Now my history might be a little rusty, so forgive me, but it seems to me the Christians did not burn the Library at Alexandra. If I remember my Roman history correctly, and again correct me if I'm wrong, the Roman army accidently set fire to the city of Alexandra when Julius Ceasers boy Marc Anthony just had to go and get Cleopatra. Now considering that Marc Anthony was killed by the Romans around 38 B.C. I'm pretty sure that Christianity wasn't invented yet.

No, it was lust under the watchful eyes of Apollo or someone like that which cost us the greatest treasure of knowledge ever assembled.

A closer look at History would reveal that without religion, we wouldn't have modern medicine, schools, nor most of the sciece e have today.

Those who say what you've said above demonstrate a true ignorance themselves.

True that. The great Library of Alexandria is one of my pet peeves. It was destroyed by good christians in part for postulating such things as:
Humans are animals, just more advanced than other animals.
Women should be treated as equals.
Slavery was wrong.
The Earth goes around the sun.
The Earth is round.

All things contrary to popular christian belief, at least at that time.

With out religion, we'd be one people, from one planet, and going to the stars by now.


ok, you're a little rusty. The Library was destroyed in 302ad. Well....I suppose it is possible the Romans set fire to it 340 yrs previously, if so, I've not heard of it. In any case, it was the christians who destroyed it utterly. It was still in use right up till then.
In fact, one of my favorite horror stories about christianity comes from that event. Hypatia, a female(gasp) scientist, on her way to work at the Library, was attacked by a rabid mob of christians. They took her from her carridge, stipped her of her clothes in a public square, then flayed the flesh off her bones with seashells. All because, as a woman, she dared to be a scientist.

Ain't religion grande?

I looked it up, there are three stories of the destruction of the library.


The first person blamed for the destruction of the Library is none other than Julius Caesar himself. In 48 BC, Caesar was pursuing Pompey into Egypt when he was suddenly cut off by an Egyptian fleet at Alexandria. Greatly outnumbered and in enemy territory, Caesar ordered the ships in the harbor to be set on fire. The fire spread and destroyed the Egyptian fleet. Unfortunately, it also burned down part of the city - the area where the great Library stood. Caesar wrote of starting the fire in the harbor but neglected to mention the burning of the Library. Such an omission proves little since he was not in the habit of including unflattering facts while writing his own history. But Caesar was not without public detractors. If he was solely to blame for the disappearance of the Library it is very likely significant documentation on the affair would exist today.

The second story of the Library's destruction is more popular, thanks primarily to Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". But the story is also a tad more complex. Theophilus was Patriarch of Alexandria from 385 to 412 AD. During his reign the Temple of Serapis was converted into a Christian Church (probably around 391 AD) and it is likely that many documents were destroyed then. The Temple of Serapis was estimated to hold about ten percent of the overall Library of Alexandria's holdings. After his death, his nephew Cyril became Patriarch. Shortly after that, riots broke out when Hierax, a Christian monk, was publicly killed by order of Orestes the city Prefect. Orestes was said to be under the influence of Hypatia, a female philosopher and daughter of the "last member of the Library of Alexandria". Although it should be noted that some count Hypatia herself as the last Head Librarian.

Alexandria had long been known for it's violent and volatile politics. Christians, Jews and Pagans all lived together in the city. One ancient writer claimed that there was no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Immediately after the death of Hierax a group of Jews who had helped instigate his killing lured more Christians into the street at night by proclaiming that the Church was on fire. When the Christians rushed out the largely Jewish mob slew many of them. After this there was mass havoc as Christians retaliated against both the Jews and the Pagans - one of which was Hypatia. The story varies slightly depending upon who tells it but she was taken by the Christians, dragged through the streets and murdered.

Some regard the death of Hypatia as the final destruction of the Library. Others blame Theophilus for destroying the last of the scrolls when he razed the Temple of Serapis prior to making it a Christian church. Still others have confused both incidents and blamed Theophilus for simultaneously murdering Hypatia and destroying the Library though it is obvious Theophilus died sometime prior to Hypatia.

The final individual to get blamed for the destruction is the Moslem Caliph Omar. In 640 AD the Moslems took the city of Alexandria. Upon learning of "a great library containing all the knowledge of the world" the conquering general supposedly asked Caliph Omar for instructions. The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library's holdings, "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." So, allegedly, all the texts were destroyed by using them as tinder for the bathhouses of the city. Even then it was said to have taken six months to burn all the documents. But these details, from the Caliph's quote to the incredulous six months it supposedly took to burn all the books, weren't written down until 300 years after the fact. These facts condemning Omar were written by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus, a Christian who spent a great deal of time writing about Moslem atrocities without much historical documentation.

Interesting. It's not exactly the history I learned, but hey, I've been wrong before.

Still, I think we can all agree that it's destruction was a terrible loss.