
Early Christianity in Alexandria
From Its Beginnings to the Late Second Century
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Narrated by:
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George Ellington
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By:
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M. David Litwa
About this listen
Alexandria was the epicenter of Hellenic learning in the ancient Mediterranean world, yet little is known about how Christianity arrived and developed in the city during the late first and early second century CE. In this volume, M. David Litwa employs underused data from the Nag Hammadi codices and early Christian writings to open up new vistas on the creative theologians who invented Christianities in Alexandria prior to Origen and the catechetical school of the third century.
With clarity and precision, he traces the surprising theological continuities that connect Philo and later figures, including Basilides, Carpocrates, Prodicus, and Julius Cassianus, among others. Litwa demonstrates how the earliest followers of Jesus navigated Jewish theology and tradition, while simultaneously rejecting many Jewish customs and identity markers before and after the Diaspora Revolt. His book shows how Christianity in Alexandria developed distinctive traits and seeded the world with ideas that still resonate today.
©2024 M. David Litwa (P)2024 M. David LitwaListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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What does it mean for Jesus to be “deified” in early Christian literature? Litwa’s samples take us beyond the realm of abstract theology to dwell in the second- and third-century imagination of what it meant to be a god and shows that the Christian depiction of Christ was quite at home there.
By: M. David Litwa
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Overall
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Performance
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Perhaps no declaration incites more theological and moral outrage than a human's claim to be divine. Those who make this claim in ancient Jewish and Christian mythology are typically represented as the most hubristic and dangerous tyrants. Their horrible punishments are predictable and still serve as morality tales in religious communities today. But not all self-deifiers are saddled with pride and fated to fall.
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Overall
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Performance
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Did the early Christians believe their myths? Like most ancient—and modern—people, early Christians made efforts to present their myths in the most believable ways.
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By: M. David Litwa
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The Naassenes
- Exploring an Early Christian Identity
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- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
This volume offers an accessible investigation of the Naassene discourse embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies (completed about 222 CE), in order to understand the theology and ritual life of the Naassene Christian movement in the late second and early third centuries CE. The work provides basic data on the date, genre, and provenance of the Naassene discourse as summarized by the author of the Refutation (or Refutator).
By: M. David Litwa
Fantastic book
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