Facsimile · p. 464
And his name is Philo, who flourished in the early days of the Christian religion. He reconciled the religion of the Jews with the philosophy of Plato, and filled sacred history with allegories and metaphors to persuade the Greeks to accept the religion and history. The Corinthians. It is known that Josephus followed Philo in his history of his nation in presenting its doctrines to gain acceptance among the Greeks and Romans, and the historians mentioned the success that each of them achieved. And the mention of the Jewish school in Egypt after Philo. The scholars have deemed that the Christian school established in Egypt in the first century AD and the Jews' inclination towards dispute and resistance were the reason for the fall of this school. As for the Christian school, its original purpose was to support that religion. It is not hidden that the one who preached the Gospel in Egypt was Saint Mark the Evangelist. Historians mentioned that Annianus was a bishop of Alexandria during the reign of Trajan, but the Christian religion in Alexandria faced difficulties that it did not encounter elsewhere. It was necessary for him to overcome them. The reason was that the people hated the religion of the Jews, which is the basis of Christianity, and the scholars of the Museum, who were in charge of the people, were the least prepared to accept learning. They resisted the Christian religion. The Christians saw in the end that there was no way to reform their education, especially in a city full of true philosophers. So they established a special school for those who wanted to delve into the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. In the late second century, Pantaenus, one of the ancient Stoics, joined this school, which rivaled the Museum in literary and religious sciences, and became its director. Then Athenagoras the Athenian, the philosopher, embraced the Christian religion and took charge of a school, succeeded by men greater than him. In the time of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, this school reached the highest degrees of excellence and surpassed the school of Antioch, even though it had many scholars like Philostorgius and Lucian. It suffered severe persecution for the sake of the homeland, but it returned to its former glory in the time of Diocletian, 584 years after the death of the persecutor. Although the successors of Origen and Clement were inferior to them in skill, they had the same authority and influence as their predecessors, and they were mostly the last heads of the Christian school. To understand the importance of Christian learning in Alexandria, one should carefully consider the writings of the ancient Patriarchs, the writings of Saint Alexander, the writings of Saint Athanasius, the opponent of Arius, the writings of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Julius Africanus the esteemed historian, Hesychius the owner of the precious Greek lexicon, Saint Macarius, nicknamed the Young, pious and ascetic, and Papias, the owner of the poem called Diotysia, and Dionysius, who learned the Christian religion.