fiction;
and, indeed, it seems probable that the translation was not made under
the splendid circumstances commonly related, but merely by the
Alexandrian Jews for their own convenience. As the Septuagint grew into
credit among the Christians, it lost favour among the Jews, who made
repeated attempts in after years to supplant it by new versions, such as
those of Aquila, of Theodotion, of Symmachus, and others. From the first
the Syrian Jews had looked on it with disapproval; they even held the
time of its translation as a day of mourning, and with malicious grief
pointed out its errors, as, for instance, they affirmed that it made
Methusaleh live until after the Deluge. Ptolemy treated all those who
were concerned in providing books for the library with consideration,
remunerating his translators and transcribers in a princely manner.

[Sidenote: Lasting influence of the Museum, theological and scientific.]

But the modern world is not indebted to these Egyptian kings only in the
particular here referred to. The Museum made an impression upon the
intellectual career of Europe so powerful and enduring that we still
enjoy its results. That impression was twofold, theological and
physical. The dialectical spirit and literary culture diffused among the
Alexandrians prepared that people, beyond all others, for the reception
of Christianity. For thirty centuries the Egyptians had been familiar
with the conception of a triune God. There was hardly a city of any note
without its particular triad. Here it was Amun, Maut, and Khonso; there
Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The apostolic missionaries, when they reached
Alexandria, found a people ready to appreciate the profoundest
mysteries. But with these advantages came great evils. The Trinitarian
disputes, which subsequently deluged the world with blood, had their
starting-point and focus in Alexandria. In that city Arius and
Athanasius dwelt. There originated that desperate conflict which
compelled Constantine the Great to summon the Council of Nicea, to
settle, by a formulary or creed, the essentials of our faith.

But it was not alone as regards theology that Alexandria exerted a power
on subsequent ages; her influence was as strongly marked in the
impression it gave to science. Astronomical observatories, chemical
laboratories, libraries, dissecting-houses, were not in vain. There went
forth from them a spirit powerful enough to tincture all future times.
Nothing like the Alexa