Uncertainty and Injustice for Minority Refugees From Iraq -- New Report

Refugees from Iraq's minorities face insecurity and risk losing their religious and cultural identity as they try to seek refuge in neighbouring countries and Western Europe, a report by Minority Rights Group International says.

In a landmark new report on the situation of Iraqi uprooted minorities, MRG says that many of the people who flee Iraq undertake very dangerous journeys to get to Europe often only to be met with restrictive asylum policies, discrimination and in some cases forcible return.

A disproportionate number of those fleeing Iraq -- somewhere between 15-64 per cent, depending on the country of refuge -- are minorities, including Christians, Circassians, Sabian Mandaeans, Shabaks, Turkmen and Yazidis.

'Minorities are leaving Iraq because they are specifically targeted for attack due to their religion and culture, but getting out of the country is no guarantee of their safety and security,' says Carl Soderbergh, MRG's Director of Policy and Communications.

'Many European countries are now rejecting asylum applications and returning people to Iraq despite the fact that attacks on minorities have actually increased in some areas,' he adds.

Sweden, for instance, has begun returning to Iraq a number of rejected asylum seekers including - Christians on the grounds that some parts of Iraq are safe to go back to. The UK and other European countries have also begun enforced returns of rejected asylum-seekers.

The integration policies of certain asylum countries also adversely affect Iraqi minorities. Dispersal policies, for instance, which divide refugees of the same nationality have a serious impact on minorities, who need to remain together as a community to protect their cultural identity and religious practices.

'Some communities like Mandaeans, who number a few thousand globally, stand to lose many of their religious and cultural practices, as they are spread across and within countries. They are at risk of cultural eradication,' says Soderbergh.

Of Iraq's neighbours, Syria and Jordan are the most common destinations for refugees, and this is also the case for minorities. UNHCR estimates that up to 2 million Iraqis have fled the country, with approximately 1.1 million in Syria and 450,000 in Jordan.

Although Jordan and Syria have welcomed a large number of Iraqi refugees, many live in a state of limbo as they are unable to secure residency or work permits. Both countries have since 2007 begun to tighten their visa policies, making it increasingly harder for Iraqis to live there legally.

The report includes a series of testimonies from Iraqi minority refugees, who describe the violence and trauma suffered before they fled the country and explain their fear and reluctance to return.

'We will never go back, it is impossible. We will suffer death if we go back … If you stay in Iraq, you will convert to Islam or be killed. For that reason, the future is dead for us there,' says an Iraqi Mandaean seeking asylum in Södertälje, Sweden.

Mandaeans Under Attack in Iraq

Basra, Asharq Al-Awsat- Members of the Iraqi Sabian Mandaean community in the Iraqi Basra province spoke of their dismay at the Iraqi government's silence with regards to the killings, kidnapping, and extortion carried out by armed groups targeting their community. The Sabian Mandaean's in Bara claim that these groups are affiliated to political parties in power.

The leader of the Sabian Mandaean community in Basra, Raad Kabashi al-Zuhairi told Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday about a new wave of violence targeting the Sabian Mandaean community in Basra. He made reference to the murder of two Iraqi Sabian Mandaean youth, the kidnapping of four more, and the extortion of dozens of Mandaean goldsmiths. Al-Zuhairi said that all of this is an example of what took place in just one month in one district of Basra province, the al-Zubair district, 30km west of Basra city.

Al-Zuhairi informed Asharq Al-Awsat of a number of crimes committed against the Iraqi Sabian Mandaean community in Basra saying "During the holy month of Ramadan, a group of armed men carrying silenced pistols attacked the jewelry stores of [members of the Mandaean community] Farqad Faiq Othman and Mohnad Qasim Abdul Razzag – who were both born in 1984 – in broad daylight, shooting and killing them in cold blood, stealing jewels worth $40,000 and escaping."

Al-Zuhairi gave other examples of crime committed against the Mandaean community in Basra, such as "Goldsmith Barham Hakim Nouri was kidnapped by gunmen, he was held at the Safwan farms…and he was not released until tribal chiefs intervened and a large cash ransom was paid." Al-Zuhairi added "An armed group intercepted the car of Na'el Thajeel, the Chairman of the Mandaean Council of Affairs…on the highway between Safwan and al-Zubair, he was taken to an unknown destination, and he was not released until $40,000 was paid."

The leader of the Sabian Mandaean community in Basra told Asharq Al-Awsat "This does not stop here, gunmen abducted Abhar Ameed Dagher, a child aged 7 years old, who is the son of one of the Mandaeans and he was not returned until after the kidnappers were paid a sum of $20,000 by his family, and the same thing happened with regards the family of the kidnap victim Arshed Ghiad Kaheel, who was a goldsmith kidnapped by militants and ransomed for $30,000."

The Sabian Mandaeans are a religious minority in Iraq, and they are followers of the Prophet Yahya [John the Baptist]. There are approximately 70,000 Sabian Mandaeans across the world, although they have historically resided in southern Iraq, particularly Basra, Amarah, Nasiriyah, Kut, and Diwaniyah, with their [official] headquarters located in Baghdad. Religious minorities in Iraq are occasionally subject to attack, which has caused many members of religious minorities to flee the country.

Al-Zuhairi informed Asharq Al-Awsat "The Sabian Mandaeans are one of the original communities of Iraq, and [we] are one of the peaceful groups that do not have a presence in political parties and electoral campaigns, but we are being subject to extortion on a daily basis by some women who buy items from our jewelers, and then return complaining that this jewelry is stolen or not real, or that they have been subject to sexual harassment inside the shop, and these are problems which are caused by the armed groups affiliated to strong tribes and parties."

Al-Zuhairi accused "the parties who are in power that have armed militias of undertaking these crimes for electoral purposes and in order to sow discord."

Al-Zuhairi also told Asharq Al-Awsat "Members of the Mandaean community [in Basra] have been exposed to terrorist attacks since 2003, and until now almost 30 people have been killed. The majority of families were forced to emigrate outside of the country, and now only around 500 families of the [Basran Mandaean] community remain out of a total of 6,000 families that lived in the city prior to the occupation."

He added "Those observing the violence which members of the [Mandaean] community are subject to realize that this aims to drain the country of its main components, and sectarian parties are behind this."

Al-Zuhairi revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat "The 36 kg of gold that was stolen from a [Mandaean] jewelers in the Tawaji area of Baghdad…was found by security forces in the Najaf province, however the [political] parties in power strongly intervened to attempt to prevent the police from arresting the perpetrators and retrieving the gold."

He added "This confirmed incident is the best evidence and proof of these parties involvement in the wave of violence against members of the [Mandaean] community/"

Al-Zuhairi also revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that "many of the offenders who were arrested for committing crimes against members of the [Mandaean] community had their cases transferred to other provinces following pressure by the [political] parties, and this results in them being released due to lack of evidence/"

Al-Zuhairi called for international and human rights organizations to put pressure on the Iraqi government to protect members of the Sabian Mandaean community in Iraq from violence and terrorism

More on the Original Shape of the Gospel of Mark

I happen to have become interested in the Diatessaron owing to my personal search for the original Aramaic gospel. The truth is that the idea that the four canonical gospels represent 'the gospel' mentioned in the writings of the Apostle has always sounded stupid to me. The only reason anyone accepts this notion is because it is the position and tradition of our ancestors.

So it is that the Apostle's - and indeed ALL the early Fathers reference to gospel in the singular i.e. 'the gospel,' 'my gospel' etc. - led me to start thinking in terms of a single, long gospel.

The truth is that when you start thinking that all the true stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were contained in one continuous narrative you start naturally 'seeing things' that are constantly referenced in Middle Eastern Christianity which don't make any sense when you think in terms of four separated gospels.

Whatever the case may be one of the chief reasons for my interest in Secret Mark is because it falls in a very important place in the gospel narrative and one which has particular interest for Diatessaron scholars.

