dition and science, of inspiration and reflection. Images and
formulas, method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The
brilliant qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of
intelligence, its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and
vivified by the Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On
the other hand, the contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is
characterised by its aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious,
would never have produced a coherent system or theory had it not been
aided by Greek science. It was the latter that arranged and explained
the Oriental traditions, loosed their tongues, and produced those
religious doctrines and philosophical systems which culminated in
Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Judaism of Philo, and the Polytheism of
Julian the Apostate.

It was the contemplative Oriental mind, with its tendency towards the
supernatural and miraculous, with its mysticism and religion, and Greece
with her subtle scrutinising and investigating spirit, which gave rise
to the peculiar phase of thought prevalent in Alexandria during the
first centuries of our era. It was tinctured with idealistic, mystic,
and yet speculative and scientific colours. Hence the religious spirit
in philosophy and the philosophic tendency in the religious system that
are the characteristic features. "East and West," says Baldwin,* "met
at Alexandria." The co-operative ideas of civilisations, cultures,
and religions of Rome, Greece, Palestine, and the farther East found
themselves in juxtaposition. Hence arose a new problem, developed partly
by Occidental thought, partly by Oriental aspiration. Religion and
philosophy became inextricably mixed, and the resultant doctrines
consequently belong to neither sphere proper, but are rather witnesses
of an attempt at combining both.

* Baldwin: Dictionary of Philosophy.

These efforts naturally came from two sides. On the one hand, the Jews
tried to accommodate their faith to the results of Western culture, in
which Greek culture predominated. On the other hand, thinkers whose
main impulse came from Greek philosophy attempted to accommodate their
doctrines to the distinctively religious problems which the Eastern
nations had brought with them. From whichever side the consequences be
viewed, they are to be characterised as theosophical rather than purely
philosophical, purely religious, or purely theological.

The reign of Con