SYNESIUS (c. 370-c. 414) The bishop of Ptolemais. Born at Cyrene in the Pentapolis to a wealthy pagan family, he was brought up as a pagan and sent by his parents to complete his higher education in Alexandria under HYPATIA, the famous Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, to whom he became attached and remained loyal despite the …
ALEXANDER I The nineteenth patriarch of the See of Saint Mark (312-326). Life Alexander succeeded ACHILLAS, who died in the year 312, after one of the shortest episcopates in Coptic history. His death was ascribed by the pious Copts to supernatural chastisement for breaking the command of PETER I, “Seal of the Martyrs,” by accepting …
ALEXANDRIA IN LATE ANTIQUITY Founded at the western end of the Nile Delta in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great, Alexandria soon replaced Memphis as capital of Egypt and the Ptolemaic empire, thus focusing Egypt more resolutely than ever on the eastern Mediterranean and the Greek world. Alexandria became a center of Hellenistic civilization as …