“He, who was like no other man, could not have been given to the world without the special design of Providence.” So wrote Arrian, a Greek historian, in the middle of the second century of our era of the amazing youth, Alexander of Macedon, who five centuries before had so effectually removed the barrier between East and West and written a chapter never to be overlooked by the historian anxious to trace the complicated story of the gradual development of “One World.” Of all Alexander's contributions, and they were many, it would not be difficult to present a strong case for the contention that none surpassed his act at the delta of the Nile in 332. He had come there to complete his preliminary campaign against the Achaemenidae — the sweeping of their fleet from the sea by the methodical and simple method of depriving them of all harbors and contact with the army to the east. This he did, but he did more. He founded a city, named for himself, which was destined to spread and make current coin the magic of Greek learning and with it her civilization to a degree unsurpassed, if indeed even paralleled, by any other centre.

The Arabic summary of Galen's Περὶ ἠθῶν, a work which appears to have been of some importance for moral philosophy in the early centuries of philosophical speculation in Islam, is the only remnant of this rather comprehensive work of the philosophizing doctor of the century of the Antonines. It is, as happens so often in the case of Galen, a work in which traditional doctrine and statements taken from some great predecessor make themselves more strongly felt than the author's own contribution and his particular intention. Posidonius' restoration of Plato's psychology, as far as ethical speculation is concerned, appears to be the basis of Galen's description of moral character. There is no need to refer to Posidonius if we want to explain why Galen thought it right to insert fables and sermon-like exhortations into his theoretical treatment of a subject of moral philosophy. But it may, nonetheless, be appropriate to remember that Posidonius insisted on the importance of exhortation as well as of description and analysis: moral philosophy is in equal need of both. Seneca Epist. 95, 65: “Posidonius non tantum praeceptionem.…sed etiam suasionem et consolationem et exhortationem necessariam iudicat. His adicit causarum inquisitionem.…Ait utilem futuram et descriptionem cuiusque virtutis: hanc Posidonius ethologiam vocat, quidam characterismon appellant, signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem quibus inter se similia discriminentur.”

In the Preface to the Retractationes, Augustine suggests: “Perhaps whoever will read my works in the order in which they were written will discover how I made progress while writing them.” The present essay is an attempt to carry out this suggestion of Augustine, with particular attention to his ideas on society, from the earliest Dialogues of 386 up to the time, shortly after 400 A.D., when the Donatist controversy introduces a new period in Augustine's thought.

In Origen's discussion of the part played by the Logos in the creation of the world, In Ev. Joannis xix.5 (PG xiv. 568 b–c), there occurs a long sentence which is not altogether clear, chiefly because of the uncertainty of the punctuation. The text, as given by the four modern editors, Lommatzsch, Migne, Preuschen and Brooke, who agree throughout except in the two instances to be noted, is as follows (with punctuation after the biblical quotation omitted):

In his digression on Egypt, Ammianus Marcellinus tells of the influence which Egyptian learning exerted on Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Solon. He then continues: Ex his fontibus per sublimia gradiens, sermonum amplitudine Iovis aemulus Platon, visa Aegypto militavit sapientia gloriosa (xxii, 16.22). Such is Clark's standard text (1910): Gardthausen's edition of 1874 printed the non of the codices in place of Valesius' suggested Platon, and Iesus (from an assumed ihs.), a clever emendation of Gutschmid's, after his. At this late day it would be superfluous to observe that the reading non is the more probable point of corruption in the received text; Iesus, I believe, has vanished forever from this passage, leaving us without a single specific allusion to Christ in the surviving portion of the history. Of course Ammianus has much to say about Christianity and its bishops and other devotees, but an expression of warm regard for its founder would have changed our estimate of his attitude, which, as matters now stand, seems one of tolerance at best.