Alexandria, together with the rest of Egypt, passed from the dominion of the Romans to that of the Saracens. With this event, the sun of Alexandria may be said to have set: the blighting hand of Islamism was laid on it; and although the genius and the resources of such a city could not be immediately destroyed, it continued to languish until the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, in the fifteenth century, gave a new channel to the trade which for so many centuries had been its support; and at this day, Alexandria, like most eastern cities, presents a mixed spectacle of ruins and wretchedness, of fallen greatness and enslaved human beings. Some idea may be formed of the extent and grandeur of Alexandria, by the boast made by Amrou: "I have taken," said he, "the great city of the west. It is impossible for me to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty. I shall content myself with observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable foods, and forty thousand tributary Jews." flourish, until luxury and licentiousness paved | favour, and with this view invited people from the way, as in every similar instance, for its every part of Greece to settle in Egypt, and overthrow. removed the schools of Athens to Alexandria. This enlightened prince spared no pains to raise the literary, as well as the civil, military, and commercial credit of his country. Under the patronage first of the Egyptian princes, and afterward of the Roman emperors, Alex. andria long continued to enjoy great celebrity as the seat of learning, and to send forth eminent philosophers of every sect to distant countries. It remained a school of learning, as well as a commercial emporium, till it was taken, and plundered of its literary treasures by the Saracens. Philosophy, during this period, suffered a grievous corruption from the attempt which was made by philosophers of different sects and countries, Grecian, Egyptian, and oriental, who were assembled in Alexandria, to frame, from their different tenets, one general system of opinions. The respect which had long been universally paid to the schools of Greece, and the honours with which they were now adorned by the Egyptian princes, induced other wise men, and even the Egyptian priests and philosophers themselves, to submit to this innovation. Hence arose a heterogeneous mass of opinions, under the name of the Eclectic philosophy, and which was the foundation of It was in Alexandria chiefly that the Grecian endless confusion, error, and absurdity, not philosophy was engrafted upon the stock of only in the Alexandrian school, but among Jews ancient oriental wisdom. The Egyptian me- and Christians; producing among the former thod of teaching by allegory was peculiarly that specious kind of philosophy, which they favourable to such a union: and we may well called their Cabala, and among the latter insuppose that when Alexander, in order to pre-numerable corruptions of the Christian faith. serve by the arts of peace that extensive empire At Alexandria there was, in a very early which he had obtained by the force of arins, period of the Christian æra, a Christian school endeavoured to incorporate the customs of the of considerable eminence. St. Jerome says, Greeks with those of the Persian, Indian, and the school at Alexandria had been in being other eastern nations, the opinions as well as from the time of St. Mark. Pantanus, placed the manners of this feeble and obsequious race by Lardner at the year 192, presided in it. St. would, in a great measure, be accommodated Clement of Alexandria succeeded Pantanus in to those of their conquerors. This influence this school about the year 190; and he was of the Grecian upon the oriental philosophy succeeded by Origen. The extensive comcontinued long after the time of Alexander, merce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Paand was one principal occasion of the confu- lestine, gave an easy entrance to the new sion of opinions which occurs in the history of religion, and when Adrian visited Egypt, he the Alexandrian and Christian schools. Alex- found a church composed of Jews and Greeks, ander, when he built the city of Alexandria, sufficiently important to attract the notice of with a determination to make it the seat of his that inquisitive prince. The theological sys empire, and peopled it with emigrants from tem of Plato was introduced into both the phivarious countries, opened a new mart of philosophical and Christian schools of Alexandria; losophy, which emulated the fame of Athens and of course many of his sentiments and exitself. A general indulgence was granted to pressions were blended with the opinions and the promiscuous crowd assembled in this rising language of the professors and teachers of city, whether Egyptians, Grecians, Jews, or Christianity. others, to profess their respective systems of Alexandria was the source, and for some philosophy without molestation. The conse-time the principal stronghold, of Arianism; quence was, that Egypt was soon filled with which had its name from its founder, Arius, a religious and philosophical sectaries of every presbyter of the church of this city, about the kind; and particularly, that almost every Gre-year 315. His doctrines were condemned by cian sect found an advocate and professor in Alexandria. The family of the Ptolemies, as we have seen, who after Alexander obtained the government of Egypt, from motives of policy encouraged this new establishment. Ptolemy Lagus, who had obtained the crown of Egypt by usurpation, was particularly care. ful to secure the interest of the Greeks in his a council held here in the year 320; and afterward by a general council of three hundred and eighty fathers, held at Nice, by order of Constantine, in 325. These doctrines, how. ever, which suited the reigning taste for dis putative theology, and the pride and self-suffi. ciency of nominal Christians, better than