As Paris to France socially, as Jerusalem to Syria reli-. giously, as Ephesus to the thinkers of Southern Asia ideally, so Alexandria to all nations of the first Christian centuries. Founded by Alexander the Great, on the commercial thoroughfare between Europe and Asia, it was the center of philosophy, the birth-place of symbols, the arena of all new theories, attractive for her unparalleled libraries, numbering, in her palmier period, seven hundred thousand books, and celebrated for accommodating, at one time within her classic precincts, fourteen thousand students! The literary world in miniature, her fountains of truth, flowing over all deserts and ruins and mausoleums and Edens of beauty, have bathed the whole earth in historic and inspirational wisdom. Her eclectic professors, cooling the egotistic ardor of the Church Fathers, plucked their boasted plumes by exhibiting superior art and literature, magic and miracle.

This Alexandrian school of philosophy, based upon the psychological systems of Pythagoras and Plato, drew its primal inspirations from India and Egypt, and, amalgamating with, overshadowed the dogmas of Christianity.

DION CHRYSOSTOM, writing in the time of Trajan, says: "I see among you Alexandrians, not only Greeks and Italians, Syrians, Sybians, Ethiopians and Arabians, but Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and travelers from India, who flow together into this city, and are always with you."

Gnosticism, (ginosko, to know) budding in the first, blossomed more fully among educated classes in the second century. The Gnostics were Inductionists. Gnosis was considered a divine science; and, wielded by those metaphysical thinkers, successfully contended against Christianity, in the estimation of the literati. It is averred, with great plausibility, that the Asiatic Gnostics were personally acquainted with the Gymnosophists of India and the Magi of Persia. The Christian Fathers, owing to a lack of literary culture, were disinclined to meet them in discussion. Mani, born in Persia, Marcus Tatian, Cerinthus, the father of Gregory, of Nazianzen, were prominent among the Gnostics. These, with others of the same school, held to the oriental philosophical theory, that all spirits emanated from God, and were a part of him; that angels, by divine appointment, exercised a superintendence over the affairs of this world as guardians; that mortals had the high privilege of communion with these celestials; that Christ, as a heavenly spirit, was not invested with a mortal body after his resurrection, or, better, emancipation; that souls, as anons, emanating from the infinite fountain of Deity, by a law of progress, returned purified to the bosom-source whence they came. Clement of Alexandria, says: "Their worship consists in continual attention to their souls; in meditations upon the Divinity, as being inexhaustible love."

AMMONIUS SACCAS, profound, scholarly and eclectic, combining in his rare organism the extremes of conservatism and radicalism, organized this famous school about the year 220 A. D. Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Jamblichus, and others, rejecting the mouldy crumbs of Hebrew revelations, and versed in the elements and principles characterizing the

oriental theosophies, were among the eminent disciples of Ammonius. His lofty purpose was to combine the good and beautiful found in the theologies and philosophies of India, Egypt, China, Persia, Judea, Greece and Rome, in fact, all nations in all times, and out of these vast materials to form a grand eclecticism, alive with all the thought, wisdom and virtue of the ages, like a superb temple compounded of all the kingdoms of life in the universe.

PLOTINUS, eleven years the student of Ammonius Saccas, retaining his Egyptian idiosyncracies, educated at Alexandria, and of immeasurable influence in society, was the inspiring animus of Neo-Platonism, and gave to it much of its prestige and fame in the world. His metaphysical doctrines run thus: That there is one God, the perfect, uncreated principle; that Wisdom is the Logos of the good; that from Wisdom and Love proceeded the souls of all things; that the human soul, an essential portion of the Divine Soul, can, in its highest states, penetrate into all worlds' mysteries, and hold communion with the essence of things; that this life is a mere flash of light, which God, in his goodness, grants to souls for a season; that, whilst this earth-life lasts, memory of the prior existence vanishes, but in the next life, the mind beholds the past, present and future, at one glance; that poets, lovers, musicians, philosophers, more etherialwinged, can the easier ascend into the superior regions; that miracles are in harmony with fixed principles of the universe; that self-denial of all lusts and passions is inductive to conscious communication with and glory of the gods, or angels. His enthusiastic disciples ascribed to him miraculous gifts. In their writings it is frequently affirmed that he could discern the secret thoughts of men. When Porphyry contemplated suicide, he discovered it without the least outward intimation. When a theft had been committed in the house, he collected the domestics and immediately pointed out the culprit, without asking a question. They

