I am throwing down the gauntlet. I defy anyone and everyone to compare my explanation of To Theodore's relationship to the Alexandrian liturgy and those of the hoaxers - i.e. Andrew Criddle, Peter Jeffrey and the rest of that lot.
I prefer to refer to them as the 'defamers' but that's another story.
I am very confident that any objective observer will immediately see that my arguments DEMOLISH their objections and challenge their defamation of Morton Smith's character.
Of course I can't say that my arguments 'prove' the letter's authenticity. I don't know what argument can possibly prove something like that. However I do think that it supports the idea that we should give the letter's authenticity the benefit of the doubt.
But first the facts:
There is no scholarly consensus as to what the Alexandrian liturgy looked like at the time of Clement. Yet there are some important clues which are usually ignored in most discussions of To Theodore.
There are a number of important witnesses to the existence of a 'Christian Festival of Unleavened Bread' in the early Church - Origen, Epiphanius and Aphraates just to name a few. I have cited these sources numerous times in previous posts at this blog.
The Festival of Unleavened Bread is seven days long like the baptism ritual described in the Letter to Theodore.
Yet the clincher is that traditional Jewish and Samaritan understanding of this 'seventh day' supports the Apostle of Christianity's identification of the seventh day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread as the ultimate typos for Christian baptism.
According to Samaritan tradition, the ancient Israelites crossed the Red Sea at the end of the seventh day, the day Paul says they were 'baptized in the cloud and in the sea.' [1 Cor 10:2]
Even though the EUROPEAN CHRISTAN TRADITION speaks of the day of Jesus' resurrection as 'the third day,' it is ritually assigned to the seventh and eighth days of the week - i.e. Saturday and Sunday. Nevertheless it is not difficult to see that this was not the original understanding - especially at Alexandria. A careful examination of the evidence supports the understanding that the Resurrection was originally assigned to the seventh and eight days of the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
The tradition behind the Gospel of Peter is important in this respect but there are many others that I have already brought forward in previous posts.
Before we get into that argument, I hope the reader will allow me to give everyone a crash course on the mystical foundation of Christianity.
The Ogdoad اننا من الله واليه راجعين
In traditional Christian theology the Resurrection is thought to have happened at the very INSTANT of the end of the Sabbath, NOT on the eighth or first day, not even on the first instant of the day. The reason for waiting a bit later than sunset till it is completely dark before reading out the passages referring to the Resurrection is to be absolutely certain the Sabbath has finished. There is a deeper meaning which can be argued to be developed from the Rabbinic Jewish concept that the type and form of repentance dependent on the Day of Atonement is still efficacious up till the end of the last glow.
There is a choice of passages, only one of which is from the New Testament. There has to be a minimum of four readings, from a list of choices, but Exodus XIV and XV MUST NEVER BE LEFT OUT. The other passages relate to the nature of the Heavenly Torah or the Divine Wisdom. The time is about half past eight Daylight Saving Time on Saturday night which is half past seven Eastern Standard Time which is 9: 30 a.m. G.M.T. However, the first part of the service does start exactly at sunset.
The Greeks are a bit off track in ending the second day at midnight, but the reason is not that they have made a mistake in the division of the days, but in too close a connection with the First Passover, the Passover of Egypt. The reason the Gospels speak of the tomb being empty just after dawn is only that it would not have been practical to go and have a look during the night.
It is clear from the Gospels that Jesus died before sunset. This statement could not be a falsification, because if he had died on the Sabbath the body would not have been carried off immediately.
Also, if he had died even a few seconds after the start of the Sabbath, he would not have been dead for ONE WHOLE SABBATH. His ministry in Hell would not have been complete. [By “Hell” I mean She’ol, the Underworld, pre- Christian and Wagnerian German Hölle, not the un-Christian un-Biblical concept we keep hearing about. Remember that I always quote the Nicene Creed according to a 17th c. translation, and usually do the same with quotes from the Bible].
Remember that the process of creation extended right up to the very last instant of the seventh day, but stopped before the very first instant of the eighth or first day. This is why the MT and LXX say God stopped וישבת on the seventh day but the Samaritan text says “on the sixth day”. This means PERFECTION STARTED WITH THE EIGHTH OR FIRST DAY.
This was the day Adam Rishon, before and after the division into two sexes, was in the Garden. The expected state of perfection, the Jewish, Christian and Moslem expectation of being in a blessed but not final state before the Universal Resurrection is therefore on the eighth or first day. (Explicitly referred to as being “in the Garden” by Jews. Moslems, and I think Syrian Christians).
Forget about the MODERN simple-minded Jewish theology that says the Sabbath itself is the day of perfection. No, on the Sabbath the process of maintenance is still going on.
There is perfection, but only on a lower level. Think about what Jesus said when attacked for healing on the Sabbath. First he established that the Pharisaic halachah allowed this, and that those that attacked him were only trying to cause trouble by quibbling about the dangerousness of the illness. Then he said “I work (on the Sabbath) and my Father works”, meaning the process of completion of creation was still a long way from being finished, and we live in a perpetual seventh day, waiting for the first or eighth.
If the eighth day is the full day of perfection, then the seventh day is the day of the process of completing or perfecting, and the sixth is the day of completion of all the paraphernalia needed for the process of perfection.
