Alexandrian school

the scholarly tradition of ancient Alexandria

The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Alexandria was a remarkable center of learning due to the blending of Greek and Oriental influences, its favorable situation and commercial resources, and the enlightened energy of some of the Macedonian Dynasty of the Ptolemies ruling over Egypt, in the final centuries BC. Much scholarly work was collected in the great Library of Alexandria during this time. Large amounts of epic poetry and works on geography, history, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and medicine were composed in Alexandria during this period. Alexandrian school is also used to describe the religious and philosophical developments in Alexandria after the 1st century. The mix of Jewish theology and Greek philosophy led to a syncretic mix and much mystical speculation. The Neoplatonists devoted themselves to examining the nature of the soul, and sought communion with God. The two great schools of biblical interpretation in the early Christian church incorporated Neoplatonism and philosophical beliefs from Plato's teachings into Christianity, and interpreted much of the Bible allegorically. The founders of the Alexandrian school of Christian theology were Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great during his Egyptian campaign, was well positioned to become a center of culture and commerce. As it grew into a major seaport, it became a hub for trade and travel throughout the Mediterranean world, serving as a gateway between East and West. The natural advantages it enjoyed were increased to an enormous extent by the care of the sovereigns of Egypt. Ptolemy Soter (reigned 323–285 BC), to whom Egypt had fallen after the death of Alexander, began to subsidize Greek scholars and poets in Alexandria as part of his broader campaign to Hellenize Egypt. Under the inspiration of his friend Demetrius of Phalerum, the Athenian orator, statesman, and philosopher, Ptolemy laid the foundations of the Musaeum: a large complex which contained the Library of Alexandria. The work begun by Ptolemy Soter was carried on by his descendants, in particular by his two immediate successors, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Ptolemy Euergetes. Philadelphus (285–247), whose librarian was the celebrated Callimachus, gathered all the works of Aristotle, and also introduced a number of Jewish and native Egyptian works. Among these appears to have been a portion of the Septuagint. Euergetes (247–222) increased the library by seizing on the original editions of the dramatists from the Athenian archives, and by compelling all travelers who arrived in Alexandria to leave a copy of any work they possessed. Despite sharing certain tendencies, there was never a definitively "Alexandrian" system of thought. The literary, scientific, and philosophical activities of Alexandrian scholars in the Hellenistic and Roman periods were highly varied; they have only in common a certain spirit or form. This intellectual "school" lasted centuries and can be split into two major periods. The first period extends from about 306 to 30 BC, the time from the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty to the annexation of Egypt by the Romans; the second extends from 30 BC to the destruction of the Great Library sometime before or upon the capture of Alexandria by 'Amr ibn al 'As in 641 AD. Scholarship of the early Ptolemaic period was usually either literary or scientific. This tendency reflects the larger project of the early Ptolemies to synthesize Egyptian and Hellenic intellectual culture. By the 1st century BC, the Alexandrian school began to fracture and diversify. This was due in part to the relative weakness of the government under the later Ptolemies, but also to the rise of new scholarly circles in Rhodes, Syria and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. This gradual dissolution was much increased when Alexandria fell under Roman sway. As the influence of the school was extended over the whole Graeco Roman world, scholars began to concentrate at Rome rather than at Alexandria. In Alexandria, however, there were new forces in operation, which produced a second great outburst of intellectual life. The new movement, which was influenced by Judaism and Christianity, resulted in the speculative philosophy of the Neoplatonists and the religious philosophy of the Gnostics and early church fathers.

After the Roman conquest, pure literature bears the stamp of Rome rather than of Alexandria. But in Alexandria for some time there had been various forces working, and these, coming in contact with great spiritual changes in the world, produced a second outburst of intellectual activity, which is generally known as the Alexandrian school of philosophy. The doctrines of this school were a fusion of Eastern and Western thought, typically combining in varying proportions elements of Hellenistic and Jewish philosophy, but also in the case of Pyrrhonism elements of Buddhism that had been brought back from India by the ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho of Elis and of which the Alexandrian school philosopher Aenesidemus (c. first century BC) was particularly influential. The Stromata of Clement of Alexandria contains the earliest surviving mention of the Buddha in Western literature. The city of Alexandria had gradually become the neutral ground of Europe, Asia and Africa. Its population, then as at the present day, was a heterogeneous collection of all races. Alexander had planted a colony of Jews who had increased in number until at the beginning of the Christian era they occupied two fifths of the city and held some of the highest offices. The contact of Jewish theology with Greek speculation became the great problem of thought. The Jewish ideas of divine authority and their transcendental theories of conduct were peculiarly attractive to the Greek thinkers who found no inspiration in the dry intellectualism of Hellenistic philosophy. At the same time the Jews had to some extent shaken off their exclusiveness and were prepared to compare and contrast their old theology with cosmopolitan culture. Thus the Hellenistic doctrine of personal revelation could be combined with the Jewish tradition of a complete theology revealed to a special people. The result was the application of a purely philosophical system to the somewhat vague and unorganized corpus of Jewish theology. According to the relative predominance of these two elements arose Gnosticism, the Patristic theology, and the philosophical schools of Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism. The first concrete exemplification of this is found in Aristobulus (c. 160 BC). So far as the Jews are concerned, the great name is that of Philo in the 1st century. He took Greek metaphysical theories, and, by the allegorical method, interpreted them in accordance with the Jewish Revelation. He dealt with (a) human life as explained by the relative nature of Humanity to God, (b) the Divine nature and the existence of God, and, (c) the great Logos doctrine as the explanation of the relation between God and the material universe. From these three arguments he developed a syncretism of oriental mysticism and pure Greek metaphysics. The first pure philosophy of the Alexandrian school was Neopythagoreanism, the second and last Neoplatonism. Their doctrines were a synthesis of Platonism, Stoicism and the later Aristotelianism with a dose of oriental mysticism which gradually became more and more important. The world to which they spoke had begun to demand a doctrine of salvation to satisfy the human soul. They endeavoured to deal with the problem of good and evil. They therefore devoted themselves to examining the nature of the soul, and taught that its freedom consists in communion with God, to be achieved by absorption in a sort of ecstatic trance. This doctrine reached its height with Plotinus; later followers emphasized theurgy in its unsuccessful combat with Christianity. Finally this pagan theosophy was driven from Alexandria back to Athens under Plutarch of Athens and Proclus, and occupied itself largely in commentaries based mainly on the attempt to re organize ancient philosophy in conformity with the system of Plotinus. This school ended under Damascius when Justinian closed the Athenian schools (529). Neoplatonism had a considerable effect on certain Christian thinkers at the beginning of the 3rd century. Among these the most important were Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Clement, as a scholar and a theologian, proposed to unite the mysticism of Neoplatonism with the practical spirit of Christianity. He combined the principle of pure living with that of free thinking, and held that instruction must regard the mental capacity of the hearer. The compatibility of Christian and later Neoplatonic ideas is evidenced by the writings of Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, and though Neoplatonism eventually succumbed to Christianity.

The two first great anatomists, Herophilus and Erasistratus, practiced in Alexandria.