The Best and Only Sensible Explanation of THE ORIGINAL RITUAL CONTEXT of the Letter To Theodore, Secret Mark and the Contemporary Alexandrian Church

With all the excitement going on with the special Secret Mark issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review, I thought I would finalize my position on the text before moving on to other things that interest me. Yet before I do let me segue with an announcement of my own:

We have a new member of our 'Prominent Saints of the Early Alexandrian Church Who Happened to Be Eunuchs Club'! That's right - Pope Demetrius of Alexandria (189 - 235 CE) was 'outed' by Otto Meinardus for us in our last post.

So let's spell it out for the people at whom who aren't so bright (that list would include many prominent scholars it seems). The head of the Alexandrian Church at the time Clement wrote the Letter to Theodore did not have his testicles attached to his body. They were removed as part of an Alexandrian ritual that I think HAS TO BE recognized was almost universal in the Egyptian Church in the period.

Again, I am not advocating castration. I couldn't care less if they were eating Kraft dinner behind the veils of the inner sanctum. The point is that Alexandrian Church was very different from our own. It can't be coincidence that we end up talking about castration whenever the lives of prominent Alexandrian saints of the late second and early third century are scrutinized. It was a central part of their identity as Christians in the period.

And so here is my brief segue to Secret Mark ...

When we hear intimations like - "And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God" - given the specifically Alexandrian context of the gospel (this text after all was hidden in the Great Church of St. Mark in the Boucolia) and given the fact that the head of the Church at the time (Demetrius) and already the young budding student (Origen) are known to have gone through this very same self-castration ritual, the reference to Jesus telling his beloved disciple 'what to do' can only be a reference to one thing.

Jesus is said to be ritually preparing this neaniskos to receive the very same mystery that would be passed on to those who would use Secret Mark in the early period.

Indeed notice how Clement consistently parallels what happened in the earlier period to what is still going on 'now' in the Alexandrian Church of his day. We are told that the Alexandrian gospel was arranged by Mark in such a way that those who "knew the interpretation" to various added sayings - i.e. the baptism narrative (LGM 1) for example - would be led into the "adyton (inner sanctum) of that truth hidden by seven veils."

Well as anyone familiar with ancient churches will immediately recognize - Clement is saying that they will become priests and members of the presbytery because only these sorts of individuals are ever allowed into the inner sanctum.

So it that when Clement goes on to say that Secret Mark is "most carefully guarded" in the inner sanctum of the Church of St. Mark and is "read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries" there can be no doubt that the 'mystery' that Jesus taught to his beloved neaniskos and the 'mystery' that is developed from 'additions' to the Gospel of Mark (like this very same narrative) which 'lead' people to become priests in the inner sanctum are one and the same.

It is all about self-castration, the first step in the ritual to becoming a consecrated priest in the ancient Egyptian church.

Indeed now that we know that Coptic tradition ACKNOWLEDGES that the man who sat on the Episcopal throne in this very period of history - Demetrius I - was himself a self-made eunuch like Origen we can finally come to terms with what the reference to 'leading the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils' actually means.

I have argued time and again in this post that 'truth' means throne (because of Isa. 16:5) and that after coming out of the water on the other side of the church the initiate walked through the veil that formerly prevented him from seeing what was going on in the inner sanctum, the newly consecrated eunuch priest may even have seen the head of the Church - the Patriarch - enthroned on the chair undoubtedly in a naked state like himself.

Perhaps this is where the 'naked man and naked man' reference originated. Who knows?

However let's not get ahead of ourselves. If we are ever going to convince even ONE prominent scholar about the truth of Alexandrian Christianity in the period we will have to develop a systematic approach.

In a previous post we started listing the Marcionite influence over earliest Christianity in a completely new way - listing all the eunuchs of the African Church.

