The Indian Gymnosophists, or Brahmins, had little or no effect
on Greek philosophy, except in the case of Pyrrho: the Persian Dualism
still less. The Egyptian symbolic nature-worship had been too gross to
be regarded by the cultivated Alexandrian as anything but a barbaric
superstition. One eastern nation had intermingled closely with the
Macedonian race, and from it Alexandrian thought received a new impulse.
I mentioned in my first lecture the conciliatory policy which the
Ptolemies had pursued toward the Jews. Soter had not only allowed but
encouraged them to settle in Alexandria and Egypt, granting them the
same political privileges with the Macedonians and other Greeks. Soon
they built themselves a temple there, in obedience to some supposed
prophecy in their sacred writings, which seems most probably to have
been a wilful interpolation. Whatsoever value we may attach to the
various myths concerning the translation of their Scriptures into Greek,
there can be no doubt that they were translated in the reign of Soter,
and that the exceedingly valuable Septuagint version is the work of that
period. Moreover, their numbers in Alexandria were very great. When
Amrou took Constantinople in A.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91