Alexandrian School and Eastern Christianity Before Nicaea
I want to explore the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among the benefits of doing so is that we are dealing with authors after the post-apostolic leaders of the church. Thus, we are dealing with authors who, although they acknowledge a tradition of which they want to give faithful exposition, are before the official formulations of the Council of Nicaea in 325. We can see both the consistency of belief between the Alexandrian School and that formulation, but we can also see some of the differences. It was a time before the primacy of Rome was the official position of the church, and thus the less influential leaders of Antioch and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome, represented the diversity of the church. One will also see this diversity with writers in Gaul (France), in the early formulation of Latin Christianity in North Africa. The second century saw the continued growth of the church. By the end of this century, the number of Christians ...