Petersen writes in his treatment of Rev C.A. Phillips a noted student of the gospel harmony tradition from the early twentieth century that:

Phillips noted that the harmonies followed the Parable of the Rich Fool with the Story of the Young Ruler which was then followed by the Parable of Dives and Lazarus. Elements of this combination as well as specific variants from the harmonies, are found in the Gospel 'secundum Hebraeos' as quoted by Origen, Comm in Matt XV.14 (on Matt 19.16ff). Origen's quotation begins "The other of the two rich men said to him ..." implying Origen knew a text which joined the stories of the two rich men. Also in Origen Jesus tells him to "do the Law" a variant found in Ephrem's Commentary, Aphrahat, Syr [c], the Georgian, and at Mark 10.20 in Greek MSSf1 565 1542. [p.257]

The point I am getting at here is that when you actually start looking at Origen's Commentary on Matthew you start to notice that he used a single, long gospel THROUGHOUT the whole narrative. It tells him (and he in turn tells the reader) how to piece together the original gospel narrative by weaving together a patchwork of references spread throughout our four canonical texts.

Now I will take the time to develop this understanding in the days to come but the real question which has to be asked at this point in our study is whether we can continue to believe that Origen just 'decided on his own' to use a single, long gospel to navigate through the New Testament canon of four separated gospels established on the authority of the Roman See.

As I am a student and believer in tradition, I could never just believe that Clement or Origen or Arius represented anything other than a continuous tradition which went back to the beginning of Alexandrian Christianity. This doesn't mean that we have to accept the fables about St. Mark but - if the truth be told - I see no reason to disbelieve them.

In any event, if Origen navigated his way through the gospels with the aid of an Alexandrian single, long gospel how can we account for Clement's reference to a 'Gospel according to the Egyptians' (which F F Bruce tentatively identifies with Secret Mark) in any other way as a preservation of the same practice a generation earlier. Indeed tradition holds that Ammonius Sacca - a pagan philosopher who began life as a Christian - preserved an Alexandrian single, long gospel from an earlier period.

To this end, given that (a) I see no reason to reject the authenticity of To Theodore and (b) there is clearly an Alexandrian traditional reliance on a single long gospel the story that Clement develops about St. Mark depositing his autograph in the principal church in Alexandria would naturally lend one to suppose that this text was the 'super gospel' secretly maintained by the tradition even in the face of consistent persecution from Rome.

In any event, as I have said I am not writing an academic paper here. This blog is entitled 'Stephan Huller's Observations' because it is a forum for me to write down my speculations and have others comment on my ideas.

According to my understanding of Christian history I see Irenaeus' promotion of four separated canonical gospels as something wholly artificial but done with great assistance from his friends in the Imperial court including Marcia the beloved mistress of the wicked Emperor Commodus.

In order to limit the tradition authority of the Alexandrian See the original narrative had to be obscured. To this end by destroying the continuous story about Jesus' preparation of a beloved disciple to sit on the throne of God (and accordingly a line of Popes to follow him as 'kings' of the kingdom of heaven on earth) the argument could be made for the subordination of Mark as a mere servant of Peter and the See of Rome.

For the moment however I want to only draw the readers attention to what Origen's reference to a continual thread going through the story of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21) and the Rich Man (cf. Matt. 19:16 - 30, Mark 10:17 - 31, Luke 18:18 - 30) to the Rich Man and Lazarus (cf. Luke 16:19 - 31) means for the study of Secret Mark.

Meyer and a number of scholars have already noted that LGM 1 seems to connect with later 'Mark sightings' (cf. Mark 14:52). When you realize that Clement's successor secretly employs a text which blends together the material which PRECEDES LGM 1 so that in effect we have a 'bad' rich person and 'good' rich person who end up in the underworld the 'sudden' appearance of the resurrection of this rich neaniskos in LGM 1 and the material we have been examining pertaining to the 'redemption' ritual of 'those of Mark' suddenly have a solid context which confirm our interpretation about the gospel being about the seating of one of Jesus' disciples on the throne of God.

McCarthy's translation of Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron has a useful table in the Appendix for what the shape of his text looked like. I want the reader to pay close attention to it:

XV 1 - 11 The Rich Man
XV 12 - 13 The Rich Man and Lazarus
XV 14 - 17 The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard
XV 18 - 19 The Request of James and John
XV 20 - 21 Zacchaeus
XV 22 The Blind Man of Jericho

It is worth noting that Tertullian (or his source) says that 'those of Mark' (the Marcionites) did not preserve the Parable of the Labourers when he compared it to his single, long gospel. If we insert LGM 1 into this basic structure we get:

The Foolish Dives
The Young Dives
Dives and Lazarus (orig. the two Divites in the underworld?)
LGM 1 (the Resurrection of the Young Dives)
The Request of James and John
Zacchaeus (the practical application of the lessons of the previous section; see Clement Quis Dives)
etc.

I think there is a natural order here. I think we can actual prove through a variety of 'single, long gospel' variants (such as the text at the heart of the Acts of John) that it was well known that a resurrection followed the Rich Man and Lazarus narrative. I also have noticed that Clement in his Dives commentary connects Zacchaeus as the conclusion of the story of the Rich Man (Ephrem does the same).

I have just started to develop this argument but I think the discerning reader will recognize what I consider to be the original shape of the gospel. You can also read more about this in my book, including why I identify the Diatessaron specifically as a gospel of Mark. The clue appears right at the front of many Diatessaron manuscripts ...

The point I have been reinforcing here is that given Origen's identification of a common thread throughout the first half of these reference and our development of a plausible thread through the gospel. The real question of course is why more scholars aren't following up on this very old lead ...

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

Archaeologists Claim to Have Discovered World's Oldest Brain

From EurasiaNet:

ARMENIA: ARCHEOLOGISTS SAY THEY’VE FOUND REMAINS OF WORLD’S OLDEST HUMAN BRAIN
Gayane Abrahamyan 9/30/09

An Armenian-American-Irish archeological expedition claims to have found the remains of the world’s oldest human brain, estimated to be over 5,000 years old. The team also says it has found evidence of what may be history’s oldest winemaking operation. The discoveries were made recently in a cave in southeastern Armenia.

An analysis performed by the Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine confirmed that one of three human skulls found at the site contains particles of a human brain dating to around the first quarter of the 4th millennium BC.

"The preliminary results of the laboratory analysis prove this is the oldest of the human brains so far discovered in the world," said Dr. Boris Gasparian, one of the excavation’s leaders and an archeologist from the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology in Yerevan. "Of course, the mummies of Pharaonic Egypt did contain brains, but this one is older than the Egyptian ones by about 1,000 to 1,200 years."

The Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, like other research laboratories examining the Areni finds declined to comment to EurasiaNet about its test results.

In late 2008, researchers in the United Kingdom found a roughly 2,000-year-old human brain -- at the time believed to rank as among the world’s oldest.

The team in Armenia, comprised of 26 specialists from Ireland, the United States and Armenia, had been excavating the three-chamber cave where the brain was found since 2007. The site, overlooking the Arpa River near the town of Areni, is believed to date mostly to the Late Chalcolithic Period or the Early Bronze Age (around 6,000 to 5,000 years ago). It also contains evidence of elaborate burial rituals and agricultural practices.

The skull with the brain was found in a chamber that contained three buried ceramic vessels containing the skulls of three women, about 11 to 16 years old. The cave’s damp climate helped preserve red and white blood cells in the brain remains.

Additional finds are expected, excavation leaders say: the project team so far has examined only about 10 percent of the 500-square-meter site.

"It is a unique first-hand source of information about the genetic code of the people who inhabited this place, and we’re now studying it," Gasparian said in reference to the nine-centimeter-long, seven-centimeter-high brain fragment. It is still being determined from what part of the brain the fragment comes.

