Saint Mark and the School of Alexandria
When we imagine the early years of the Christian movement, we often picture the dusty roads of Galilee or the stone jails of Rome. We think of fishermen and tentmakers. However, within decades of the events of the New Testament, the faith had established a stronghold in the intellectual capital of the ancient world: Alexandria, Egypt. It was here, amidst the Great Library and the Lighthouse, that the first major institution of Christian higher learning was born. Known as the Catechetical School of Alexandria , this institution proved that the new faith was not merely a movement of the heart, but a rigorous discipline of the mind. While the school would eventually produce some of the greatest scholars in history, its origins are traced back to the arrival of a single man in the 1st Century AD: Mark the Evangelist. The Evangelist in Africa Saint Mark is best known to history as the author of the second Gospel—a fast-paced, action-oriented account of the life of Jesus. However, ch...