1. Jesus (Tertullian Monogamy 5. 6)
2. St. Mark ("Philosophumena", VII, xxx)
3. St. Paul (Tertullian Monogamy 3)
4. St John (ibid Monogamy 17; Jerome vol. vii. p. 655; cf. Leucius Acts of John)
5. 'Marcion' (Tertullian AM 1; I am utterly convinced that Marcion is Mark)
6. the Egyptian contemporaries of the unnamed Alexandrian in Justin's report (Justin I Apol. XXIX)
7. Julius Cassianus (c. 165 - 185 CE)
8. Hyacinthus (fl 180 CE) described by Hippolytus (Philosophumena 5.7) 'a presbyter, though an eunuch rather advanced in life.' He was a trusted agent of Marcia, the official concubine of the Emperor Commodus. I suspect he came over from Alexandria.
9. Pope Demetrius of Alexandria (189 - 234 CE)
10. Origen of Alexandria (fl 220 CE)

Now let's stop right here. Justin Martyr is generally understood to have been active writing between the 145 - 165 CE. Julius Cassianus continues to confirm the Alexandrian ideal of the eunuch as the 'perfect man.' While Pope Demetrius and Origen make absolutely certain that this understanding continued down through to the third century.

My question to my audience again is that as long as scholars looked the other way and imagined that the self-castration of Origen was some sort of 'aberration' we didn't have to look for a variant Alexandrian gospel which supported this ideal. But now that I have tirelessly set forth that the 'eunuch for the sake of the kingdom' tradition must be as old as St. Mark of the 'mutilated finger' AND there must have been something in the gospel USED BY THESE ALEXANDRIANS which reinforced their bizarre sounding notions.

Let's break it down for the stupid (or the willfully ignorant). Here are the ages that we KNOW FOR ABSOLUTE CERTAIN that ritual castration MUST HAVE BEEN A PRE-REQUISITE for members of the clergy:

145 - 165 CE (from Justin's report)
165 - 175 CE (from Julius Cassianus' writings)
185 - 235 CE (from the implication of Demetrius' 'outing' above)

My point again is that WE DON'T NEED TO PROVE THE AUTHENTICITY OF 'SECRET MARK' or have endless debates about what the meaning of the initiation ritual idetified in the first addition (LGM 1) mentioned in the letter to Theodore meant. There simply had to be a Gospel of Mark which supported these ritual castration practices.

The alternative is to argue that the only sensible Christians in history - the Alexandrians - didn't know how to read or interpret our existing canonical gospels correctly; that they all became incredibly stupid and recklessly chopped off their testicles WITH NO JUSTIFICATION FROM A SCRIPTURAL SOURCE.

Again, I don't need to listen to Scott Brown or anyone else tell me that Morton Smith got it wrong when he identified LGM 1 as 'another' baptism ritual (when compared to our familiar 'John the Baptist baptism of Jesus'). THIS RITUAL CASTRATION BEFORE BAPTISM HAD TO BE SOMEWHERE AND LGM 1 IS AS GOOD OF A PLACE TO START AS ANY OTHER.

Scott Brown's is a clever argument that works as an academic paper but falls down when you actually bring it out into the 'real world' of history.

The better argument for the authenticity of Secret Mark is just to look at all these castrated Alexandrians and then remember that:

(1) when the name 'Marcionite' is preserved in Aphrahat's Syriac commentary the specific form used there - viz. marqiyone - demonstrates that the term means 'those of Mark.'
(2) the Marcionites are repeatedly identified by Tertullian as having a castration ritual which preceded the baptism of their clergy

So you have at least one group devoted to a guy named 'Mark' who practiced ritual castration which necessarily was rooted in a variant gospel text.

How do we know that the Marcionites had a variant baptism ritual? Tertullian says that John doesn't appear in the Marcionite gospel until much later in the narrative. [Tertullian Against Marcion iv:11] In other words, there was no 'John the Baptism baptism of Jesus' in the Marcionite gospel.

