Alexander the Great

79:4.3The Aryans made very lit­tle racial im­pres­sion on In­dia ex­cept in the north­ern prov­inces. In the Dec­can their in­flu­ence was cul­tural and re­li­gious more than racial. The greater per­sis­tence of the so-called Aryan blood in north­ern In­dia is not only due to their pres­ence in these re­gions in greater num­bers but also be­cause they were re­in­forced by later con­querors, traders, and mis­sion­ar­ies. Right on down to the first cen­tury be­fore Christ there was a con­tin­u­ous in­fil­tra­tion of Aryan blood into the Pun­jab, the last in­flux be­ing at­ten­dant upon the cam­paigns of the Hel­lenis­tic peo­ples.

130:3.4By the fourth hour af­ter land­ing they were set­tled near the east­ern end of the long and broad av­enue, one hun­dred feet wide and five miles long, which stretched on out to the west­ern lim­its of this city of one mil­lion peo­ple. Af­ter the first sur­vey of the city’s chief at­trac­tions—uni­ver­sity (mu­seum), li­brary, the royal mau­soleum of Alexan­der, the palace, tem­ple of Nep­tune, the­ater, and gym­na­sium—Gonod ad­dressed him­self to busi­ness while Je­sus and Ga­nid went to the li­brary, the great­est in the world. Here were as­sem­bled nearly a mil­lion manuscripts from all the civ­i­lized world: Greece, Rome, Pales­tine, Parthia, In­dia, China, and even Japan. In this li­brary Ga­nid saw the largest col­lec­tion of In­dian lit­er­a­ture in all the world; and they spent some time here each day through­out their stay in Alexan­dria. Je­sus told Ga­nid about the trans­la­tion of the He­brew scrip­tures into Greek at this place. And they dis­cussed again and again all the re­li­gions of the world, Je­sus en­deav­or­ing to point out to this young mind the truth in each, al­ways adding: “But Yah­weh is the God de­vel­oped from the rev­e­la­tions of Mel­chiz­e­dek and the covenant of Abra­ham. The Jews were the off­spring of Abra­ham and sub­se­quently oc­cu­pied the very land wherein Mel­chiz­e­dek had lived and taught, and from which he sent teach­ers to all the world; and their re­li­gion even­tu­ally por­trayed a clearer rec­og­ni­tion of the Lord God of Is­rael as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in heaven than any other world re­li­gion.”

143:4.2The re­li­gious en­mity be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans dated from the re­turn of the for­mer from the Baby­lo­nian cap­tiv­ity, when the Samar­i­tans worked to pre­vent the re­build­ing of Je­ru­sa­lem. Later they of­fended the Jews by ex­tend­ing friendly as­sis­tance to the armies of Alexan­der. In re­turn for their friend­ship Alexan­der gave the Samar­i­tans per­mis­sion to build a tem­ple on Mount Ger­izim, where they wor­shiped Yah­weh and their tribal gods and of­fered sac­ri­fices much af­ter the or­der of the tem­ple ser­vices at Je­ru­sa­lem. At least they con­tin­ued this wor­ship up to the time of the Mac­cabees, when John Hyr­canus de­stroyed their tem­ple on Mount Ger­izim. The Apos­tle Philip, in his labors for the Samar­i­tans af­ter the death of Je­sus, held many meet­ings on the site of this old Samar­i­tan tem­ple.

143:4.3The an­tag­o­nisms be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans were time-hon­ored and his­toric; in­creas­ingly since the days of Alexan­der they had had no deal­ings with each other. The twelve apos­tles were not averse to preach­ing in the Greek and other gen­tile cities of the De­capo­lis and Syria, but it was a se­vere test of their loy­alty to the Mas­ter when he said, “Let us go into Samaria.” But in the year and more they had been with Je­sus, they had de­vel­oped a form of per­sonal loy­alty which tran­scended even their faith in his teach­ings and their prej­u­dices against the Samar­i­tans.

195:1.7The in­flu­ence of Greek cul­ture had al­ready pen­e­trated the lands of the west­ern Med­i­ter­ra­nean when Alexan­der spread Hel­lenis­tic civ­i­liza­tion over the near-East­ern world. The Greeks did very well with their re­li­gion and their pol­i­tics as long as they lived in small city-states, but when the Mace­do­nian king dared to ex­pand Greece into an em­pire, stretch­ing from the Adri­atic to the In­dus, trou­ble be­gan. The art and phi­los­o­phy of Greece were fully equal to the task of im­pe­rial ex­pan­sion, but not so with Greek po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion or re­li­gion. Af­ter the city-states of Greece had ex­panded into em­pire, their rather parochial gods seemed a lit­tle queer. The Greeks were re­ally search­ing for one God, a greater and bet­ter God, when the Chris­tian­ized ver­sion of the older Jew­ish re­li­gion came to them.

195:1.8The Hel­lenis­tic Em­pire, as such, could not en­dure. Its cul­tural sway con­tin­ued on, but it en­dured only af­ter se­cur­ing from the West the Ro­man po­lit­i­cal ge­nius for em­pire ad­min­is­tra­tion and af­ter ob­tain­ing from the East a re­li­gion whose one God pos­sessed em­pire dig­nity.

195:1.9In the first cen­tury af­ter Christ, Hel­lenis­tic cul­ture had al­ready at­tained its high­est lev­els; its ret­ro­gres­sion had be­gun; learn­ing was ad­vanc­ing but ge­nius was de­clin­ing. It was at this very time that the ideas and ide­als of Je­sus, which were par­tially em­bod­ied in Chris­tian­ity, be­came a part of the sal­vage of Greek cul­ture and learn­ing.

195:1.10Alexan­der had charged on the East with the cul­tural gift of the civ­i­liza­tion of Greece; Paul as­saulted the West with the Chris­tian ver­sion of the gospel of Je­sus. And wher­ever the Greek cul­ture pre­vailed through­out the West, there Hel­le­nized Chris­tian­ity took root.