When Alexander the Great built the city of Alexandria in Egypt, with the intention of making it the seat of his empire, he invited learned men from all nations, who brought with them their peculiar notions. The Alexandria School of Philosophy which was thus established, by the commingling of Orientalists, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks, became eclectic in character, and exhibited a heterogeneous mixture of the opinions of the Egyptian priests, of the Jewish Rabbis, of Arabic teachers, and of the disciples of Plato and Pythagoras. From this school we derive Gnosticism and the wikipedia:kabbala Kabbala], and, above all, the system of symbolism and allegory which lay at the foundation of the Masonic philosophy. To no ancient sect, indeed, except perhaps the Pythagoreans, have the Masonic teachers been so much indebted for the substance of their doctrines, as well as the [wikipedia:esotericism esoteric method of communicating them, as to that of the School of Alexandria.
~~ooOoo~~
This page is adapted from the Glossary at Phoenixmasonry — Used with permission.