the unsophisticated simplicity of the Gospel, spread widely and rapidly notwithstanding. Arius was others added to them from time to time, rensteadfastly opposed by the celebrated Athana- dered the new library more numerous and consius, bishop of Alexandria, the intrepid cham-siderable than the former; and though it was pion of the catholic faith, who was raised to plundered more than once during the revolu the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria in 326. tions which happened in the Roman empire, This city was, in 415, distinguished by a yet it was as frequently supplied with the same fierce persecution of the Jews by the patriarch number of books, and continued, for many Cyril. They who had enjoyed the rights of ages, to be of great fame and use, till it was citizens, and the freedom of religious worship, burnt by the Saracens, A. D. 642. Abulphafor seven hundred years, ever since the founda- ragius, in his history of the tenth dynasty, tion of the city, incurred the hatred of this gives the following account of this catastrophe: ecclesiastic; who, in his zeal for the extermi- John Philoponus, surnamed the Grammarian, nation of heretics of every kind, pulled down a famous Peripatetic philosopher, being at their synagogues, plundered their property, Alexandria when the city was taken by the and expelled them, to the number of forty Saracens, was admitted to familiar intercourse thousand, from the city. with Amrou, the Arabian general, and presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, but contemptible in that of the barbarians; and this was the royal library. Amrou was inclined to gratify his wish, but his rigid integrity scrupled to alienate the least object without the consent of the caliph. He accord. ingly wrote to Omar, whose well known answer was dictated by the ignorance of a fanatic: "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, or book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." The sentence of destruction was executed with blind obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their number, that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel. It was in a ship belonging to the port of Alexandria, that St. Paul sailed from Myra, a city of Lycia, on his way to Rome, Acts xxvii, 5, 6. Alexandria was also the native place of Apollos. ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY. This celebrated collection of books was first founded by Ptolemy Soter, for the use of the academy, or society of learned men, which he had founded at Alexandria. Beside the books which he procured, his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, added many more, and left in this library at his death a hundred thousand volumes; and the succeeding princes of this race enlarged it still more, till at length the books lodged in it amounted to the number of seven hundred thousand volumes. The method by which they are said to have collected these books was this: they seized all the books that were brought by the Greeks or other foreigners into Egypt, and sent them to the academy, or museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for that purpose. The transcripts were then delivered to the proprietors, and the originals laid up in the library. Ptolemy Euergetes, for instance, borrowed of the Athenians the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Eschylus, and only returned them the copies, which he caused to be transcribed in as beautiful a manner as possible; the originals he retained for his own library, presenting the Athenians with fifteen talents for the exchange, that is, with three thousand pounds sterling and upwards. As the museum was at first in the quarter of the city called Bruchion, the library was placed there; but when the number of books amounted to four hundred thousand volumes, another library, within the Serapeum, was erected by way of supplement to it, and, on that account, called the daughter of the former. The books lodged in this increased to the number of three hundred thousand volumes; and these two made up the number of seven hundred thousand volumes, of which the royal libraries of the Ptolemies were said to consist. In the war which Julius Cæsar waged with the inhabitants of Alexandria, the library of Bruchion was accidentally, but unfortunately, burnt. But the library in Serapeum still remained, and there Cleopatra deposited the two hundred thousand volumes of the Pergamean library with which she was presented by Marc Antony. These, and .12 ,11 ,Kings x 1 אלגומים or אלגם,ALGUM This is the name of a kind of wood, or tree, large quantities of which were brought by the fleet of Solomon from Ophir, of which he made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for his own palace; also musical instruments. See ALMUG. ALLEGORY, a figure in rhetoric, whereby we make use of terms which, in their proper signification, mean something else than what they are brought to denote; or it is a figure whereby we say one thing, expecting it shall be understood of another, to which it alludes; or which, under the literal sense of the words, conceals a foreign or distant meaning. An allegory is, properly, a continued metaphor, or a series of several metaphors in one or more sentences. Such is that beautiful allegory in Horace, lib. i, Od. 14. "O navis, referent in mare le novi On the smooth surface of a summer's sea, guage: "Nor was I so timorous, that, after I corded in Psalm ex, 3, which explicitly foretels had steered the ship of the state through the the abundant increase of the Gospel on its first greatest storms and waves, and brought her promulgation. This kind of allegory, howsafe into port, I should fear the cloud of your ever, sometimes assumes a more regular and forehead, or your colleague's pestilential breath. perfect form, and then occupies the whole I saw other winds, I perceived other storms, I subject and compass of the discourse. An exdid not withdraw