The problem is that I don't think enough work went into the original analysis of who St. Mark, Irenaeus and Clement actually were.
When we go back to 'the beginning' of Christianity we really can go back to the end of the second century with any certainty. The only two Christian Sees we have any real information about are Rome and Alexandria.
It is at the end of the second century that a number of 'carpetbaggers' (to borrow a term from American history) arrive in Rome and are immediately summoned into the court of one of the worst Emperors in the history of the world.
Now as a historian I am reluctant to use such terms without qualifications. Ruthless men emerge in periods of uncertainty and only appear 'ruthless' because they have to use extra-ordinary means in order to re-establish 'order.'
Commodus begins ruling the Empire with his father Marcus Aurelius in 177 CE. In 172 a revolt against the Antonine Emperors emanating from the Boucolia, a massive marshy region to the east of Alexandria in Egypt where the most important church in Christianity was located. My friend Harry Tzalas has uncovered the exact location of this church and published his findings in a number of journals.
We cannot determine with any degree of certainty that Christians were involved in the revolt. Nevertheless the location makes me suspicious. The immediate backlash against Alexandrian (Markan) Christianity makes me suspicious. The fact that a new New Testament canon emerges in the period built around the Acts of the Apostles claim that 'real' Christianity had nothing to with Alexandria makes me even more suspicious. The fact that "Mark's gospel" is absurdly short in that canon makes me even more suspicious. The fact that the insurgents in the Boucolia were dressed in women's clothes confirms in my mind that they had something to do with the original Markan tradition.
Yes, I really did say that. More on that later ...
Let's leave this aside for the moment and 'fill in the gaps' in Commodus' rise to power. In April 175, Avidius Cassius, the same general who put down the original revolt in the Boucolia became governor of Syria and shortly thereafter declared himself emperor following rumors that Marcus Aurelius had died. Having been accepted as emperor by Syria, Palestine and Egypt, Cassius carried on his rebellion even after it had become obvious that Marcus was still alive. During the preparations for the campaign against Cassius, the prince assumed his toga virilis on the Danubian front on 7 July 175, thus formally entering adulthood. Cassius, however, was killed by one of his centurions before the campaign against him could begin.
Commodus subsequently accompanied his father on a lengthy trip to the eastern provinces, during which he visited Antioch. The emperor and his son then traveled to Athens, where they were initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. They then returned to Rome in the autumn of 176 and became co-ruler of the Empire a few months later.
Now let's go back to Commodus' eventual obsession with destroying the Alexandrian culture of St. Mark. All we have to do is read the opening lines of Tertullian's Against Marcion and the description which follows of the followers of the 'self-castrating' Marcion and then compare it to what is said of the inhabitants of the Boucolia in contemporary literature. The two are virtually identical save for the mention of 'eunuchs' or males appearing in 'female form.'
Tertullian reworks an original report (see what immediately introduces this section) which speaks of the followers of Mark as being derived from a culture:
ashamed of its own barbarism it has set itself at a distance from our more civilized waters. Strange tribes inhabit it—if indeed living in a wagon can be called inhabiting. These have no certain dwelling-place: their life is uncouth: their sexual activity is promiscuous, and for the most part unhidden even when they hide it: they advertise it by hanging a quiver on the yoke of the wagon, so that none may inadvertently break in. So little respect have they for their weapons of war. They carve up their fathers' corpses along with mutton, to gulp down at banquets. If any die in a condition not good for eating, their death is a disgrace. Women also have lost the gentleness, along with the modesty, of their sex. They display their breasts, they do their house-work with battle-axes, they prefer fighting to matrimonial duty. There is sternness also in the climate—never broad daylight, the sun always niggardly, the only air they have is fog, the whole year is winter, every wind that blows is the north wind. Water becomes water only by heating: rivers are no rivers, only ice: mountains are piled high up with snow: all is torpid, everything stark. Savagery is there the only thing warm—such savagery as has provided the theatre with tales of Tauric sacrifices, Colchian love-affairs, and Caucasian crucifixions.
Even so, the most barbarous and melancholy thing about Pontus is that Marcion was born there, more uncouth than a Scythian, more unsettled than a Hamaxomian (i.e. one who led a gypsy life moving from pasture to pasture in a wagon - ed. Robert Evans), more uncivilized than a Massagete, with more effrontery than an Amazon, darker than fog, colder than winter, more brittle than ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than Caucasus. Evidently so, when by him the true Prometheus, God Almighty, is torn to bits with blasphemies. More ill-conducted also is Marcion than the wild beasts of that barbarous land: for is any beaver more self-castrating than this man who has abolished marriage? What Pontic mouse is more corrosive than the man who has gnawed away the Gospels? Truly the Euxine has given birth to a wild animal more acceptable to philosophers than to Christians: that dog-worshipper Diogenes carried a lamp about at midday, looking to find a man, whereas Marcion by putting out the light of his own faith has lost the God whom once he had found.
