< Previous | Contents | Next >

(3.) A Jew of Ephesus who took a prominent part in the uproar raised there by the preaching of Paul (Acts 19:33). The Jews put him forward to plead their cause before the mob. It was probably intended that he should show that he and the other Jews had no sympathy with Paul any more than the Ephesians had. It is possible that this man was the same as the following.

(4.) A coppersmith who, with Hymenaeus and others, promulgated certain heresies regarding the resurrection (1 Timothy 1:19; 2 Timothy 4:14), and made shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience. Paul excommunicated him (1 Timothy 1:20; comp. 1 Corinthians 5:5).

•ALEXANDER THE GREAT the king of Macedonia, the great conqueror; probably represented in Daniel by the “belly of brass” (Daniel 2:32), and the leopard and the he-goat (7:6; 11:3,4). He succeeded his father Philip, and died at the age of thirty-two from the effects of intemperance, B.C.

323. His empire was divided among his four generals.

•ALEXANDRIA the ancient metropolis of Lower Egypt, so called from its founder, Alexander the Great (about B.C. 333). It was for a long period the greatest of existing cities, for both Nineveh and Babylon had been destroyed, and Rome had not yet risen to greatness. It was the residence of the kings of Egypt for 200 years. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and only incidentally in the New. Apollos, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, was a native of this city (Acts 18:24). Many Jews from Alexandria were in Jerusalem, where they had a synagogue (Acts 6:9), at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom. At one time it is said that as many as 10,000 Jews resided in this city. It possessed a famous library of 700,000 volumes, which was burned by the Saracens (A.D. 642). It was here that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. This is called the Septuagint version, from the tradition that seventy learned men were

< Previous | Contents | Next >