Using Abused Traditions

From time to time I encounter apologists for the Catholic tradition who point to the 'speculative' nature of much of what I am saying. Of course I can do one better than that. The very same Alexandrian tradition that I am a self-appointed apologist on behalf of seems to resist my attempts to identify their beloved St. Mark as Marcus Julius Agrippa. They have learned to despise Origen and the 'Origenists' even though many of these 'heretics' would have to include third and early fourth century patriarchs of their very own tradition.

How do we explain this then?

The example I go back to time and again is that of abuse victims.

The Alexandrian tradition of St. Mark was abused and butchered throughout most if not all of the third century (the only respite seems to have come with the conquest of the Egypt by Zenobia). It was the focus of Imperial efforts to curb something offensive at the heart of contemporary Christianity.

As one prominent researcher in the field of child abuse notes "people who have memory blanks of a year or several years during their childhood AND have several of the above symptoms are typical examples of people who have repressed abuse memories. This usually happens when trauma experienced during childhood is so threatening the child shuts off all memory of it as a coping mechanism ... One common experience for those with repressed abuse memories is that they will have strong emotional reactions to information concerning anything they actually experienced."

The point is that I firmly believe that the Roman persecutions in Alexandria were purposive. What I mean is that they weren't simply prompted by an 'evil worldly Empire' trying to 'stamp out the light' inherent in the Christian message. This is later propaganda.

There was something in Christianity which was deemed a serious enough threat to the Empire that it became the official policy of the later Antonine Emperors to attempt to 'encourage' a change in the religion.

Owing to a parallel persecution of Samaritans in the Commodian period and subsequent ages, I suspect it has something to do with the lasting influence of Marcus Julius Agrippa, the last king of Israel over both the Alexandrian and Samaritan traditions. Both were headed by figures named 'Mark' who can be traced back to the historical figure of Agrippa.

Yet let's leave this theory of mine for a moment. Let's look again at the surviving Coptic tradition.

Someone named Mark who was a 'saint' according to the tradition came to Alexandria in order to establish the seat of the Christian religion in this city. This specifically Markan form of Christianity spread throughout the world from Egypt after Mark's visit.

This is the surviving Coptic tradition.

The throne on which Mark sat became the Papal throne of the entire Church. The Papacy was born in Alexandria (this is not merely a Coptic opinion but essentially acknowledged by scholarship at least with regards to the title 'Papa').

Now if you go up to a Copt and have him explain to you the Alexandrian Papacy and its relationship to St. Mark you certainly will not get my answer - namely that St. Mark was Marcus Agrippa, that Marcus Agrippa was the real messiah of Christianity and its gospel and the later Popes of Alexandria who sit in his throne are merely continuing a messianic legacy started by the last Jewish king of history.

Yet the truth is that they won't be able to explain ANYTHING about their tradition in a logical or meaningful way.

The Copt would likely know that St. Mark was John who was called Mark in the canonical book of Acts. But this book was established from the beginning to argue against his very Alexandrian tradition.

The reason Alexandrians now accept the Book of Acts is because it was forced upon them like much of the canonical New Testament literature.

Just think for a moment about how much more welcoming a Marcionite New Testament canon would seem with its inclusion of an apostolic letter to the Alexandrians. The very fact that any address to this most important Christian center is lacking in our canon demands an explanation and my explanation is simple - our canon was from the beginning developed as part of an anti-Alexandrian agenda on the part of the later Antonine Emperors.

It was Irenaeus, who while sitting in the court of the wicked Emperor Commodus established the first New Testament edition WITHOUT a letter to the Alexandrians (the original epistle was likely renamed 'to the Galatians' or perhaps 'to the Corinthians).

The point is that I don't expect Copts to revisit the trauma that their forefathers underwent centuries ago and attempt to 'restore' the original truth that was lost by the time of Nicaea. Nevertheless it has to be recognized that the centuries of abuse have taken their toll. The Alexandrian tradition now stands in tatters. It is little more than a disconnected series of oral traditions fused together with doctrines and literary texts developed with the single purpose of subordinating their ancestral home.

It is little wonder that so many Egyptians went over to Islam in the years after the conquest. It wasn't because the new rulers were holding a sword against their neck. Islam has as its starting point the supposition that the Jews and Christians corrupted the original beliefs of their religion. Mohammed above all else was portrayed as a restorer of those very traditions counterfeit through systematic abuse by their Roman rulers.

A young Egyptian in the eighth and ninth centuries would have had one of two choices. He could either continue in the irrationality of an abused tradition or join the 'restoration' of his ancestral religion. It is little wonder that so many chose the latter. They say that it is difficult to stir up the repressed memories of abuse in a traumatized individual. This is because the events in a private life are so very difficult to unravel.

Yet in the case of the victimization of an entire culture like that of ancient Egypt such matters were already well known to outsiders. All it would take would be the call of Arabian men on horseback to lead many away from their abused tradition. This pattern of behavior is again quite common in trauma victims. It is called 'escapism' among experts in the field.