Page 1 of 13Original Research
The Formation of Christian Theology in Alexandria
Authors:
Willem H. Oliver
Mokhele J.S. Madise
Affiliations:
Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology
University of South Africa
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Correspondence to:
Willem Oliver
Email:
olivewh@unisa.ac.za
Postal address:
PO Box 392, University of South Africa 0003, South Africa
Dates:
Received: 25 Nov. 2013
Accepted: 20 Feb. 2014
Published: 12 June 2014
How to cite this article:
Oliver, W.H. & Madise, M.J.S., 2014, ‘The formation of Christian theology in Alexandria’, Verbum et Ecclesia 35(1), Art. #1314, 13 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v35i1.1314
Note:
This article forms part of the 2012–2013 Mentor–Mentee
programme at the University of South Africa.
Prof. Madise was the mentor, whilst Rev. Oliver was the mentee.
Copyright:
© 2014. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Jesus was born in Palestine. He was the main determinant for the foundation of a religious movement or sect later called Christianity. This movement, founded in Palestine after the ascension of Jesus, with Jerusalem as its main centre of worship, was merely a JudaeoChristian sect. In Jerusalem, the adherents to this movement were not really distinctive from the Jewish religion, as they worshipped the same God, Yahweh, went to the same Temple and/or synagogues and kept the same Jewish Laws. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, many Jews, including the ‘believers in Christ’s teachings’ (the earliest Christians) fled Jerusalem for different parts of the Roman Empire such as Transjordan, Syria and Africa. Different ‘Christianities’ developed in the main cities of the Roman Empire – Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. In each of these cities, the believers in Christ’s teachings developed their own religion alongside Judaism. This article argued that it was in Alexandria, a world famous city during the time of the Roman Empire, especially renowned for its academic excellence, that the new religion best found and made its own stand. The Catechetical School, with scholarly heads and writers, such as Clement and Origen, started to develop a theology that set the standard for Christian theology in the Empire.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The general assumption is that
Jerusalem, as the origin of Christianity, was the place where it had its formation. This article
proposed that it was actually Alexandria where Christianity was best found and became
distinctive from Judaism. However, a lack of original sources on this subject area limited the
research.
The greatest secret Africa has never told and Christian Europe has been seeking to conceal for the past two thousand years is the African origin of the concepts, doctrines, sacramental practices of religion, and the documents that became the foundation of Christianity in Europe. (Darkwah 2005:backpage)
Introduction
Africa, and more specifically Egypt as part of the Eastern region of the Roman Empire, is more than oft neglected as a source of intelligence and academic knowledge in the world. This also includes a reference to early Christianity in Alexandria, as well as the setting of Christian theology in Egypt. These characteristics are mostly allotted to the West, to Europe, specifically Rome, with Antioch not far behind. Quite a few scholars, such as Darkwah (2005), Oden (2007), Pheko (1982), Schaff (1910) and Stanley (1883), argued to the contrary and stated that Christianity found its first real feet in Africa. This has been acknowledged by Stanley (1883:56) when he stated in his Lectures on the Eastern Church that the field of Eastern Christendom is a comparatively untrodden field. He therefore called on his hearers to enlarge their petty Occidental (Western) horizon and to acknowledge the Eastern Apostolic Churches as the main stem of Christendom, of which the church of Rome itself was for 300 years a mere colony, unfelt in theology except by contributions to the Greek literature of Christians (cf. Schaff 1885b:4). Stanley (1883:66) expressed himself as follows: ‘She [referring to Africa] is the mother, and Rome the daughter.’
Some of the reasons for this negligence are that many of Africa’s sources are or were oral sources
and therefore not readily accessible to researchers (ancient and modern), or because a tremendous
amount of her academic sources was destroyed. For the past few centuries, Africa was only seen
as the victim of colonisation, who inherited her religion from Europe. These anomalies were
still accepted in the previous century, but now, in the 21st century, Africa is slowly but surely
awakening and preparing herself to take her rightful stand in the world and in academia.
This article intends to contribute to the discussion on Africa (specifically Egypt, with Alexandria
as main centre) as foundation for the theology of Christianity. The aim is to highlight Alexandria
as the place where Christianity (qua Christianity – Fogarty 2004:33) was first formalised. It was
here that the translation of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek (creating the Septuagint) took place
http://www.ve.org.zadoi:10.4102/ve.v35i1.1314
