Another Gospel Narrative Where Jesus Established a 'Spiritual Baptism' Among his Disciples

I don't know where to begin with this but perhaps the best thing is to just cite the material as it appears in Book Two of the Pistis Sophia. But before I do, let me recap what we have discovered so far in our own investigation.

Previous generations of scholars have not properly understood Morton Smith's discovery of to Theodore and its reference to a 'Secret Gospel of Mark' which was the preferred gospel of the late second century Alexandrian Christian community. Instead of trying to limit ourselves to the four canonical gospels and traditional orthodoxy of the Catholic Church we have instead delved into the ignored gospel and the ignored traditions of two communities 'of Mark' which were very prominent in the period Clement was writing.

Irenaeus (c. 180) witnesses the existence of a community 'of Mark' (the Marcosians) who possessed a single, long gospel with a baptismal rite called 'the redemption' which is foretold in Luke xii.50 (Diatessaron xxvii.29) and ultimately appears in the narrative just before Mark x.38 (Diatessaron xxx.46) - in other words, in the exact place that the first addition to the Gospel of Mark is placed (LGM 1)in Clement's Letter to Theodore.

Similarly a number of Church Fathers reference another community 'of Mark' (viz. the 'Marcionites' where Aphrahat clearly identifies the name as a Semitic gentilic collective plural construction i.e. marqiyoni - 'those of Mark') which had a 'baptism on behalf of the dead' ritual identified in Epiphanius (c. fourth century) in this very same place.

Indeed Epiphanius' report proves once and for all that the two heretical groups were one and the same tradition.

What I am now suggesting is that Clement's community of Mark in Alexandria was related to these two other communities of Mark witnessed in other parts of the world and moreover that they most have had one and the same gospel (or variations of a lost original narrative that was systematically rooted out of the Church over the next two hundred years).

When you start reading commentaries on this single, long gospel tradition in writers like Ephrem the Syrian (c. fourth century) it is difficult to avoid seeing that those who used the text understood that the beloved disciple who underwent some kind of special baptism ritual just before the request from Salome to have her children sit on the throne of God ACTUALLY end up sitting on the throne of God at the end of the gospel.

It's how a good writer would have naturally and necessarily developed the narrative and we must imagine that 'God' was the best of the best.

I just happened to thumb through the Pistis Sophia an Egyptian gnostic text which has been dated by most scholars (in its earliest form) to the second century makes this absolutely explicit.

Yet I think I can make the connection with the redemption ritual and the baptism of the dead of the other Markan faiths even tighter. The Pistis Sophia clearly seems to cite from a gospel which portrayed Jesus as taking at least one disciple and baptizing him as part of ritual to make the disciple 'perfect.'

We already get the hint from the reports about the Marcionites and other heretics that the ritual was called 'baptism on behalf of the dead' because we mortals are 'dead' and by going into the water the angel Jesus will become wedded to our soul.

Yet why was the same ritual called 'the redemption' in other reports about the Markan tradition?

The Pistis Sophia helps explain that.

The resurrected Jesus explains to Mary Magdalene about meaning of this ritual by saying:

He then who shall receive the one and only word of that mystery, which I have told you, if he cometh forth out of the body of the matters of the rulers, and if the retributive receivers come and free him from the body of matter of the rulers - that is those [receivers] who free from the body all out-going souls. [Pistis Sophia 2.228]

In other words - as we intimate from Irenaeus' original testimony - the ritual is called 'redemption' because the soul being 'freed' from the material body by being wedded to angels or 'light emanations' through the mystery of baptism.

