Solving the Riddle of the Letter to Theodore is Only the Beginning

I feel confident that I have just presented a very plausible explanation to explain how the 'mystic' Gospel of Mark represented the beating heart of the pre-Victorian Alexandrian liturgy. By 'pre-Victorian' of course I mean the Alexandrian liturgy BEFORE Victor forced them to change their traditions.

I don't want to air my own 'conspiratorial' tendencies but if someone reading this post has a moment can someone give me a plausible explanation for how an apostolic tradition AGREES VOLUNTARILY to abandon its founding principles?

I mean I know WE think that Easter is supposed to fall on the Sunday 'after three days.' But clearly there were traditions which placed the Resurrection on the eighth day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Yes, we aren't supposed to think to hard about THESE CHRISTIANS, the Christians who used the Gospel of Peter and like gospels. God didn't like them. They were in error and then finally 'they saw the light' and came over to OUR WAY - the right way.

Give me a break!

Universality was IMPOSED on the various Christian communities INCLUDING THE ALEXANDRIAN TRADITION. Notice of course that the original 'mystic' gospel of the Alexandrian community has the disciple come 'after six days' and 'stayed with him the night' it ends with the idea that 'now rising [anastas] he returned from there to the other side of the Jordan.'

Do I need to spell out the significance of that word if - as I suggest - the ritual initiation is a prelude for the Feast of Unleavened Bread?

I don't want to keep harping on my hatred of American scholarship but can someone tell me where ONE - just one - AMERICAN expert in study of the Samaritan tradition can be found? All those universities. All those 'Jewish studies' programs. How can the NORTHERN Israelite tradition be completely ignored by THE WHOLE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.

With THOUSANDS of universities how can such ignorance be explained?

Well, as I demonstrated in my last post - it cost them the understanding of Morton Smith's discovery.

I don't mean to belabor the point but let me just put it this way - if you think you know everything you will likely ignore important pieces of evidence which might lead you to the truth.

The Samaritanism is more important to the study of Christianity than the Judaism in any of its forms.

In any event, let me move on to the real point of this post. My 'decoding' of the Letter to the Theodore is only the beginning. We have lost too much time with the moronic claims that the letter is a hoax. The next step is to examine the relationship between the so-called Pauline 'Letter to the Corinthians' and the Alexandrian gospel.

For as I just demonstrated the MARCIONITE version of the letter IDENTIFIED BY THE CATHOLICS AS 'TO THE CORINTHIANS' provides us with the context for To Theodore. I even think that Clement got the idea to explain the differences between the Roman and Alexandrian versions of the Gospel of Mark AND his criticism of Carpocratian sect from the discussion of 'adulteration' and 'leaven' in that text.

In any event, what I am really interested in initiating here is a discussion as to whether or not the Letter to the Corinthians originally had a greater significance in Alexandria than we have hitherto recognized.

Let me say it again. If I am right about the Letter to Theodore then the Letter to the Corinthians - especially in its Marcionite recension - spelled out the liturgy of Christianity. In other words, given this significance you'd expect it would be given 'first place' among the Apostolic letters.

In our inherited New Testament canon of course, the Letter to the Romans is given 'first place' undoubtedly because the Roman Church had pre-eminence in the late second century/early third century.

Yet before we go any further it is important to note that that Muratorian canon - a document from Rome in this very period - gave the Letter to the Corinthians the very place that 'to the Romans' now occupies. Here is the Muratorian canon's discussion of the Pauline writings:

As to the epistles of Paul, again, to those who will understand the matter, they indicate of themselves what they are, and from what place or with what object they were directed. He wrote first of all, and at considerable length, to the Corinthians, to check the schism of heresy; and then to the Galatians, to forbid circumcision; and then to the Romans on the rule of the Oid Testament Scriptures, and also to show them that Christ is the first object in these;-which it is needful for us to discuss severally, as the blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name, in this order: the first to the Corinthians, the second to the Ephesians, the third to the Philippians, the fourth to the Colossians, the fifth to the Galatians, the sixth to the Thessalonians, the seventh to the Romans. Moreover, though he writes twice to the Corinthians and Thessalonians for their correction, it is yet shown-i.e., by this sevenfold writing-that there is one Church spread abroad through the whole world. And John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all. He wrote, besides these, one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy, in simple personal affection and love indeed; but yet these are hallowed in the esteem of the Catholic Church, and in the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline. There is current also an epistle to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, [both] forged in Paul's name to further the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic Church — for it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey.

I don't want to get too engaged with this whole subject other than to say THAT IT IS INTERESTING to see that the letter which established and justified the liturgy of Alexandria once held 'first place' in the canon.

We know that the 'epistle to the Laodiceans' mentioned above was the Marcionite name for the anonymous or 'Ephesian' letter. Is it possible, are we prepared for the idea, that SOME CHRISTIANS - even 'those of Mark' - identified the letter called 'to the Corinthians' among the Catholics as 'to the Alexandrians'?

As I said 'decoding' the Letter to Theodore is only the beginning. Greater revelations are still to come. Just get the 'hoaxers' out of the way ...