Theon of Alexandria

“ None of Hypatia’s discourses have been preserved, but we know that with her and with her father, Theon, the great tradition of Plotinus expired at Alexandria.
69 III. CHRISTIANITY. INTRODUCTION. Percolating through the Jewish Communities, the Christian religion reached Egypt as early as the 1st cent. A.D. On its arrival, it found, already established there, two distinct forms of spiritual life.
The first was the spiritual life of Ancient Egypt, which had clung to the soil of the Nile valley for over 4,000 years. ”

“ During the first three years of the reign of Heraclius, Theodoras was Bishop of Alexandria; but upon his death the wishes of the Alexandrians so strongly pointed to John, the son of the prefect of Cyprus, that the emperor, yielding to their request, appointed him to the bishopric. Alexandria was not a place in which a good man could enjoy the pleasures of power without feeling the weight of its duties. It was then suffering under all those evils which usually befall the capital of a sinking state. It had lost much of its trade, and its poorer citizens no longer received a free supply of grain. ”

“ Salutation to Hellanicus whose shoulders were cut through.
And on this day also died the holy father Theonas, the sixteenth Archbishop of the city of Alexandria. This saint was learned, and wise, and strong in the True Faith, and good in every action of his life; and all men loved him because of his learning and wisdom. And he built in the city of Alexandria the church of our holy Lady the Virgin Mary; [until that time] the Christians and the believers were only able to pray and to receive the Eucharist in cells (or caves) secretly because of their fear of the infidels. ”

“ But he of Alexandria was a bishop of no ordinary brand. He bore the title of “Patriarch of all the Preaching of St. Mark,” and a prestige that only Rome challenged. If he lived in these slums, it was because historical associations detained him. The sainted shoemaker Annianus had plied his trade hard by. A church to the right—St. Theonas’—had been built by another local saint. Here were the origins of his power, but its field lay elsewhere—eastward among the splendours of the town; southward, hundreds of miles southward, up the valley of the Nile. The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. ”

“ Marc Antony gave the whole collection of Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, as the foundation of the new library of Alexandria. It was kept in apartments of the great temple of Serapis, which was broken down in A.D. 389 by Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria, “the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ A rich cradle, an illustrious country, in the judgment of men! It is natural that thy children should reverence thee like a mother, Alexandria, and I was begotten in thy magnificently adorned breast. But the ascetic despises nature, the mystic scorns appearances, the Christian regards his native land as a place of exile, the monk is not of this earth. I have turned away my heart from loving thee, Alexandria. I hate thee! I hate thee for thy riches, thy science, thy pleasures, and thy beauty. Be accursed, temple of demons! ”

“ The audacity of Theophilus had inflicted terrible defeats on the non-Christian population of Alexandria, and had utterly disheartened it. On the other hand, the Christian inhabitants showed by their increasing arrogance{44} that they were conscious of the supremacy of their church and of the exclusive protection to which their religion entitled them. However, in spite of this cruel discrimination there still remained at Alexandria a large and intelligent element true to the old religion, or rather to the old philosophy. ”

“ It is a dynasty much censored by historians, but the Egyptians, who lived under it, were more tolerant. For it had one element of greatness: it did represent the complex country that it ruled. In Upper Egypt it carried on the tradition of the Pharaohs: on the coast it was Hellenistic and in touch with Mediterranean culture. After its extinction, the vigour of Alexandria turns inwards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Love, mythological fancies, decorative treatment—he liked these things too, but he backed them with a width of experience and a zest for it that Callimachus and Apollonius never knew. While they are “Classics” who have to be studied, Theocritus appeals to us at once; his Fifteenth Idyll, describing life in the Greek Quarter at Alexandria, is as vivid now as when he wrote it. The dialogue with which it opens can be heard to-day in any of the little drawing rooms of Camp de César or Ibrahimieh. Praxinoe, a lady of the middle classes, is discovered seated, doing nothing in particular. ”

“ In Alexandria, Maximus, [50] who, after the death of Dionysius, [51] had been bishop for eighteen years, was succeeded by Theonas. [52] In his time Achillas, [53] who had been appointed a presbyter in Alexandria at the same time with Pierius, became celebrated. He was placed over the school of the sacred faith, [54] and exhibited fruits of philosophy most rare and inferior to none, and conduct genuinely evangelical.
31. After Theonas had held the office for nineteen years, Peter [55] received the episcopate in Alexandria, and was very eminent among them for twelve entire years. ”

“ Alexander occupied Pharos, and had a walled city marked out by Deinocrates on the mainland to include Rhacotis. A few months later he left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city; but his corpse was ultimately entombed there. His viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadium, however, and the mainland quarters seem to have been mainly Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be larger than Carthage ”

“ After the exploits of Athanasius the Patriarchate of Alexandria became very powerful. In theory Egypt belonged to the Emperor, who sent a Prefect and a garrison from Constantinople; in practise it was ruled by the Patriarch and his army of monks. The monks had not been important so long as each lived alone, but by the 4th cent., they had gathered into formidable communities, whence they would occasionally make raids on civilisation like the Bedouins to-day. One of these communities was only nine miles from Alexandria (the “Ennaton”) , others lay further west, in the Mariout desert ”

