This chapter explores the Nag Hammadi treatises Eugnostus and the Wisdom of Jesus Christ. The Alexandrian provenance of Eugnostus is argued for at length. Although we cannot pinpoint exactly where the Wisdom of Jesus Christ was written, it is evident that it incorporated most of the material in Eugnostus. Eugnostus provides the earliest Christian reflections on the God “Human,” a preexistent divine Human, or rather set of Humans. He shows that complex philosophical speculation on the book of Genesis flourished among Christians in the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition. “Eugnostus” was familiar with Christian concepts and terminology. He may have run something like a philosophical school with devoted disciples (“those who are his”). Nevertheless, Eugnostus’s use of ecclesial and ritual language (the angels form the “church of the holy ones”) indicates some sort of communal and ritual life.

This chapter analyzes the Naassene discourse as excerpted by the author of the Refutation of All Heresies (about 222 ce). After arguing for the Naassene Preacher’s Alexandrian provenance, it expounds what he can tell us about the character of Christianity in late second-century Alexandria. The Preacher tried to cultivate a mentality that was both universalistic and exclusive. His group of self-identified knowers (“gnostics”) had their own rites (baptism and anointing), a leadership structure, a communal gathering (a setting for rituals), an exegetical practice, and a common aim: to transcend the flesh while living in it, to be angelic even on earth. The Preacher belonged to a wider circle of celibacy-promoting Christian intellectuals in late second-century Alexandria. What is new is the combination of sexual rigorism with a daring cosmopolitan attitude toward other religious cults and ideas. The Preacher’s profound openness to and ability to transform Hellenized traditions best parallels the work of Clement of Alexandria.

This chapter introduces Philo of Alexandria, including his life, work, social standing, and scholarly methods. It shows how Philo foreshadows all six of the Alexandrian theological tendencies outlined in the Introduction. He upheld a transcendent God (the Existent), distinguished creative powers (the Logos and unnamed auxiliaries), upheld a manifestation of God (the Logos) as the archetypal Human, endorsed a tradition of transmigration, rejected the corruptible flesh as unworthy of salvation, and proposed the deification of the mind. At the same time, Philo practiced Jewish customs and did nothing to undermine his Jewish identity.

This chapter theorizes about how the Jesus movement(s) entered and took root in Alexandria during the first century ce. It cautions against idealistic models of (sub)apostolic missionaries converting the population. Instead, it uses network theory to reimagine the spread of the Jesus movement(s) through more conventional social actors. It also explores ancient travel patterns and routes to discern from where and when the earliest votaries of Jesus could have entered the city.

This chapter focuses on how the authors of three texts carved out a distinctly Christian identity: the Letter of Barnabas, the Preaching of Peter, and the Apocalypse of Peter. For each text, a thorough argument is laid out for an Alexandrian provenance. The writer of Barnabas was a Christian freelance expert urging his audience to renounce distinctly Jewish practices even as he claimed the promises of Jewish scripture. The Preaching of Peter explicitly distinguishes Jews from Christians and argues that Christians worship God in a “third way” that is different from both Jews and Greeks. The Apocalypse of Peter adapts a popular Jewish genre yet pays almost no attention to Jews themselves. All three texts show how Christians of the early second century claimed the spiritual benefits of the Jews while simultaneously distancing themselves from the practices and institutions of Judaism. Collectively, they undermine the theory that followers of Jesus were not distinguished from Jews prior to 117 ce.

This chapter surveys the thought and practice of the earliest known Alexandrian theologians, namely Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus. These theologians gave no indication that they were Jews. They showed no interest in practicing distinctively Jewish customs. They were not politically disenfranchised or, generally speaking, opposed to the wider society. In many ways, they were well accommodated culturally. They had access to the educational resources of Alexandria, as is indicated by their rhetorical proficiency and exegetical skill. They were sophisticated thinkers who wrote didactic letters, commentaries, sermons, and songs. Their rhetorical and linguistic attainments indicate at least a middling measure of wealth and social status. Their distinct rites and religious practices indicate that they belonged to independent Christian movements that had institutionally separated from local synagogues. An important sidelight on Celsus argues for his Alexandrian provenance.

