The School of Alexandria
Introduction
• Long before the establishment of Christianity in Alexandria, the city
was famous for its many schools. By far, the largest school was
the "Museum" which was founded by Ptolemy and became the most
famous school in the East.
• In addition, there were the "Serapeum" and the "Sebastian." Each of
these three schools had its own huge library.
• The Museum's library, whose directors were among the most
remarkable scholars of the world, grew to the point where it
housed 700,000 volumes, making it an arsenal of knowledge that was
astounding for its time.
• The Museum was a sort of university in which the most distinguished
writers, scientists, and philosophers gathered and worked.
•
COPTIC CHRISTIANITY
• St. mark considered the first Alexandrian bishop later
appointed anianus a shoemaker as his successor.
• the current pope of Alexandria (pope Tawadros the second
is the 118th pope of the sea of Alexandria.
• in the first three centuries there were four major
Christian seas:
• Jerusalem
• Antioch (where the disciples were first called Christians)
acts 11:26.(
• Alexandria
• Rome
Contributions of the Coptic Church to Christianity and
the world
 The Catechetical School of Alexandria and some of its
brilliant teachers.
 Its major role in formulating the Creed as we know it now.
 Its role in ecumenical councils.
 Its pioneering of monasticism.
 Its numbers of martyrs (the largest in Christian history).
 Its missionary work abroad.
Coptic Christianity
Origin ACTS 2:10
in the day of Pentecost, there were people from
Egypt .And they were all amazed and marveled,
saying one to another, Behold, are not all these
which speak Galileans? And how hear we every
man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
• St. mark the apostle is credited with preaching
Christianity in Egypt.
• he was martyred and buried in Egypt .
• his body was later stolen by venetian merchants
in 828 ad.
• it was buried later in st. mark’s basilica in Venice.
• St. Mark established a divinity school as a means to anchor the Christian faith and develop
the spirituality and the intellect of the Church members. It also acted as a Catechetical School
and prepare catechumen for baptism. St. Mark appointed St. Yustus as the director of the
Patriarch for the See of Alexandria.
The Catechetical school of Alexandria
 Established 190 AD
 First dean was Pantinus.
 Followed by Clement of Alexandria.
 Followed by Origen:
 He was appointed as dean of the school at the age of 19.
 His most famous work is the Hexapla, an Old Testament
publication that included the original Hebrew Old
Testament with five different Greek translations in
parallel columns.
 He also credited by writing exegetic books for all the
scriptures. The most notable was his on the Song of
Solomon.
Alexandria
• Alexandria, the cosmopolitan city, was chosen as a home for
learning, and a unique center of a brilliant intellectual life, where
Egyptian, Greek and Jewish cultures together with eastern mystic
thoughts were nourished and gave rise to a new civilization.
• In such an environment, there was no alternative but to establish
a Christian institution to enable the church to face the battle
which was waged by these powerful schools.
• It is highly probable that there were well-educated Christians in
Alexandria in the apostolic times. In the Acts of the Apostles
(1824), St. Luke tells of Apollos who was a learned Jew of
Alexandria and mighty in the Scriptures he may well have learnt
there the knowledge of Jesus that he possessed before he
met Aquilla and Priscilla.
• The Christian School
• St. Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by
St. Mark himself. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to establish it
to teach Christianity, as this was the only way to give the new religion a
solid foundation in the city.
• The School became the oldest center for sacred sciences in the history of
Christianity. In it, the first system of Christian theology was formed
and the allegorical (figurative) method of biblical exegesis (interpretation)
was devised.
Its primary concern was the study of the Bible, giving its name to an
influential tradition of scriptural interpretation. The preoccupation of
this school of exegesis was to discover everywhere the spiritual sense
underlying the written word of the Scripture.
Program
• The School's activities were not limited to theology only. Its
teaching was encyclopedic first presenting the whole series
of profane sciences, and then rising to moral and
religious philosophy, and finally to Christian theology, as
set forth in the form of commentaries on the
sacred books.
• This encyclopedic conception of teaching was
an Alexandrian tradition, for it was also found in
Alexandrian pagan and Jewish schools.
• Three courses were available
•
1. A special course for non-Christians, which
introduced candidates to principles of
Christianity.
Courses
2. A course on Christian morals.
•
3. An advanced course on divine wisdom and
sufficient knowledge for the spiritual Christian.
• Worship went side by side with study in the
School. Teachers and their students
practiced prayer, fasting and diverse ways of
asceticism.
The Characteristics of Alexandrian Theology
• Besides the main Alexandrian views on allegorism, philosophy,
and knowledge (gnosis)
• I. Deification (The grace of renewal)
• Many scholars see the core of Alexandrian theology
as Deification or the grace of renewal. By deification the
Alexandrians mean the renewal of human nature as a whole, to
attain sharing in the characteristics of our Lord Jesus Christ in
place of the corrupt human nature, or as the apostles state that
the believer may enjoy "the partaking in the divine nature" (2
Peter 1:4)
II. ONENESS OF LIFE
• The School of Alexandria reveals to us the oneness of life in
Christ. The dean and his students did not isolate the study of
religion, philosophy and science from their church life nor from
their daily life. They believed in one (integral) life in
Christ. This was revealed in their study, worship, conduct,
preaching and witnessing to Christ.
