Alexandrian school

“ II. Philosophy.—Although it is not possible to divide literatures with absolute rigidity by centuries, and although the intellectual life of Alexandria, particularly as applied to science, long survived the Roman conquest, yet at that period the school, which for some time had been gradually breaking up, seems finally to have succumbed. The later productions in the field of pure literature bear the stamp of Rome rather than of Alexandria. ”

“ The origin of the Alexandrian school of catechists is not a portion of the Church history of the 2nd century, that has somehow been left in the dark by a mere accident; but a part of the well-defined dark region on the map of the ecclesiastical historian of this period, which contains the beginnings of all the fundamental institutions of the Church as well as those of the Alexandrian school of catechists, a school which was the first attempt to formulate the relationship of Christianity to secular science. ”

“ The combination of Scriptural study and of Greek learning was what one expects in a pupil of the famous Alexandrian School; and it was in this School, the School of Clement and Origen, of Dionysius and Theognostus, that young Athanasius learned, possibly at first from the lips of Peter the bishop and martyr of 311 [2] . The influence of Origen still coloured the traditions of the theological school of Alexandria. It was from Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria 312–328, himself an Origenist ‘of the right wing,’ that Athanasius received his moulding at the critical period of his later teens. ”

“ The North African School by its realism, a thoroughly practical tendency, formed the direct antithesis of the idealism and speculative endeavours of the Alexandrian. It repudiated classical science and philosophy as fitted to lead into error, but laid special stress upon the purity of Apostolic tradition, and insisted with all emphasis upon holiness of life and strict asceticism.―Finally, our period also embraces the first beginnings of the Antiochean School, whose founders were the two presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian. ”

“ A substitute for this originality was found at Alexandria in learned research, extended and multifarious knowledge. Amply provided with means for acquiring information, and under the watchful care of a great monarch, the Alexandrians readily took this new direction in literature. With all the great objects removed which could excite a true spirit of poetry, they devoted themselves to minute researches in all sciences subordinate to literature proper. They studied criticism, grammar, prosody and metre, antiquities and mythology. The results of this study constantly appear in their productions. ”

“ But such schools of science, founded on such a ground as this, on the mere instinct of curiosity, had little chance of originality or vitality. All the great schools of the world, the elder Greek philosophy, the Alexandrian, the present Baconian school of physics, have had a deeper motive for their search, a far higher object which they hope to discover. But indeed, the Mussulmans did not so much wish to discover truth, as to cultivate their own intellects. For that purpose a sharp and subtle systematist, like Aristotle, was the very man whom they required ”

“ CHRISTIANITY: Alexandria.
"Christianity first began its activity in the country among the Jewish and Greek population of the Delta, but gradually also among the Egyptians proper (the Copts) as may be inferred from the Coptic (Memphytic) translation of the New Testament (third century) . In the second century, Gnosticism [see GNOSTICS] , which had its chief seat here as well as in Syria, and, secondly, towards the close of the century, the Alexandrian Catechetical School, show the importance of this centre of religious movement and Christian education." ”

“ His aim was to make his capital the intellectual centre of the world—the place where the arts, sciences, literatures, and even the religions, of the world should meet and mingle. He founded the famous Museum, a sort of college, which became the "University of the East," and established the renowned Alexandrian Library. Poets, artists, philosophers, and teachers in all departments of learning were encouraged to settle in Alexandria by the conferring of immunities and privileges, and by gifts and munificent patronage. His court embraced the learning and genius of the age. ”

“ Ptolemy made Alexandria the capital. The history of Egypt during the next three centuries is mainly the history of Alexandria. Literature, philosophy, and art were diligently cultivated. Ptolemy created the university of Alexandria. He founded the great Library and built laboratories, museums, a zoölogical garden, and promenades. Alexandria soon became the great centre of learning.
Demetrius Phalereus was invited from Athens to take charge of the Library, and it is probable, says Gow, that Euclid was invited with him to open the mathematical school. ”

“ Whether it was that the influence of the university gave an impetus to regular and methodical teaching, or that the converts in Alexandria were in great measure from a cultivated and intellectual class, it appears to have been found necessary from the earliest times to have an efficient school, with a man of vigor and intellect at its head, capable of maintaining his position even when compared {39} with the professors of the university. ”

“ After the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire, learning retreated from contending factions to Egypt, where it was liberally fostered by the Ptolemies. Under their patronage, a medical school at Alexandria became eminent, and the healing art flourished beyond all former example. To the disciples of this school, is the world indebted for the first correct description of the human structure. ”

“ But the pagans had better schools and better means of preparing themselves for intellectual combat. Christian teachers were called upon to defend their faith against subtle philosophers and trained thinkers, who had had the advantage of excellent schools. In order to meet this apparent defect and fortify themselves against their skillful opponents, the Christians established the catechetical school at Alexandria, the most celebrated school of its kind at that period. ”

“ The Alexandria academy was a one-story brick structure. Its cornerstone was laid September 7, 1785, by the Alexandria Lodge of Freemasons, Robert Adam, Esquire, Worshipful Master of the Lodge. Mrs. Powell, in her History of Old Alexandria, states that after the stone was laid "a gratuity was distributed among the workmen." The school was incorporated in 1786 by act of the Virginia Assembly and the trustees were to be chosen by those gentlemen who had contributed five or more dollars for the use of the academy, thirteen fit and able men to serve beginning in 1788. ”

