|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: return. 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
|
