In the New Testament this word seems to be appropriated as the name of those persons who, being of Jewish extraction, nevertheless talked Greek as their mother-tongue; which was the case generally with the Jews in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece; and in fact through the influence of the Greek cities in northern Palestine (Decapolis), it would appear that the Galilæans from their childhood learned nearly as much Greek as Hebrew. The appellation Hellenist is opposed to that of Hebrew in; in , the reading is not so certain, yet probably it should there also be 'Hellenists' meaning unconverted Jews.