Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Empire; Couat, La Poésie alexandrine; and especially Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit. Nicolai’s Griechische Literaturgeschichte, though somewhat out of date, is useful for bibliography.
II. Philosophy.—Although it is not possible to divide literatures with absolute rigidity by centuries, and although the intellectual life of Alexandria, particularly as applied to science, long survived the Roman conquest, yet at that period the school, which for some time had been gradually breaking up, seems finally to have succumbed. The later productions in the field of pure literature bear the stamp of Rome rather than of Alexandria. But in that city for some time past there had been various forces secretly working, and these, coming in contact with great spiritual changes in the world around, produced a second outburst of intellectual activity, which is generally known as the Alexandrian school of philosophy. The doctrines of this school were a fusion of Eastern and Western thought, and combined in varying proportions the elements of Hellenistic and Jewish philosophy. Traces of this eclectic tendency are discoverable as far back as 280 B.C., but for practical purposes the dates of the school may be given as from about 30 B.C. to A.D. 529. The city of Alexandria had gradually become the neutral ground of Europe, Asia and Africa. Its population, then as at the present day, was a heterogeneous collection of all races. Alexander had planted a colony of Jews who had increased in number until at the beginning of the Christian era they occupied two-fifths of the city and held some of the highest offices. The contact of Jewish theology with Greek speculation became the great problem of thought. The Jewish ideas of divine authority and their transcendental theories of conduct were peculiarly attractive to the Greek thinkers who found no inspiration in the dry intellectualism into which they had fallen (see Neo-Pythagoreanism). At the same time the Jews of the Dispersion had to some extent shaken off the exclusiveness of their old political relations and were prepared to compare and contrast their old territorial theology with cosmopolitan culture. Further, when the two sides came to consider the results of their intellectual inheritance they found that they had sufficient common ground for the initial compromise. Thus the Hellenistic doctrine of personal revelation could be combined with the Jewish tradition of a complete theology revealed to a special people. The result was the application of a purely philosophical system to the somewhat vague and unorganized corpus of Jewish theology. The matter was Jewish, the arrangement Greek. According to the relative predominance of these two elements arose Gnosticism, the Patristic theology, and the philosophical schools of Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism and eclectic Platonism.
The members of the school may be enumerated under three heads, (i) The beginnings of the eclectic spirit are, according to some authorities, discernible in the Septuagint (280 B.C.) (see Frankel, Historisch-kritische Studien zur Septuaginta, 1841), but the first concrete exemplification is found in Aristobulus (c. 160 B.C.). So far as the Jewish succession is concerned, the great name is that of Philo in the first century of our era. He took Greek metaphysical theories, and, by the allegorical method, interpreted them in accordance with the Jewish Revelation. He dealt with (a) human life as explained by the relative nature of Man and God, (b) the Divine nature and the existence of God, and, (c) the great Logos doctrine as the explanation of the relation between God and the material universe. From these three arguments he developed an elaborate theosophy which was a syncretism of oriental mysticism and pure Greek metaphysic, and may be regarded as representing the climax of Jewish philosophy. (2) The first purely philosophical phenomenon of the Alexandrian school was Neo-Pythagoreanism, the second and last Neo-Platonism. Leaving all detailed descriptions of these schools to special articles devoted to them, it is sufficient here to say that their doctrines were a synthesis of Platonism, Stoicism and the later Aristotelianism with a leaven of oriental mysticism which gradually became more and more important. The world to which they spoke had begun to demand a doctrine of salvation to satisfy the human soul. They endeavoured to deal with the problem of good and evil. They therefore devoted themselves to examining the nature of the soul, and taught that its freedom consists in communion with God, to be achieved by absorption in a sort of ecstatic trance. This doctrine reaches its height in Plotinus, after whom it degenerated into magic and theurgy in its unsuccessful combat with the victorious Christianity. Finally this pagan theosophy was driven from Alexandria back to Athens under Plutarch and Proclus, and occupied itself largely in purely historical work based mainly on the attempt to re-organize ancient philosophy in conformity with the system of Plotinus. This school ended under Damascius when Justinian closed the Athenian schools (A.D. 529). (3) The eddies of Neo-Platonism had a considerable effect on certain Christian thinkers about the beginning of the 3rd century. Among these the most important were Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Clement, as a scholar and a theologian, proposed to unite the mysticism of NeoPlatonism with the practical spirit of Christianity. He combined the principle of pure living with that of free thinking, and held that instruction must have regard to the mental capacity of the hearer. The compatibility of Christian and later Neo-Platonic ideas is evidenced by the writings of Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, and though Neo-Platonism eventually succumbed to Christianity, it had the effect, through the writings of Clement and Origen, of modifying the tyrannical fanaticism and ultra-dogmatism of the early Christian writers.
Authorities.—Matter, Histoire de l’école d’Alexandrie, 2nd ed. (3 vols., 1840–1844) ; Simon, Histoire de l’école d’Alexandrie (2 vols., 1844–1845); Vacherot, Histoire critique de l’école d’Alexandrie (3 vols., 1846–1851); Kingsley, Alexandria and her Schools (1854); Gfrörer, Philo und die Alexandrinische Theosophie (1835); Dähne, Geschicht. Darstellung der Jüdisch-Alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophie (1834); Histories of Philosophy by Zeller, Ueberweg, Windelband, &c., and Bibliography of Church History, &c.
ALEXANDRIA TROAS (mod. Eski Stambul), an ancient Greek city of the Troad, situated on the west coast at nearly its middle point, a little south of Tenedos. It was built by Antigonus, perhaps about 310 B.C., and was called by him Antigonia Troas. Early in the next century the name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander’s memory. As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains sufficiently attest its former importance. Thence St Paul sailed for Europe for the first time, and there occurred later the episode of the raising of Eutychus (Acts xx. 5-12). The site is now covered with valonia oaks, and has been much plundered, e.g. by Mahommed IV., who took columns to adorn his new Valideh mosque in Stambul; but the circuit of the old walls can be traced, and in several places they are fairly well preserved. They had a circumference of about six English miles, and were fortified with towers at regular intervals. Remains of some ancient buildings, including a bath and gymnasium, can be traced within this area. Trajan built an aqueduct which can still be traced. The harbour had two large basins, now almost choked with sand. A Roman colony was sent to the place, as Strabo mentions, in the reign of Augustus. The abridged name “Troas” (Acts xvi. 8) was probably the current one in later Roman times.
(D. G. H.)
ALEXANDRINE VERSE, a name given to the leading measure in French poetry. It is the heroic French verse, used in epic narrative, in tragedy and in the higher comedy. There is some doubt as to the origin of the name; but most probably it is derived from a collection of romances, collected in the 12th century, of which Alexander of Macedon was the hero, and in which he was represented, somewhat like the British Arthur, as the pride and crown of chivalry. Before the publication of this work most of the trouvère romances appeared in octosyllabic verse. There is also a theory that the form was invented by a poet named Alexander. The new work, which was henceforth to set the fashion to French literature, was written in lines of twelve syllables, but with a freedom of pause which was afterwards greatly curtailed. The new fashion, however, was not adopted all at once. The metre fell into disuse until the reign of Francis I., when it was revived by Jean Antoine de Baïf, one of the seven poets known as the Pleiades. Jodelle mingled
