The Alexandrian religious system was characterized by the coexistence of divine images and cultic practices, and this system even succeeded in incorporating, for several centuries, monotheistic religions. Alexandria was home to an important Jewish community, from at least the period of Ptolemy I. Protected by the Lagids, its members do not appear to have encountered difficulties in the practice of their religion (Meleze-Modrzejewski 1981). The translation of the Pentateuch into Greek, probably realized in the course of the second century BC, perhaps shows the kings’ interest in the ‘‘Laws of the Jews.’’ At any rate, it reflects a certain degree of hellenization, at least at the cultural level, among the Jewish communities, of which the most striking representative is the philosopher Philo (early first century AD). Although violent conflicts broke out in Alexandria between the ‘‘Greeks’’ and the Jews in the course of the first century AD, the causes of these were not religious, but political and juridical: the Jews of Alexandria, demoted by imperial law into the inferior class of the Aegyptii, sought to recover a more favorable status. However, Trajan’s harsh suppression of a revolt after two years of armed conflict (AD 115-17) put an end to the Jewish presence in Alexandria and Egypt for almost two centuries.
We know practically nothing of the circumstances in which Christian communities became implanted in Alexandria and recruited members. The existence at the end of the second century AD of a catechesis school distinguished by great theologians (Pantenus, Clement, Origen) leads to the supposition that there was already an important community in the city. But it was primarily in the third century AD that Christianity took off (in Alexandria more than the chora) and that the ecclesiastical structures were put in place. The edicts of Diocletian forbidding the practice of Christianity delivered a severe blow to it. However, owing to the tolerant measures of Constantine, and above all to the ever more favorable policies of the emperors towards Christians, Christianity was destined to become the dominant religion in the second half of the fourth century (Bagnall 1993; Frankfurter 1998). It was the dominant religion, but a troubled one. In the third century and especially in the fourth, the Christians of Alexandria were riven by doctrinal conflicts, by the Melitian schism and by the Arian ‘‘heresy.’’ In the context of these conflicts, the traditional cults, Greek and Egyptian, were completely lost. Even if the significance of the event may have been exaggerated, the destruction of the great Sarapieion by the ‘‘commandos’’ of bishop Theophilus in AD 392 marks the disappearance of the extraordinary melting-pot of religions that Alexandria had represented.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
The fundamental work on the religious system of Alexandria remains the chapter devoted to it in Fraser 1972:1.189-301 and 2.323-461. For the city in general, see Bernand 1996 and Ballet 1999. For the material evidence for Alexandrian religion, see Adriani 1961, Fazzini 1988, and Lagloire d’Alexandrie 1998, and, for the underwater archaeology in Alexandria’s harbors, see Goddio 1998a, 1998b. For terracotta statuettes, see Dunand 1990. For Ptolemaic temples see Clarysse 1999, for their festivals see Dunand 1981, and for the grand procession of Ptolemy II see Rice 1983. For Isis, see Dunand 1999 and 2000; for Sarapis, see Rowe 1946 and Hornbostel 1973; and for the inscriptions from outside Egypt bearing on both, Vidman 1969. For dynastic cult see Heinen 1978 and 1995. For the role of Memphis under the Ptolemies see Thompson 1988. For the Jews of Alexandria see Meleze-Modrzejewski 1981. For the late antique period, see Bagnall 1993 and Haas 1997.
World History
