In the Roman period ' numerous and respectable labours of erudition, particularly philological and physical, proceeded from the circle of the savants "of the Museum," as they entitled themselves, like the Parisians "of the Institute" ; but ... it was here very clearly apparent that the main matter was not pensions and rewards, but the contact ... of great political and g^eat scientific work ' (Mommsen, Provinces^, ii. 271 f.).
3. Religion. — While the eclecticism of Alex- andrian religion was represented in its pagan aspect by the cultus of the Serapeum, the most famous of the city's temples, in which the attempt was made to blend the creeds of Greece and Egypt, the grafting of Judaism on Hellenism flowered into a system which had far more influence upon the permanent thought of the world. The migration of the Jews to Egypt, which began at the time of the downfall of Jerusalem (Jer 42^'*), increased rapidly under the Ptolemys, who welcomed them as colonists, giving them equal civic rights with the Macedonians and Greeks — rights wliich both Julius Caesar and Augustus confirmed to them. Occupying their own quarter of the city — the north-eastern — and forming, under their ethnarch or ' alabarch,' a community within a community, they were yet profoundly influenced by their en- vironment, and developed not only a genius for trade but a passion for learning. In the beginning of our era they amounted to an eighth part of the population, and nowhere else was the scattered race so wealthy, so cultured, or so influential. Alexandria became the greatest of Jewish cities, the centre of Semitism as well as of Hellenism {q.v. ). Naturalized in a foreign city and inevitably breath- ing its spirit, the Jews showed themselves at once pliant and stubborn. Glorying in the retention of their monotheistic faith, they yet dropped their sacred Hebrew language. Their Scriptures, trans- lated into Greek J for their own use, came into tlie hands of their Hellenic neighbours, who gave them
* Near the centre of the city, perhaps represented by the present mosque ^^ebi Daniel.
t Near it were 'Cleopatra's Needles,' one of which is now in London, and the other in New York.
X Tlie legend of the composition of the Septuatfint, contained in the Letter of Aristeux, is probably based on facts. The ini- tiative seems to have been taken by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who doubtless wished to promote the use of Greek among the Jewish population of the city. The Law was translated in the 3rd cent. K.C., the Prophets (probably) in the 2nd, and most of the ' Writings ' in the 1st, while Ecclesiastes and Daniel were not translated till the 2nd cent. a.d.
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in exchange the classics of Athens. Alexandria thus became the meeting-place of Eastern and Western ideals. Both races were sensitive to im- pressions : while the Jews felt the subtle influence of a rich civilization and a lofty philosophy, the Greeks were attracted by a strange note of assur- ance regarding God. In an eclectic age and citj^, the endeavour was consequently made to harmonize the religion of Moses with that of Plato. Mommsen remarks that they were the clearest heads and the most gifted thinkers who sought admission either as Hellenes into the Jewish, or as Jews into the Hellenic, system (Provinces", ii. 167). With perfect sincerity, if by faulty exegesis, the Jewish men of culture made their Scriptures yield up the doctrines of the Academy and the Stoa. The literary ex- ponent of this spiritual rapprochement is Philo(g'.'y. ), who probably did little more than give expression to the current opinions of his countrymen in the time of our Lord. While not a little of his Neo- Judaism must, on account of his persistent allegor- izing, be regarded as pseudo-Judaism, he had the supreme merit of combining the highest Eastern with the highest Western view of the universe ; of identifying the Hebrew ' wisdom ' with the Greek ' reason ' ; of developing Plato's conception of the world as the 6eiov ■yevv7]T6v, the elKwv rod iroirp-ov, the /novoyev-qs (the Divine Child, the Image of its Maker, the Only- begotten) into that of the Kdafio^ vorjrds or \6yos, which is the Invisible God's irpurdyovos or vpuTdTOKos, His diravyaa/jLa or xapa/cTTj/) ; and of thus facilitating that fusion of Hellenism and Hebraism out of which so much Christian theology has sprung. Alexandrian thought provided the' cate- gories— in themselves cold and speculative — into which Christianity, as represented by the writers of Colossians, Hebrews, and the Fourth Gospel, poured the warm life-blood of a historic and humane faith. And if the Alexandrian exegetical method was often unscientific — as when it made Moses identify Abraham with understanding, Sarah with virtue, Noah with righteousness, the four streams of Paradise with the four cardinal virtues — yet the writer of Hebrews could scarcely have built a bridge between Judaism and Christi- anity unless he had been trained in a school which taught its disciples to pass from symbols to ultimate realities. Apollos iq.v.), the learned and eloquent (Kdyios, dwaros iv toll's ypa<pah), was a true Alex- andrian, not impossibly ' of the Museum ' ; and Luther was happily inspired in suggesting that he may have been the writer who used the Hebrew- Hellenic theology of Egypt to interpret the manger of Bethlehem. See also the following article.