antony to be the cradle of St. Paul.

For the rest, Tarsus was a city perfectly well built and of remarkable beauty. From the fertile hill on which she rested, she could contemplate the direction toward the north and west of an undulating line, which traced rather than hid the horizon. This was the outline of the first ascending grades of the mountains of Cilicia. At a short distance from the city the waters of numerous living springs met together and formed a rapid river, deeply enchased, which soon reached and refreshed that portion of her which the historians call the Gymnasium, and

Strabo, liv. xvi.

we would name the "Quarter of the schools." Further on there was a harbor of peculiar and distinctly marked outline. Philostratus has described in a striking and picturesque manner the different habitudes of the men of traffic and of the literary class, representing "the former as slaves to avarice, the latter to voluptuousness. All their talk," says he, "consisted in reviling, taunting, and railing at each other with sharp-biting words: whence one might have easily seen that it was only in their dress they pretended to imitate the Athenians, but not in prudence and praiseworthy habits. They did nothing else all day but walk up and down on the banks of the river Cydnus, which runs across this city, as if they were so many aquatic birds, passing their time in frolicsome levities, inebriated, so to speak, with the pleasing delectation of those sweetflowing waters."

Such, then, was the city in which a vast multitude of young men, elegant, voluptuous and witty, crowded and pressed each other like a swarm of bees, for Tarsus was the most brilliant intellectual focus of that time and country. The following is the descrip tion of it, given by Strabo: "She carries to such a height the culture of arts and sciences, that she surpasses even Athens and Alexandria. The differ ence between Tarsus and these two cities is, that in the former the learned are almost all indigenous. Few strangers come hither; and even those who belong to the country do not sojourn here long. As soon as they have completed the course of their studies in the liberal arts, they emigrate to some other place, and very few of them return to Tarsus afterward."

The best masters regarded it as an honor to teach in the schools of this city of arts. There were in it such grammarians as Artemidorus and Diodorus; such brilliant poets and profes

* Philostrate," De la Vie d'Apollonius Thyanéen, traduction de Blaise de Vigenère," liv. iv. ch. iv. p. 103, 104. Paris, 1611.