ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. At the time when Greece, by a series of disasters, was deprived of her ancient independence, the glorious era of her poetry was already past; and that intellectual pre-eminence which she had enjoyed for so long a period, was now to find a powerful rival in the city of Alexandria, which, under the Græco-Egyptian dynasty of the Lagidae, was destined to attain a high celebrity as the seat of letters. At the end of the fourth century before Christ, Ptolemy Soter drew around him at Alexandria many philosophers and men of letters from different parts of Greece; and the work thus commenced by the son of Lagus, was continued after him by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and Ptolemy Euergetes, in succession. Ptolemy Soter, animated with a laudable ambition, founded the Museum, a vast establishment in connection with the royal residence, and thither the learned of all countries were welcomed. That every facility might be afforded them for cultivating the several branches of science and literature, this prince collected from all parts of the world the most celebrated literary productions, and thus laid the foundation of that famous library, which excited the admiration of the ancients, and of which the destruction has given rise to so many contradictory reports. The office of librarian was first held by Demetrius Phalereus. The library and museum, with its theatre for lectures and public assemblies, were connected with the palace by long colonnades of marble, and magnificently adorned by obelisks, sphinxes, and other trophies from the Phœnician cities. The museum was provided with private apartments for the accommodation of the members, and contained a great saloon in which they took their repasts in common. To this establishment was attached a botanic garden enriched with tropical flora; and also a menagerie of the rarest animals. The museum was governed by a president who was nominated by the Ptolemies, and afterwards by the Cæsars. An exterior peristyle or corridor was devoted to exercise and ambulatory lectures. Ptolemy Philadelphus instituted, in honour of Apollo, those literary contests called Ludi Musarum et Apollinis, at which public prizes were adjudged to the successful competitors. This prince also made very con-
siderable additions to the library, of which an account has already been given. See ALEXANDRIA.
Alexandria and its school appear to have soon recovered from the disasters of civil war; for in the second century of our era the learned assembled there in great numbers; and a new school of philosophy arose, which, from the third down to the close of the fifth century, attempted to supply the human intellect with a standing ground between the scepticism that followed the decline of Grecian philosophy on the one hand, and the rapidly spreading, and finally victorious, influence of Christianity on the other. The term "Alexandrian School" is applied in a loose sense to the whole body of eminent men who, in all the departments of knowledge, conferred lustre on the capital of the Ptolemies; but as a characteristic designation, it is more strictly confined to that particular section of its philosophers known as the Neo-Platonists. This philosophy, as the name implies, was a new development of Platonism, in a form and combination suited to the exigency of the time, and is specially remarkable as an advance from the more purely rational point of view of the Greeks towards the sphere of religious ideas—as a transition stage between the grossness of pagan superstition, and the spiritual reign of Christianity. Setting out from the higher doctrines of Plato, which formed at once its starting point and its unifying centre, it sought by a broad eclecticism to harmonize, 1st, All philosophy; 2d, All religion. Its first step was the reconciliation, in a higher unity, of Platonism and Aristotelianism; it next set itself to harmonise all the old religious beliefs, by bringing in the mysticism of the East to interpret their higher meaning; and thus it presented the new and peculiar phenomenon of Grecian dialectics applied to oriental theosophy, of philosophy and religion for the first time in alliance. To Christianity its relation was one of direct hostility; while at the same time, it approached it on the side of its higher mysteries, and represented itself as possessed of all that was true in the new religion. Neo-Platonism and Christianity (so far at least as the Alexandrian theology is concerned) exercised on each other a mutually modifying influence.
The first beginning of this remarkable eclecticism dates with the Jew Philo in the first century; but it does not appear as a distinct and influential movement till the opening of the school of Ammonius Saccas (A.D. 193), followed by the more decided and comprehensive development of Neo-Platonism by his disciple Plotinus (A.D. 200-270). In the next generation it was represented by Porphyry and Iamblichus; somewhat later by Hierocles; and it finally attained its culmination with Proclus (A.D. 412-485), in whose person the philosophy of Alexandria, and of the Old World, became extinct. Neo-Platonism thus presents three periods or stages of development: its metaphysics are chiefly represented by Plotinus; its logic and theosophy by Porphyry and Iamblichus; and the systematic combination of its parts gave employment to the genius of Proclus.
For a more particular account of their doctrines, see AMMONIUS, PLOTINUS, &c.
But Alexandria was not distinguished alone by its philosophical school. At the same period also arose those new systems of cosmography which prepared the way for the geography of the moderns, and gave a fresh impulse to research and discovery. Under the infamous Caracalla the museum was suppressed, and from A.D. 257 to 267, pestilence, conflagrations, and civil wars, gave a blow to this seat of learning, from which it recovered with difficulty. The library, however, still subsisted, and continued to augment, until fanaticism completed its ruin. In 391 a bloody struggle took place between the Pagans and the Christians, the priests on either side fomenting the division; and during this contest the magnificent Serapeion was terribly devastated.
Whether any part of the library was preserved cannot now be ascertained, but in the sixth century Alexandria became famous for its medical school, and doubtless a new library must have been formed. The story of its destruction by the command of Omar has been already mentioned.