In my mind, Tertullian has developed the identification of the locale as 'Pontus' from its original association with the Boucolia. Just read what is said just before these words about no less than three versions of this text floating around in antiquity and the present author 'correcting' previous versions of the text:
Nothing I have previously written against Marcion is any longer my concern. I am embarking upon a new work to replace an old one. My first edition, too hurriedly produced, I afterwards withdrew, substituting a fuller treatment. This also, before enough copies had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have copied out some extracts very incorrectly, and shewed them to a group of people. Hence the need for correction. The opportunity provided by this revision has moved me to make some additions. Thus this written work, a third succeeding a second, and instead of third from now on the first, needs to begin by reporting the demise of the work it supersedes, so that no one may be perplexed if in one place or another he comes across varying forms of it.
Scholars have taken for granted the current text's claim that Pontus was somehow a 'wild, unhabitable region.' But this is contradicted by other contemporary historical portraits.
Let us look instead at Heliodorus' description of the Boucolia - the region in which the Church of St. Mark was located and the transgendered revolutionaries who rose up just before Commodus was raised to the status of ruler in Rome. Heliodorus begins with a description of a group of bandits from the region who capture a female prisoner:
At length the captain of the band drew near, laid his hand upon the young girl, and commanded her to get up and follow him. Guessing what he meant (although she did not understand his words), she began to drag the young man (her companion) along with her, who himself refused to part from her; then pointed the dagger towards her breast, she threatened to kill herself, unless they took him as well. Her gestures rather than her words explained her meaning to the captain, who, hoping that the young man if he recovered might be of great service to him, dismounted and ordered his esquires to do the same, and bade his prisoners to do the same. Bidding his men to collect the spoils, he himself walked on foot by the side of the captives to hold them up in case they should be in danger of falling ...
After the brigands followed the coast for the distance of about two stades they left the sea on their right and turned aside in the direction of a mountain which they climbed with difficulty and descending to the other side with all speed arrived at a lake which lay below. The whole district is called Bucolia (Pasture) by the Egyptians. In it there is a valley, which receives the overflow of the Nile and becomes a lake, very deep in the middle, while its shores are shallow and marshy for the waters of lakes, like those of the sea, diminish in depth the nearer they are to the land. This spot is as it, were the republic of all the brigands of Egypt. Some dwell in huts which they have built upon rising ground above the level of the water while others live in boats, which they use both for habitation and purposes of transport; it is here that their wives spin, and are brought to bed.
The children are first brought up on their mother's milk, afterwards upon fish caught in the lake and dried in the sun. As soon as a child can crawl a cord is tied to its ankles and it is allowed to go as far as the edge of the boat or the door of the hut, the cord being used as a guide. Thus those who are born on the lake look upon it as their nurse and regard it as a safe stronghold for brigands like themselves who flock thither in large numbers. The water serves as a wall, and the reeds which grow in abundance as a palisade. Amongst these reeds they have cut several winding and torturous paths, easy for them to find who know them but which are difficult to access to others and form a strong defense against invasion. Such is this little republic and such is the manner of its inhabitants. [Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1.VI]
Do you want to see how big 'the Boucalia' in Egypt was? Here's a photo of a REAL place where the culture of Marcion described in Tertullian could have - did indeed actually - take root. 
Alexandria is just to the left of where the 'green stuff' ends and the Church of St. Mark would be right up against the walls of the city but still part of the 'pasture' area. Harry Tzalas has done detailed geological surveys to back this up. My point of course is that there is no evidence whatsoever for this 'warlike' culture described in Tertullian's Against Marcion as existing anywhere near or around Pontus. Quite the opposite in the case of the Church of St. Mark in the Boucalia. The later history of the Arius (who was the presbyter of the Church) and the Arians is filled with references to the 'alliance' which existed between this rustic barbaric culture and the Christian church in the region wholly opposed to the newly emergent 'orthodoxy' on the other side of the walled city.
Indeed the connection between the Arians and the Boucolia is reflected in Ephrem's attack against the sect noting that:
Whoever makes 'enquiry' is a wounded member may he be healed and not harm the whole body.
And because he is poisoned may the Healer of our pains cut him off and cast him out from the Pasture [HFid 15,7,9]
I strongly suspect that the original material describing Marcion associating with barbaric bandits derives from an original association with Boucolia. The connection of Marcion and his horde with 'pastures'(pascitis) is evidenced in other references from Tertullian. Notice what is said in Prescription Against the Heretics:
What do ye in my pastures, who are none of mine? By what authority do you, Marcion, break in upon my inclosures? [Tertullian, Prescription Against the Heretics XXXVII
The use of the term pascitis or boucolia is not coincidental or merely symbolic. It is connected with the basic geography of Alexandria and Egypt because Marcion was Mark and Marcionitism was merely meant 'the tradition of Mark.' The tradition was rooted in the Boucolia - the region of the Nile Delta - and if we conduct archaeological digs there we will undoubtedly find evidence connected with this lost original culture of Alexandria and Christianity as a whole.
I have absolutely no doubts about that.
