Paul's Missionary Strategy and the Rise of Christianity in Alexandria
New Test. Stud. (), , pp. –. © The Author(s), . Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/./), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S0028688520000296 Why Did Paul Skip Alexandria? Paul’s Missionary Strategy and the Rise of Christianity in Alexandria BENJAMIN SCHLIESSER Theologische Fakulta¨t der Universita¨t Bern, Institut fu¨r Neues Testament, La¨nggassstrasse 51, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland. Email: benjamin.schliesser@theol. unibe.ch Why did Paul skip Alexandria? Why is there a blank spot on his missionary map? What prompted him to make plans to travel west rather than south? The lack of scholarly interest in this question is almost as conspicuous as the lack of sources for earliest Christianity in Alexandria. This article surveys and categorises the rather random hypotheses offered in scholarship. They relate to Paul’s self- understanding as a missionary, to his theological raison d’être, to religious and cultural aspects, and to political circumstances. The most plausible answer con- cerns early Christian mission strategy: Paul skipped Alexandria because it was a Jewish city and as such part of the Jewish-Christian mission. Keywords: Alexandria, Paul, mission strategy, politics, Letter to the Romans, Roman Empire Introduction The rise of Christianity in Alexandria remains a puzzle. Adolf von Harnack’s assessment from the beginning of the last century is often quoted: Important studies from the past thirty years include A. M. Ritter, ‘Das frühchristliche Alexandrien im Spannungsfeld zwischen Judenchristentum, “Frühkatholizismus” und Gnosis’, Charisma und Caritas: Aufsätze zur Geschichte der Alten Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ) –; G.
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