Alexander the Great: His Life and Influence on Christianity

Alexander the Great was a ruler, empire builder, and military leader to whom a great many legends have been ascribed. Countless books, films, and articles have been released which alternately describe him as both saint and sinner. Indeed, Michael Wood notes that not only does he appear in the Old Testament book of Daniel and the Koran as the Third Beast and Two-horned One, respectively, both of whom bring about death and destruction, but the Greek Orthodox Church has all but canonized him and turned him into a saint (Wood 9). Though his character can be debated, there is no question of his influence upon the world. Eugene N. Borza describes him as daring to dream as no one had before him, conquering vast amounts of territory and ruling over an empire larger than anyone had before (Borza 2-3). However, what is often overlooked about Alexander are his contributions to early Christianity. Though he lived nearly three centuries before the birth of Christ, Alexander the Great's contributions to early Christianity are both many and important.

Alexander was born in 356 B.C. in Pella, Macedon, the son of Philip II of Macedon and his wife Olympias. Lewis V. Cummings notes that much of Alexander's childhood was spent "in the women's quarters, having little contact with the world of men, least of all with his warrior father" (Cummings 50). Though his parents' marriage

was an unhappy and stormy one, this apparently had no affect on his intellect. His childhood would be described as "precocious and brilliant" (Renault 29) and after he turned seven he was taken under the tutelage of a man called Leonidas, who gave him "the best education obtainable in those days" (Cummings 51). When Alexander was thirteen his father decided that it was time he was given instruction benefiting that of a future king and the philosopher Aristotle was brought in to provide such an education (Cummings 56).

It was under Aristotle's tutelage that Alexander learned much of what he would eventually impact upon history, and thus, the New Testament. Among the Greek philosophies that Aristotle taught the young prince were Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism, all of which, in at least some small part, would eventually find their way into Christian thinking. Indeed, though the idea that all men are brothers and should live together in unity has generally been attributed to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, some evidence has shown that the original author could actually have been Alexander himself (Borza 77-78). In addition, Aristotle impressed upon his young pupil the notion that all non-Greeks are barbarians and their enemies and that it is "the moral right of all Greeks to wage war upon them, enslave them, or exterminate them" (Cummings 59). When Alexander was sixteen, his tutelage under Aristotle stopped, but he would continue to remember all that he had learned. Arguably, the idea of enslaving and enacting war upon non-Greeks would be the advice which Alexander, upon ascending the throne, would follow the most.

In 336 B.C., when Alexander was twenty, his father Philip was assassinated and he succeeded him as Alexander III. Alexander promptly set about securing his position by killing those he considered rivals to the throne (including some family members), not marrying anyone right away so as not to shoe a preference for one particular family, and by keeping those who had been loyal to his father around him (Heckel and Tritle 87, Snyder 31).

Soon after his accession, Alexander set out upon building his empire by conquering various territories in the region. John W. Snyder notes that right away "Alexander was accepted in his father's place as hegemon of the League of Corinth and, in effect, renewed the mandate for invasion of Asia Minor" (Snyder 32). Michael Wood writes that after this invasion began in spring 334 B.C., "the world would never be the same again" (Wood 33). From Asia Minor (Turkey and Persia), Alexander and his armies marched through and conquered Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt (Wood 63). It was at this point that many of his legacies to the future Christian religion began to take shape.

As Alexander began conquering this significant amount of territory and forming an Empire, he left more than just carnage and death in his wake. Thanks to the tutelage of Aristotle, Alexander had been imbued with a great amount of love for his Greek heritage: the language, culture, traditions, and the aforementioned philosophies. In a process known as Hellenization (so named for Greece's ancient name, the Hellenes) Alexander and his troops took it upon themselves to spread that knowledge of Greece and its history and traditions to nations which would have otherwise had no knowledge of it, thus giving

these areas a sort of commonality (Borza 84). Michael Wood notes that because of Alexander, Greek culture became the culture of the Near East and that the three great monotheistic world religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) grew out of this Hellenistic culture (Wood 233).

During his conquest of Egypt, another legacy to Christianity took shape. He journeyed to the oracle of Amun -or, according to Michael Wood, Ammon (Wood 72)- and, there, was declared to be his son, literally the son of God (Heckel and Tritle 36). This concept of a divine savior king was one that previously unknown in history until Alexander. The Romans, whose empire would one day eclipse Alexander's, would come to adopt this belief as well, treating their emperors as divine. However, the most notable personage to have this adage attributed to him is Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity. A direct link can be traced from Alexander the Great to Jesus Christ in this regard.