We also know that the Marcionites themselves understood their gospel to be a 'gospel of Mark' given Hippolytus' explicit rejection of their claims - viz. "When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such tenets." [Phil. vii.18]

Yet if the Marcionites did not have a 'John the Baptism baptism' of Jesus in their Gospel of Mark what served as the paradigm for baptism in their community? The only thing that we keep hearing surface time and again in reports on the Marcionites is a 'baptism on behalf of the dead' where the Apostle's statement in 1 Cor 15:29 is applied to a ritual where 'the dead' - i.e. we living mortals - are immersed in water and united with angels.

This ritual is also called 'the redemption' undoubtedly owing to various statements made by the apostle connecting 'redemption' to 'being in Christ.' So we see the idea appear in 1 Cor 1:30 where it is said that "it is because of him that you are in Christ who has become for us ... our redemption."

Is Origen making a mistake ... or a slip of the tongue when he says of this passage that "we must not, on account of their feminine name and nature, regard wisdom and righteousness as females; for these things are in our view the Son of God, as His genuine disciple has shown, when he said of Him, "Who of God is made to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." [Origen Contra Celsus V.39]

The last I checked 'Paul' never actually became a disciple of Jesus.

Of course if - as I have always suggested - the letter to the Corinthians was named 'the letter to the Alexandrians' in the Marcionite canon (see Muratorian canon) and Origen shared the Marcionite idea that the apostle who wrote the gospel also wrote the apostolic letters of our canon (and how could it be otherwise!) then it would stand to reason that this castrated follower of Mark was thinking about a specific gospel passage which appeared in his secret Gospel of Mark hidden in the great church of the Apostle in Alexandria.

For Origen is in effect telling us when you look at what he says here that the apostle who wrote these words about 'being in Christ' through a 'redemption' was 'the genuine' or true disciple of Jesus. This 'genuine' or 'true' disciple also continually refers to baptism as a water immersion which begins 'in death' - just like the first addition to the Gospel of Mark mentioned in To Theodore (LGM 1).

Now I don't know about you but I can't see any rational explanation for where the Apostle got his idea about 'being baptized into death' from the John the Baptist baptism narrative. But then again, as we have already shown, the Marcionites wouldn't have even tried to make this connection because - after all - their gospel introduced 'John' much later in the narrative ...

So when we see that the Marcionite identified Jesus as an angelic being - wholly phantasmic and with no 'humanity' whatsoever - you can start to see why the ritual called 'redemption' by 'those of Mark' (the Marcosians in the writings of Irenaeus) and the ritual called 'baptism on behalf of the dead' by another group called 'those of Mark' (the Marcionites from the reference in Aphrahat) really both have to be references to a variant (and longer) version of the Gospel of Mark which were held by groups outside of the Catholic Church.

I won't get into the whole argument as to whether the 'Marcosians' and the 'Marcionites' were one and the same tradition (I am certain they were). It is enough to say acknowledge that we have two groups identified as 'those of Mark' by two different original sources - one in Greek and another in Aramaic - WHICH BOTH IDENTIFY A RITUAL IDENTIFIED AS 'THE REDEMPTION' OR 'THE BAPTISM ON BEHALF OF THE DEAD' AS OCCURRING AFTER LUKE XII.50 AND BEFORE MARK X.38 IN A SINGLE, LONG GOSPEL ATTRIBUTED TO MARK.

Just compare what is said in three different sources about this elusive baptism ritual where Jesus 'the angel' and a necessarily dead but 'genuine' disciple became 'two in one flesh' uniting the angelic and the mortal in one person.

First there is Irenaeus' report which blatantly and deliberately adds the words 'Can ye be baptized with the baptism I shall be baptized with ...' to the original reading of the enthronement discussion between Jesus and the sons of Zebedee in the gospel of 'those of Mark':

And to this [redemption] he refers when He says, "And I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I hasten eagerly towards it." 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?" [Irenaeus AH i.21.2]

In other words, as we have already demonstrated Irenaeus - the first witness to these additional words has added them to the original gospel in the possession of the Marcosians to diffuse the obvious implications of the 'redemption' baptism being located IN THE EXACT PLACE LGM 1 was located in the Marcosian 'gospel harmony' - i.e. after Luke xii.50 (which is again cited in a curious form) and BEFORE Mark x.38.