So it is that we see a few pages later Jesus explain how 'lucky' the individual initiates should consider themselves that the angels are being made to unite with their dead bodies:

For the emanations of the Light have no need of the mysteries, for they are purified; but it is the race of men which hath need of them, because they are material refuse. For this cause therefore have I said unto you aforetime 'The healthy have no need of the physician but the sick' - that is, those of the Light have no need of the mysteries for they are purified lights; but it is the race of men which hath need of them, for they are material refuse [ibid 250]

If the reader spends the time to go through the contents of the Pistis Sophia it will become readily apparent that the sect identifies this same ritual as 'redemption' owing to their obsession with 'freeing themselves' from 'the rulers' who oppress them. Yet he should notice also that that the clearest proof that this is one and the same baptism mentioned in the various reports about 'those of Mark' insofar as it is specifically connected with Luke xii.50.

The discussion of baptism is re-introduced in Book Three when Mary Magdala asks how baptism forgives sin. Jesus answers by noting that:

he who shall receive the mysteries of the baptisms, then the mystery of them becometh a great, exceedingly violent, wise fire and it burneth up the sins and entereth into the soul secretly and consumeth all the sins which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to it ... The mystery of baptism remaineth in the midst of the two, continually separating them from one another, so that it maketh them clean and purifieth them, in order that they may not be stained by matter [ibid iv.115]

Of course it has always puzzled me how John the Baptist announces that Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" and then never introduces a baptism sacrament of his own.

In any event, Mary emerges in what immediately follows and see Jesus referencing this 'baptism which will burn away sins and sinfulness' throughout his saying in the gospel. So we hear that:

Mary started forward and said: "Yea, my Lord, in truth I enquire closely into all the words which thou sayest. Concerning the word then of the forgiveness of sins thou hast spoken unto us in similitude aforetime, saying: 'I am come to cast fire on the earth,' and again: 'What will I that it burn?' And again thou hast distinguished it clearly, saying: 'I have a baptism, to baptize in it; and how shall I endure until it is accomplished? Think ye I am come to cast peace on the earth? Nay, but I am come to cast division. For from now on five will be in one house; three will be divided against two, and two against three.' This, my Lord, is the word which thou hast spoken clearly. [ibid]

Mary explains what each of these sayings mean by connecting them to an actual baptism which necessarily appeared somewhere in the gospel AFTER Luke xii.50:

The word indeed which thou hast spoken: 'I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I that it burn?'--that is, my Lord: Thou hast brought the mysteries of the baptisms into the world, and thy pleasure is that they should consume all the sins of the soul and purify them. And thereafter again thou hast distinguished it clearly, saying: 'I have a baptism, to baptize in it; and how shall I endure until it is accomplished?'--that is: Thou wilt not remain in the world until the baptisms are accomplished and purify the perfect souls.

And moreover the word which thou hast spoken unto us aforetime: 'Think ye I am come to cast peace on the earth? Nay, but I am come to cast division. For from now on five will be in one house; three will be divided against two, and two against three,'--that is: Thou hast brought the mystery of the baptisms into the world, and it hath effected a division in the bodies of the world, because it hath separated the counterfeiting spirit and the body and the destiny into one portion; the soul and the power on the other hand it hath separated into another portion;--that is: Three will be against two, and two against three."

And when Mary had said this, the Saviour said: "Well said, thou spiritual and light-pure Mary. This is the solution of the word.

It is worth noting that the apparent textual variant "I have a baptism, to baptize in it; and how shall I endure until it is accomplished" - i.e. that Jesus originally participated in the very baptism he established to purify others - coupled with all we have seen about the gnostic understanding of the redemption ritual also grounded in this saying seem to imply to me at least that the initiates in Egypt were being baptized WITH Jesus (hence 'the naked man WITH naked man' MISUNDERSTANDING among the Carpocratians).

What exactly the form of baptism that Jesus introduced to the world is not at all clear. It seems to involve 'fire' and 'division' on some level dividing what is 'counterfeit' from the purity of the soul. Yet as we have seen from a previous post the underlying notion in the Pistis Sophia is that of the Christian sacraments distilling 'purity' from a body of 'mixture.' To use the salt metaphor, dung has within it 'salt.' One need only learn to distill the pure element.

This apparently is the purpose of the Christian sacrament of baptism, distinguished it seems from the baptism of repentance introduced by John the Baptist.