YOSTIUS
EUMENIUS
MARCIANIUS
ATHENAGORAS
PANTAENUS
CLEMENT
ORIGEN
DIONYSIUS
DIDYMUS
ATHANASIU
4. Famous Deans of the School of Alexandria
St Mark
St Clement
Origen
St Didymius
Pope Shenouda
Archdeacon Habib Girgis
St Cyril
St Athanasius
2. What is the School of Alexandria? (cont)
 It was shut down in about the 5th
Century by the Chalcedonians (Eastern
Orthodox) who used it as a tool of
persecution.
 Pope Cyril the 5th re-established it in
1875 as the Coptic Orthodox Theological
College which we know today.
 Some of the great modern day deans
include Deacon Habib Girgis and His
Holiness Pope Shenouda III.
 The work of the great fathers continue
to this day.
St. Pantaenus:
+ His disciple, Clement, described him as “the
Sicilian bee” gathering the nectar of the flowers of
the prophetic and apostolic meadows, placing in the
souls of his hearers a treasure of pure and
everlasting knowledge.
+ He was born and raised in Alexandria in the early
second century, he was a famous stoic philosopher.
• + He converted to Christianity at the hands of
Athenagoras, and in 181 AD he became his
successor as a director of the divinity school for
about ten years.
+ He, and his disciples and aids, get the credit for
establishing the current Coptic alphabet and the
current evolution of our ancient Egyptian language. He
used the Greek alphabet and added to it seven ancient
demotic letters. This enabled the translation of the
Holy Bible into Coptic under his supervision.
Researchers give this translation a great importance,
some even consider it equal to the original Greek
Septuagint itself.
• + In 190 AD, Pope Demetrius sent him to a Christian
mission to India, so he left the school under the
directorship of Clement. He also preached in
Ethiopia, Arabian Peninsula, and Yemen.
• + He departed in 202 AD.
Famous Deans – Origen (185-254AD)
 The most controversial figure in the history of the
Church.
 He longed to follow his father to martyrdom but was
thwarted by his mother hiding his clothes.
 Origen was the most distinguished and intelligent
Dean of the School of Alexandria – he is said to have
written 6000 works.
 He was the most influential father in establishing
Alexandria as an allegorical school (looking beyond
the literal meaning of the text). It is for this reason that
the Coptic church has such a rich Biblical tradition.
Famous Deans – Origen (185-254AD)
 He castrated himself following a literal interpretation of Christ’s
teaching.
 When he accepted Priesthood without the permission of the
Pope (as a eunuch) he was exiled to Caesarea.
 St Gregory the Miracle Performed (Origen’s disciple) writes;
 He truly was a paradise to us after the likeness of
the paradise of God.
 J Quasten writes;
 The School of Alexandria reached its greatest importance
under Origen, the outstanding teacher and scholar of the
early Church...a man of encyclopaedic learning, and one
of the most original thinkers the world has ever seen.
Famous Deans: St Athanasius (293 -373AD)
 Fought his whole life against the Arian heresy.
 Arian heresy preaches that the Son is not equal
to the Father.
 He defended the Church at the Council of Nicea
and was instrumental in the formulation of the
Nicean Creed.
 He was exiled 5 times and endured great
hardship.
 The famous saying Athanasius Contra Mundum
(Against the World) is attributed to him because
he truly fought the world in his defence of
Christianity against Arianism.
Famous Deans: St Athanasius (293 -373AD)
St Athanasius wrote Life of Anthony,
which is a very famous biography of
the monastic father, St Anthony.
This book Egypt become the centre of
monasticism for all the world.
St Epiphaneus called him the
Father of Orthodoxy.
Famous Deans: St Cyril (376-444AD)
 Nestorius
was
the
Bishop
of
Constantinople and he began preaching
that Christ has two natures: human and
divine.
 Therefore he could not accept the title of St
Mary, Mother of God, as he believed that St
Mary gave birth to the man Jesus, and
therefore, she should be called Christokos
(mother of Christ).
 St Cyril, like Athanasius before him, defended the
faith and insisted that there was only ONE nature
in Christ, both human and divine, without mingling.
Famous Deans: St Cyril (376-444AD)
 St Cyril was the main father in the Third
Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431AD.
 He condemned Nestorius and his teachings.
 St Cyril was the defender of St Mary and her title as
Mother of God, and he wrote the introduction to the
Creed (We Honour you Mother of Light).
 St Cyril was a perfect example of a humble and just
man in the face of persecution, but a fierce lion if the
faith is endangered.
 St Cyril wrote:
 I am ready to endure with tranquility all blame, all
humiliations, all injuries provided that the faith is no
endangered. I am filled with love for Nestorius,
nobody loves him more than me.
What to take away
The Coptic Church has defended and preserved the faith throughout
the whole of its history.
We should be proud to belong to a Church with such a rich history.
It is up to us to continue the work of the School of Alexandria in
defending the faith against heresy, and spreading the faith to all
nations.
We must always strive to continue learning about our rich tradition,
to ensure that its legacy continues.