old one, against all such teaching, and threatened the disobedient with severe punishment; and many of the learned men of Alexandria then fled into Syria, to claim protection of the Persians, and to avoid the persecution without wounding their consciences. The philosophical school, through the works of Plotinus and Porphyry and their successors, had altered the face of paganism, and, through the writings of Clemens, Origen, and other Alexandrian fathers, had worked no little change on the opinions of the Suidas. Christian world; but it had been closed when Sopater the professor was put to death by Constantine. Since that time the laws against the philosophers had been less strictly enforced; but under Justinian the pagan schools were again and for ever brought to a close. Isidorus the Platonist and Salustius the Cynic were among the learned men of greatest note who then withdrew from Alexandria. Isidorus had been chosen by Marinus as his successor in the Platonic chair at Athens, to fill the high post of the Platonic successor; but he had left the Athenian school to Zenodotus, Damascius, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to Alexandria. apud Pho- Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed tium. with Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who when they soon afterwards made a treaty of peace with Justinian, generously bargained that these men, the last teachers of paganism, should be allowed to return home, and pass the rest of their days in quiet.

Photius.

(25) On the flight of the pagan philosophers, very little learning was left in Alexandria. Themistius, a deacon, was at the head of the sect of Agnoeta, who were so called because they taught that Jesus was not infinite in wisdom, and might possibly have been ignorant of some things. Theodorus, a monk, took the other side in this controversy, but was nevertheless thought equally heretical with Themistius, as he equally denied the two natures of Christ, and said that divinity itself had suffered on the cross. One of the most remarkable men in this age of ignorance

was Cosmas, an Alexandrian merchant, who wished that the world should not only be enriched but enlightened by his travels. After making many voyages through Ethiopia to India for the sake of gain, he quitted trade and became a monk and an author. When he writes as a traveller about the Christian churches of India and Ceylon, and the inscriptions which he copied at Adule in Abyssinia, everything that he tells us is valuable; but when he reasons as a monk, the case is sadly changed. He is of the dogmatical school which forbids all inquiry as heretical. He fights the battle which has been so often fought before and since, and is even still fought so resolutely, the battle of religious ignorance against scientific knowledge. He sets the words of the Bible against the results of science; he denies that the world is a sphere, and quotes the Old Testament against the pagan astronomers, to show that it is a plane, covered by the firmament as by a roof, above which he places the kingdom of heaven. His work is named Christian Topography, and he is himself usually called Cosmas Indicopleustes, from the country which he visited.

(26) The arguments employed by Cosmas were unfortunately but too often used by the Christian world in general, who were even willing to see learning itself fall with the overthrow of paganism. The great poets were forbidden because they had written about their gods. Statues were no longer admired because they had been made to be worshipped. Among the Egyptians in particular, mathematics, astronomy, history, and indeed all learning, had been in the hands of the priests; so when knowledge was divided into sacred and profane, whatever was not drawn from the Scriptures was slighted and neglected; and this was one of the chief causes of the darkness which overspread the world during the middle ages. But we must confine ourselves to what took place in Egypt. When Christianity was first preached in Alexandria, the converts saw no opposition between religion on the one hand and philosophy and science on the other, while many thought that the spread of the gospel truths might be aided by learning. Hence they founded the catechetical school, which, though uncountenanced and unendowed by emperors, brought forth Christian scholars, who at the time threw the well-paid