Excavation co-leader Ron Pinhasi, a biological anthropologist from Ireland’s University College Cork, called the remains "a mystery we have to understand."

"These are obviously ritualistic secondary burials, which means the three bodies were beheaded after being buried, and then re-buried in these vessels," said Pinhasi.

Microscopic analysis revealed blood vessels and traces of a brain hemorrhage, perhaps caused by a blow to the head, Gasparian said.

Next to one of the three skulls, the team also found four adult femoral shafts -- midsections of a thigh bone -- that may have also played a role in the ritual.

"Interestingly, some of them were not just burnt, but rather evenly roasted from all sides, which directly points to a ceremonial practice. This may have been a case of ceremonial cannibalism, but it still needs to be proved," said Gasparian.

The excavation has also unearthed another potential record-setter -- vessels, pots, grape seeds and grape vine shoots, which, according to Gasparian and Pinhasi, could classify the site as one of the world’s oldest wineries.

"If the analysis confirms the place has been a winery, for the first time ever we will be able to say wine has been produced as early as about 6,000 years ago," Gasparian said.

Winemaking with wild grapes is believed to have gotten its start in Georgia, Armenia’s neighbor to the north, and in Iran, not far from the Areni-1 site, between 6,000 BC and 5,000 BC.

Areni is distinct because the number and volume of the vessels found suggests that wine was produced here in commercial qualities and from domesticated grapes, according to Gasparian.

Near the spot where the three skulls were buried, the excavation team found more then 30 vessels ranging in size from 50 liters to one with a diameter of 1.5 meters. The one vessel’s volume has yet to be quantified.

Grape seeds and a grape branch sent to Oxford University’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit for Carbon-14 analysis have been dated to the late 5th millennium BC or the early 4th millennium BC, he said.

Researchers are now waiting for the results of a chemical analysis to confirm whether the vessels contained wine or vinegar or some other substance. "If the analyses prove our hypothesis, Areni can be called the Armenian equivalent of French Provence and Champagne" in terms of the volume of wine produced, Gasparian added.

Editor's Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

LGM 1 and the Restoration of the Original Gospel of Mark

I have already noted the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism is yet another source on the 'redemption baptism ritual' associated with 'those of Mark.' Irenaeus is the other (AH i.21) and his original report is corrected by Hippolytus owing to repeated objections on the part of the followers of Mark themselves.

Even though Irenaeus' original report was proved wrong by Hippolytus the author of the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism develops directly from Irenaeus' original testimony making it entirely possible in my mind that Irenaeus was the original author. Irenaeus wrote in Against the Heresy that:

And the baptism of John was proclaimed with a view to repentance, but the redemption by Jesus was brought in for the sake of perfection. And to this He refers when He says, "And I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I hasten eagerly towards it." [Luke 12.50] Moreover, they affirm that the Lord added this redemption to the sons of Zebedee, when their mother asked that they might sit, the one on His right hand, and the other on His left, in His kingdom, saying, "Can ye be baptized with the baptism which I shall be baptized with?" Paul, too, they declare, has often set forth, in express terms, 'the redemption which is in Christ Jesus' and this was the same which is handed down by them in so varied and discordant forms.

Again we can't fall into the trap of the blind scholars who preceded us. Irenaeus' report is a reflection of an original context which is lost to us. Since Tertullian makes it clear that 'those of Mark' (the Marcionites) did not have Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist one can clearly be suspicious that Irenaeus is really adding the 'redemption baptism' by Jesus to the familiar water immersion by John the Baptism in our canonical gospels. The jury is still out as to whether the Marcosians ever had two baptism narratives in their gospel.

For the moment however let's acknowledge that from the Catholic perspective the John the Baptist' immersion at the beginning of the canonical gospels is taken for granted. Any baptism found in a subsequent portion of the gospel would necessarily be viewed as something 'in addition' to the first - and as such a 'second' baptism.

Indeed Irenaeus says as much at the beginning of Book One Chapter Twenty One where he writes:

that this class of men have been instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God, and thus to a renunciation of the whole faith.

The author of the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism seems to have this in mind when he rejects arguments for this 'extra baptism' connected with Mark chapter ten:

For what was said by the Lord, I have another baptism to be baptized with, signifies in this place not a second baptism, as if there were two baptisms, but demonstrates that there is moreover a baptism of another kind given to us, concurring to the same salvation.

I am particularly struck by this remark by the anonymous author in that it seems to reflect the Diatessaron text known to Ephrem.

Let's recap what the anonymous author is saying. The heretics clearly made the case that when Jesus said 'I have another baptism to be baptized with' it was only natural that a second water immersion narrative would appear after the one with John the Baptist in the canonical narrative.

The way Catholic writers traditionally interpret the words of Luke 12:50 as if 'water immersion' was here an allegorical reference to crucifixion. Of course this is absurd but desperate people will resort to desperate means to explain away evidence which contradict their inherited assumptions.

What we must imagine the 'followers of Mark' to be putting forward (following the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism's counter argument) is that something like LGM 1 must have existed in their gospel narrative. In other words a baptism AFTER Jesus says these words. This will become amply clear when we get to Ephrem's testimony from the original Diatessaron. The seeming difficulty suggested in Jesus' words 'I have a baptism to be baptized with' - in so far as Jesus is suggesting that he will undergo water immersion rather than another individual is easily resolved in that section where we bring forward Ephrem's Commentary.

For the moment I would like the reader to consider that as this reference occurs in a section where John Mark has asked to sit on the right or left of the divine throne the possibility that John Mark might be the figure represented in LGM 1 has to be seriously considered. Already Meyer has toyed with the idea. Now let's go forward in the gospel narrative and see what might be another possible reflection of this 'second baptism' in the gospel.

It is noteworthy that if John Mark's baptism occurred in chapter ten of Mark we see a reference to a 'baptism of John' in the chapter that follows. So we read:

the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?" Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism — was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me!" They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' ... So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

Of course the standard way of explaining this passage is that Jesus is referring to his original baptism by John the Baptist but there are a number of problems with this argument which were already known to Celsus of Rome.

For one - according to the Catholic narrative - lot's of people, even all the Jewish people, had underwent the baptism by John. If John the Baptist's baptism was the one being referenced here there would be no need for silence as indeed Celsus notes John the Baptist was a Jew.

So it is that Irenaeus reports that those of Mark cited this argument to support their belief that Jesus was worked on behalf of a God unknown to the Jews:

Moreover, by His not replying to those who said to Him, "By what power doest Thou this?" but by a question on His own side, put them to utter confusion; by His thus not replying, according to their interpretation, He showed the unutterable nature of the Father. [Irenaeus AH i.20]

Indeed when you really look at it the whole business at the beginning of our canonical gospels about Jesus being baptized and having a dove (Aram. yona) descend and go into his person seems to be an inversion of the Marcosian argument that Jesus was a divine spirit which entered into 'little' John Mark.

Yona could be taken as a diminutive of the name 'John' or as the name of a dove.

Thus, the question of the heavenly authority of the 'baptism of John' seems to have another context in mind than the water immersion of a 'John the Baptist' who baptized all the Jews in Palestine. Again, as Celsus rightly notes the Jews would not have went to someone who came in the name of another God beside their own.

Indeed if we go one step further it is impossible to avoid noticing that the writings of the Apostle assume that the someone was 'baptized into Christ.' We will leave the whole issue of the 'baptism of the dead' which was an important part of the Marcionite ritual and which clearly requires something like LGM 1 to provide a scriptural context (clearly the Marcionites who did not have a 'baptism by John the Baptist' in their gospel needed to have a context for baptism in general; 'redemption' being a key word in Marcionite rituals generally).

