The port-city in Egypt at the western extreme of the Nile Delta founded by Alexander the Great and named after himself. It grew to become one of the most spectacular and important commercial and cultural centers of the ancient world rivaling even Rome in its grandeur and fame. From the middle of the 2nd Cent AD onwards Alexander became an important center of Christian scholarship, producing its own particular brand of 'Alexandrian school of exegesis in competition with Anchioch.
Founded on the foundations of a ancient village on a ridge of land lying between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis by Alexander in 331 BC, the city grew under the Ptolemys who inherited Egypt in the aftermath of Alexander's death. Not only did it become the capital of Egypt, it also became a cultural, commercial and administrative metropolis of the first order. Pharos, the colossal lighthouse that astrided the entrance of its harbour was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world; estimated a hundred metres tall, its light became a beacon for ships tens of kilometres out at sea. From here, gallants loaded with Egyptian wheat fed Rome. Its library, boasting tens of thousands of papyrus rolls in its day, remains one of the most renowned.
Alexandria quickly became a major center of the Jewish diaspora, with their own residential and civil district. Philo the Jewish philosopher and historian made it his home and base. And it was here in the city that the first Greek translation of Hebrew Old Testament—the Septuagint—came to be made.
By the end of the 1st Cent BC, Alexandria became caught up in Roman politics. Pompey was murdered when he arrived seeking refuge from Julius Caesar in . Julius Caesar arrived soon afterwards and found himself besieged when he tried to interfere on Cleopatra's behalf in her struggle for power with her brother. He was eventually rescued, with Antipater, the father of Herod the Great play no small part, and reaping the benefits of Roman favour in Judea afterwards. After Caesar's murder and Mark Anthony came to power, Cleopatra enticed him and made the city their home and love-nest.
Alexandria also became one of the most important centers of theological development in the Christian world during the 4-5th Cent. Christian influence in the city began, so tradition had it, when Mark the Evangelist planted a church here. Here he died and was buried. In 829 two Venetian merchants engineered a plot to purloin St Mark's body and carted it off to Venice, where it became the glory of the city until a palace fire consumed it in 976 (the rebuilt San Marco is a major tourist attraction in Venice). Origen gained his fame as head of the Catechetical School in in the city, and it was here that the Arian controversy first began and, in the protracted battles afterwards, brought such illustrious Christians thinkers like Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria to the fore. It was also here that the early Church committed on of its most ghastly crimes; the public and senseless murder of the famed Hypatia.
©ALBERITH
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