What the Samaritans Can Teach Us

It's the last day of the year so I am in a bit of a rush. But let me end this great year 2009 by saying that coming into contact with the Samaritan tradition AND LEADING ACADEMICS IN THE FIELD OF THE STUDY OF THE SAMARITAN RELIGION quite literally changed my life. While many of the claims of my Real Messiah might sound outlandish, they represent nothing more than the inevitable consequences of trying to incorporate the Samaritan tradition within our existing models for the origins of Christianity.

Are there people out there who really believe that Justin Martyr's claim that 'almost the whole of Samaria' went over to a variant form of Christianity developed from pre-existent Samaritan religious traditions?

No, what they want us to do is to continue to IGNORE the relationship between Samaritanism and early Christianity. Apparently BECAUSE the Church Fathers tell us that 'Simon Magus,' Marcion and various other heresies were all 'spawned by the Devil' THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH FOR US.

Indeed I am sometimes at a loss to understand my critics. Have they attempted to understand how the 'heresies' developed out of Samaritanism? So how do they know that my theory is wrong.

I have never once claimed that THEIR ancestors - the European Christians of Italy, Greece and the coastal region of Asia Minor ever thought that Marcus Julius Agrippa was the messiah.

My argument has always been that THEIR tradition - the tradition that grew out of Irenaeus' editorial efforts in the late second century - is a secondary form of Christianity. I think that there are enough little clues in Commodus' relationship with his beloved mistress Marcia, Marcia's orthodox Christian faith, her rescue of a future Pope Callixtus from the mines, Irenaeus' reference to a number of Catholics sitting in Commodus' court AND his reference to his efforts to 'hunt down' and kill heretics to assume that WHATEVER EXISTED before Irenaeus was decimated by a coordinated effort between Imperial forces and willing collaborators WITHIN the Church.

Again, I don't know how believers respond to these various bits of evidence. Marcia wasn't a Christian? She didn't rescue Callixtus? Irenaeus' didn't defend his friends for sitting with him in the court of Commodus? Irenaeus' isn't our first witness to four gospels being considered as one gospel? The Islamic tradition didn't develop from a pre-existent belief among Semites that such a collusion did indeed take place in Rome (as well as the true tradition getting 'run out of town' in its immediate wake)?

No, all that these people want us to do is to ignore all the evidence which questions the legitimacy of their inherited beliefs.

I don't have a problem with that. To some extent I can be accused of 'ignoring' the Acts of Apostles. The reason for this is simple - I think it's silly.

Now it can be argued again that my attempts to develop a history of the Church WITHOUT Acts is silly too. Perhaps. But again how do they ignore the fact that EVERY CHRISTIAN TRADITION OUTSIDE OF THE CATHOLOCI ridiculed this pseudo-historical record of the first century introduced in the middle to late second century?

Oh, I forgot the testimony of the Marcionites, the Encratites and other groups 'don't matter' because 'they were spawned by the Devil.'

That Devil again. Not only always taking sides BUT ALWAYS TAKING THE 'LOSING SIDE.' An equally persuasive argument could be put forward that the 'Devil' developed the Catholic Church to supplant the original Church tradition. The argument certainly was made by the Marcionites as well as other Christian groups that were 'hunted down' and killed by the anti-heretical efforts of Irenaeus and his successors.

But then again - these people, these traditions, these beliefs don't matter because we already have the truth.

The Marcionites may have been silenced. So too for whatever real tradition lay behind the silly names of heretical groups invented by the Church Fathers such as the Ebionites, the Elchasites, the Borborites and so on.

They are all dead and gone.

Yet the Samaritans continue to live on. Their numbers have pushed beyond 700 souls just this year. Are we still supposed to ignore them because a community of only 700 souls isn't worthy of serious investigation?

At some point we are put in the position of Abraham bargaining with 'the authorities' over how many souls have to be in a tradition to be deemed worthy saving, how many souls merit a serious investigation.

I have already initiated one such investigation in my Real Messiah. If that book only manages to encourage interest in the Samaritan and Coptic tradition I will be very happy indeed.

It was my theory to suggest that the messianic status of an individual named Mark within the Samaritan tradition might have important implications for the study of early Christianity. The reason for this is that ALMOST ALL the living and leading experts in the study of Samaritanism accept an early date for this 'Samaritan Mark' ranging from the middle first century to the second half of the second century.

At the same time the writings of this Samaritan Mark have clear allusions to Christian themes and unmistakable parallels to passages in the gospel. As MacDonald notes:

the Samaritan themselves for centuries have regarded Mark as the man of the greatest possible distinction, whom they revered as they revered no other outside of their Bible. From the 14th century on liturgical compositions were often modeled on Mark's style ... [his] family must have lived in the time of the Roman government of Syria (Syria = Palestine, Lebanon, Syria of today).

As far as dating the Memar is concerned therefore he have several factors that indicate the 2nd - 4th centuries A.D. - The use of Greek words, the Aramaized Roman names of Mark's family, the ideological outlook, the midrashic material, the philosophical and scientific passages, the language and style, and, as we shall see below, the long textual tradition. All this is in addition to the inescapable fact that Mark does not betray any definite signs of the Islamic influences so prominent in later Samaritanism. The Samaritan chronicles themselves especially from the 11th century, place Mark at about that time. In addition there is the fact that of all the hundreds of Samaritan family names known to us, only Mark, Nanah (a diminutive form of John), and Tite (Titus) are Roman.

Perhaps in the future it will be possible to trace the history of Christianity in Samaria more exactly so that we may discover why Mark shows some knowledge of St. John's gospel while later writers use it in such a way to prove actual dependence at times verbatim, on it. [MacDonald Memar Marqah p. xxi]

If I am right the parallels are explained by the fact that 'Samaritan Mark' and 'Christian Mark' are one and the same person. If I am wrong, the world gets better acquainted with an ancient Hebrew tradition of no less importance than Judaism.

Is that really such a bad proposition? In order for my critics to be in a position to actually evaluate my claims they will have to familiarize themselves with this utterly ignored tradition. If it turns out that Mark wasn't held to be a messianic figure in this tradition at one time. If it turns out that he didn't live in the first century as I claim. If it turns out there aren't verbatim parallels to gospel passages in his writings. Even if it turns out that this 'Samaritan Mark' and 'Christian Mark' didn't develop their writings using the same kabbalistic methodology as I claim, all my critics will come into contact with the very tradition that Jesus believed embodied the highest expression of goodness and for which Jesus himself was 'mistaken' to be a member.

Isn't it about time that they come into acquaintance with the very things that made Jesus think that Samaritans and Samaritanism were so 'good'?

Why then the reluctance to be in a position to actually say something meaningful about my book?