“ Alexander at once resolved to take Athanasius into his household and to bring him up as his own son, an inspiration for which he was often to thank God in the years to come. The boy soon grew to love the gentle and holy Patriarch, who could act with such strength and decision when it was needful for the good of the Church. He was constantly in touch with men of every rank and country, for Alexandria was a city where people of all nations and of all creeds met. Pagans, Jews and Christians lived side by side in their various quarters ”

“ Finding that the ancient capitals of the country—Thebes, Sais, and even Memphis itself—occupied positions which were no longer suited to the exigencies of the times, he founded opposite to the island of Pharos, in the township of Eakotis, a city to which he gave his own name. The rapid growth of the prosperity of Alexandria showed how happy the founder had been in the choice of its site: in less than half a century from the date of its foundation, it had eclipsed all the other capitals of the Eastern Mediterranean, and had become the centre of African Hellenism. ”

“ Alexander next passed on to Egypt, where he built, at the mouth of the Nile, the famous city that still is called by his name, Alexandria; indeed he founded cities everywhere, and made more lasting changes than ever did conqueror in the short space of twelve years. He then hunted Darius into the mountain parts of the north of Persia, and after two more victories, the Greeks found the poor Persian king dying on the ground, from wounds given by his own subjects. So the soft silver of Persia yielded to the brazen might of Greece. ”

“ For many centuries Athens retained her prestige as a centre of art and culture; her schools went on indeed to 529 A.D., that is to say for nearly a thousand years; but the leadership in the intellectual activity of the world passed presently across the Mediterranean to Alexandria, the new trading city that Alexander had founded. Here the Macedonian general Ptolemy had become Pharaoh, with a court that spoke Greek. He had become an intimate of Alexander before he became king, and he was deeply saturated with the ideas of Aristotle. ”

“ O royal Harmachis, let not the luxury and beauty of Alexandria poison thy sense; for in their deadly air, Faith perishes, and Religion cannot spread her heavenly wings. When the hour comes for thee to rule, Harmachis, cast down this accursed city and, as thy fathers did, set up thy throne in the white walls of Memphis. For I tell thee that, for Egypt, Alexandria is but a splendid gate of ruin, and, while it endures, all nations of the earth shall march through it, to the plunder of the land, and all false Faiths shall nestle in it and breed the overthrow of Egypt's Gods. ”

“ It took place during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, and we must begin by glancing at his curious career.
53Heraclius was an able and sensitive man—very sensitive, very much in the grip of his own moods. Sometimes he appears as a hero, a great administrator; sometimes as an apathetic recluse. He won his empire (610) by the sword; then the reaction came and he allowed the Persians to occupy Syria and Egypt almost without striking a blow. Alexandria fell by treachery. She was safe on the seaward side, for the Persians had no fleet, and her immense walls made her impregnable by land ”

“ Ptolemy Euergetes (Well-doer) was the son of Philadelphus by his first wife. In character he resembled his grandfather. He was a sensible and successful soldier, with a taste for science. By marrying his cousin Berenice, he secured Cyrene which had lapsed—Berenice the most highly praised of all the Ptolemaic Queens, though we know nothing of her character. In their reign the power of Egypt and the splendour of Alexandria came to their height. It is now time to examine that splendour. One hundred years have passed since Alexander laid the foundations. What has been built upon them? ”

“ Alexandria! the sea, the men, the colossal marble Pharos whose mirror saved men from the sea! Alexandria! the city of the eleven Ptolemies, Physcon, Philometor, Epiphanes, Philadelphos; Alexandria, the climax of all dreams, the diadem of all the glories conquered during three thousand years in Memphis, Thebes, Athens, Corinth, by the chisel, the pen, the compass, and the sword! Still farther away, the Delta, cloven by the seven tongues of Nile, Saïs, Boubastis, Heliopolis ”

“ Alexander, having left a garrison in Gaza, turned his arms toward Egypt; of which he made himself master without opposition. Here he formed the design of visiting the temple of Jupiter, which was situated in the sandy deserts of Lybia at the distance of twelve days' journey from Memphis, the capital of Egypt. His chief object in going thither was to get himself acknowledged the son of Jupiter, an honor he had long aspired to. In this journey he founded the city of Alexandria, which soon became one of the greatest towns in the world for commerce. ”

“ We can picture to ourselves how it must have startled the refined Græco-Egyptian world of Alexandria when occasionally some man, long lost to society and forgotten by his friends, reappeared in the streets and squares of the city, with attenuated limbs and mortified countenance, with a dark hair-cloth tunic for his only clothing, with a reputation for exalted sanctity and spiritual wisdom, and vague rumours of supernatural revelations of the unseen world; like another John Baptist sent to preach repentance to the luxurious citizens ”

“ Among ancient texts on physiognomy, however, perhaps the most famous was the Sirr-el-asrar, or Secreta Secretorum, which was ascribed to Aristotle. Its origin, like that of other pseudo-Aristotelic writings, seems to have been Egyptian. When the conquests of Alexander the Great had opened the way for a new relation between East and West, Egypt, and especially its capital, Alexandria, became the focus of a new philosophic influence. ”

“ 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. ”