from other impending tem- ample of this kind occurs in Solomon's well pests; but I exposed myself singly to them for known allegory, Eccles. xii, 2-6, in which old the common safety." Here the state is com- age is so admirably depicted. There is also, in pared to a ship, and all the things said of it Isaiah xxviii, 24-29, an allegory, which, with under that image, are expressed in metaphors no less elegance of imagery, is more simple and made use of to denote the dangers with which regular, as well as more just and complete, it had been threatened. We have also a very both in the form and the method of treating it. fine example of an allegory in Psalm lxxx; in Another kind of allegory is that which, in the which the people of Israel are represented un- proper and more restricted sense, may be called der the image of a vine, and the figure is sup. a parable; and consists of a continued narra. ported throughout with great correctness and tion of some fictitious event, accommodated, beauty. Whereas, if, instead of describing the by way of similitude, to the illustration of some vine as wasted by the boar from the wood, and important truth. The Greeks call these alledevoured by the wild beasts of the field, the gories avo or apologues, and the Latins fabulæ, Psalmist had said, it was afflicted by Heathens, or fables. (See Parable.) The third species or overcome by enemies, which is the real of allegory, which often occurs in the promeaning, the figurative and the literal meaning phetic poetry, is that in which a double meanwould have been blended, and the allegory ing is couched under the same words, or when ruined. The learned Bishop Lowth, De Sacra the same discourse, differently interpreted, dePoesi Hebræorum, Præl. 10, 11, has specified signates different events, dissimilar in their three forms of allegory that occur in sacred nature, and remote as to time. These different poetry. The first is that which rhetoricians relations are denominated the literal and mys. call a continued metaphor. When several tical senses. This kind of allegory, which the metaphors succeed each other, they alter the learned prelate calls mystical, seems to derive form of the composition; and this succession its origin from the principles of the Jewish has very properly, in reference to the etymology religion; and it differs from the two former of the word, been denominated by the Greeks species in a variety of respects. In these alle. anyopia, an allegory; although Aristotle, in- gories the writer may adopt any imagery that stead of considering it as a new species of is most suitable to his fancy or inclination; figure, has referred it to the class of metaphors. but the only proper materials for this allegory The principle of allegory in this sense of the must be supplied from the sacred rites of the term, and of the simple metaphor, is the same; Hebrews themselves; and it can only be intro. nor is it an easy matter to restrict each to its duced in relation to such things as are imme. proper limit, and to mark the precise termina. diately connected with the Jewish religion, or tion of the one, and the commencement of the their immediate opposites. The former kinds other. This eminently judicious critic observes, partake of the common privileges of poetry; that when the Hebrew poets use the congenial but the mystical allegory has its foundation in figures of metaphor, allegory, and comparison, the nature of the Jewish economy, and is adapt particularly in the prophetic poetry, they adopted solely to the poetry of the Hebrews. Bea peculiar mode of doing it, and seldom regulate the imagery which they introduce by any fixed principle or standard. Not satisfied with a simple metaphor, they often run it into an allegory, or blend with it a direct comparison. The allegory sometimes follows, and sometimes precedes the simile: to this is added a frequent change of imagery, as well as of persons and tenses; and thus are displayed an energy and boldness, both of expression and meaning, which are unconfined by any stated rules, and which mark the discriminating genius of the Hebrew poetry. Thus, in Gen. xlix, 9, "Judah is a lion's whelp;" this metaphor is immediately drawn out into an allegory, with a change of person: "From the prey, my son, thou art gone up," that is, to the mountains, which is understood; and in the succeeding sentences the person is again changed, the image is gradually advanced, and the metaphor is joined with a comparison that is repeated. "He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion: And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?" sides, in the other forms of allegory, the exterior or ostensible imagery is mere fiction, and the truth lies altogether in the interior or remote sense; but in this allegory each idea is equally agreeable to truth. The exterior or ostensible image is itself a reality; and although it sustains another character, it does not wholly lay aside its own. There is also a great variety in the use and conduct of the mystical allegory; in the modes in which the corresponding images are arranged, and in which they are obscured or eclipsed by one another. Sometimes the obvious or literal sense is so prominent and conspicuous, both in the words and sentiments, that the remote or figurative sense is scarcely permitted to glimmer through it. On the other hand, the figurative sense is more frequently found to beam forth with so much perspicuity and lustre, that the literal sense is quite cast into the shade, or becomes indiscernible. Sometimes the principal or figurative idea is exhibited to the attentive eye with a constant and equal light; and sometimes it unexpectedly A similar instance occurs in the prophecy, re- glares upon us, and breaks forth with sudden and astonishing coruscations, like a flash of Christian religion, pretend that the Hebrew lightning bursting from the clouds. But the word signifies a young woman, and not a virmode or form of this figure which possesses the gin. But this corrupt translation is easily conchief beauty and elegance, is, when the two ima-futed. 