CULTURAL CENTERS IN LATE ANTIQUITY: ALEXANDRIA

Abstract: A brief introduction to Alexandria, its rise as an intellectual and educational center, and the figures and activities that developed there in Late Antiquity

Keywords: Alexandria, library, grammar, philosophy, theology, Neoplatonism, monasticism, Antony, Arius

Unlike Athens, whose faded intellectual glory was revived in Late Antiquity, Alexandria never ceased to shine with its reputation as a literary and scientific center since Hellenistic times. A traditional center of grammar studies (including the reading and interpretation of classical texts from the Greek literary canon), the city continued to develop as such in the 4th–5th centuries. One of the prominent representatives of the Alexandrian grammatical tradition during the Late Antiquity is, for example, Didymus,^[1] who apparently came from Alexandria and received his education there but worked as a teacher in Antioch and Constantinople and taught the poets of the young Libanius.^[2] In Late Antiquity, however, the city was much more than that. Here was the first and main center of the spread of monasticism, whose heroes such as Antony and Pachomius – essentially Coptic hermits – became popular thanks to works such as the Life of Antony by Athanasius and the Sentences of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata patrum).^[3] Here, along with the followers of Arius, the first great Christological disputes in Christian theology arose, among which the personality of Athanasius of Alexandria stood out. Here is also one of the inluencial centers of late antique Neoplatonism, where already in the 3rd century figures such as Plotinus and Porphyry took their first steps in philosophy.^[4] In the 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries, the Neoplatonist mathematician and philosopher Theon and his daughter Hypatia,^[5] the philosophy teacher of Synesius of Cyrene,^[6] who was killed by an angry crowd of Christian monks in 415, worked here.^[7]

Initially, the city was known for the great Royal Library of the Ptolemies and its adjacent Museum (Μουσεῖον), which is a sanctuary of the Muses. A series of events involving the fire during the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey in 48 BC. and the destruction of the entire neighborhood of the Brucheion in the campaigns of Emperor Aurelian against Zenobia (272 AD) put an end to the Library and Museum. In Late Antiquity, the temple of Sarapis, or the Serapeum (Σεραπεῖον), which earlier in the Hellenistic era was considered a second or "daughter" library to the Great, became a similar center.^[8]

Alexandria has always been a territory of coexistence and exchange between different ethno-cultural communities: Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews. While the intellectual climate elsewhere was relatively monolithic (for example, the Athenian sophist Proheresius was a Christian, but this little distinguished him in teaching and behavior from his fellow pagans), in Alexandria, the processes were different. Here, in the second half of the 2nd century and in the 3rd century, a synthesis between Greek and Christian thought, between the metaphysics of Neoplatonism and Christian theology, took place for the first time in the person of intellectuals such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, both of whom formed a circle of disciples around him, and Origen was the first to draw up a program for systematic philosophical education entirely on Christian foundations.^[9] In the first decades of the 4th century, a similar circle tried to gather with its sermons and presbyter Arius. But his views, influenced by the logic and theology of Neoplatonism, set the stage for the most dramatic Christological controversy in the history of the Church up to that time. To Arian's synthesis of Christianity and secular philosophy, denying the divine and consubstantial nature of Christ with the Father, his greatest opponent, Patriarch Athanasius, opposes a new figure with a great future in the history of Christianity – that of the ascetic, the hermit, the monk.^[10] In his "Life of Antony" in the face of the first great ascetic of the Egyptian desert, the Alexandrian patriarch describes the true Christian philosopher. In the work, it is repeatedly emphasized that Antony remained ignorant all his life (Athanas. Vita Ant. PG XXVI 841), but with his words – as well as with his miracles – he always defeated and amazed even the highly educated (Athanas. Vita Ant. PG XXVI 956). In many places in the rich work of Athanasius, the terms "philosopher," "sophist," "rhetor," and "poet" have a pejorative connotation – these are the bearers of worldly, pagan false wisdom that is shamed at every contact with the authentic wisdom of the Scriptures, asceticism, and communion with God.^[11] Therefore, from now on, the development of a Christian philosophical-religious synthesis combining God's Revelation with the intellectual achievements of Platonism, for example, in the work of authors such as Evagrius Pontius towards the end of the 5th century, will almost inevitably pass through the prism of hermitage, prayer, and monastic asceticism.^[12]

