Note 133 — NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

A tale, not very credible, is related by the author of what is called the Third Book of the Maccabees, of Ptolemy Philopater’s attempting to compel the Jews in Egypt to forsake their religion. Josephus takes no notice of it in his Antiquities; it is found in the Latin translation of the Treatise against Apion. It may have had its foundation in some persecution raised against them by that king. See Prideaux’s Connection, under the year 216 B. C.