Out of this manner of life, as we shall presently show, sprang up the episcopal seminaries, which were designed for the training of the younger clerics, whilst the catechetical schools were intended for the religious instruction of the neophytes. But though this last-named institution was, of course, _sui generis_, and exclusively belonged to those primitive ages when adult converts from Paganism had to be prepared for baptism by at least a two years’ course of instruction, yet their history, and specially that of the Alexandrian school, helps us in a convenient manner to watch the absorption into the Christian system of education of every branch of learning afterwards cultivated in the schools. In the absence of more particular details of the kind of instruction which prevailed at Alexandria before the time of St. Pantænus, we may reasonably suppose that the same system was adopted in that city as we find established at Jerusalem under St. Cyril. There the _Hearers_ or Catechumens assembled in the porch of the church; the men and women sat separate from one another, and the master stood to deliver his instruction. The catecheses of St. Cyril that are preserved are twenty-three in number, eighteen being a summary of the chief articles of the Faith, given in the form of an exposition of the Creed, and the five others intended for the _competent_, or those preparing to receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist. The last-named subject is treated in an explanation of the Liturgy of St. James. This, of course, was the sort of teaching for which the catechetical schools were primarily intended, and up to the year 179 the teachers of Alexandria do not appear to have aimed at anything of a higher character. But about that time Pantænus, a former stoic, whose eloquence earned him the title of _the Sicilian Bee_, became master of the school, and introduced a wider range of studies. He made use of his old learning to illustrate and defend his new faith. Clement of Alexandria, his earliest disciple, speaks of his “transcendent powers,” and St. Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, gloried in calling him his lord and blessed father.