Of Peter:

The Roman Catholic Church considers him to be the first pope, ordained by Jesus in
the "Rock of My Church" dialogue in Matthew 16:18. The ancient Christian churches
all venerate Peter as a major saint and associate him with the foundation of the
church in Rome, but differ about the authority of his successors in present-day
Christianity. In a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples (Matthew 16:13-19), Jesus
asks, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" The disciples give various
answers. When he asks, "Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answers, "You are
the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus then declares:
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and
blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter (Petros), and on
this rock (petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I
will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be
bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Petros had not previously been used as a name, but in the Greek-speaking world it
became a popular Christian name, after the tradition of Peter's prominence in the
early Christian church had been established.
Of Saul:
Paul the Apostle was the original name Saul of Tarsus. He was an apostle (though
not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century
world. He is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic
Age. In the mid-30s to the mid-50s, he founded several churches in Asia Minor and
Europe. Paul used his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to advantage in his
ministry to both Jewish and Roman audiences.
Paul's conversion can be dated to 3136 by his reference to it in one of his letters. In
Galatians 1:16 Paul writes that God "was pleased to reveal his son to me." In 1
Corinthians 15:8, as he lists the order in which Jesus appeared to his disciples after
his resurrection, Paul writes, "last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me
also."
According to the account in Acts it took place on the road to Damascus, where he
reported having experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus. The account says
that "he (Saul) fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why
persecutes thou me?" Saul replied, "Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am
Jesus whom thou persecutes: hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (Acts 9:4-5)
According to this account he was blinded for three days and had to be led into
Damascus by the hand, where his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus. This
life-changing experience and revelation convinced Paul that God indeed had chosen
Jesus to be the promised Messiah.

Of Alexandria:
Alexandria, in the Nile delta, was established by Alexander the Great. Its famous
libraries were a center of Hellenistic learning. The Septuagint translation of the Old
Testament began there and the Alexandrian text-type is recognized by scholars as
one of the earliest New Testament types. It had a significant Jewish population, of
which Philo of Alexandria is probably its most known author. It produced superior
scripture and notable church fathers, such as Clement, Origen, and Athanasius, also
noteworthy were the nearby Desert Fathers. By the end of the era, Alexandria,
Rome, and Antioch were accorded authority over nearby metropolitans. The Council
of Nicaea in canon VI affirmed Alexandria's traditional authority over Egypt, Libya,
and Pentapolis (North Africa) (the Diocese of Egypt) and probably granted
Alexandria the right to declare a universal date for the observance of Easter, see
also Easter controversy. Some postulate, however, that Alexandria was not a center
of Christianity, but of Christian-based Gnostic sects.
Of the Church in Rome:
The Acts of the Apostles claims that the Jewish Christian couple Priscilla and Aquila
had recently come from Rome to Corinth when, in about the year 50, Paul reached
the latter city, indicating that belief in Jesus in Rome had preceded Paul. In the
second century Irenaeus of Lyons, reflecting the ancient view that the church could
not be fully present anywhere without a bishop, recorded that Peter and Paul had
been the founders of the Church in Rome and had appointed Linus as bishop. While
the church in Rome was already flourishing when Paul wrote his Epistle to the
Romans to them from Corinth, about 57, he greets some fifty people in Rome by
name, but not Peter whom he knew. There is also no mention of Peter in Rome later
during Paul's two-year stay there in Acts 28, about 6062. Church historians
consistently consider Peter and Paul to have been martyred under the reign of Nero
in 64, after the Great Fire of Rome which, according to Tacitus, Nero blamed on the
Christians.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans 16:58 attests to a large Christian community already
there but does not mention Peter. The tradition that the See of Rome was founded
as an organized Christian community by Peter and Paul and that its episcopate owes
to them its origin can be traced as far back as second-century Irenaeus. Irenaeus
does not say that either Peter or Paul was "bishop" of the Church in Rome, and some
historians have questioned whether Peter spent much time in Rome before his
martyrdom.
Heresies:
1.

Salvation by faith plus works

2. Baptismal regeneration and/or infant baptism

3. Calvinism / reformed theology / so-called doctrines of grace
4. Loss of salvation by sinning / so-called Arminianism / eternal insecurity

5. Repentance less Gospel / antinomianism / easy-believism / quick-prayerism

6. Pentecostalism / Charismatic movement
7. Atheism / theistic evolution / modernism / post-modernism / emergent church
movement

8. Textual criticism / Bible version confusion

9. Authoritarian leadership / Nicolaitinism / popery
10. Catholic / Protestant view of history