pagan professors of the Alexandrian Museum into the shade. The troubled and rebellious state of Egypt during the fifty years which began with the persecution of Decius and ended with that of Diocletian, mark an important break and change in the history of Christianity. Before that time the Christian may trace with unmixed pleasure the silent struggle between Christianity and paganism, and, watching the action and reaction of these systems on one another, may note with pride, as far as the scanty annals allow, the influence of Christianity on manners, philosophy, and pagan literature. But no sooner were the Christians numerous enough to be divided into sects, and enough at ease to quarrel about their opinions, than we find, unfortunately, ignorance and the more popular opinions ranged on one side, against learning with the less popular opinions on the other. We then find creeds and fetters placed on the mind; the catechetical school is closed under the persecution of the Homoousian party, and the opinions of the unlettered monks are quoted as of greater weight than those of Clemens and Origen. Soon afterwards the pagan philosophers are forbidden to teach; and lastly, even the more certain truths of mathematics and astronomy are disbelieved, because they are not found in the Bible. Such were the steps by which learning fell in Alexandria, hastened by the fall of the Greek power, and by the Egyptians gaining strength in their own country, and no doubt by many other causes too deep for our search. (27) During the latter years of the government of Apollinarius, such was his unpopularity as a spiritual Chronogr. bishop, that both the rival parties, the Gaianites and the Theodosians, had been building places of worship for themselves, and the more zealous Jacobites had quietly left the churches to Apollinarius and the royalists. But on the death of an archdeacon they again came to blows with the bishop; and a monk had his beard torn off his chin by the Gaianites in the streets of Alexandria. The emperor was obliged to interfere, and he sent the abbot Photinus to Egypt to put down this rebellion, and heal the quarrel in the church. Apollinarius died soon afterwards, and Justinian then appointed John to the joint office of prefect of the city and patriarch of the church. The new archbishop was accused of being a Manichæan; but this

Theophanes,

seems to mean nothing but that he was too much of the Egyptian party, and that, though he was the imperial patriarch, and not acknowledged by the Coptic church, yet his opinions were disliked by the Greeks. On his death, which happened in about three years, they chose Peter, who held the Jacobite or Egyptian opinions, and whose name is not mentioned in the Greek lists of the patriarchs. Peter died in the same year with the emperor.

De Saulcy,

(28) Under Justinian we again find some small traces of a national coinage in Egypt. Ever since the reign of Diocletian, the old Egyptian coinage had been Monet. Byz. stopped, and the Alexandrians had used money of the same weight, and with the same Latin inscriptions as the rest of the empire. But under Justinian, though the inscriptions on the coins are still Latin, they have the name of the city in Greek letters. Like the coins of Constantinople, they have a cross, the emblem of Christianity: but while the other coins of the empire have the Greek numeral letters, E, I, K, A, or M, to denote the value, meaning 5, 10, 20, 30, or 40, the coins of Alexandria have the letters IB for 12, showing that they were on a different system of weights from those of Constantinople. On these the head of the emperor is in profile (see Fig. 136). But later in his reign

the style was changed, the coins were made larger, and the head of the emperor had a front face. On these larger coins the numeral letters are AT for 33. We thus learn that the Alexandrians at this time paid and received money rather by weight than by tale, and avoided all depreciation of the currency. As the early coins marked 12 had become lighter by wear, those which were meant to be of about three times their value were marked 33 (see Fig. 137).

(29) In the reign of JUSTIN II., the successor of Justinian,

an inscription in the island of Phile tells us that the temple of Isis was again a Christian church under ap. Boeckh. a bishop of the name of Theodorus and under the guard of a prefect of the same name. We have seen that in the reign of Marcian paganism had regained its old

Inscript.

Chronicon

Fig. 137.

ground and for the time established itself there. Justin II. reigned twelve years, TIBERIUS reigned four years, Alexandr. and MAURICIUS, his son-in-law, twenty; and under A.D. 566. these sovereigns the empire gained a little rest A.D. 578. from its enemies by a rebellion among the Persians, which at last overthrew their king Chosroes. He fled to Mauricius for help, and was by him restored to his. throne, after which the two kingdoms remained at peace to the end of his reign.

A.D. 582.

Nicephorus,

(30) Eulogius, the author of some homilies still extant, was bishop of Alexandria; and an epigram upon the Eccl. Hist. hospital which he founded to give a home to poor lib. xviii. 26. travellers, whether they came by land or by water, Antholog. has recorded his piety. He was succeeded by Peter lib. iv. before the end of the reign. To these writers we ch. xii. 1. may add Anastasius, a monk of the monastery of

Mount Sinai, who has left a few theological works; as also John Climacus, who lived in the valley of Thola on the side of the same mountain, and who has left a work in praise of the monastic life, under the name of the Ladder to Paradise, which has thirty steps, because Jesus was thirty years old when he began his ministry.

(31) But the most remarkable man John the grammarian, who from his learning took the name of Philoponus.

of Alexandria was love of laborious In religion he was