ALEXANDRIA (al'egz-an-dri'a ), (Gr. 'AXedvo peta, al-esc-and'ree-ah), the chief maritime city, and long the metropolis of lower Egypt (Comp. Acts vi :19 ; xviii :24 ; xxvii :6 ; xxviii :It ). As this city owed its foundation to Alexander the Great, the Old Testament canon had closed before it existed ; nor is it often mentioned in the Apocrypha, or in the New Testament. But it was in many ways most importantly connected with the later history of the Jews—as well from the relations which subsisted between them and the Ptolemies, who reigned in that city, as from the vast numbers of Jews who were settled there, with whom a constant intercourse was maintained by the Jews of Palestine. It is perhaps safe to say that, from the foundation of Alexandria to the destruction of Jerusalem, and even after, the former was of all foreign places that to which the attention of the Jews was most directed. And this appears to have been true even at the time when Antioch first, and afterwards Rome, became the seat of the power to which the nation was subject.
(1) Situation. Alexandria is situated on the Mediterranean, twelve miles west of the Canopic mouth of the Nile, in 31 deg. 13 min. N. lat. and 25 deg. 53 min. E. long. It owes its origin to the com prehensive policy of Alexander, who perceived that the usual channels of commerce might be advanta geously altered, and that a city occupying this site could not fail to become the common empo rium for the traffic of the eastern and western worlds, by means of the river Nile and the two adjacent seas, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and the high prosperity which, as such, Alexan dria very rapidly attained, proved the soundness of his judgment, and exceeded any expectations which even he could have entertained. For a long period Alexandria was the greatest of known cities, for Nineveh and Babylon had fallen, and Rome had not yet risen to pre-eminence, and even when Rome became the mistress of the world, and Alexandria only the metropolis of a province, the latter was second only to the former in wealth, ex tent and importance. and was honored with the magnificent titles of the second metropolis of the world, the city of cities, the queen of the East, a second Rome (Diod. Sic. xvii; Strab.
xvii; Ammian. Jlarccll. xxii; Hegesipp. iv:27; Joseph. Bell. hid. iv i, 5).
(2) Seat of Commerce and Science. Alex andria became not only the seat of commerce, but of learning and the liberal sciences. This dis tinction it owed to Ptolemy Sotcr, himself a man of education, who founded an academy, or society of learned men, who devoted themselves to the study of philosophy, literature and science. For their use he made a collection of choice books, which, by degrees, increased under his successors until it became the finest library in the world and numbered 7oo,000 volumes (Strab. xvii, p. 791 ; Euseb. Citron.).
(3) Burning of the Library. It sustained repeated losses, by fire and otherwise, but these losses were as repeatedly repaired, and it con tinued to be of great fame and use in those parts, until it was at length burnt by the Saracens when they made themselves masters of Alexandria in A. D. 642. Undoubtedly the Jews at Alexandria shared in the benefit of these institutions, as the Christians did afterwards, for the city was not only a seat of heathen, but of Jewish, and subse quently of Christian learning. The Jews never had a more profoundly learned man than Philo, nor the Christians men more erudite than Origen and Clement ; and if we may judge from these celebrated natives of Alexandria, who were re markably intimate with the heathen philosophy and literature—the learning acquired in the Jew ish and Christian schools of that city must have been of that broad and comprehensive character which its large and liberal institutions were fitted to produce.
(4) The Septuagint. It will be remembered that the celebrated translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (see SEvreAotNT) was made, under every encouragement from Ptolemy Philadelphus, principally for the use of the Jews in Alexandria,who knew only the Greek language, but partly, no doubt, that the great library might possess a version of a book so remarkable, and, in some points, so closely connected with the an cient history of Egypt. The work of Josephus against Apion affords ample evidence of the at tention which the Jewish Scriptures excited.