Abstract
The Catechetical School in Alexandria has delivered a number of prolific scholars and writers during the first centuries of the Common Era, up to its demise by the end of the 4th century. These scholars have produced an extensive collection of documents of which not many are extant. Fortunately, there are many references to these documents supplying us with an idea of the content thereof. As the author could not find one single source containing all the documents written by the heads of the School, he deemed it necessary to list these documents, together with a short discussion of it where possible. This article only discusses the writings of the following heads: Mark the Evangelist, Athenagoras, Pantaenus and Clement, covering the period between approximately 40 CE and the end of the 2nd century. The follow-up article discusses the documents of the heads who succeeded them.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The potential results of the proposed research are a full detailed list of all the documents being written by the heads of the School in Alexandria. The disciplines involved are (Church) History, Theology and Antiquity. These results will make it easier for future researchers to work on these writers.
Highlights
This article contains information on all the extant and known writings of the heads of the Catechetical School in Alexandria, that the author could get hold of, covering the period from the first half of the 1st century to the end of the 2nd century
If there are no known writings of a particular head, there will be no reference made to that head in this article
The importance of this study on the documents of the heads of the Catechetical School in Alexandria lies in the fact that these documents formed the foundation for the theology of that school, as well as the theology of the earliest Christians, laying a foundation for Christianity worldwide
Summary
This article contains information on all the extant and known writings (those which did not survive, but were referred to by others, or in the case of Clement, by himself) of the heads of the Catechetical School in Alexandria, that the author could get hold of, covering the period from the first half of the 1st century to the end of the 2nd century. According to Enslin (1954:224–225), it seems likely that these three documents by Clement, as well as the so-called ‘eighth book’ of the Stromateis, are unfinished works, or are abridged extracts that Clement has made for his personal use (cf Schaff 1885a:375) These writings provide considerable insight about Gnosticism. In contrast with the Excerpta, the Eclogae Propheticae is exegetical in nature and could form part of the exegetical work, the Hypotyposeis (seemingly still extant in the days of Eusebius) These writings, in which Clement quotes frequently from the Hypotyposeis, are lost, we do have a Latin translation by the 6th-century Cassiodorus of the sections dealing with four of the Catholic Epistles: 1 Peter, Jude, and 1 and 2 John (Stählin 1906:203–215).
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