The thing which has never made sense to me as someone from outside of the Christian tradition is how the wholy 'baptism into Christ' idea got off the ground without LGM 1. Already Tertullian reports on those who claim to have received the baptism of Jesus. Yet without this context all we have is a 'John the Baptist baptism' which Jesus received in the manner of all other Jews. We are supposed to believe that Jesus' baptism was different because God interceded and sent down a yona into his person. Yet for as doves are not sent down from heaven to coincide with all subsequent Christian baptisms what we have really inherited is a 'John the Baptism baptism' - it isn't a 'baptism into Christ' because Jesus never baptized.

What I am uncovering here seems to have been anticipated in Tertullian's treatise on Baptism where he notes that:

there arise immediately scrupulous, nay rather audacious, doubts on the part of some, “how, in accordance with that prescript, salvation is attainable by the apostles, whom—Paul excepted—we do not find baptized in the Lord? Nay, since Paul is the only one of them who has put on the garment of Christ’s baptism, either the peril of all the others who lack the water of Christ is prejudged, that the prescript may be maintained, or else the prescript is rescinded if salvation has been ordained even for the unbaptized.” I have heard—the Lord is my witness—doubts of that kind: that none may imagine me so abandoned as to excogitate, unprovoked, in the licence of my pen, ideas which would inspire others with scruple.

Tertullian even goes on to say that he will "reply to them who affirm 'that the apostles were unbaptized'" and again seeks "proof against those who, in order to destroy the sacrament of water, deprive the apostles even of John’s baptism."

Of course once LGM 1 is reincorporated into the gospel of Mark we have exactly what seems to be suggested by Jesus later references in chapter ten - i.e. a preparation ritual so that John Mark can be baptized 'into Christ' and sit on the throne with him.

In any event we can leave behind these speculative discussions and go back to the original material in the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism we see the author make the case that there is no baptism like LGM 1 in the gospel (i.e. one 'in addition to' the water immersion by John the Baptist). There is just the John the Baptist baptism and the crucifixion which is now (forcibly) interpreted allegorically as a 'kind of baptism':

And it was fitting that both these kinds should first of all be initiated and sanctified by our Lord Himself, so that either one of the two or both kinds might afford to us this one twofold saving and glorifying baptism; and certain ways of the one baptism might so be laid open to us, that at times some one of them might be wanting without mischief, even as in the case of martyrs that hear the word, the baptism of water is wanting without evil; and yet we are certain that these, if they had any indulgence, would also be used to be baptized with water. And also to those who are made lawful believers, the baptism of their own blood is wanting without mischief, because, being baptized in the name of Christ, they have been redeemed with the most precious blood of the Lord; since both of these rivers of the baptism of the Lord proceed out of one and the same fountain, that every one who thirsts may come and drink, as says the Scripture, From his belly flowed rivers of living water; John 7:38 which rivers were manifested first of all in the Lord's passion, when from His side, pierced by the soldier's spear, flowed blood and water, so that the one side of the same person emitted two rivers of a different kind, that whosoever should believe and drink of both rivers might be filled with the Holy Spirit. For, speaking of these rivers, the Lord set this forth, signifying the Holy Spirit whom they should receive who should believe in Him: But the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. [John 7:39] And when He thus said how baptism might be produced, which the apostle declares to be one, it is assuredly manifest on that principle that there are different kinds of one and the same baptism that flow from one wound into water and blood; since there are there two baptisms of water of which we have spoken, that is, of one and the same kind, although the baptism of each kind ought to be one, as we have more fully spoken.

This argument is so utterly absurd it speaks to the desperation of those putting it forward. The original Aramaic word for baptism means 'dipping' not 'sprinkling.' No Aramaic speaker like Jesus would ever have confused the 'sprinkling' or gushing of blood out of someone's side with the physical act of being dipped or dunked in a pool of water. Indeed the same Aramaic word has the sense of 'dyeing' - i.e. taking a fabric and dipping it into a basin filled with dye so as to give it make it red, blue or green.

This function of transforming a whole cloth from one colour to another cannot be accomplished by 'sprinkling' or 'gushing' blood out of one's side.

So once we dispense with this explanation of Jesus declaration in Luke 12:50 about him preparing a baptism long after the introduction of the gospel we are left with a difficulty which can only be solved by assuming that LGM 1 must have been a part of the original gospel of Mark but subsequently removed (by Irenaeus?) as a result of the difficulties that it presented for the argument of Petrine (and Roman) primacy.

If John Mark was alone of all the apostles chosen by Jesus to receive 'redemption' or the 'baptism of perfection,' a rite which prepared him to ultimately sit on the divine throne the whole idea that Mark's gospel was really written on the authority of Peter or that the throne of Peter was the real seat of authority in the Church seem as hollow as a donut.

The manner in which we rescue the original understanding is by turning to the Diatessaron or 'single, long gospel' tradition which Irenaeus clearly testifies was shared by these 'followers of Mark.' We writes at the beginning of Book One Chapter Twenty these 'followers of Mark':

adduce an indescribable number of hidden and defective scriptures which they themselves have forged, to bewilder the minds of the simple and those who do not know the true words.

The way that these closing words of the sentence are translated by most scholars - 'those who do not know the authentic writings' - has caused many to think that these are wholly original scriptures. Yet clearly the Greek text of Irenaeus makes clear that what we are talking about in reality is a collection of scriptures - even a New Testament canon - which like Secret Mark was 'hidden' by the followers of Mark so as to 'hide' their defective nature.

I can't help but see parallels between these hidden and defective texts of the followers of Mark and the Secret Gospel of Clement's Alexandrian community of St. Mark. Already I have noted some of the parallels here. Yet notice that there is a wholly added story (like LGM 1) of the baby learning alpha and beta as well as:

(1) a 'reworking' of Luke ii. 49
(2) a general reference to Matt 10:5 - 6
(3) a variation on Mark x. 17 which concludes with “Why callest thou Me good: there is One who is good, the Father among the heavens” a variation which Epiphanius [adv. Haer. LXIX 19] attributes to the Arians (and thus the Alexandrian tradition). It also appears in part in Justin's pro-Diatessaron, Marcion [Epiphanius adv. Haer XLII], Origen but most importantly again Clement of Alexandria gives the closest variant in Paed. 1.8.72.
(4) Matt. xxi. 23 (dealt with earlier)
(5) another apocryphal saying “I have often desired to hear one of these words, and I had no one who could utter it,”
(6) a variant of Luke xix. 42
(7) Matt. xi. 28
(8) and an emphasis on a variant of Matt. xi. 25–27 which again shows up throughout the writings of Clement. Irenaeus' pronounced emphasis that 'those of Mark' lay particular stress on this passage make the connection with Clement absolutely certain:

But they adduce the following passage as the highest testimony, and, as it were, the very crown of their system:--"I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Even so, my Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, or the Son but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." In these words they affirm that He clearly showed that the Father of truth, conjured into existence by them, was known to no one before His advent. And they desire to construe the passage as if teaching that the Maker and Framer [of the world] was always known by all, while the Lord spoke these words concerning the Father unknown to all, whom they now proclaim.

This scriptural reference is by far the most frequent in the writings of Clement and almost every time he cites the text he reflects some aspect of Irenaeus ascription of 'heresy' to the 'Marcosians' viz. Exhort 1.1, Paed. 1.5 viz. 'Of late, then, God was known by the coming of Christ,' 1.6 (twice), 1.8, 1.9 cf. 'And He first announced the good righteousness that is from heaven, when He said ...,' 1.28 cf. 'It is He [Christ] who reveals the Father of the universe to whom He wills, and as far as human nature can comprehend,' Strom. 5.13, 7.10, 7.18, Dives 7.

Now I am not going to go through all the references that Irenaeus gives for the 'Marcosians' but it seems to me to be highly suspicious that Clement should know many of the textual variations and - as we have seen - be associated with the heretical doctrines that developed out these scriptures.

