African Christianity Homepage
Egyptian Christianity
The Theologians
Egypt
Theologians
Clement of Alexandria
Origen
Monasticism
Arian Controversy
Monophysite Controversy
Egypt Under Islam
Egypt, and Alexandria in particular, was one of the theological centers of the early Christian Church, and so its theologians are of key importance to understanding the Church in Egypt. The Alexandrian theologians tried to defend Christianity as intellectually respectable within the Greco-Roman cultural world. They framed their arguments within a Greek philosophical context. Where the church at Antioch tended to a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, the Alexandrian church favored a more symbolic and allegorical approach to the Bible. This led the Alexandrians to a more creative and free-flowing theological tradition which drew heavily from the Platonists, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and many other Greek and Roman philosophers. Alexandrian theology also marks the Egyptian church as an Eastern church, more liturgical, and more theologically sophisticated in contrast to the Western Church centered in Rome with an important presence in Western North Africa, which was much more inclined to practical administrative policy and church structure, rather than speculative theology.
| AD 190 | Alexandria first came to intellectual prominence in Christian circle when Pantaenus founded the Catechal School of Alexandria, also called the Didascalia |
| 150-215 | Clement of Alexandria was the schoolÕs second dean. |
| 185-254 | Origen was ClementÕs successor. |
| c. 325 | Arius (who came to Alexandria from Antioch) & Athenasius became embroiled in a controversy over the nature of Jesus Christ, which ultimately led to the calling of the Council of Nicea in 325. |
| 313-398 | Didymus the Blind was appointed Dean of the Didascalia by Athenasius. He had been blind since the age of four, and pioneered a technique of teaching the blind to read, using carved and incised letters. |
| 412-444 | Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria attacked the Nestorians, which led to |
| c. 451 | the Monophysite Controversy and the calling of the Council of Chalcedon. |