heterogeneous mass of opinions, under the name of the _Eclectic philosophy_, and which was the foundation of endless confusion, error, and absurdity, not only in the Alexandrian school, but among Jews and Christians; producing among the former that specious kind of philosophy, which they called their _Cabala_, and among the latter innumerable corruptions of the Christian faith. At Alexandria there was, in a very early period of the Christian æra, a Christian school of considerable eminence. St. Jerome says, the school at Alexandria had been in being from the time of St. Mark. Pantænus, placed by Lardner at the year 192, presided in it. St. Clement of Alexandria succeeded Pantænus in this school about the year 190; and he was succeeded by Origen. The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion, and when Adrian visited Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and Greeks, sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince. The theological system of Plato was introduced into both the philosophical and Christian schools of Alexandria; and of course many of his sentiments and expressions were blended with the opinions and language of the professors and teachers of Christianity. Alexandria was the source, and for some time the principal stronghold, of Arianism; which had its name from its founder, Arius, a presbyter of the church of this city, about the year 315. His doctrines were condemned by a council held here in the year 320; and afterward by a general council of three hundred and eighty fathers, held at Nice, by order of Constantine, in 325. These doctrines, however, which suited the reigning taste for disputative theology, and the pride and self-sufficiency of nominal Christians, better than the unsophisticated simplicity of the Gospel, spread widely and rapidly notwithstanding. Arius was steadfastly opposed by the celebrated Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the intrepid champion of the catholic faith, who was raised to the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria in 326. This city was, in 415, distinguished by a fierce persecution of the Jews by the patriarch Cyril. They who had enjoyed the rights of citizens, and the freedom of religious worship, for seven hundred years, ever since the foundation of the city, incurred the hatred of this ecclesiastic; who, in his zeal for the extermination of heretics of every kind, pulled down their synagogues, plundered their property, and expelled them, to the number of forty thousand, from the city. It was in a ship belonging to the port of Alexandria, that St. Paul sailed from Myra, a city of Lycia, on his way to Rome, Acts xxvii, 5, 6. Alexandria was also the native place of Apollos.