In the second half of the same century, Alexandrian Neoplatonism also had its purely pagan, even radically pagan branch, centered around the Serapeum and associated with mathematical, musical, and astronomical studies such as those of Theon and his ill-fated daughter Hypatia. Initially, the Theonic school was extremely focused on the problems of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy (of which astrology in this age was an inseparable part). On this basis, the study of Plato and other authors in his tradition, as well as Aristotle, was built on – especially after his daughter took over the school, which happened towards the end of the 80s of the 4th century.^[13] Probably in the late years of her teaching career – and of her life – Hypatia made an even more complete return to the beginnings of Platonic and Neoplatonic cosmogony and metaphysics through the study and teaching of the exact sciences.^[14] If we accept the existence of two trends after the destruction of the Serapeum by an angry mob of Christian monks in 391,^[15] Athens gradually displaced Alexandria as a flourishing philosophical center in the 5th century. One of the most influential Neoplatonists of this century, Proclus Diadochus, settled in Athens after and even as a young man learning, he found that Alexandria was no longer able to transmit Plato's teachings in a pure and unadulterated form.^[16]

^[1] PLRE I Didymus 1

^[2] Kaster 1988: 269–270.

^[3] See Robertson 2007: 139 n.3, where a review of the scholarly literature on the subject leads the author to conclude that the key works Contra Gentiles (Contra gentiles) and De incarnatione were most likely written by Athanasius in Alexandria shortly before his first exile from the city.

^[4] See Smith 2004: 7 (Plotinus); 62 (Porphirius).

^[5] Watts 2017: 36–46.

^[6] Димитров 2005: 96–105.

^[7] Watts 2006: 198-202. In their analysis of the Pagan and Christian records of Hypatia and her school, Watts and Dimitrov agree that the Neoplatonism taught in her school (despite the dramatic religious conflicts in Alexandria at the time) was far removed from the radical paganism and traditionalism of the Iamblichian movement and was much more open to Christian followers. Paradoxically, perhaps this is exactly what makes Patriarch Cyril and the leaders of Alexandrian Christianity see her as a threat to their positions in the city.

^[8] Watts 2006: 145–150.

^[9] See the study of Trigg 1998, especially 16–35.

^[10] Watts 2006: 174–177.

^[11] See for example In caec. PG XXVIII 1020; Contra gentes 19; De inc. verbi 47.5 etc.

^[12] For the ascetic life of Evagrius see Palladius Laus. 38 и Casiday 2013: 9–27.

^[13] Watts 2006: 193.

^[14] Watts 2017: 36–46.

^[15] For the latest interpretations of this historical event see Rohmann 2022.

^[16] Watts 2006:92.

REFERENCES

 Sources 

Athanasius. Contra gentes and De incarnatione, ed. and transl. by R.W. Thomson, Oxford, 1971.

The Lausiac History of Palladius, voll. I-II, ed. by E.C. Butler, Cambridge, 1898.

S. P. N. Athanasii archiepiscopi Alexandrini Opera omnia quae exstant. Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca, Acc. J.-P. Migne, Vol. XXVIII, Parisiis, 1887.

Secondary Sources

Casiday 2013: Casiday, A. (2013), Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus (Cambridge).

 Kaster 1988: Kaster, R.A. (1988), Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley).

 Robertson 2007: Robertson, J. (2007), Christ as Mediator. A Study of the Theologies of Eusebius of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and Athanasius of Alexandria, Oxford.

 Rohmann 2022: Rohmann, D. (2022), "The Destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria, Its Library, and the Immediate Reactions", Klio 104(1), 334–362.

 Smith 2004: Smith, A. (2004), Philosophy in Late Antiquity (London).

 Trigg 1998: Trigg, J.W. (1998), Origen (London). 

 Watts 2006: Watts, E.J. (2006), City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria  (Berkeley).

 Димитров 2005: Димитров, Д. (2005), Философия, култура и политика в Късната античност. Случат на Синезий от Кирена (Велико Търново).