requested him to evoke his guardian spirit, which the Gre cians called his "demon." He refused for a long time. Finally, yielding to their entreaties, they saw a god appear in their midst. He healed the most dangerous diseases, obtained great reputation for foretelling future events, and walked in daily converse with spirits and angels. Emilius, urging him to attend the services of the church, he replied, "The spirits must come to me, not I to the spirits." After his departure to the spirit world, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, his friends inquired of an oracle as to the residence of his soul. The response was given in verse, to the effect, that owing to his gentleness, goodness, elevated ideas, purity of life, his soul had rejoined the just spirits of Minos, Rhadamanthus and acus. By virtue of these graces he was permitted to behold, face to face, the more exalted and glorified of the celestial worlds.

PORPHYRY, of Phonecian descent, was one of the most distinguished disciples of Plotinus, succeeding him in the third century as president of the Alexandrian school. It is as morally impossible for a Roman Church father to speak or write impartially of Porphyry, as for a modern Protestant of the orthodox school, to award Spiritualists their just position. Deeply read in the lore of the past, an ardent admirer of Plato, Porphyry is described by the church historian, Neander, as "a man of noble spirit, united with profound intellectual attainments; a man of the East, in whom the oriental basis of character had been completely fused with the elements of Grecian culture." He devoted much time to the study of magic, called Theurgy; to the psychologic and mystic relations of mind to mind; to the necessity of selfabnegation, as preparatory to the highest angelic communion; and, like his predecessors, Ammonius and Plotinus, he sought to establish a universal eclecticism in religion. Nearly all his works against Christianity were burned by Christians-a proof this of their inestimable value. When a sectarian man cannot meet his neighbor with sound reason,

he tries force, fire, perjury, theft! They who know the truth, love criticism; and rather than burn philosophy, they cherish it as gratefully as flowers do the sunshine.

Porphyry taught that all religions have a divine origin; that a high standard of morals and purity of life are indispensable to happiness; that men are justified in separating from their angular wives to attain greater holiness and more time to devote to philosophy; that it is wrong to obey civil laws when in opposition to higher law written by God in the eternal constitution of the soul; and, quoting Apollonius in favor of silent prayer, that such devotion is alone worthy the Supreme Being. He beautifully says, that "Similarities unite. Shut up in the body, as in a prison, we ought to pray to gods and angels to deliver us from our fetters. They are our true fathers; and we ought to pray to them like children exiled from the paternal mansion." He believed in the controlling intelligences of heaven, and was much "impressed with the power of evil spirits," often referring to them as the cause of disease, personal quarrels, and national wars. He also maintained that the spirit of prophecy could be attained by abstemious living; and that his soul was once so elevated to a complete union with God, he caught golden glimpses of the eternal world.

JAMBLICHUS, Syrian by birth, student of Porphyry, approached, in precept and practice, nearer the Nazarene than any cotemporary Neo-Platonist. He lived in the reign. of Constantine, when Indian philosophy and Grecian theo sophy were the cherished principles of the erudite. Teaching the oriental doctrine of emanations, he mingled theurgy, magic and philosophy in his crucible of thought, daily inspected by Alexandrian students. His disciples believed him possessed with supernatural power. History affirms, that whilst engaged in prayer, spirits raised him fifteen feet in the air. Accompanied by his pupils to the baths of Gadara, in Syria, he inquired the names of two springs of water. On