Alexandria, Egypt, was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC and quickly became the third largest city of the Roman Empire.  For over a thousand years, Alexandria was known as a key historical, literary, and religious center of the ancient world.  In the third century BC, the translation of the Septuagint from Hebrew and Aramaic into the Greek language was begun in this city.  Mark the Evangelist (author of the Gospel of Mark) was the first bishop of the church at Alexandria and founded the city’s famous catechetical school, where Clement of Alexandria taught and was later succeeded by Origen, one of his pupils.  In the fourth century, Athanasius the Great, the twentieth bishop of the church, was the first to list the 27 books of the New Testament canon that would later become part of the Bible we use today.  Alexandria was also the hometown of the Gnostic teachers Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus, prompting Clement of Alexandria and other area Christians to write extensively against their teachings.