I Can't Believe I Didn't Make Patristic Carnival This Month

I have to admit I was surprised to have been chosen last month by Patristic Carnival - a monthly carnival devoted to blog entires dealing with the Church Fathers and Christian Apocrypha - given the general hostility that people who study the writings of the Church Fathers have for 'the heresies' and by inference Jews and Judaism (all traditions deemed 'heretical' by the Church Fathers are inevitably closer to Semitic soil than the Catholic Church which is a wholly European phenomenon).

The fact that I was chosen last month has more to do with the generosity of the blogger who was hosting the carnival last month - Rod of Political Jesus - than anything else. Thank you for that kind gesture, Rod.

But this month, I can't believe that there was a more important DISCOVERY this month then my fifty posts proving that Clement of Alexandria was a member of the 'Markian' or 'Marcosian' heresy. It's not just that I thought of it - I come up with lots of things, some stupid, some not so stupid. But this is a phenomenon that lots of other scholars picked up on but UNDERESTIMATED (perhaps deliberately) the significance of the discovery.

In any event for all those who ARE interested in my efforts here are the fifty proofs that Clement was a member of the sect identified by Irenaeus as 'the Marcosians'

Proofs 1 and 2 - both identify themselves as 'perfect' and 'gnostics'
Proofs 3, 4 and 5 - both show interest in a gnostic ritual called 'redemption' which frees them from sin and sinning in this life and made them equal to the angels who behold the face of the Father in heaven.
Proof 6 - both understand the Father to be androgynous who recreates man according to his image through a tetrad.
Proof 7 - both understood God creating through four letters
Proof 8 - both have a similar understanding of a choir of angelic powers in the highest heaven
Proof 9 - both understand the church as an assembly of aeons
Proof 10 - both develop an interest in a veiled hypostasis named 'truth'
Proof 11 - both understand the Word to be the 'dispenser of the bounty of the Father'
Proof 12, 13 and 14 - both hold that Jesus 'was indicated by the sixth conspicuously marked, becoming the eighth' who was 'is known by all those that belong to the called'
Proof 15 - both have the EXACT SAME numerological interpretation of the Transfiguration narrative in the gospel
Proof 16 - both have the EXACT SAME kabbalistic interpretation of 'the Alpha and Omega'
Proof 17 - both have the EXACT SAME mystical interpretation of the sixth letter of the alphabet (the episemon)
Proof 18 - both have the EXACT SAME mystical interpretation of the sixth letter in relation to the numbers seven and eight
Proof 19 - both had the same mystical interpretation of Psalm 19.1
Proof 20 - both had a parallel understanding of the significance of the contemplation of divine things
Proof 21 - both have the EXACT SAME mystical interest in the first four numbers adding up to ten
Proof 22 - both were attached to a gnostic baptism INTO Jesus most famously manifest in LGM 1 of the Letter to Theodore
Proof 23 - both had the same interest in the hypostasis Truth
Proof 24 - both had the EXACT SAME mystical interest in the numbers twelve and thirty
Proof 25 - both had similar mystical interest in the numbers four and twelve
Proof 26 - both connected the mystical number twelve to the zodiac in the EXACT SAME way
Proof 27 - both had VERY SIMILAR arguments surrounding the mystical significance of the number 360
Proof 28 - both had the EXACT SAME mystical interpretation of the number twelve and its relation to the months of the year
Proof 29 - both identify the presence of the mystical number ten in early parts of the Genesis narrative
Proof 30 - both identify the number four with the inner sanctum of the temple
Proof 31 - both had the EXACT SAME identification of the mystical number twelve with the gems on the breast plate of the Jewish high priest - via Philo of Alexandria
Proof 32 - both see similar connection between the human body and the mystical number ten
Proof 33 - both connect the mystical number thirty with the tabernacle in the EXACT SAME way
Proof 34 - both have IDENTICAL interpretations of Isaiah i.3
Proof 35 - both had the EXACT SAME interest and textual variants of Matt 11.25/Luke 10.21
Proof 36 - both were connected with 'heretical' gospels of Mark
Proof 37 - both had the EXACT SAME mystical interpretation for the letter alpha
Proof 38 - both understand 'Alpha and Omega' to mean that Jesus was made up of a pleroma of aeonic powers
Proof 39 - both employed Luke 2.49 to demonstrate the same mystical principles
Proof 40 - both employed the EXACT SAME textual variant for Mark 10.17
Proof 41 - both employed Matt 11.28 in the EXACT SAME way
Proof 42 - both understand the gnostic ritual of 'redemption' as "the mother of things which are incomprehensible and invisible"
Proof 43 - both understand that the gnostic ritual 'redemption' was a regeneration into Jesus
Proof 44 - both understand the gnostic ritual of redemption was 'for perfection'
Proof 45 - both identified the gnostic ritual of redemption to be connected with Mark chapter 10
Proof 46 - both understand that the hypostasis 'Silence' was seated beside God on the divine throne
Proof 47 - both identified the truth of their tradition to be passed on viva voce, something EXPLICITLY outlawed by Irenaeus
Proof 48 - both have the EXACT SAME mystical interpretation of the number twelve, thirty and the year of favor (Isa 61.2)
Proof 49 - both identify that humanity was perfected through the number six (in a manner which anticipates - reflects knowledge of? - LGM 1)
Proof 50 - not only do I demonstrate that both had the EXACT SAME mystical understanding of the REMOVAL of the sixth letter from the world as the CORE KABBALISTIC PRINCIPLE WHICH GUIDED MARK'S ORIGINAL COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL. Moreover I have furnished proof that this kabbalah was known to Philo of Alexandria, thus connecting the understanding to a messianic sect of first century Jewish Alexandria which tied these principles to impending destruction of the world.

The point of course this argument of a commonality between Clement's Alexandrian tradition of St. Mark and a WORLDWIDE heretical tradition associated with an early Christian teacher of the same name ENDS UP BEING STRONGER than any case that can be laid out for a commonality between Origen and Clement even though (a) Irenaeus devotes only ten paragraphs of explanation in his Against the Heresies and (b) we know for certain that Clement and Origen did indeed represent a continuation of an Alexandrian tradition (Origen was Clement's successor as the head of the so-called catechetical school of Alexandria).

As such we can be VERY CONFIDENT that Clement was MORE OF A MARCOSIAN than Origen was a disciple of Clement's teaching or method.

I believe that these fifty proofs provide the means of overturning ALL of our inherited presuppositions about Christianity and its relation to Judaism. Not surprising the person promoting this new understanding - i.e. me - happens to be Jewish.

It has always struck me as incredible that most scholars who delve into the origins of Christianity out of Judaism don't have a #$#^& clue what Judaism is, was and always will be. They view kabbalah as something essentially alien to both Judaism, Christianity and Mark's authorship of the gospel.

Nevertheless I have I believe begun the process of understanding the gospel of Mark in its original 'Diatessaron-like' form as a KABBALISTIC TEXT, a precursor to the Zohar and in my opinion a completely superior literary creation.

This was originally conceived by Mark as the perfected Torah promised by Moses in the Great Song of Deuteronomy 32 and I think - when scholars begin to digest the evidence - they will see that this text was one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of literature.

But first they will give up their inherited anti-Semitic presuppositions ...