E. A. Judge

The End Product Of Alexander's Empire

"Palestine is a wall of hills dividing the western sea to the desert to the east. Historically it had formed a cultural bridge and an imperial warpath between Mesopotamia and Egypt, the two greatest centers of civilization. 

Its own people thus developed in reaction to pressures from the north and the south, while to the east and west were unknown wastes. But with Alexander's sudden triumph over Persia, the broad axis of events shifted. 

Armies and ships still necessarily followed the north-south traffic lanes along the Palestinian coast, but for a thousand years now the ultimate influences upon Palestine flowed from Greece and Rome across the western sea. 

Then in an upheaval equally momentous, Islam turned the tide, so that for the last thousand years Palestine has been dominated by the desert to the east. 

The epoch of Western power obliterated the ancient nation of Israel, but not before the west had opened its cities to the Jews and its people had embraced their Messiah. 

The establishment of Christendom was an end product of Alexander's empire."