Theophilus of Alexandria

“ At that time the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood. His pious indignation was excited by the honors of Serapis; and the insults which he offered to an ancient temple of Bacchus, convinced the Pagans that he meditated a more important and dangerous enterprise. In the tumultuous capital of Egypt, the slightest provocation was sufficient to inflame a civil war. ”

“ When it was signified to the Egyptian monks that Theophilus had broached these sentiments, they went to Alexandria, assembled the people together in one place, excited a tumult, and determined upon slaying the bishop as an impious man. Theophilus, however, presented himself to the insurgents forthwith, and said to them, “When I look upon you, it is as if I beheld the face of God.” ”

“ For Theophilus, who has been entrusted with the presidency of the Church in Alexandria, having been commanded to repair alone to Constantinople, certain men having brought an accusation against him to the most devout Emperor, arrived bringing with him no small multitude of Egyptian Bishops, as if wishing to show from the outset, that he came for war and antagonism ”

“ This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation. His national dislike to the rising greatness of a city which degraded him from the second to the third rank in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal dispute with Chrysostom himself. By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus landed at Constantinople with a stout body of Egyptian mariners, to encounter the populace ”

“ THEOPHILIIS, patriarch of Alexandria, obtained a rescript of the emperor Theodosius, to convert an old deserted temple of Bacchus into a Christian church. In clearing this place, in the subterraneous secret caverns, called by the Greeks Adyta, and held by the pagans as sacred, were found infamous and ridiculous figures, which Theophilus caused to be exposed in public, to show the extravagant superstitions of the idolaters. The heathens in tumults raised a sedition, killed many Christians in the streets, and then retired into the great temple of Serapis as their fortress. ”

“ Theophilus had also quitted the scene with the Comes, leaving the work of devastation in the competent hands of the monks. He knew his skin-clad adherents well; and he knew that within a very few days not an idol, not a picture, not a token would remain intact to preserve the memory of the old gods; a thousand slaves charged to sweep the Serapeum from the face of the earth would have given his impatience twenty times as long to wait. The Comes went off at once to the Hippodrome, preceded by hundreds who had hurried off to tell the assembled multitude that Alexandria had lost her god. ”

“ It is natural that so remote a community should lose touch with the theological niceties of the capital, and in 399 the Patriarch Theophilus was obliged to rebuke the monks for minimising the divine element in the Second Person. Their reply was startling. They crossed the desert, stormed Alexandria, and made the Patriarch apologise. A few years later he led an army into the Wady to punish them, but by now, oddly enough, they had veered to the opposite error; they minimised the human element. The truth is they represented native Egypt, the Patriarch the Hellenising coast. ”

“ This made Theophilus, the busy patriarch of Alexandria, cry out when he lay on his death-bed in 312: “Happy Arsenius! who has had this moment always before his eyes.” His tears did not disfigure his countenance, which, from the inward peace and joy of his soul, mixed with sweet compunction; and from his assiduous conversation with God, appeared to have something angelical or heavenly; being equally venerable for a certain shining beauty, and an inexpressible air of majesty and meekness, in a fair and vigorous old age. The great and experienced master in a contemplative life, St. ”

“ But by the industry of Eusebius,973 who took his surname from the blessed martyr Pamphilus,974 it was reduced to a plainer system; insomuch that what till then used to be enjoined every year throughout all the Churches by the Bishop of Alexandria, might, from that time forward, be most easily known by all men, the occurrence of the fourteenth moon being regularly set forth in its course. This Paschal computation, Theophilus,975 Bishop of Alexandria, made for the Emperor Theodosius, for a hundred years to come. ”

“ Theophilus attacked these men, and they fled to Palestine and ultimately to Constantinople, where they sought the intercession of Chrysostom. The large-hearted patriarch would not undertake to judge the case; but he wrote to Theophilus begging the Alexandrian patriarch to receive the old men back. This brought into the field the ever-recurring jealousy between Alexandria and the upstart imperial city of Constantinople. Theophilus charged Chrysostom with interfering with a matter that was not within his jurisdiction. Then the emperor was persuaded to summon Theophilus to Constantinople. ”

“ These books, with the few that had escaped the flames, formed the second library, and were placed in the Serapeon, or temple of Serapis, which from that time became the resort of all learned men. In A. D. 390, the fanatic Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, worthy of being the friend of the tyrant Theodosius, took advantage of the [Pg 34] protection of that Emperor to disperse the library of the Serapeon, and to drive out the savans who assembled there. He overthrew the temple itself and built a church on its ruins which bore the name of the Emperor Arcadius. ”

“ Because I set the judgement of God before my eyes I cannot be negligent, for I keep in remembrance [the fact that] my sins are many.
253. Whilst Abbâ Arsenius was dwelling in Canopus of Alexandria a certain noble lady came to him; she was a virgin, and was exceedingly rich, and she feared the Lord, and she was from Rome and had come to see Abbâ Arsenius. Now Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, received her, and she begged him to entreat the old man to receive her. ”

“ The rhetorician Libanius († 395) then addressed his celebrated discourse Περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν to the emperor; but the remaining temples were closed and the people were prohibited from visiting them. In Alexandria, under the powerful bishop Theophilus, there were bloody conflicts, in consequence of which the Christians destroyed the beautiful Serapeion in A.D. 391. In vain did the pagans look for the falling down of the heavens and the destruction of the earth; even the Nile would not once by causing blight and barrenness take vengeance on the impious. ”