Everyone should have another look at the first chapter of Genesis. Moslems don’t regard the sixth day as sacred, but it has a special importance for the reasons explained.
I think the place of the seventh day is taken by the earthly Koran and Ramadan; the place of the eighth by the Hajj, the Pilgrimage to Mecca, and by death. This is part of the reason for the repetition over the course of the day after the instant of death of the words of the Koran اننا من الله واليه راجعين meaning “From God we come and to him / it do we go back”.
In any event before we get too carried away let's start to disassemble the European paradigm. The Liber Pontificalis makes clear that some kind of compromise was struck between the Roman Church under Victor and the Alexandrians. We are never told what the original Alexandrian system was, but we are told that (a) Sunday was sacred to the Roman Church and (b) the Alexandrians agreed that "the Lord's day between the fourteenth day of the moon in the first month and the twenty-first day of the moon should be kept as the holy feast of Easter."
While it is not made explicit it is patently obvious to anyone which any degree of familiarity with Jewish customs that the Alexandrians maintained the very 'Christian feast of Unleavened Bread' repeatedly mentioned in the writings of Origen.
Now we can at last make sense of why Exodus XIV and XV MUST NEVER BE LEFT OUT of the transition from the seventh day to the eighth. When the Roman Church at the time of Victor moved the celebration of Easter FROM the end of the 21st day of Nissan to the dawn of the eighth day of the week between 14th Nisan and 21 Nisan the liturgy ORIGINALLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRANSITION FROM 21 NISAN to 22 NISAN was shifted to the eighth day of the week.
The parallels between the Samaritan and the earliest Christian liturgies is utterly astounding. Taken together as a whole it confirms something which Morton Smith COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN namely that the Alexandrian Church maintained a liturgy developed from a continuation of Samaritan practices related to the last day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
There can be no doubt that there is a parallel between the Samaritan AND JEWISH understanding that the Israelites were in the bottom of the sea on the seventh day in the same manner as Christ was understood to be at the bottom of hell AND MOREOVER that the Israelites emerged from the sea 'purified,' 'glorified' and 'magnified' as the seventh day transitioned to the eighth just as Christ is 'resurrected' in the transition from the seventh to the eighth.
The question that has always puzzled researchers into these parallels is why the Christians EVENTUALLY assigned the dates for Christ's resurrection to the seventh and eighth DAYS OF THE WEEK and the Jews and Samaritans to the seventh and eighth days of the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
Now at last with Morton Smith's discovery of the Letter to Theodore we have found the critical missing link.
The Alexandrian Christian community like those communities described in the writings of Epiphanius and Aphraates - and the community which used the Gospel of Peter - originally PLACED CHRIST'S RESURRECTION ON THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH DAY OF THE FESTIVAL OF UNLEAVENED BREAD.
There can be no doubt of this nor can there be any doubt that all Morton Smith's idiotic attempts to understand the manuscript prove his innocence.
Yet what's even more interesting is that the Samaritans sing hymns related to the crossing of the Red Sea EVERY TRANSITION FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE EIGHTH DAY. There is a technical name for this period - motsa'e shabbat 'the goings of the Sabbath' (plural construct suffix) - i.e. it means the transition from the seventh day to the eighth day.
This explains HOW the description of Jesus baptizing the neaniskos DURING HIS MINISTRY could have been associated ultimately with a ritual baptism of the catechumen on the seventh and eighth day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
The association was already in place before the development of Christianity in Samaritan and - I suspect - Jewish communities too.
In other words, when Secret Mark says this:
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. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan
It must be understood to describe the baptism of the neaniskos on the motsa'e shabbat which as we noted was already connected with the seventh day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread by shared liturgy from the Book of Exodus.
Indeed I would even go so far as to say that "thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan" is a foreshadowing of the resurrection on the eighth day.
Finally, it should be said that when Clement says that:
it [the Secret Alexandrian Gospel of Mark] is even yet most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.
This is an allusion to the ritual baptism of the catechumen at the very moment in the Festival of the Unleavened Bread that symbolized the ancient Israelites were "baptised in the cloud and in the sea." [1 Cor 10:2] There can be no doubt that this liturgy was in place. It is confirmed by the Liber Pontificalis, Origen and other sources. To Theodore, the text which has been mercilessly attacked by the 'hoaxers' only fills in the gap in this original liturgy first witnessed by the Apostle Paul ...
It is done.
Why anyone should be surprised to find a Samaritan or Jewish foundation to Christianity at the heart of its earliest gospel is beyond me? But then most of the 'controversy' surrounding Morton Smith's discovery has never made sense to me.
I never stop learning. That's the difference between me and the 'hoaxers.' I don't start with the assumption all truth about Christianity has already been settled a long time ago.
There's a word for that kind of certainty.
It's U-N-S-C-I-E-N-T-I-F-I-C.
I have never seen anything good develop out of something which starts from the defamation of someone's character.
The arguments of the hoaxers are no exception.
Let me say that I couldn't have known any or all of these things if I hadn't spent many years - and many thousands of dollars in long distance phone bills - being instructed by the greatest scholar of this generation - Dr. Ruaridh Boid of Monash University Melbourne.
God bless you, Rory.
