Zeller (as given in Ueberweg, p. 222) says : " The feel- ing of alienation from God and the yearning after a higher revelation are universal characteristics of the last centuries of the ancient world. This yearning was, in the lirst place, but an expression of the consciousness of the decline of the classical nations and of their cult- ure, the presentiment of the approach of a newtera; and it called into life not only Christianity, but also, before it, pagan and Jewish Alexandrianism, and other related developments."
2. Objective Causes. — The conquests of Alexander the Great, extending from the Mediterranean to the Indus, brought the Occidental and Oriental peoples and civili- zations into nearer relations with each other, and there- by opened up new tields for philosophical research to the active and inquiring Hellenic race on one side, while, on the other side, the disciples of Zoroaster and the g\-mnosophists of India were, in like manner, made acquainted with the opinions and speculations of the Greek philosophers. The Hebrew, whose home lay be- tween these extremes, contributed also his share to the common stock, and enlarged thereby the common fund of relatively new ideas. The succession of the Romans to the em[)ire of the civilized world still further increased this fund, and enlarged the sphere of philosophical ac- tivities. The results of this mutual action and re- action of the East and the West upon each other were made more permanent by Alexander's policy of ])lant- ing colonies and founding cities among the nations brought under his sway. The city in Lower Egypt founded by and named after him, and, with masterly foresight, located on the pathway of the commercial intercourse of nations for that and succeeding ages, be- came naturally also the great central point of philo- sophical intercourse and reciprocal culture. At this focus of the intellectual activity as well as emporium of the trade and commerce of the times the natives of various lands met together, and discussed and compared philosophies and faiths. Here was the soil where once flourished the ancient wisdom and learning of Egypt, the origin of whose civilization was referred by a proud priesthood far back into the shadows of unhistorical seras. Here were found advocates of the Greek poly- theism, with its poetic conceptions of divinities peopling mountain and dale, forest and stream, land and sea, and with a cultus adjusted to the mercurial temperament of that race. Here also w-ere Roman representatives of the statelier and graver character of a nation notable for its deep religious sentiment. Here, too, the Jewish scribe, proud of the antiquity of his people and of their divinely-given law, upheld the doctrine of the unity of God taught in his sacred books, and pointed to their purer teachings and sublimer truths. The Persian dis- coursed of his master Zoroaster, of the two principles the good and the evil one, struggling for the masterv of the world, and of the magical knowledge possessed by the priests and philosophers of his land. The Brah min, wandering from the far Ganges, brought with bin his ascetic mysticism and pride of caste, the doctrine of a quiescent supreme divinity, in whose repose puri- fied souls found happiness, and of a trinity of active forces or emanations therefrom — the Creator, the pre- server, the destroyer. Here too, in the appointed time,
appeared the heralds of a new and diviner philosophy, whose roots, planted in the soil of man's jirimeval home, and kept alive by Jehovah's care through all the muta- tions of history, were destined in the fulness of the times to grow up into that Apocalyptic tree of hfe whose " leaves were for the healing of the nations." In this, the cosmopolitan city of the world of that epoch, the philosophical conceptions of monism, of dualism, of monotheism, of polytheism, of magism, of mysticism, and of asceticism, found a common point of contact and a common tield of combat. Out of tlieir conflicts was evolved that type of eclectic philosophy which, under the name of Neo-Platonism, supplanted in the pagan world the classical philosophies, and, in its later pe- riods, assuming an intensely hostile attitude to Chris- tianity, became the representative and type of all hea- then philosophy and religions, contesting with the new faith the dominion over the mind and conscience of man. With this end in view, it became a syncretism in object as well as form, and sought to array under its banners all the influences and forces of paganism to en- able it to resist and turn back the aggressive movements of its despised but dreaded rival. But these supreme efforts of an effete philosophy and faith could not long withstand the onward sweep of the purer and soul-satis- fying philosophy of the Gospel, and soon triimiphant Christianity was relieved from this burden of conflict with the opposing powers of this world by the ex- tinction of this last of the pagan schools. The triumph of Christianitj' was the triumph of the idea of mono- theism, of the doctrine of the divine unity, over both dualism and polytheism and their allied conceptions and influences. iMonotheism, as a worlil-religious idea, belonged to the Jews, to whom it was given by revela- tion; its triumph with Christianity was therefore the triumph "of the religious idea of the Jewish people, stripped of its national limitations, and softened and spill tiialized" (Ueberweg).