Destruction of the Alexandrian Library
In my reading, I have encountered claims that the the great library at Alexandria was destroyed by Christians to prevent people from discovering the pagan origins of Christianity. There is a problem with this. You cannot just open up a history book and see this as a historical fact. In fact, we do not know when the library was destroyed. There are four options:
1. Julius Caesar’s Fire in The Alexandrian War, in 48 BC
2. The attack of Aurelian in the 3rd century AD;
3. The decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in AD 391;
4. The Muslim conquest in 642 AD or thereafter.
The destruction that critics often point to is the third one from 391 AD. As far as I know this is only known to us from Edward Gibbon. We can also see that the library had already been destroyed twice by pagans. Before accepting conspiracy theories of suppression by the church, it is a good idea to do a little research.