1. Because this word constantly denotes ges, equally conspicuous, run, as it were, parallel a virgin in all other passages of Scripture in throughout the whole poem, mutually illustrat- which it is used. 2. From the intent of the ing and correspondent to each other. The learn- passage, which was to confirm their faith by a ed author has illustrated these observations by strange and wonderful sign. It surely could instances selected from Psalms ii, and Ixxii. be no wonder, that a young woman should He adds, that the mystical allegory is, on ac- conceive a child; but it was a very extraordicount of the obscurity resulting from the nature nary circumstance that a virgin should conof the figure, and the style of the composition, ceive and bear a son. so agreeable to the nature of the prophecy, that ALMIGHTY, an attribute of the Deity, it is the form which it generally, and indeed Gen. xvii, 1. The Hebrew name,, Shaddai, lawfully, assumes, as best adapted to the pre-signifies also all-sufficient, or all-bountiful. See diction of future events. It describes events in Gen. xxviii, 3; xxxv, 11; xliii, 14; xlix, 25. a manner exactly conformable to the intention Of the omnipotence of God, we have a most of prophecy; that is, in a dark, disguised, and ample revelation in the Scriptures, expressed in intricate manner, sketching out, in a general the most sublime language. From the annunway, their form and outline; and seldom de- ciation by Moses of a divine existence who was scending to a minuteness of description and "in the beginning," before all things, the very exactness of detail. first step is to the display of his almighty power in the creation out of nothing, and the immediate arrangement in order and perfection, of the "heaven and the earth;" by which is meant, not this globe only with its atmosphere, or even with its own celestial system, but the uni ALLELUIA, or HALLELU-JAH, -, praise the Lord; or, praise to the Lord: compounded of 1, praise ye, and, the Lord. This word occurs at the beginning, or at the end, of many Psalms. Alleluia was sung on solemn days of rejoicing: "And all her streets shall sing Alle-verse itself; for "he made the stars also." We luia," says Tobit, speaking of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, Tob. xiii, 18. St. John, in the Revelation, xix, 1, 3, 4, 6, says, "I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, who cried, Alleluia; and the four living creatures fell down, and worshipped God, saying, Alleluia." This expression of joy and praise was transferred from the synagogue to the church. At the funeral of Fabiola, "several psalms were sung with loud alleluias," says Jerom, in Epitaphio Paula, "The monks of Palestine were awaked at their midnight watchings, with the singing of alleluias." It is still occasionally used in devotional psalmody. are thus at once placed in the presence of an agent of unbounded power; for we must all feel that a being which could create such a world as this, must, beyond all comparison, possess a power greater than any which we experience in ourselves, than any which we observe in other visible agents, and to which we are not authorized by our observation or knowledge to assign any limits of space or duration. 2. That the sacred writers should so frequently dwell upon the omnipotence of God, has important reasons which arise out of the very design of the revelation which they were the means of communicating to mankind. ALMAH, y, a Hebrew word signifying Men were to be reminded of their obligations properly a virgin, a young woman unacquainted to obedience; and God is therefore constantly with man. In this sense it occurs in the fa- exhibited as the Creator, the Preserver, and mous passage of Isaiah, vii, 14: "Behold a Lord of all things. His solemn worship and virgin shall conceive and bear a son." The fear were to be enjoined upon them; and, by Hebrew has no term that more properly signi- the manifestation of his works, the veil was fies a virgin than almal. St. Jerom, in his withdrawn from his glory and majesty. Idola. commentary on this passage, observes, that the try was to be checked and reproved, and the Prophet declined using the word bethaul which true God was therefore placed in contrast with signifies any young woman, or young person, the limited and powerless god's of the Heathen: but employed the term almah, which denotes a "Among the gods of the nations, is there no virgin never seen by man. This is the import god like unto thee; neither are there any works of the word almah, which is derived from a like thy works." Finally, he is exhibited as root which signifies to conceal. It is very well the object of trust to creatures constantly reknown, that young women in the east do not minded by experience of their own infirmity appear in public, but are shut up in their and dependence; and to them it is essential to houses, and their mothers' apartments, like know, that his power is absolute, unlimited, and nuns. The Chaldee paraphrast and the Sep-irresistible, and that, in a word, he is "mighty tuagint translate almah "a virgin;” and Akiba, the famous rabbin, who was a great enemy to Christ and Christians, and lived in the second century, understands it in the same manner. The Apostles and Evangelists, and the Jews of our Saviour's time, explained it in the same sense, and expected a Messiah born of a virgin. The Jews, that they may obscure this plain text, and weaken this proof of the truth of the to save." 3. In a revelation which was thus designed to awe and control the wicked, and to afford strength of mind and consolation to good men under all circumstances, the omnipotence of God is therefore placed in a great variety of impressive views, and connected with the most striking illustrations. It is declared by the