Alexander in Bible Prophecy
Alexander the Great does not appear as a character in Scripture, and is never mentioned by name, but he is clearly depicted in prophecy. About 200 years before Alexander began his campaign to conquer the world, Daniel wrote of a series of beasts that represented great empires. In Daniel 8:5-7, Alexander is depicted as a singled-horned he-goat that smashes into the Medo-Persian Empire (depicted as a two-horned ram):
“As I kept watching, look! there was a male goat coming from the west crossing the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes. It was coming toward the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing before the watercourse; it was running toward it in a powerful rage. I saw it closing in on the ram, and it was filled with bitterness toward it. It struck down the ram and broke its two horns, and the ram was powerless to stand up to it. It threw the ram to the ground and trampled it down, and there was no one to rescue it from its power.” (Daniel 8:5-7)
The angel Gabriel interpreted the vision for Daniel, and he states that the he-goat was the king of Greece:
“The two-horned ram that you saw stands for the kings of Media and Persia. The hairy male goat stands for the king of Greece; and the great horn that was between its eyes stands for the first king.” (Daniel 8:20, 21)
Alexander the Great began his reign at the age of 20; over the next twelve years, he conquered most of the known world, leading the Greek phalanxes all the way to the Beas River in northwestern India. He was not quite 33 years old when he died. Given the number of his victories, and the extent of the territory conquered, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the “great horn” between the eyes of the he-goat was Alexander.
After his death, his empire was divided among four lieutenants, Antigonus (whose territory later went to Seleucus) Cassander, Lysimachus, and Ptolemy, an event also clearly prefigured in prophecy. (Dan. 8:22)
Alexander’s Influence on Christianity
Because of the vast empire Alexander built, Greek became the international language of culture and commerce. Alexander’s conquest is why the New Testament was written in Greek, and why the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek at Alexandria, the Greek city that Alexander built in Egypt and named after himself.
That Greek translation, called the Septuagint, became the Bible of the New Testament Bible writers. When they quoted the Old Testament, they generally quoted the Septuagint. This is why a New Testament quotation of an Old Testament passage does not always track exactly with what is in our Old Testament, which was translated from a much later recension of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Masoretic.
Alexander’s enormous empire is a key reason why Greek philosophy and the views of Alexander’s teacher, Aristotle, became widely known and promoted. Aristotle’s teachings would dominate science and medicine until the scientific revolution that followed the Protestant Reformation. The melding of Greek philosophy with Bible Christianity is what formed the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.
Alexander and Jaddus, the High Priest
In Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews is found an astonishing story, one I had never heard until I read a book about the inter-testamental period, about Alexander’s brush with Judaism and Jerusalem. Josephus reports that during the siege of Tyre, Alexander sent a message to the High Priest in Jerusalem asking him to send both men and provisions. The High Priest, variously called Jaddus and Jaddua, responded through messengers that he had sworn a vow to the Persian King Darius III that he would not take up arms against him and he could not go back on his word as long as Darius III yet lived.
Alexander was not pleased; he was gracious to cities that opened their gates to him; harsh with those that resisted and required a siege. But he could not turn and deal with Jerusalem while he was engaged in a siege of Tyre.
The Samaritans, a nation just north of Judea that emerged during the Babylonian captivity and practiced a syncretistic form of Judaism, offering their sacrifices not in Jerusalem but on Mount Gezerim, saw an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with Alexander. They quickly renounced Darius and the Persians, and sent troops to help Alexander.
After a difficult siege lasting almost a year, Tyre was defeated. Alexander next turned his attentions to the coastal city of Gaza, which he defeated after a relatively short siege. Now he was free to deal with Jerusalem! Josephus recounts the following events:
“…and Jaddus the high-priest, when he heard that, was in an agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience. He therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifice to God, whom he besought to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them. Then, God warned [Jaddus] in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order [including Jaddus wearing the high-priestly breastplate], without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent…And when Jaddus understood that Alexander was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens.”
This is a truly remarkable! In a dream, Jaddus was told to open the city and to greet Alexander wearing his priestly vestments. And Jaddus carefully carried out the instructions in the dream. He threw open the gates of Jerusalem, went out on the road wearing his priestly garments, and a large number of prominent citizens, all wearing white linen, went out to line the road to Jerusalem.
As Alexander’s forces came up the road, they were accompanied by his new Samaritan allies who, given the enmity between the two nations, were probably hoping Alexander would punish Jerusalem for refusing to send troops to help in the siege of Tyre. But that is not what happened.
Instead, something astonishing happened. When Alexander saw Jaddus dressed in the robes of the High Priest and in a turban adorned with a gold plate engraved with the Hebrew name of God (the four Hebrew consonants “YHWH” often rendered in English as “Jehovah”), he approached the High Priest and worshiped! Josephus writes:
for Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest.
Why did Alexander react this way? It seems that Jaddus wasn’t the only one to have been blessed with a dream. Alexander had had a dream, too, only much earlier. He tells one of his lieutenants:
Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, "I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind."
So Alexander had seen the High Priest in a dream before embarking on his campaign of conquest, and this very man had assured Alexander that he would be victorious over the Persians! Alexander then goes into Jerusalem where he offers a sacrifice to God at the Temple, “according to the high-priest’s direction.”
And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when [Alexander] went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests.
That Jaddus allowed Alexander to sacrifice in the temple is remarkable. Contrast this open, evangelistic attitude with the attitude of the Jews in Christ’s day; at that later time, any gentile who went into the area where sacrifices were offered was subject to being immediately killed. This is the dream and vision of Isaiah, as we discussed last week.
But wait! There’s more. Josephus offers another important but highly controversial detail about Alexander’s brief visit to Jerusalem. While in the city, a scroll is brought to Alexander:
“And when the Book of Daniel was showed him wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended. And as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present.”
Jaddus showed Alexander Daniel 8:5-7 and 20-21, where Daniel is shown that a king of Greece would destroy the Persian empire. No doubt Alexander identified himself with the male goat from Daniel chapter 8 who tramples down the Persian empire, and interpreted this prophetic teaching as the fulfillment of the dream he was given before he ever left Macedonia!
Alexander was now in a very generous mood. He granted the Jews the same rights they enjoyed under Persian rule, which was as well as he treated the Samaritans. After a short stay, Alexander and his army would press on to Egypt, then Persia, and eventually all the way to India, never to return to Jerusalem.
Is this a true story? Josephus narrates it as such, and Josephus is still highly regarded as an historian. The critics who say it is made up also deny that Daniel was written before his prophecies were fulfilled, because to admit that Daniel was written when it purports to have been written is essentially to admit that God exists and that he inspires the prophets.