On the Acts of Archelaus being a Marcionite document originally

I wrote:

Acts of Archelaus - 37. Archelaus said: Those sayings which are put forth by the blessed Paul were not uttered without the direction of God, and therefore it is certain that what he has declared to us is that we are to look for our Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect one, who is the only one that knows the Father, with the sole exception of him to whom He has chosen also to reveal Him, as I am able to demonstrate from His own words.

(a) the main character behind the narrative is "Marcellus" = "little Marcus" = "Marcion" (who is acknowledged to have come after one "Marcellus" who was renowned in a previous generation.
(b) Archelaus = "leader of the people" sits on the throne of "little Marcus" and communes with him
(c) Mani wants "little Marcus" to acknowledge him as the paraclete
(d) however "Archelaus" defends the original orthodoxy against the encroachment of Manichaeanism
(e) he identifies Paul as the "paraclete" repeatedly in the text
(f) and here after a lengthy argument to that effect says that Paul wrote the gospel
(g) it was Paul who said that "Jesus is the perfect one" i.e. mushlama Aram. = Chrestos in Greek cf the Marcionite church discovered in Syria (in a town which is now a Druze village interestingly enough).
(h) Jerome says that Archelaus wrote his text originally in Aramaic
(i) the apostle is the "chosen one" to whom Jesus revealed the Father.

Boid wrote:

Thanks. This is CLEAR AND CONVINCING, so much so in fact that I intend to re-read the various versions of this text once the notes on your text have been typed out. Can I please have the ref. for the Marcionite church, including if you have them the ancient and modern name, again? This would save me a lot of time.

No, the English word cipher comes by way of Mediaeval Latin from an Arabic word from the root TSADE-PE-RESH. The word is s.ifr صفر which in Arabic means nought. The English meaning comes from a shift of meaning within Mediaeval Latin. The “c” rather than “s” in the spelling is from a spelling convention in Mediaeval Latin translations from Arabic, whereby a “c” was used to show that the Arabic letter and sound were not the ordinary “s”. The question of the original Aramaic word is still open, but I hope to look at the phrasing in Book VI of the Mimar Marqeh next week and see if I can work it out from the choice of wording.