The Introduction addresses the persistent claim that darkness prevails in Alexandrian church history prior to about 180 ce. It treats the reception of Walter Bauer’s thesis that earliest Christianity in Alexandria was “gnostic.” Contra Bauer, the binary between “orthodoxy” vs. “heresy” is indefensible as an analytical framework for understanding first- and second-century Christianity. Nonetheless, critiques of Bauer’s position on the basis of papyrological deductions (mainly following Colin Roberts) are not cogent overall. Following these preliminary remarks comes a discussion of the book’s thesis and method. Six Alexandrian theological tendencies are outlined, along with a list of ancient works likely composed in Alexandria.

Apollos is the first known follower of Jesus from Alexandria. Even if the Western reading of Acts 18:25 (that Apollos was taught “the Way” in Alexandria) is a later deduction, it seems a reasonable one. The portrait of Apollos in 1 Corinthians corrects several statements about Apollos in Acts (for instance that Apollos only knew the baptism of John). Acts begins a trend of subordinating Apollos to Paul and the Pauline mission. 1 Corinthians reveals that Apollos was an independent recruiter in Ephesus and Corinth, not part of the Pauline circle. To the Corinthians, at least, Apollos appeared theologically distinct and more sophisticated than Paul, not to mention rhetorically more proficient. If Apollos was trained in Alexandria and was sent on a mission to Hellenic cultural centers, this would indicate that Alexandrian Christianity had an emphasis on Hellenic paideia and that the church of Alexandria was established enough to send out representatives abroad.

The conclusion tackles two lingering problems in Alexandrian church history: the meaning of the “great church” of Alexandria and the “catechetical school.” Despite Celsus’s use of the “great church,” no Christian group in Alexandria could convincingly claim numerical superiority in the second century. The use of numbers or quantitative contrasts were largely rhetorical, not demographical statements. Origen indicates that a number of alternative Christian groups flourished in his youth, and some of these groups could be represented by the Second Discourse of Great Seth and the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter. 2 Clement, if taken to be Alexandrian, does not indicate that incipient catholics had the upper hand. The catechetical school run by Origen in the early third century did not have a clear institutional antecedent. Throughout the second century, there were multiple, mostly informal, Christian schools run by a variety of Christian teachers (e.g., Basilides, Carpocrates, Pantaenus) offering higher theological instruction.

This chapter investigates ascetic movements in Alexandria with a focus on one of the few named ascetic Christian theologians, Julius Cassianus. Cassianus is the only named user of the Gospel According to the Egyptians and he used it to encourage celibacy and spiritual castration (the cutting off of sexual desire). Cassianus had a creation myth in which the human spirit was androgynous but “feminized” when it focused on material things. Similarly gendered theories of creation appear in the Gospel of Thomas (NHC II,2) and the Exegesis of the Soul (NHC II,6). Nevertheless, the closest parallel to Cassianus comes from the Testimony of Truth (NHC IX,3). The chapter argues that all three works circulated in Alexandria, in addition to the ascetic set of maxims called the Sentences of Sextus (NHC XII,1). All these texts shed light on the developing ascetical subculture of second-century Alexandria.

This chapter reviews the evidence for Valentinian and Marcionite movements in mid to late second-century Alexandria. It analyzes the Excerpts from Theodotus made by Clement of Alexandria to retell the Valentinian story of creation and redemption as it was known in Alexandria. Apelles is recorded to have come to Alexandria at some point between 150 and 180 ce. The fragments of Apelles reveal several attempts to modify elements of Marcionite thought (e.g., the oneness of God and the compound nature of Jesus’s body) according to Valentinian emphases. Although the evidence is thin, both Celsus and Origen confirm that Marcionite and Valentinian Christians were present in Alexandria and flourished there into the third century.

This chapter discusses distinctly Alexandrian factors that motivated the Jesus movements’ recruitment of majority (non-Jewish) populations. It argues that the Alexandrian pogrom of 38 ce, the massacre in 66 ce, and the widespread destruction of Alexandrian Jews in 117 cesignificantly reduced the social and cultural capital of Jews within the city. Devotees of Jesus who were interested in increasing their status-bridging capital were encouraged to connect with broader circles including educated members of the elite and other power brokers in the city. The earliest votaries of Jesus had reason, due to popular suspicions about Jewish sedition, to disassociate from Jewish practices and institutions even as they adapted the promises of Jewish scripture, techniques of Jewish exegesis, organizational structures, and liturgical forms.