Aleph, the Chaldean; or, the Messiah as Seen from Alexandria

by E. F. Burr

By this time the whole Alexandrian world, the most industrious and bustling world known in ancient times, was in full movement. Such tides of men surging from sea to lake and from lake to sea—such tides of donkeys and horses and camels going and coming—such a menagerie and roar of sounds from the tramp of thousands, the shrill calls of traders hawking their wares, the cries of the animals and their drivers, the infinite clatter from the tools of artisans of every name pouring out from the open shops far and near! Slowly on went the young man, with eyes full of grave interest, along the splendid thoroughfare for two miles, till he came to the ornate square, half a league in circumference, from the centre of which one could, without changing his place, see the lake on the south and the harbors with their dividing mole (Heptastadium) and its Pharos on the north, as well as the sands of the desert at both ends of the street of Canopus. Turning down this street to the east under one of the magnificent colonnades that skirted it on either hand, he noticed as he advanced not only that the leading places of business were held by Jews (a fact that he had noticed on the other street), but that the farther he went the more people he saw with Jewish features.

Before he had gone very far, two young men with caps and black gowns, something like the present English university dress, hurried by him; one saying to the other as they passed:

“The earlier at the Alabarch’s the better. First come, first served, you know.”

Aleph quickened his pace so as to keep near them. They soon came to what seemed a fortress rather than a private dwelling or place of business—solid stone, no windows on the first story, length on the street several times that of an ordinary dwelling. Solidity and strength rather than show was the impression given—no elaborate carvings, no pillars of porphyry and cornelian, but plain, massive, mob-defying marble; in short, an architectural safe. This structure was on a corner. Turning the corner, the young men came by a few steps to a small door. Aleph followed closely; and when the door opened to the others, he entered with them and was ushered into a reception-room close by, where many others were already waiting their turn to be called into the presence of the financial magnate.

Soon a servant presented on a silver salver tablets to the new-comers, on which each should write his name. When the tablets came to Aleph he noticed that the names of the two young men who had just written were P. Cornelius, Serapeum, and Q. Metellus, Museum. What did he write? After a moment’s hesitation he wrote Aleph, the Chaldean, khan near the gate of the Moon.

There were several academic uniforms in the room (each with a conspicuous gold badge in front) that seemed well acquainted with one another, and not disposed to lose the time of waiting, possibly long, in silence. Some talked together with great enthusiasm of a boat-race that had come off the day before on the lake: others discussed the merits of various recent performances in the palæstra, especially those of a certain noted athlete and trainer who had just arrived from Rome: two agreed that there was nothing worth living for but the noble art of fencing, and that the greatest living master of the art was one Draco of Rhodes, of whom they were taking lessons. A knot of dudes were comparing breast-pins and finger-rings and experiences at the last fashionable party; or boasting of the successful tricks they had played on the lecturers at the Museum, and of how they managed to evade many of the lectures and delude their parents and other friends at home with the idea that they were hard at work digging into all the sciences and philosophies and living like hermits on crusts and water. Some were ready to burst with merriment over some practical jokes they had played on some citizen or new-comer at the Museum; or at the way in which they had baffled the police in a midnight brawl.

The two students who came in with Aleph seemed better to deserve the name. They had just come from a lecture by Philo, a brother of the Alabarch; and found much to commend in his ingenious attempts to Hellenize the Hebrew writers or to Hebraize the Greek—they were uncertain which way to put it. They agreed that he was a very broad man and ready to do justice to great men of other nationality than his own. They were also hearing lectures on astronomy and Hipparchus in the observatory rooms at the Serapeum, as well as on the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle at the Museum.

Aleph was not sorry to have this little insight into student life in Alexandria; and, considering the number of persons in the room on his arrival, he was expecting to have a still longer time to observe and listen, when, to his surprise and apparently to that of others around, a special servant came to conduct him to the banker.

After passing through a large room occupied by many persons busy at desks, and crossing a broad passage from which rose a flight of marble steps, they came to a small room plainly furnished, in which were seated two men. What was his surprise to recognize in one of them the Egyptian Seti! The pleasure he felt sprang at once to his face, as he advanced with a warm but modest greeting which the aged man cordially reciprocated, and then presented him to the Alabarch as “the young man of whom we have been speaking.”