Educating Early Monks...The Alexandrine Schools and the Beginnings of Christian Philosophy

Many of the early desert fathers were monks educated at the Alexandrine University and the related Catechetical School, both located in Alexandria, Egypt. Many of these monks were exposed to the teachings of Plato that tended to fuse the writings of Plato and Christianity into Neoplatonism. Two of the early Church Fathers Clement (150 - 215) and Origen (185 – 254), as heads of the Cathechetical School in Alexandria, were instrumental in the education of these monks. The teachings and writings from both these early Church fathers were influenced by Neoplatonism. Origen's writing were declared heretical by the Church in the 6th century.

"There were two kinds of monks in Egypt - the simple and uneducated, who composed the majority, and the Origenists, an educated minority."...Christian Reincarnation

"Scholars have seen two monastic camps: “Hellenic or Hellenized monks whose theology was more intellectual and more speculative than the naïve and literal beliefs of their Egyptian brethren."...source: COPTIC PALLADIANA I: THE LIFE OF PAMBO (LAUSIAC HISTORY 9-10)

The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Alexandria was a remarkable center of learning due to the blending of Greek and Oriental influences, its favorable situation and commercial resources, and the enlightened energy of some of the Macedonian Dynasty of the Ptolemies ruling over Egypt, in the final centuries BC. Much scholarly work was collected in the great Library of Alexandria during this time. A lot of epic poetry, as well as works on geography, history, mathematics, astronomy and medicine were composed during this period.

The name of Alexandrian school is also used to describe the religious and philosophical developments in Alexandria after the 1st century. The mix of Jewish theology and Greek philosophy led to a syncretic mix and much mystical speculation. The Neoplatonists devoted themselves to examining the nature of the soul, and sought communion with God. The two great schools of biblical interpretation in the early Christian church incorporated Neoplatonism and philosophical beliefs from Plato's teachings into Christianity, and interpreted much of the Bible allegorically. The founders of the Alexandrian school of Christian theology were Clement of Alexandria and Origen...source: Wikipedia

• Anthropomorphite-Neoplatonism Controversy
  (Anthropomorphite: God has human attributes; Neoplatonism: God is transcendent) "Scholars have seen two monastic camps: “Hellenic or Hellenized monks whose theology was more intellectual and more speculative than the naïve and literal beliefs of their Egyptian brethren.”23 While this demarcation is suspiciously tidy and accepts the anti-Anthropomorphite biases of the ancient sources, it probably presents a reasonably, though not entirely, accurate picture.24 The divide between Origenists and anti-Origenists, anti-Anthropomorphites and Anthropomorphites, was not entirely ethnic but also involved social networks, particularly among the Origenists.25 In Conference 10.3, Cassian speaks highly of Paphnutius, a Copt, who opposed Anthropomorphism in Scetis. It is not a coincidence that in that same Conference, Paphnutius calls on a foreigner, “a certain deacon named Photinus” from Cappadocia, who informs the monks that “the Catholic churches throughout the East” interpreted Genesis “spiritually,” not in a “lowly” way like the Anthropomorphites."...source: COPTIC PALLADIANA I:THE LIFE OF PAMBO
• Educating Early Monks...Catechetical School of Alexandria
• Educating Early Monks...Notes on Alexandrine Teaching
• Alexandrine Teaching...Early Christian Concept of God
• Nature of the Human Soul...Excerpts from Alexandrine Teaching
• Controversy and Banishment in Paradise: Promuglating Dogma on the Nature of God and the Afterlife.
• Christian Platonists of Alexandria...by Charles Bigg
• Clement of Alexandria...by John Patrick
• Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Liberalism...by R. B. Tollinton
• The History of Neoplatonism
• Neoplatonism in Relation to Christianity: An Essay...by Charles Elsee
• Key Players in Alexandrian Cosmology
• The Philocalia of Origen (1911)
• The Alexandrian Schools...(Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)
• The Alexandrian Tradition
• Stages of Ascension in Hermetic Rebirth...by Dan Merkur

• The Coptics: Egyptian Christians
• Christianity in Egypt: The Theologians

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