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The Visual Atlas
Places, art and manuscripts across time. First era: the apostolic and early church, from Pentecost to the early fourth century.
Alexandria
Acts names Alexandrians, an Alexandrian preacher and Alexandrian grain ships, but no church. The fathers give it Mark, a famous school, and Origen.
- 31.201435
- 29.909773
The real question: what do we know about how the church in Alexandria began, when the first account starts with the words they say? The founder of the town's oldest bakery, everyone says, was a famous chef. No one remembers who first said so. What would it take to know who started Alexandria's church?
Alexandrians are among those who dispute with Stephen (Acts 6:9). Apollos, born at Alexandria, comes to Ephesus (Acts 18:24). Paul sails to Italy on ships of Alexandria (Acts 27:6; 28:11). Eusebius says they say Mark was first sent to Egypt and founded churches in Alexandria (Church History 2.16.1). He reads Philo's account of ascetics as a description of the first Christians there (2.17). Pantaenus heads the school of the faithful in Alexandria (5.10), Origen takes charge of the catechetical school at eighteen (6.3.3), and later leaves it to Heraclas when he moves to Caesarea (6.26).
The synagogue of the Alexandrians (Acts 6:9). Apollos (Acts 18:24). The ship of Alexandria at Myra (Acts 27:6). The second ship of Alexandria, with the sign of Castor and Pollux (Acts 28:11).
Mark first proclaimed the gospel in Egypt and established churches in Alexandria, by what Eusebius says is said (Church History 2.16.1). A school of sacred learning existed there from ancient times, and Pantaenus, trained as a Stoic, was its head (5.10.1-4). Origen took the catechetical school at eighteen (6.3.3), then handed it on (6.26). Dionysius, Origen's pupil, followed in the school (6.29.5).
- https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/527820cd-e010-5796-9a30-a28ca3955b0a/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Billon tetradrachm of Hadrian, dated 131, minted in Alexandria.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Tetradrachm (Coin) Portraying Emperor Hadrian, gift of Robert L. Grover
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/139869
- Public domain (is_public_domain true in the Art Institute of Chicago API)
Two different claims belong here. First, Zachary Cole notes that scholars have long seen manuscripts such as 01, 03 and P75 as an accurate stream flowing from Alexandria, and quotes Metzger and Ehrman on controlled copying in that city, while adding that scholars now tend to avoid speaking of text-types (Myths and Mistakes, ch. 7). Second, Timothy Mitchell describes the trash mounds of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, where thousands of papyrus fragments were recovered, and notes that many New Testament manuscripts found in the sands of Egypt had been thrown away there (Myths and Mistakes, ch. 2). Pleiades places Oxyrhynchus in Upper Egypt. It is not Alexandria, and this entry does not move its papyri here.
Eusebius opens the Mark story with "they say" (Church History 2.16.1), which is a report, not a record. The list of the seventy among the dubious and spurious pieces attributed to Hippolytus makes Mark bishop of Alexandria and says he died a martyr. That is legend. Eusebius's reading of Philo's ascetics as Christians is his own interpretation of a Jewish writer, and Philo's text was not checked here. Cole reports the Alexandrian label as an older way of speaking that scholars now tend to avoid; it is not offered here as proof of where any manuscript was copied.
Not the history of the Septuagint. The Greek Old Testament's Alexandrian origin story, which Eusebius quotes from Irenaeus (Church History 5.8.11), belongs to an earlier era.
- Acts 6:9
- Acts 18:24-28
- Acts 27:6
- Acts 28:11
- Acts, checked in the King James Version
- Eusebius, Church History, trans. McGiffert, NPNF2 vol. 1 (1890), 2.16-17, 5.8, 5.10, 6.3, 6.26, 6.29
- Hixson and Gurry, eds., Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (IVP Academic, 2019), ch. 2 (Timothy N. Mitchell) and ch. 7 (Zachary J. Cole)
- Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Seventy Apostles, ANF vol. 5, Appendix of Dubious and Spurious Pieces
- Pleiades gazetteer, place 727070, Alexandria, and place 736983, Oxyrhynchus/Pemje, places.csv
- Art Institute of Chicago, object 139869, API record
