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figure 2
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The Alexandria that Mark traveled to was
a shining, vibrant urban center, famous for its founding by Alexander
the Great and for the buildings and institutions of the Ptolemaic
Greeks who had ruled it for three hundred years until its conquest
by Rome: I’ll
mention only the lighthouse, called Pharos in Greek, and the
library. [figure 2] Alexandria
had all the amenities of Greco-Roman city life, and Alexandria
was distinctly cosmopolitan, with Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian districts,
as well as visitors from around the known world. The late first-century
Greek Sophist and famous orator Dio Chrysostom—his name, Chrysostom,
a moniker really, means “golden tongued”—Dio Chrysostom
spoke in the Great Theater at Alexandria and was dazzled by the
diversity of his audience: “There
were not only Greeks and Italians, but also Syrians, Libyans,
Cilicians and yet others from farther countries—Ethiopians, Arabs,
as well as Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and a few Indians.” Roman
Alexandria was one of several havens for intellectuals from around
the known world. It had a venerable yet dynamic tradition of scholarship
in philosophy and religion established in its famous schools.
It was here, in Roman Alexandria, that the Hebrew Bible was translated
into Greek. And it was this environment that nurtured some of
the greatest theologians of the first Christian centuries, including
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215 A.D.) and Origen (ca. 185–254
A.D.). Early Christian theology and subsequent developments of
it owe a great deal to Alexandria. In matters of theology and doctrine,
cosmopolitan Egypt is as much a source for Christianity as it is
a receptacle. |
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