A sample of what appears in the Real Messiah order it hereHappened to be at the library today looking for Peter I's On Riches and stumbled upon Budge's translation of The Histories of Rabban Hormizd the Persian and Rabban Bar Idta which was originally in Syriac. Hormizd lived in the late sixth century/early seventh century who was a Nestorian with palpable hatred for Cyril of Alexandria. There is a strange story about 'idolatry' which connects the Coptic tradition to Marcion.
p. 120 begins a discussion about the manner in which a monastery was:
corrupted by the impurity of Cyril the Egyptian all their multitudes were forsaken by the Divine Care from one end of heaven even unto the other. Then moreover, Marcion, the sorcerer corrupted their minds and polluted their temples in every place and city wherein his doctrine was accepted and he taught them to place in the altars of their inquitous sacrifices and in their houses of assembly for worship, miserable little idols like this one, that, forsooth, they might be [their] saviours and deliverers from those who are worked by devils [Gk cynanthropos = 'dog men'], and also from the devils of the night who are in the form of dogs, so that they might not have dominion over them in the month of Shebat [i.e. February], and would ward off from their riches the vexatious and erring wandering of rebellious devils.
Now therefore these people possess no altar whatsoever and no place which hath been set apart by them [for worship] in the churches and monasteries and [other] habitations fo monks in which a wretched little idol similar to that which thou now seest hath not been placed and hidden; and this they worship, and unto it are performed their hateful, filthy and polluted works, and the grace of thy Lord hath removed itself far away from them. Now it was Cyril the priest of devils and the minister of fiends who was he who first of all adopted this sacrifice of rebellious devils through a certain woman who was a sorceress and who lived in Egypt and was called 'Kaki' which is interpreted 'evil sorceress.' And he delivered this pagan relgiion unto his sons and unto the sons of the sons of his accursed and abominable dogma and teaching, and behold, it took root and flourished in every country and province by means of these wretched little idols in which destructive and accursed and senseless and vile devils dwell. But take this idol and get thee into thy monastery in peace and now I will pray here that thou will pray here that there may be no rest unto the sons of its habitation from this place, for there hath been taken away from here the wretched little idol which is to them in the place of God the Governor of the universe.
I have absolutely no idea what is signified here. Any suggestions out there would help ...
