THE SPIRITUAL CITY.
INTRODUCTION.
When Cleopatra died and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire, it seemed that the career of Alexandria was over. Her life had centred round the Ptolemies who had adorned her with architecture and scholarship and song, and when they were withdrawn what remained? She was just a provincial capital. But the vitality of a city is not thus measured. There is a splendour that kings do not give and cannot take away, and just when she lost her outward independence she was recompensed by discovering the kingdom that lies within. Three sections of her citizens—Jews, Greeks and Christians—were attracted by the same spiritual problem, and tried to solve it in the same way.
The Problem. It never occurred to these Alexandrian thinkers, as it had to some of their predecessors in ancient Greece, that God might not exist. They assumed that he existed. What troubled them was his relation to the rest of the universe and particularly to Man. Was God close to man? Or was he far away? If close, how could he be infinite and eternal and omnipotent? And if far away, how could he take any interest in man, why indeed should he have troubled to create him? They wanted God to be both far and close.
The Solution. Savages solve such a problem by having two gods—a pocket fetich whom they beat when he irritates them, and a remote spirit in the sky, and they do not try to think out any connection between the two. The Alexandrians, being cultivated, could not accept such crudities. Instead, they assumed that between God and man there is an intermediate being or beings, who draw the universe together, and ensure that though God is far he shall also be close. They gave various names to this intermediate being, and ascribed to him varying degrees of dignity and power. But they became as certain of his existence as of God’s, for in philosophy their temperament was mystic rather than scientific, and as soon as they hit on an explanation of the universe that was comforting, they did not stop to consider whether it might be true.
After this preliminary, let us approach the three great sections of Alexandrian thought.
I. THE JEWS.
The Septuagint—about B.C. 200.
The Wisdom of Solomon—about B.C. 100.