History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
History
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)
Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
Egypt -- History
The quarrel between the Origenists and the anthropomorphites did not end
in words. A proposition in theology, or a doubt in metaphysics, was no
better cause of civil war than the old quarrels about the bull Apis or
the crocodile; but a change of religion had not changed the national
character. The patriarch, finding his party the stronger, attacked the
enemy in their own monasteries; he marched to Mount Nitria at the head
of a strong body of soldiers, and, enrolling under his banners the
anthropomorphite monks, attacked Dioscorus and the Origenists, set fire
to their monasteries, and laid waste the place.
Theophilus next quarrelled with Peter, the chief of the Alexandrian
presbyters, whom he accused of admitting to the sacraments of the
church a woman who had not renounced the Manichean heresy; and he then
quarrelled with Isidorus, who had the charge of the poor of the church,
because he bore witness that Peter had the orders of Theophilus himself
for what he did.
In this century there was a general digging up of the bodies of the
most celebrated Christians of former ages, to heal the diseases and
strengthen the faith of the living; and Constantinople, which as the
capital of the empire had been ornamented by the spoils of its subject
provinces, had latterly been enriching its churches with the remains of
numerous Christian saints. The tombs of Egypt, crowded with mummies that
had lain there for centuries, could of course furnish relics more easily
than most countries, and in this reign Constantinople received from
Alexandria a quantity of bones which were supposed to be those of the
martyrs slain in the pagan persecutions. The archbishop John Chrysostom
received them gratefully, and, though himself smarting under the
reproach that he was not orthodox enough for the superstitious
Egyptians, he thanks God that Egypt, which sent forth its grain to feed
its hungry neighbours, could also send the bodies of so many martyrs to
sanctify their churches.
We have traced the fall of the Greek party in Alexandria, in the
victories over the Arians during the religious quarrels of the last
hundred years; and in the laws we now read the city's loss of wealth
and power. The corporation of Alexandria was no longer able to bear the
expense of cleansing the river and keeping open the canals; and four
hundred _solidi_--about twelve hundred dollars--were each year set apart
from the custom-house duties of the city for that useful work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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