I am only saying that if we look at the variety of canonical sources that the Marcosians draw from - the only text which absent is the Gospel of John - it stands to reason that we are witnessing a pre-Tatian 'gospel harmony' like that associated with Justin.

If Irenaeus thought that they maintained a fourfold gospel which was altered with a great number of 'additions' he would have said something like this in the introduction. Indeed it would have been remarkable that while Irenaeus has to go to great lengths to argue that four should be the right number of gospels in Book Three that a heretical community was already associated with doing what he suggested and could find no existing practice for within the Church (Irenaeus never cites an authority before him who used a four-fold gospel).

The parallel harmonization in Justin and Clement of Alexandria have been noted by Bellinzoni and a number of other writers. I believe that it is not too much of a stress then to suggest that given all the evidence we have amassed given (1) the connection between Clement and the 'Marcosians,' (2) Clement and Justin and (3) the 'hidden' and 'defective' gospel harmony of the three synoptics and Justin's 'gospel harmony' it is not too much to suggest the possibility that Secret Mark might bear some relation to this text given that it is characterized by harmonization and is described by Clement in terms of something that was 'hidden' in the Church of Alexandria:

[Mark] did not divulge the things not to be uttered ... [he] lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils ... he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded.

I should also remind readers what I wrote about the structure of LGM 2 again seems to reflect the structure of the Diatessaron.

To this end I want to go to Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron in order to demonstrate how LGM 1 could have been incorporated into a Marcosian 'super gospel.'

The first thing that should strike anyone about Ephrem's Commentary is that he - like the Marcosians - connects the concept of 'redemption' with Mark chapter 10. He writes that:

When two [of the apostles] came in order to choose places for themselves, as though first among their companions, our Lord said to them, Are you able to drink the chalice that I am about to drink? [He said this] to show that [such places] must indeed be bought at a price. 'Like me' [idem] Wherefore God has also elevated and exalted him. [Phil 2:9] There is no one who has humbled himself more, according to his nature, than our Lord, for he was of divine origin. After they learned that [such a place] could only be bought through deeds, he said, 'Now that you have learned that it is through deeds that this [throne] can be acquired there are perhaps those who have run, or who will run, swifter than you. However, in the Father's design, the one who excels all others in his running performance is [already] designated, and his [throne] is prepared for him."

In other words, there is a simple formula in Ephrem that continues throughout his commentary - the sons of Zebedee are being prepared to sit on the divine throne at the end of the gospel. This my friends, is what the Marcosians meant by 'redemption' as we see in what immediately follows:

Because they had come so as to take possession of an election not accompanied by deeds, our Lord thrust it aside from him, and showed that he did not have the power to spare one from distress; just as [when he also said], As for that hour, no one knows it [Matt 24.36], so that no one would question him concerning it. It is not yours to know the time or the seasons. [Acts 1:7] He came therefore and explained it to them all, while they were agitated. Whosoever wishes to be your master, let him become your servant. [Matt 20:26-27] This is how all are to have authority. Thus did our Lord place the request of the sons of Zebedee as a crown in [their] midst, so that whoever was victorious in his combat might be crowned with it. [p.164]

As I have already mentioned a number of times this week none of the Diatessaron in Ephrem's Commentary make any reference to Jesus in Mark x.38 saying anything about a FUTURE 'baptism by which I will be baptized.' Instead as I have just discovered there is a clear structure in the Diatessaron which had:

(1) a variant of Luke 12.50 well before LGM 1 which I believe originally pointed to the material mentioned in To Theodore's Secret Mark reference
(2) the parallel material to Mark x.38 WITHOUT any reference to a future baptism AFTER LGM 1

So instead of:

And Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am to drink? and with the baptism that I am to be baptized with, will ye be baptized? And they said unto him, We are able. Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism wherewith I am baptized ye shall be baptized: but that ye should sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give; but it is for him for whom my Father hath prepared it.

Ephrem's Diatessaron just read:

And Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am to drink? And they said unto him, We are able. Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink but that ye should sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give; but it is for him for whom my Father hath prepared it.

As well I have discovered that Ephrem's Commentary not only supports the Marcosian ideas regarding 'redemption' in this passage but their (and the greater Alexandrian communities idea that Jesus wanted 'the chalice' to be passed on to the Church through his prepared representative (John Mark).

Before we go there let's take a look at Ephrem's citation of these ideas in his Commentary.

our Lord said to them "Are you able to drink of the chalice that I am about to drink?" to show that [such places] are to be bought at a price. "Like me." [p. 239]

A little later he does reference a series of sayings which explain Jesus' saying about 'letting the chalice pass from me' he DOES connect Mark x.38 with baptism but it is with Luke 12.50 as he goes back through the gospel demonstrating all the sayings which prove that Jesus wanted others to partake of the chalice:

If he had not wanted to drink it, he certainly did not refuse to drink. If he had not wished to drink it, but rather had wanted to reject it, he would not have compared his body to the temple in this saying, Destroy this temple and on the third day I will rebuild it, [nor would he have said] to the sons of Zebedee, Can you drink the chalice which I am going to drink? [Nor would he have said], There is a baptism for me [with which] I must be baptized, and, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so will the Son of Man be in the bosom of the earth ...

Again I am not saying that Ephrem's Diatessaron had LGM 1. That would be absurd. However I am making the case that the STRUCTURE of Ephrem's Diatessaron MUST HAVE BEEN related to the Marcosian 'super gospel.'

Just think about it. The Marcosians couldn't have had a baptism ritual linked to the 'redemption' they saw reflected in the material around Mark x.38 AND HAVE Jesus say that conditionally reference a FUTURE BAPTISM relative to that point in the narrative.

This simply wouldn't make sense.

So what I am saying now is that Ephrem's Diatessaron only had Jesus tell his disciples that they would have to prove themselves by 'taking his chalice' without any mention of an accompanying future baptism.

The same MUST HAVE BEEN true of the Marcosian gospel despite Irenaeus' citation from his canonical gospel of Matthew to disprove their tradition.

If the reader is with me so far Ephrem also provides the clearest explanation about what was going in this part of the narrative (you can think in terms of LGM 1 when comparing the various traditions to one another). Ephrem writes of the line 'My soul is sorrowful' [Matt 26:38]:

[This was] to show that he had clothed himself with a weak flesh, and was united to a soul capable of suffering. He spoke the truth so that none could disfigure it, and he hid nothing so as not to be untruthful. He taught the faithful not to pride themselves in their village, for that would have been a denial of truth. [p. 292]

The point of course is that Ephrem's ideas clearly work within the context of a gospel narrative that featured LGM 1. Jesus was preparing one disciple to receive his 'Christ soul.' He warned them in Mark x.38 that they had to suffer his Passion in order to receive his redemption. In what follows Ephrem takes an interest in 'if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me' and develops it again in terms of 'redemption' saying:

He [Jesus] knew what he was saying to his Father, and was well aware that this chalice would pass from him. But he had come to drink it for everyone, in order to acquit, through the chalice, the debt of everyone, [a debt] which the prophets and martyrs could not pay with their death. [ibid]

In other words, we see once again the idea develop from the parallel material to Mark x.38 that the passing of the chalice from Jesus to one of the sons of Zebedee represents the 'redemption.'

Notice that a little later in the same section the idea of him 'clothing a little one' resurfaces in Ephrem's writing;

He said [If it be possible let this chalice pass from me] because of the lowliness with which he had clothed himself not in pretense but in reality. Since he had really become unimportant and had clothed himself in lowliness it would have been impossible for his lowliness not to have experienced fear and not to have been perturbed.

What I am suggesting of course is that LGM 1 is the original lynch pin to understanding this mystical concept which floats throughout the writings of Ephrem and other Syriac speaking Christian writers - viz. 'putting on' a new man and 'putting off' the old man etc.