“ It was an attempt to continue and develop, under new conditions, the old Hellenic culture. This direction of effort was particularly noticeable under the early Ptolemies, Alexandria being then almost the only home in the world for pure literature. During the last century and a half before the Christian era, the school, as it might be called, began to break up and to lose its individuality. ”

“ Alexandria was the centre of these theological agitations, being then, perhaps, the most intellectual city in the Empire. It was filled with Greek philosophers and scholars and artists, and had the largest library in the world. It had the most famous school of theology, the learned and acute professors of which claimed to make theology a science. Philosophy became wedded to theology, and brought the aid of reason to explain the subjects of faith.
Among the noted theologians of this Christian capital was a presbyter who preached in the principal church. ”

“ Philosophy proper had been so largely taken over by theology that the secular investigators were rather impelled to turn to the natural sciences and as a centre of medical and allied studies the ancient school of Alexandria continued its development without loss of continuity, but under changed conditions. ”

“ This was very unlike Ptolemy, who was a wise, clear-headed man, with much of Alexander’s spirit of teaching and improving people under him, and who ruled so as to make himself much beloved in Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Palestine. The new city of Alexandria was his capital, and under him and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus it grew to be a great merchant city, and also a school of art, science, and philosophy almost as famous as Athens, and with a library containing all the chief books in the world, including the Old Testament. ”

“ Egyptian Christianity, whether founded, according to tradition, by St Mark or not, never seems to have gone through the intermediate stage of observing the prescriptions of the Jewish Law while preaching its abrogation, and, in Alexandria especially, so far appealed to those learned in the Hellenistic and other philosophies as to necessitate the founding of a Christian school there for their study. ”

“ The interesting fact about Alexandria in the history of education, is that it was the home of a modern university in every sense of that term, having particularly the features that many people are prone to think of as representing modern evolution in education. ”

“ Scholar-life in Alexandria.Although the place which Alexandria occupies, or seems to occupy, in the intellectual and literary development of the later Greece and of Occidental culture generally cannot be fitly estimated in a description of the 269local circumstances of Egypt, but only in the delineation of this development itself, the Alexandrian scholarship and its continuation under the Roman government are too remarkable a phenomenon not to have its general position touched on in this connection. ”

“ Read Proclus, and judge for yourselves: but first contrive to finish everything else you have to do which can possibly be useful to any human being. Life is short, and Art—at least the art of obtaining practical guidance from the last of the Alexandrians—very long.
And yet—if Proclus and his school became gradually unfaithful to the great root-idea of their philosophy, we must not imitate them. We must not believe that the last of the Alexandrians was under no divine teaching, because he had be-systemed himself into confused notions of what that teaching was like. ”

“ In the three centuries which intervened between Alexander and Augustus, Athens was preëminently the training school for philosophy, Rhodes, on the other hand, as the only Greek state of political importance in which a career of grand and dignified activity was open for the orator, distinguished itself in the study of eloquence, while Alexandria rested its fame chiefly on the excellence of its instruction in Philology and Medicine. ”

“ There all the sciences then known were pursued, and the most learned men of Greece and of the East gathered beneath its spacious porticos. Here, too, was the nucleus of the famous library of Alexandria.
Passing over the state institute for the promotion of science founded at Constantinople by Caesar Bardas in the 9th century, and the various academies established by the Moors at Granada, at Corduba and as far east as Samarkand, we come to the academy over which Alcuin presided, a branch of the School of the Palace established by Charlemagne in 782. ”

“ These men really shaped out the first form which university education took in Europe, meaning by university education that higher general training which, coming after school discipline, trains men for the duties of social and political as well as scientific and literary life.
In the city life of the Greeks, when residence in any foreign place entailed great inconvenience, it was evident that this university teaching could not occupy a fixed place. It was not till the amalgamation of the Greek nation under Roman sway that Athens became (like Alexandria) strictly a university town. ”

“ As they settled in the various countries which they conquered, education seems to have been considered by them an important object. We even find some of them, in the same generation as Mohammed, obeying strictly the Prophet’s command to send all captive children to school—a fact which speaks as well for the Mussulmans’ good sense, as it speaks ill for the state of education among the degraded descendants of the Greek conquerors of the East. Gradually philosophic Schools arose, first at Bagdad, and then at Cordova ”

“ Western Europe was invaded by the barbarians; letters and science sought a last refuge at Alexandria; the Middle Age commenced.
Greek medicine strove to survive the revolution in the city of the Ptolemies, and even produced a few celebrated physicians, i.e., Alexander Ætius, Alexander Trallian, and Paulus Ægineta, but at the end of the seventh century the school of Alexandria also fell and disappeared in the clouds of a false philosophy, bequeathing all Hippocratic traditions to the Arabs, who advanced as conquerors to the Occident. ”

“ His reputation was so great among the Alexandrians that they are said to have requested him to open a school for teaching the Aristotelian philosophy in their city. [3] He did great service to his fellow-citizens in Alexandria on their being besieged by the Romans in a.d. ”

“ Ptolemy, ... prompted, or at least, encouraged, by the celebrated Demetrius of Phalerus, put into execution a plan for the formal endowment of literature and science. The fact indeed of the possession of an immense library seemed sufficient to render Alexandria a University; for what could be a greater attraction to the students of all lands, than the opportunity afforded them of intellectual converse, not only with the living, but with the dead, with all who had anywhere at any time thrown light upon any subject of inquiry? ”