“ Theophilus and his partisans maintained the opposite side of the question: the people of Alexandria and of Egypt sided with them, and were opposed by the citizens of Constantinople. The strife between the two parties became so vehement that bloodshed ensued; many were wounded, and others slain in the contest. Severian, and all the bishops at Constantinople who did not support the cause of John, became apprehensive for their personal safety, and quitted the city in haste. Theophilus, also, fled the city at the commencement of the winter ”

“ Thus began the famous Quarrel between 280these Two Writers, which occasioned no small Disturbance in the Church, some siding with Jerom against Ruffinus, and others with Ruffinus against Jerom. Among the former, the most sanguine were Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria, Epiphanius Bishop of Constantia in the Island of Cyprus, and Anastasius Bishop of Rome. Theophilus not only condemned in a Council, which he summoned for that Purpose, the Errors of Origen, but Origen himself, declaring him an Heretic, and forbidding all under his Jurisdiction to read, or even keep his Works by them ”

“ But they were now the unpopular party, and could hardly shew themselves in the streets without being attacked and ill-treated. The person of Theophilus was no longer safe in Constantinople; while a more formidable danger was to be apprehended if the general council, which Chrysostom prevailed on the emperor to convoke, met and proceeded to inquire into his conduct. On the plea that his diocese could no longer put up with his absence, Theophilus abruptly left the city, and sailed by night for Alexandria (Socr. H. E. vi. 17; Soz. H. E. viii. 19; Chrys. Ep. ad Innocent.) ”

“ The clergy only needed an equally potent leader on their side, and then the organisation of the hostile forces would be complete. Such a chief was to be found in the Patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, who had already displayed a malignant spirit at the ordination of the Archbishop, though intimidated by Eutropius into submission. ”

“ I have not hesitated to claim for Theophilus of Antioch a primary place among Christian chronologists. It is no detraction from the fame of our author to admit this, and truth requires it. But the great Alexandrian school must again come into view when we speak of any considerable achievements, among early Christian writers, in this important element of all biblical, in fact, all historical, science. Africanus was a pupil of Heraclas, and we must therefore date his pupilage in Alexandria before a.d. ”

“ You had better have continued quiet, than revenged your private Injuries at the Expence of the public Peace, and Tranquillity of the Church, by sowing Dissensions among her Members, 397under the Colour of Piety and Religion [1628] . Theophilus, whom Isidore mentions in his Letter, was Bishop of Alexandria, Uncle to Cyril, and at the Head of the Faction that deposed Chrysostom [1629] .
The Orientals arrive. Five Days after the Deposition of Nestorius, John of Antioch and the Orientals arrived ”

“ He was martyred in 309 a.d. Eusebius wrote his life, but the work is lost. 975. Archbishop of Alexandria, 385-412. He made a cycle of 418 years (19 × 22) for Theodosius, and reckoned the days on which Easter would fall for 100 years from the first year of the consulate of Theodosius (380 a.d.) . 976. The great Archbishop of Alexandria, 412-444. He shortened the cycle of Theophilus, making a cycle of ninety-five years (19 × 5) , for the sake of convenience. Part of his “Computus Paschalis” remains. 977. A monk of the Western Church in the sixth century. ”

“ John the Baptist in the gutted shrine. Here were the head quarters of Theophilus’ nephew, Cyril (p. 51) and hence his supporters issued to murder Hypatia at the other end of the town (415) . With the invasion of the Arabs the darkness increases. The library had already disappeared (the legend accusing them of burning it has the flimsiest foundations) , but they did plenty of harm in other ways: one of the Arab governors threw a quantity of columns into the sea in the hope of obstructing a hostile fleet. When the Crusaders visited Egypt (15th cent.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ Poets and philosophers moved freely from one to the other, and found a like atmosphere in both; and in one of Theocritus’ idyls, two Sicilian gentlemen, crossed in love, agree to sail for Alexandria, and volunteer into the army of the great and good king Ptolemy, of whom a sketch is given worth reading; as a man noble, generous, and stately, “knowing well who loves him, and still better who loves him not.” He has another encomium on Ptolemy, more laboured, though not less interesting: but the real value of Theocritus lies in his power of landscape-painting. ”

“ But it is his great contribution to the literature of Alexandria, and our chief authority for daily life under the Ptolemies. History is too much an affair of armies and kings. The Fifteenth Idyll corrects the error. Only through literature can the past be recovered and here Theocritus, wielding the double spell of realism and of poetry, has evoked an entire city from the dead and filled its streets with men. ”

“ Jealousy was the cause, and heresy the pretext,--that most convenient cry of theologians, often indeed just, as when Bernard accused Abélard, and Calvin complained of Servetus; but oftener, the most effectual way of bringing ruin on a hated man, as when the partisans of Alexander VI. brought Savonarola to the tribunal of the Inquisition. It seems that Theophilus had driven out of Egypt a body of monks because they would not assent to the condemnation of Origen's writings; and the poor men, not knowing where to go, fled to Constantinople and implored the protection of the Patriarch. ”

“ We have noted the same pictorial quality in the Europa of Moschus. Our own age has often been compared to the Alexandrian epoch, to that era of large cities, wealth, refinement, criticism, and science; and the pictorial Idylls of the King very closely resemble the epico-idyllic manner of Alexandria. We have tried to examine the society in which Theocritus lived. But our impressions about the poet are more distinct. In him we find the most genial character; pious as Greece counted piety; p. xliitender as became the poet of love; glad as the singer of a happy southern world should be ”