The second time we run across this heretical baptism ritual is when we come across the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism where Catholics are deciding what to do with those who have received this other form of water immersion. The third century author now corrects Irenaeus' curious gospel citation and explicitly acknowledges he is citing from the canonical Gospel of Mark against their beliefs:

But "I have another baptism to be baptized with." [Luke 12:50] Also according to Mark He said, with the same purpose, to the sons of Zebedee: "Are you able to drink of the cup which I drink of, or to be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?" [Mark 10:38]

We might never have gotten to the bottom of the mystery of this 'redemption' ritual if it wasn't for Epiphanius' citation of an earlier report where THE EXACT SAME ARGUMENT WAS USED AGAINST THE BAPTISM ON BEHALF OF THE DEAD PRACTICE OF THE MARCIONITES. So we read:

He [Marcion] says that after the Lord's baptism by John he told the disciples, 'I have a baptism to be baptized with and why do I wish to if I have already accomplished it?' And again, 'I have a cup to drink and why do I wish to if I have already fulfilled it?' And because of this he decreed the giving of more baptisms [Epiphanius Panarion Section III Marcionites]

Notice my friends that the Marcionite gospel does not have Jesus announce that the baptism IS TO COME in Mark x.38. Only the drinking of the cup is placed in the future. The baptism has just happened given the fact that Luke xii.50 occurred long before this section.

The point which cannot be avoided now is - not only are both 'those of Mark' communities (viz. 'the Marcosians' and 'the Marcionites') involved with the same variant Gospel of Mark which had a baptism narrative AFTER Luke xii.50 and JUST BEFORE Mark x.38 (exactly where LGM 1) - but THE RITUAL CONTEXT of this 'redemption' ritual HAS TO BE UNDERSTOOD to be castration.

I have already drawn up a list of passages from Tertullian which demonstrate that indeed the Marcionite baptism involved a ritual castration component.

We also know from the Marcionite New Testament canon had one gospel written by the same apostle who wrote the seven (or eight) letters which followed it and that one of those letters was 'to the Alexandrians.'

As I have noted several times, it is only our inherited prejudices which tell us that the apostle's name was 'Paul.' I see very good reasons to think that the Marcionites knew him as 'Mark.'

Whatever the case may be we now see that after Morton Smith discovered the letter to Theodore that a longer version of the Gospel of Mark was secret kept alone and apart from the other canonical gospels which happened to have a baptism ritual in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark JUST BEFORE Jesus' words in verse 38 - viz. 'I have a cup to drink and why do I wish to if I have already fulfilled it?'

As I see it there can only be one explanation for the underlying picture of Markan Christianity here. The Gospel of Mark originally placed the baptism on behalf of the dead - or as it was alternatively called 'the redemption' - in the very place where to Theodore tells us LGM 1 appears.

When Clement dismisses what Theodore THINKS 'naked man' and 'naked man' were doing in the dark there, he knows that Jesus encouraged this youth to castrate himself and make himself after his angelic form.

In other words, Jesus was a eunuch so all humans wanting to gain immortality must re-create themselves after his image.

This is why the ritual happens after six days.

It is also why the Passion of Christ in Aramaic really means 'the transformation of Christ.'

Again, as I have noted already - something has to explain why ALL the clergy in Alexandria were eunuchs in the period BEFORE Irenaeus' fourfold gospel took hold in the city. If we are going to ignore the practice, we might successfully avoid connecting the ritual context of Secret Mark. I don't know. That's not how I operate.

The reality is that IF WE DARE TO THINK ABOUT MATTERS there can only be one answer - To Theodore is real, Morton Smith couldn't have imagined the implications of his discovery.

One could argue that he might have wanted it to be about homosexuality in early Christianity, but it was in reality about something far more unusual - far 'queerer' than queer.

Early Christians were castrating themselves to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The evidence now proves that Origen was not some kind of exception.

He was the rule.

Indeed he was rule because the rule was being established by Secret Mark.