I think that the Middle Eastern Christian tradition understood that Jesus and his disciples 'exchanged souls' at one point in the narrative. This is reflected in Irenaeus statement that "those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark." Anyone who has ever studied this passage recognizes at once that Irenaeus is alluding to ideas which clearly repeat throughout the writings of Clement of Alexandria.

The point however that all these stupid sounding ideas - viz. Jesus on the Cross, Christ watching - suddenly make sense if LGM 1 is about an exchange of souls between Jesus and his beloved disciple.

To this end, we follow Ephrem's radical - and indeed quite Marcionite sounding - argument in what follows in the Commentary:

Since it was through the Son that these debts were being acquitted and the conversion of the Gentiles effected, he did not wish to appropriate for himself the grace [reserved] for the world. Similarly, everything was created by him, but passing over this [in silence] he spoke of another [Creator] through the mouth of Moses. He said, God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good. He said this so that all creatures would be indebted to his Father. Likewise in this hour of their being recreated, he brought them back through death, saying, May your will be done, so that all those who would be converted by the death of the Only-Begotten would be indebted to the Father. Or alternatively in this hour of his corporeal death, he gave to the body that which belonged to it, saying that all the sufferings of [his] body would show to the heretics and schismatics that his body was [real]. Did not this body of his appear to them, just as it was visible to everyone else? Just as he was hungry and thirsty, tired and had need of sleep, so too, he was afraid. Or [he said that] so that it would be difficult for people in the world to say that it was without suffering and toll that our debts were remitted by him [p. 295]

The point that we should never lose sight of is that this the very same lesson that Jesus gave to the sons of Zebedee. He said that they had to be willing to 'accept his chalice' and endure the Passion in order to receive the 'redemption' of the throne of God. Now we hear the idea develop that the Passion is a re-creation (undoubtedly from the Semitic root yetzer) where Jesus takes on the flesh NOW - i.e. in the lead up to the Passion.

Is it possible that LGM 1 is the context for that exchange of souls? In other words, that the 'littleness' with which Ephrem continually refers is that of the little disciple John Mark said to be a little child by the Orthodox tradition in its hymns. Here are the hymns of Ephrem which express this idea quite vividly:

The Son of the Maker is like unto His Father as Maker! He made Himself a pure body, he clothed Himself with it, and came forth and clothed our weakness with glory, which in His mercy He brought from the Father. From Melkizedek the high priest a hyssop came to thee, a throne and crown from the house of David, a race and family from Abraham. Be though unto me a Port for Thy own sake, O great Sea. Lo! the Psalms of David Thy Father, and the words also of the Prophets, came forth unto me, as it were ships. David thy Father, in the hundred and tenth Psalm, twined together two numbers as it were crowns to Thee, and came, O Conquerer! With these shalt Thou be crowned and unto the throne shalt Thou ascend and sit. A great crown in the number that is twined in the hundred wherein is crowned thy Godhead. A little crown is that of the number ten which crowned the head of Thy Humanity, O Victorious One! [Ephrem, Hymn Seven]

and again:

In the vision of the sapphire [throne] He gathered Himself up and sat upon it. He unfolded and filled the heavens, though everything was in His fist. Himself He shewed in space and shewed Himself everywhere. We fancied that He was in space but everything was filled with Him. He who was small that He might be on a level with us, was great that he might enrich us. He was small and great again that He might make us great. Had he been small and not great, He had been small and would have made us small. Because he was fancied to be weak, therefore He was small and great.

Let us marvel how that by being small He made our smallness great! Yet if He had not been great also He would have made our mind small since it would have thought him weak and would have been made less in that it thought so [i.e. that Christ was just 'little']. He is a Being of Whose greatness we are not capable, nor even of His littleness. He was great; we got ourselves bewildered; and He was little; and we got ourselves into guilt. In all things he laboured with us. He willed to teach us two things, that it was He and yet it was not He. He made Himself a countenance in His love that His servants might look upon Him. Again that we might not harm ourselves by thinking 'this is His form' from form to form did He change in order to teach us that He had no form, and though He departed not from the shape of man, yet in His changes of it He did not depart from it. [Ephrem, Hymn Thirty One]

Then there is also the Syriac tradition that John Mark saved a piece of the original Eucharist meal to pass on to humanity. Then there is the tradition associated with 'those of Mark' that their founder preserved the chalice that was passed on from Jesus:

pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he [Mark] contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour, so that Charis, who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,) and pouting from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: "May that Charis who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil." Repeating certain other like words, and thus goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing several other similar things, he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.

It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him, by addressing them in such seductive words as these: "I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Charis, since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me [the gift of] Charis. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Charis has descended upon thee; open thy mouth and prophesy." On the woman replying," I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy;" then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her," Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy." She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens. to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit. (Referring to this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.) Henceforth she reckons herself a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted to her of his own Charis. She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him.

But already some of the most faithful women, possessed of the fear of God, and not being deceived (whom, nevertheless, he did his best to seduce like the rest by bidding them prophesy), abhorring and execrating him, have withdrawn from such a vile company of revellers. This they have done, as being well aware that the gift of prophecy is not conferred on men by Marcus, the magician, but that only those to whom God sends His grace from above possess the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying; and then they speak where and when God pleases, and not when Marcus orders them to do so. For that which commands is greater and of higher authority than that which is commanded, inasmuch as the former rules, while the latter is in a state of subjection. If, then, Marcus, or any one else, does command,--as these are accustomed continually at their feasts to play at drawing lots, and [in accordance with the lot] to command one another to prophesy, giving forth as oracles what is in harmony with their own desires,--it will follow that he who commands is greater and of higher authority than the prophetic spirit, though he is but a man, which is impossible. But such spirits as are commanded by these men, and speak when they desire it, are earthly and weak, audacious and impudent, sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdition of those who do not hold fast that well- compacted faith which they received at first through the Church.

This is a lot to consider I am sure but I think that LGM 1 certainly fits in here as the original context for these ideas. I also think Irenaeus removed the concept from the gospel owing to the political implications of that concept on the struggle between Rome and Alexandria for Episcopal primacy.

Anyway have to go to bed ...

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

Ephrem Used the Word 'Truth' in Association with the Episcopal Throne in the Exact Manner I Suggest Clement Did in To Theodore

From Lange's summary in The Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron:

Because Christ leaves the Church on earth after his ascension he promises to send the Spirit to the Apostles [XXI.33]. The Spirit becomes the pledge of life [ibid], revealer of truth [XIX.14]. She guides the Church so that it can remain the seat of truth [XI V.1 2]. Because of the Spirit's guidance, the Church becomes the perfect body of Christ [XIV.12]. Because of the Spirit's guidance the Church becomes the perfect body of Christ [XIV.24]

I will get the original material for which she is providing a summary shortly but the point again is that when Clement says that St. Mark "knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils" - he is saying that the Alexandrian autograph of the Gospel of St. Mark identifies its Episcopal 'throne of St. Mark' as being referenced in the Evangelist's original narrative.

