I know a lot of people who happen to study the monastic tradition and it is amazing that they can conceive of the specifically 'orthodox' version of ritual asceticism as being something wholly 'separate' from the much earlier heretical equivalents. In short they make it seem as if monasticism began in the fourth century.
This state of affairs is utterly incredible and demonstrates how a lack of imagination has hampered all contemporary research into the development of early Christianity.
Let us allow ourselves to finally face the facts - the Marcionites had an ecclesiastical hierarchy with a castrated clergy from at least the early part of the second century (I think it goes back much further than that).
The same state of affairs existed in Alexandria owing to the fact that (again in my opinion) the See of St. Mark was the original headquarters of the Marcionite Episcopacy.
As I have noted so many times it almost makes me nauseous, 'Marcion' was artificially developed from a back formation of 'Marqiyone' an Aramaic term which originally meant 'those of Mark.'
So why is it so incredible to suppose that Marcionitism was the original faith of Alexandrian Christianity, and this Episcopacy only modified its beliefs and practices slowly and with many persecutions directed against it by the Roman Church and State?
These ideas are things that traditional scholars could never even imagine so as a result we talk about 'monasticism' appearing like a brick falling out of the sky in the fourth century. We also ignore the clear universality of Marcionite-like ritual castrations in Alexandria throughout the late second and early third century.
In short we develop an entirely biased and ultimately STUPID explanation for the origins of Christianity which serve only one real purpose - to uphold the sanctity of OUR inherited Christian tradition.
The fact that Alexandria absurdly gets pushed into a corner along with other 'gnostic' and heretical traditions is of little consequence when compared with defending the beliefs of 'Mommy and Daddy' in the eyes of most (pseudo)scholars.
I hope their parents are at least proud of their falsification efforts ...