fact of creation, the 4. Of these amazing views of the omnipo. tence of God, spread almost through every page of the Scriptures, the power lies in their truth. They are not eastern exaggerations, mistaken for sublimity. Every thing in nature answers to them, and renews from age to age the energy of the impression which they cannot but make on the reflecting mind. The order of the astral revolutions indicates the constant presence of an invisible but incomprehensible power. The seas hurl the weight of their billows upon the rising shores, but every where find a "bound fixed by a perpetual decree." The tides reach their height; if they flowed on for a few hours, the earth would change places with the bed of the sea; but, under an invisible control, they become refluent. The expression, "He toucheth the mountains and they smoke," is not mere imagery:-every volcano is a testimony of its truth; and earthquakes proclaim, that, before him, "the pillars of the world tremble." Men collected into armies, or populous nations, give us vast ideas of human power; but let an army be placed amidst the sand storms and burning winds of the desert, as, in the east; or, before "his frost," as in our own day in Russia, where one of the mightiest armaments was seen retreating before, or perishing under, an unexpected visitation of snow and storm; or let the utterly helpless state of a populous country which has been visited by famine, or by a resistless pestilential disease, be reflected upon; and we feel that it is scarcely a figure of speech to say, that "all nations before him are less than nothing and vanity.” creation of beings out of nothing; which itself, | stars fall from heaven, and the powers of heathough it had been confined to a single object, ven are shaken. The dead, small and great, however minute, exceeds finite comprehension, stand before God, and are divided as a shepherd and overwhelms the faculties. This with God divideth the sheep from the goats. The wicked required no effort: "He spake and it was done,go away into everlasting punishment, but the he commanded and it stood fast." The vast righteous into life eternal. ness and variety of his works enlarge the conception: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work." "He spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea; he maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south; he doeth great things, past finding out, yea, and wonders without number. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in the thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them; he hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end." The ease with which he sustains, orders, and controls the most powerful and unruly of the elements, arrays his omnipotence with an aspect of ineffable dignity and majesty: "By him all things consist." "He brake up for the sea a decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." "He looketh to the end of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven, to make the weight for the winds, to weigh the waters by measure, to make a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder." "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, meted out heaven with a span, comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." The descriptions of the divine power are often terri. ble: "The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof; he divideth the sea by his power." "He removeth the mountains, and they know it not; he overturneth them in his anger; he shaketh the carth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble; he commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars." The same absolute subjection of creatures to his dominion is seen among the intelligent inhabitants of the material universe; and angels, mortals the most exalted, and evil spirits, are swayed with as much ease as the most passive elements: "He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." They veil their faces before his throne, and acknowledge themselves his servants: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the in. habitants thereof are as grasshoppers," "as the dust of the balance, less than nothing and vanity." "He bringeth princes to nothing." "He setteth up one and putteth down another;" "for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is governor among the nations." "The angels that sinned he cast down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." The closing scenes of this world complete these transcendent conceptions of the majesty and power of God. The dead of all ages rise from their graves at his voice: and the sea gives up the dead which are in it. Before his face heaven and earth fly away; the 5. Nor, in reviewing this doctrine of Scripture, ought the great practical uses made of the omnipotence of God, by the sacred writers, to be overlooked. By them nothing is said for the mere display of knowledge, as in Heathen writers; and we have no speculations without a subservient moral. To excite and keep alive in man the fear and worship of God, and to bring him to a felicitous confidence in that almighty power which pervades and controls all things, are the noble ends of those ample displays of the omnipotence of God, which roll through the sacred volume with a sublimity that inspiration only could supply. "Declare his glory among the Heathen, his marvellous works among all nations; for great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.-Glory and honour are in his presence, and strength and gladness in his place.-Give unto the Lord, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.-The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?-The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? If God be for us, who then can be against us? Our help standeth in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.-What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."-Thus, as one ob, |