The Early Christian Schools

EARLY SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

• “ School ” does not mean a special building for teaching, nor a seminary in its modern meaning.

• The school should present the living traditional thought of the Church, which must continue throughout all ages, without preventing the contemporary believers from being authentic thinkers. The notion of “school” is not bound to a peculiar time.

• The school has to adopt a certain set of ideas, a way of interpreting the Holy Scripture, a form of spirituality, a style of pedagogy (education), a method of theological dialectics, or an institution.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

• The early Fathers of the Alexandrian school present to us how we deal with science and philosophy and to witness to our Gospel among well-educated people.

• The later Fathers of the same school present to us how we defend our faith, especially against the heretics in a soteriological attitude, or in pastoral goal.

• The moderate Fathers of the Antiochian school present to us a living image of the importance of the historico-grammatical interpretation of the Holy Scripture.