The system of instruction pursued at Alexandria must not be confounded with the modern, nor yet with the ancient academical course, for the promulgation of a systematic doctrine, or a positive science. There was not at any given period a regular school for the teaching of fixed general principles. The views of the Greeks differed from those of the Christian philosophers as well as from those of the Jews. Nor were mental philosophy and letters the sole objects of study with the Alexandrians; they also engaged in the natural and exact sciences, in philology, medicine, and anatomy. The latter science, indeed, may be said to have been created by them, notwithstanding that the dissection of the human body was repugnant to the religious prejudices of the Greeks. In short, at this school every branch of knowledge was represented, and some of its learned men may truly be styled encyclopedists, whose studies embraced the whole circle of the sciences, and who drew their information from the literature of all countries. If the productions of Greece chiefly occupied the shelves of the library, it is certain that native works, and the written documents of other countries, existed in great numbers at Alexandria. These works were sometimes translated into the Greek tongue; as, for example, the version of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Septuagint. Alexandria, in its earlier period, was almost exclusively a school of grammar and criticism, to which sciences the learned devoted themselves with unwearied assiduity. Hence the Alexandrians soon became the arbiters of the Greek language; and by devoting their labours to the writings of the ancients, they became the restorers of learning, producing correct editions of their works, often accompanied with learned commentaries of great value, though occasionally they are chargeable with prolixity and excessive refinement. The name of Aristarchus of Samothrace is proverbial in literary criticism; and in the same category must be placed Zenodotus of Ephesus, Eratosthenes of Cyrene the celebrated geometer and astronomer, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Crates of Mallus, Dionysius of Thrace, Apollonius the sophist, Didymus, and Zoilus. In the same department must also be noticed the learned dictionaries and laborious lucubrations of Harpocrion, of Julius Pollux, Hephæstion, Hesychius, and Ammonius. The studies of these men comprehended not only grammar, but likewise criticism, the science of the scholiast, the drama, metrical verse, and archaeology. Though occasionally heavy, their erudition was real and profound; and to this class of men we are indebted for elaborate editions of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient classics. Admirably fitted as they were for the task, they omitted nothing that could serve to elucidate the ancient text. The natural result, however, of this incessant application to the study of the ancients, was to limit the original productions of the Alexandrians. With the exceptions of the curious chronicles of Manetho, and the Chronographia of Eratosthenes (of which works the fragments which remain have acquired deep interest by the hieroglyphical discoveries of Young and Champollion), the Alexandrians have bequeathed to us no valuable work on Egyptian history; their researches being chiefly directed to the traditional histories of the several Greek states, and the obscure question of their origin. In poetry they devoted themselves rather to the niceties of style and artifices of combination than to the nobler part of that art. With those works of unapproachable excellence ever before their eyes, they laboured to become original inventors, and in default of genius, they fell
into exaggeration and affectation. It would be erroneous, however, to include in this censure all the poets of the Alexandrian school, or to ascribe an equal degree of merit to the names of Apollonius Rhodius, Lycophron, Aratus, Nicander, Euphorion, Callimachus, Theocritus, Philetas, Phanoes, Scymnus, and Dionysius. Besides these poets, Alexandria possessed a Pleiad of seven tragedians, famous in their day; but there appears to be little reason to regret the loss of their works.
The natural sciences were cultivated at Alexandria with great success. Herophilus and Erasistratus were distinguished anatomists: Demosthenes Philalethes wrote the first work on diseases of the eye: Zopyrus and Cratevas were the improvers of pharmacy, especially of that branch known as rhizotomy; and here also Asclepiades, Soranus, and the celebrated Galen, received instruction in the healing art. But yet greater was its fame as a mathematical school. Among its scholars were Euclid, the father of scientific geometry; Apollonius of Perga, whose work on the conic sections still exists; Nicomachus, the first scientific arithmetician; and it is well known that at Alexandria were made those improvements in the theory of the calendar which were afterwards adopted into the Julian calendar. Here also Claudius Ptolemy (whose system of geography and astronomy was followed until the time of Copernicus) composed his Magna Syntaxis, Aratus his Phænomena, Menelaus his Sphaerica; and to these must be added the names of Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Aristyllus. The studies of some of these philosophers embraced every variety of human learning. Their knowledge was frequently profound on subjects of the most opposite nature,—as, for example, we find Eratosthenes celebrated not only as a geometer and astronomer, but also as a geographer, philosopher, historian, and grammarian; and the Deipnosophistæ of Athenæus is an inexhaustible mine of learning on subjects the most widely diversified, in philology, poetry, history, and archaeology. Among the interpreters of Sacred Writ were the (Hellenizing) Jews, Aristobulus and Philo, while the Christian school of Theology flourished under the successive care of Pantenus, Clement, and Origen. At a later period, the Christian school of Alexandria was adorned by the talents of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzen, Julius Africanus, Hesychius, Cyril, Synesius, and a host of others.—Essai Historique sur l'École d'Alexandrie, par M. Jacob Matter, Paris, 1820, 2 vols. 8vo.