Nilus, a monk who had left his family in Egypt, to spend his life in prayer and study on the spot where Moses was appointed the legislator of Israel, describes these attacks upon his brethren, and he boasts over the Israelites that, notwithstanding their sufferings, the monks spent their whole lives cheerfully in those very deserts which God’s chosen people could not even pass through without murmuring.  Nilus has left some letters and exhortations.  It was then, probably, that the numerous inscriptions were made on the rocks at the foot of Mount Serbal, and on the path towards its sacred peak, which have given to one spot the name of Mokatteb, or the valley of writing.  A few of these inscriptions are in the Greek language.

The Egyptian physicians had of old always formed a part of the priesthood, and they seem to have done much the same after the spread of Christianity.  We find some monks named Parabalani, who owned the Bishop of Alexandria as their head, and who united the offices of physician and nurse in waiting on the sick and dying.  As they professed poverty they were maintained by the state and had other privileges; and hence it was a place much sought after, and even by the wealthy.  But to lessen this abuse it was ordered by an imperial rescript that none but poor people who had been rate-payers should be Parabalani; and their number was limited, first to five hundred, but afterwards, at the request of the bishop, to six hundred.  A second charitable institution in Alexandria had the care of strangers and the poor, and was also managed by one of the priests.

Alexandria was fast sinking in wealth and population, and several new laws were now made to lessen its difficulties.  One was to add a hundred and ten bushels of grain to the daily alimony of the city, the supply on which the riotous citizens were fed in idleness.  By a second and a third law the five chief men in the corporation, and every man that had filled a civic office for thirty years, were freed from all bodily punishment, and only to be fined when convicted of a crime.  Theodosius built a large church in Alexandria, which was called after his name; and the provincial judges were told in a letter to the prefect that, if they wished to earn the emperor’s praise, they must not only restore those buildings which were falling through age and neglect but must also build new ones.

Though the pagan philosophy had been much discouraged at Alexandria by the destruction of the temples and the cessation of the sacrifices, yet the philosophers were still allowed to teach in the schools.  Syrianus was at the head of the Platonists, and he wrote largely on the Orphic, Pythagorean, and Platonic doctrines.  In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics he aims at showing how a Pythagorean or a Platonist would successfully answer Aristotle’s objections.  He seems to look upon the writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus as the true fountains of Platonic wisdom, quite as much as the works of the great philosopher who gave his name to the sect.  Syrianus afterwards removed to Athens, to take charge of the Platonic school in that city, and Athens became the chief seat of Alexandrian Platonism.