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

Ephrem's Diatessaron Clearly Ended With an Enthronement (as in Mark 16:19, 20)

"Believe that the Father is the first one! Hold firm that the Son is the second! And do not doubt that the Holy Spirit is also the third! The First Born has never commanded the Father for He [the Father] is it who commands. The Spirit has never sent out the Son, for he [the Son] is it who sends her. The Son who is seated at the right hand does not seize the place of the Father. Neither does the Spirit, who is being sent by him, seize the rank of the Son. [On the contrary] the Son is glad that He who gave birth to Him is greater, and the Holy Spirit is glad that his [the Father 's] beloved one is greater than her. There is happiness and harmony there [among them]." [Ephrem Commentary on the Diatessaron, IV. 173 - 187 see also I.33 - 40]

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

Another Hymn of Ephrem Which Confirms the Divine Mystery of the Throne

The Son of the Maker is like unto His Father as Maker! He made Himself a pure body, he clothed Himself with it, and came forth and clothed our weakness with glory, which in His mercy He brought from the Father. From Melkizedek the high priest a hyssop came to thee, a throne and crown from the house of David, a race and family from Abraham. Be though unto me a Port for Thy own sake, O great Sea. Lo! the Psalms of David Thy Father, and the words also of the Prophets, came forth unto me, as it were ships. David thy Father, in the hundred and tenth Psalm, twined together two numbers as it were crowns to Thee, and came, O Conquerer! With these shalt Thou be crowned and unto the throne shalt Thou ascend and sit. A great crown in the number that is twined in the hundred wherein is crowned thy Godhead. A little crown is that of the number ten which crowned the head of Thy Humanity, O Victorious One! [Ephrem, Hymn Seven]

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here



If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

A Hymn of Ephrem which Confirms the Divine Mystery of Redemption from the Throne

In the vision of the sapphire [throne] He gathered Himself up and sat upon it. He unfolded and filled the heavens, though everything was in His fist. Himself He shewed in space and shewed Himself everywhere. We fancied that He was in space but everything was filled with Him. He who was small that He might be on a level with us, was great that he might enrich us. He was small and great again that He might make us great. Had he been small and not great, He had been small and would have made us small. Because he was fancied to be weak, therefore He was small and great.

Let us marvel how that by being small He made our smallness great! Yet if He had not been great also He would have made our mind small since it would have thought him weak and would have been made less in that it thought so [i.e. that Christ was just 'little']. He is a Being of Whose greatness we are not capable, nor even of His littleness. He was great; we got ourselves bewildered; and He was little; and we got ourselves into guilt. In all things he laboured with us. He willed to teach us two things, that it was He and yet it was not He. He made Himself a countenance in His love that His servants might look upon Him. Again that we might not harm ourselves by thinking 'this is His form' from form to form did He change in order to teach us that He had no form, and though He departed not from the shape of man, yet in His changes of it He did not depart from it. [Ephrem, Hymn Thirty One]

The hymn begins with an acknowledgement that Jesus became a child (go to original source and see for yourself) and then he proceeds to argue that this member sat in the 'sapphire throne' attributed to Moses in Exodus 34. I have already written about the throne of St. Mark as a reflection of this Scripture. Does the reader see what Ephrem's one gospel community understood regarding Jesus' baptism and redemption in the throne that ends the narrative? If not more will follow. I will keep developing ideas from Ephrem until the reader understands that a 'redemption' baptism like that of LGM 1 HAD TO HAVE BEEN A PART of the original gospel.

More "Oh My God!" From Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron

I am still driving home reading bits and pieces of this commentary. All I can say is OMG!! Everything I have ever thought or said about Marcionitism is here in this "orthodox" commentary. I have been told that my Real Messiah should be required reading for the study of early Christianity. I can now honestly say NO, this book above all others should be required reading! Everything now makes sense. You can see how Marcionitism and Polycarpianism (the actual name for Middle Eastern Christianity in Syriac) diverged from one another. You also are how Islam got started.

All I can say again is OMG! OMG! I can't believe that idiotic scholars think Nag Hammadi was a bigger find. Typical American sensationalism ...

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

I Have the Proof

Just heading back from the library with 200 pages of photocopies from Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron. It's all over folks. I have the proof. To Theodore is real. Secret Mark is an Alexandrian Diatessaron variation. The redemption ritual of the "Marcosians" is explained by Ephrem. LGM 1 HAS TO BE the original context for that baptism ritual. More later ...

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here

Irenaeus, 'Truth' and the Episcopal Throne

I drove my mother back to Vancouver and now have a few minutes to develop my last argument one step further. Let me start from the beginning. I was not born into a Christian household and have utter contempt for the manner in which Europeans develop theories about the origins of Christianity. These people understand their origins in terms of fables worthy of the ancient Greeks and these myths have corrupted any scientific understanding for how the Church really transmitted its doctrines.

The reality of how 'truth,' faith and Christian doctrine were first established had everything to do with a Pontifical throne. The only reason scholars don't want to see this is because most of them are Protestants where the tradition of their ancestors developed out of a virulent hatred of all things associated with 'Rome.'

Now I would be the last person anyone would pick to defend the Catholic Church. Nevertheless I am a devoted student of tradition. I can't simply dismiss Irenaeus and those who came after him even if they ended up trampling down an older, more authentic Christian tradition. The fact is that I know that the ideas that they developed to obscure the tradition of St. Mark couldn't have been invented out of thin air. They still had to be rooted in the same soil as those traditions they demonized and ran out of town. It had to be made to resemble what it was replacing at least somewhat otherwise no one would have taken to this new doctrine and these new texts.

So here's what I think - Irenaeus modified a pre-existing form of Christianity - or perhaps 'forms of Christianity' - in order to develop a working 'Catholic' orthodoxy. In other words, he boiled Christianity down to its simplest elements and developed a canon of faith from this faith of the 'lowest common denominator.'

To go beyond what Irenaeus declared to be 'the true word' of faith was to be heretical.

Of course Irenaeus claimed that the authority for what he was claiming to be 'truth' went beyond his mere opinion. Scholars acknowledge this of course but ultimately mistake what Irenaeus' original historical argument was. They typically take his statement about being a young and devoted student of Polycarp completely out of context. It was NOT the original context of his argument for what 'truth' was in Christianity. It was rather as Robert McQueen rightly notes a defense about his claims about Polycarp's teachings (owing to a dissenting contemporary witness at Rome - Florinus - who basically argued that Irenaeus misrepresenting Polycarp's teachings).

The point we have to recognize now is that Polycarp's teachings were only one aspect of Irenaeus' Catholic tradition - specifically the 'Johannine witness.' Irenaeus was claiming that Polycarp's John and the Mark who came to Rome as a witness of Peter's teaching and 'Matthew' the 'Jewish Christian' and 'Luke' the doctor who was dearest to St. Paul were all saying the same thing because - as he put it - they were inspired by the same Holy Spirit.

There were clearly dissenting voices - and Irenaeus mentions a few of them in Against the Heresies either directly or indirectly. Yet the thing we shouldn't take our eyes off of is the incredible authority that Irenaeus must have had in order to make a Palestinian tradition (Matthew), an Alexandrian tradition (Mark) and a loose spiritual tradition based principally in Asia Minor (John) somehow all hold together (Luke's tradition is as I have noted associated with Antioch but it is very late, so late in fact that it is difficult to avoid seeing the 'Theophilus' to whom the Luke-Acts corpus is addressed to be Theophilus of Antioch).

I know that scholars don't like to deconstruct these concepts. They like to skip over them or worse yet "take Irenaeus' word" on matters, redressing them in less mythical terminology (viz. minus the reference to 'four winds,' 'Satan' etc.). Yet if we are ever to make sense of matters here we have to acknowledge that there are one of two forces which could have reconciled these wild antagonistic forces in the Church:

(a) a supernatural power as Irenaeus suggests viz. 'God,' 'the Holy Spirit' or 'Satan' for instance

(b) a worldly authority

My solution as has been documented a number of times on this blog is to focus on Irenaeus' self-confessed association with the Imperial court of the wicked Emperor Commodus (AH iv.30). Yet I want to bring that original observation in line with something else that repeatedly manifests itself from Irenaeus' writings - his repeated identification of 'truth' with the Episcopal throne.

It should be noted that in my last post I cited the clearest statement from Against the Heresies that 'truth' was the Episcopal throne. Yet as I was driving home from Vancouver today winding down through the beautiful wooded scenery that is northern Washington state I realized that too little thought was went into making sense of WHY Irenaeus makes this identification.