In Egypt, where, as Mary Renault notes "he had no campaigning, only a triumphal progress" (Renault 107), Alexander began taking part in the cultural syncretism that would be yet another of his legacies. In conquering territories, Alexander would not simply inflict his cultures on them. Instead, in turn, he gained influence from the cultures already in existence and the two mixed together. Renault goes on to say that, in his tolerant Greek way, Alexander had a reverence for Egypt's polytheism and generally found a Greek companion to each Egyptian god, so similar were their attributes found to be. (Renault 108).

In 331 B.C., also in Egypt, Alexander created yet another of his many legacies. He founded the city of Alexandria, which still exists (Renault 108). Though eventually more than thirty cities would come to have that name, Egypt's Alexandria was the most spectacular (Wood 83). It contained libraries, theatres, tombs, and mosaics and was considered one of the most learned places in the world. Alexander considered it the cornerstone of his empire and the Hellenistic world and, thus, the cornerstone of the world in general (Wood 83).

After conquering Egypt, Alexander set out to conquer the rest of the world. Over the course of the next several years he conquered what is today known as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and India (Wood 85, 133, 169). In doing so, he continued to spread his Hellenistic views, ideas, and cultures, and, in turn, by cultural syncretism, learned a great deal from those areas as well.

Upon his return to Greece, John W. Snyder notes, Alexander "threw himself into the administrative tasks that had accumulated during his absence (Snyder 190). Though he had already been declared divine in Egypt, his success in his conquests and other accomplishments, especially in Hellenization, led at least a few Greek cities to declare him divine as well (Snyder 191). By this point, late in his life, he had truly become Alexander the Great.

When Alexander died in 323 B.C. at the age of 32, he was entombed in the greatest of the cities to bear his name: Alexandria, Egypt (Heckel and Tritle 52). His death left the largest empire the world had ever seen with one problem: who was to succeed? He had designated no one heir and Heckel and Tritle write that "thus his exit from life, and history, was at the same time an evasion of responsibility. Alexander (the Great) was as fortunate in death as he had been in life, as the burden of dealing with the consequences of his super-human achievements fell on the shoulders of his all too human successors" (Heckel and Tritle 52).

Just as his life unknowingly influenced Christianity, so, too, had his death. Because Alexander, before his death, had not designated an heir to his empire, it was not inherited by one person. Instead, the vast amount of territory was divided amongst twenty of his generals, each of whom was given a significant portion (Wood 231). Michael Wood notes that Ptolemy was given control of Egypt, while Seleucus was given Babylon (Wood 232). These two would be vitally important to the history of Israel, the Holy Land. Though in Christ's life the area was ruled by the Roman Empire, that was a direct result of actions taken by these two generals. The Seleucids took control of the land from the Ptolemies in 201 B.C., wherein they soon outlawed the Jewish religion, angering the people (Renault 168). They revolted and defeated the Seleucids, but the subsequent Maccabean rule was incredibly unsuccessful, so much so that when the Roman army invaded in 63 B.C., most were glad to be rid of the Maccabees. Jesus Christ and many of the people who wrote the New Testament were born in this area under these conditions and history.

In conclusion, the influence of the mighty Macedonian monarch, Alexander the Great, upon the Christianity that came about nearly three hundred years after his death is extremely palpable. By conquering more territory than any one person had before, utilizing the concept of Hellenization and spreading his Greek heritage to those

conquered territories, introducing the concept of a divine savior king, and by contributing to the advancement of many of the Greek philosophies which found their way into the New Testament, he did much to shape the foundation of a religion that he would not live long enough to practice. Though Eugene Borza gives him the appellation of "world figure", somehow this does not seem enough (Borza 2). Given that this great military ruler, conqueror and killer of millions can be attributed with much of the basis for a religion whose core message is steeped in peace, perhaps a better sobriquet for Alexander would be "an icon of irony".

Works Cited:

Borza, Eugene, ed. The Impact of Alexander the Great. Illinois: Dryden, 1974. Print.

Cummings, Lewis V. Alexander the Great. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940. Print.

Heckel, Waldemar and Lawrence A. Tritle, eds. Alexander the Great: A New History.

West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.

Renault, Mary. The Nature of Alexander. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print.

Snyder, John W. Alexander the Great. New York: Twayne, 1966. Print.

Wood, Michael. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. Berkeley: University of

California, 1997. Print.