For instance Robert McQueen again will note that Irenaeus attacked the Valentinians because "they impelled Christians to leave the tradition transmitted in the apostolic succession" (p. 6). Yet even McQueen hasn't really thought this argument quite through because clearly Valentinians like Florinus did indeed cleave to a particular apostolic tradition - that of Polycarp - but what they must have REALLY objected to in Irenaeus' mind was the authority of the Roman Episcopal throne or perhaps the authority of thrones generally.

In the case of the Alexandrian See the never quoted Letter of Hadrian to Servianus puts to rest any doubt that the Alexandrian throne was a functioning Episcopal See from the beginning of the second century. If we can identify 'those of Mark' with the Alexandrian See we can narrow down Irenaeus argument against them to reflect a rejection of the Roman Episcopal throne quite specifically (with the added historical wrinkle that the Alexandrians always argued that Mark wrote his gospel for Alexandria and an Alexandrian audience as opposed to Irenaeus' claims about Rome, Peter and a Roman audience).

If I may be so bold to presume that the slight against the 'Ebionites' was that they didn't accept Irenaeus' formulation of a New Testament canon which went beyond their beloved single, long gospel form (the churches of the Middle East never embraced the fourfold canon until it was forced upon them in the fifth century).

The point then is that when you work your way through Irenaeus' arguments it is difficult not to see why 'truth' was identified with the concept of 'Episcopal throne.' Clearly the arguments that he was making in Against the Heresies and other works necessarily had to have been understood to be ex cathedra quite literally even if this seems to contradict our inherited assumptions about Irenaeus and his relationship to a Papal line which went from Eleuterius to a certain 'Victor' and then Zephyrinus during the activity of Irenaeus in Rome.

The truth is that we know almost nothing about the Church in the period outside of the involvement of the court of the Emperor Commodus in the organization of the Church (which is odd in itself). For instance we have almost no information about the circumstances, the place or the year of Irenaeus' birth or his death. We just know that he claimed to have seen Polycarp in his youth (and even this was undoubtedly disputed by Florinus) and that he had some association with Lyons before his move to Rome. Yet outside of these 'facts' and the recognition of various later Fathers that a figure named 'Irenaeus' was attached to the writings associated with his name in Eusebius we know almost nothing about him.

When I was driving down the winding mountain roads today I noted to myself that both Tertullian, Clement and Hippolytus seem to cite whole sections of the writings associated with Irenaeus. This has never made sense to me. It's not that I can't accept that these very different writers could have held texts in common. They obviously shared the same New Testament canon. My difficulty is with the style and the character of Irenaeus' writings.

Why would these three men from three different parts of the world all decide to take Irenaeus' word on what was heresy and what wasn't?

It can't come down to 'authority.' They each must have had very different understandings about what 'orthodoxy' was. How then did they agree to accept Irenaeus' definition of what the term meant when he couldn't convince some of his fellow believers who sat in the Imperial court of Commodus?

The only solution I can come up with is that this business of his association with the court of Commodus was intimidating in some way to those who were sent a copy of his book (read the concluding words of Book One if you need to be convinced that being identified as a heretic could be dangerous to your health!)

Yet as I kept driving I settled on the basic idea that Irenaeus' writings must have been understood to speak ex cathedra.

Of course there is a problem here which anyone who knows anything about early Christianity will immediately pounce on. There is that little issue of 'Victor' and 'Zephyrinus' being the only mentioned 'Popes' in the period. Nevertheless it is worth noting that Irenaeus' student Hippolytus was an anti-Pope that is that he he protested against Pope Callixtus I and headed a separate group within the Church in Rome.

I don't want to get sidetracked from my original discussion too much here but it never ceases to annoy me how scholars like to imagine that 'everything has already been settled in early Church history' - i.e. who or what anyone was or represented.

The reality is that there is the Commodian age was a bloody mess where - paradoxically - the Catholic Church experienced its first golden age. The period immediately following the assassination of Commodus was a descent into complete anarchy. No one can account for who or what Irenaeus was in the Church of Rome other than to say that he had some relationship with the Imperial court. It is worth noting however that the account of the Liber Pontificalis completely blurs the distinctions between 'Victor' and 'Irenaeus' as described in the Eusebius' Church History.

Whatever the case may have been there can be absolutely no doubt that for Irenaeus the Episcopal throne was identified by the word 'truth' in his writings in the same way that I have argued we see manifest in the writings of Clement of Alexandria and later Eusebius of Caesarea. What we see emerging is something which seems quite natural once you actually start rationalizing the process of Christian origins - someone must have legislated what 'truth' was. It didn't just 'fall from the sky' or literally become transmitted through the 'Holy Spirit.'

The real scientific explanation would be that 'truth' was established by the one who sat in the Episcopal Throne.

Now as I imagine it (and as the Letter to Servianus shows it to be) the original Episcopal Throne was in Alexandria. I believe that Clement is alluding to this reality when he writes in To Theodore:

For not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth, that according to the faith. Now of the things they [the Carpocratians] keep saying about the divinely inspired Gospel according to Mark, some are altogether falsifications, and others, even if they do contain some true elements, nevertheless are not reported truly. For the true things, being mixed with inventions, are falsified, so that, as the saying goes, even the salt loses its savor.

As for Mark, then, during Peter's stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

For Clement then 'the truth' is the truth of the authority associated with the Episcopal throne. It is this object which is hidden behind veils (apparently seven in Clement's day) in the adyton of the church in Boucolia. I needn't get into the symbolic significance of this physical object other than to say that for the faithful in Alexandria and Egypt (remember up until the time of Demetrius there was only one bishop and Episcopal chair for the whole Egyptian church) the one who sat on this chair had the authority of a 'second Christ.'

When Clement criticizes the Carpocratians who had falsely reported the truth about the Secret Gospel he is clearly also assuming that they have physically strayed from the authority of this 'holy' object which is as we have noted the embodiment of 'truth' itself.

But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for the race of men, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter of the church in Alexandria that he got from him a copy of the secret Gospel, which he both interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine and, moreover, polluted, mixing with the spotless and holy words utterly shameless lies. From this mixture is drawn off the teaching of the Carpocratians.

It is my belief that Clement originally understood that the Alexandrian Episcopal throne itself was mentioned in the autographed copy of the Gospel of Mark held by the Church of St. Mark. His mention of 'Peter' and 'Peter's notes' being an influencing factor in that document needn't trouble anyone. After all as we have noted Clement was writing in an age when Irenaeus was actively defining what 'truth' and speaking ex cathedra as it were based on a parallel Episcopal throne of St. Peter in Rome.

Just look for a moment at the repeated - and I mean REPEATED manner in which Irenaeus identifies 'the truth' to be connected with the Episcopal throne in Rome quite specifically. The most obvious example is of course the mention of 'truth' with the episcopal line of Rome in Book 3 of Against the Heresies:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church [of Rome], on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those who exist everywhere.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spake with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Sorer having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

Whenever the heretics are mentioned - please note everyone - they are mere two-dimensional characters who attempt to seduce people away from the authority of the Roman Episcopal throne.

The point then which emerges in both Clement and Irenaeus' treatment of the word 'truth' is that it necessarily means 'Episcopal throne' and again - let me shout it from rooftops - this is something which Morton Smith did not recognize when he developed all his arguments on behalf of Secret Mark, nor was it recognized by those who argued that Morton Smith 'invented' or 'forged' Secret Mark as some sort of homosexual DaVinci Code (Jeffreys idiotically asserts that 'the truth hidden by seven veils' has something to do with Oscar Wilde's Salome).

Sheesh! When will these fools realize what the truth is, was and always will be in the Christian tradition? It is found in the Episcopal throne. So it is that I think that when we go beyond the stupid and utterly distracting controversies about whether or not Morton Smith 'invented' the Letter to Theodore we can use the text to identify - what is clearly an ultimately muted affirmation of Alexandrian Episcopal primacy ...

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here