Irenaeus Attacks Secret Mark, the Ogdoad and the Alexandrian Tradition of 'Those of Mark' in the Proof of the Apostolic Preaching

I have a funny story to tell you which happens to involve Irenaeus. Irenaeus is perhaps the least funny author in history. Yet my three year old son has been demanding that I read him the blue hardcover English translation of his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching as his bedtime story.

I think he likes the color of the book.

In any event just having to read out loud the first six chapters of this unfunny narrative has just ended up reinforcing something I always THOUGHT about the Catholic tradition. I can't get over how reactionary EVERYTHING about the early tradition really is.

Irenaeus claims that there was this one apostolic truth that existed from the beginnng. Most believers implicitly accept his claims. But if this is true why is it that ALL the arguments FOR the authenticity of the tradition end up developing as attacks AGAINST a pre-existent heretical truth.

I can't believe other scholars haven't notice this before. Yet I have to admit, I don't think most scholars have ever just read a text like Proof of the Apostolic Preaching from beginning to end for 'pleasure.' Instead they already think that they know what Irenaeus is saying so they kind of 'zone out' and stop thinking about what is written in the text.

So, in order for us NOT to be like blind scholars, let's go line by line through text and actually think about what is being developed here. The text begins with the words:

Knowing, my beloved Marcianus, your desire to walk in godliness, which alone leads man to life eternal, I rejoice with you and make my prayer that you may preserve your faith entire and so be pleasing to God who made you.

While it is true that 'Marcianus' could be a personal name, it is worth noting that it could also be a type of person - i.e. an individual 'belonging to Mark' - in the same way as 'Christianus' means 'of Christ.' I happen to think that the text was mass produced as a form letter and addressed to the various converts from the heretical tradition associated with Mark (Marcus). The Martyrdom of Polycarp was also filtered to or written for this 'Marcianus.' This is clearly a type of person who has turned his back on the old heresy and wants to 'walk' in the new orthodoxy being established by Irenaeus where - as its major point of distinction from the original understanding - the same God who made Adam in the beginning now comes to 'perfect' man through baptism. This was not the authentic belief of the first Christians because it is not the belief of Marqe the Samaritan whose writings I have already argued represent a common tradition with the author of the original Christian canon.

Would that it were possible for us to be always together, to help each other and to lighten the labour of our earthly life by continual discourse together on the things that profit. But, since at this present time we are parted from one another in the body, yet according to our power we will not fail to speak with you a little by writing, and to show forth in brief the preaching of the truth for the confirmation of your faith. We send you as it were a manual of essentials, that by little you may attain to much, learning in short space all the members of the body of the truth, and receiving in brief the demonstration of the things of God. So shall it be fruitful to your own salvation, and you shall put to shame all who inculcate falsehood, and bring with all confidence our sound and pure teaching to everyone who desires to understand it.

The person 'of Marcus' whom Irenaeus addresses lives far away from the Church Father. Irenaeus not only knows the truth but strangely has the authority to 'correct' the beliefs of other Sees across the Empire. I have always found this strange (of course most scholars take Irenaeus' authority for granted - this even though they think he was writing from 'Lyons!). I assume that Irenaeus was writing from Rome and I still don't get it. How did one See think it had the authority to tell another See what to think, what to believe? This was a major development in the history of orthodoxy. There is nothing in the gospels or the canon that would suggest to anyone that Rome was a special place which had 'more authority' than any other place. The reason Irenaeus had authority was because he had a place in the court of Commodus (AH iii.30.1). This never gets said but it explains everything. Anyway I don't want that argument to distract from the present argument. So we read in what immediately follows:

For one is the way leading upwards for all who see, lightened with heavenly light: but many and dark and contrary are the ways of them that see not. This way leads to the kingdom of heaven, uniting man to God: but those ways bring down to death, separating man from God. Wherefore it is needful for you and for all who care for their own salvation to make your course unswerving, firm and sure by means of faith, that you falter not, nor be retarded and detained in material desires, nor turn aside and wander from the right.

I know that it scholars want to make these statements in the broadest sense - i.e. the Jewish concept of 'cleaving to God.' Yet this is not what Irenaeus is talking about. The context as we will see is baptism. Isn't it strange that even though Irenaeus' canon no longer has the additional material from the Alexandrian 'secret' gospel, the Church Father is clearly correcting the beliefs of 'those of Marcus' which as we all know connects the concepts of 'baptism,' 'the kingdom of heaven' and 'being one with God' - viz. "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." These concepts are interestingly NEVER referenced TOGETHER in our existing canon. We have instead, only the 'baptism of John.'

Now, since man is a living being compounded of soul and flesh, he must needs exist by both of these: and, whereas from both of them offences come, purity of the flesh is the restraining abstinence from all shameful things and all unrighteous deeds, and purity of the soul is the keeping faith towards God entire, neither adding thereto nor diminishing therefrom. For godliness is obscured and dulled by the soiling and the staining of the flesh, and is broken and polluted and no more entire, if falsehood enter into the soul: but it will keep itself in its. beauty and its measure, when truth is constant in the soul and purity in the flesh. For what profit is it to know the truth in words, and to pollute the flesh and perform the works of evil? Or what profit can purity of the flesh bring, if truth be not in the soul? For these rejoice with one another, and are united and allied to bring man face to face with God.

Again, I have already argued at length at this blog that the 'Marcosians' ('those of Mark') are just members of the Alexandrian tradition of St. Mark whom Irenaeus has demonized throughout his attacks against the heretic 'Marcus.' In chapter 21 of Book One of Against the Heresies there is a similar distinction that 'those of Mark' put forward between the baptism of John and their secret 'redemption' baptism in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark (AH i.21.2). The John the Baptist baptism they say is "for the remission of sins, but the redemption brought in by that Christ who descended upon Him, was for perfection; and they allege that the former is animal, but the latter spiritual. And the baptism of John was proclaimed with a view to repentance, but the redemption by Christ was brought in for the sake of perfection."

Wherefore the Holy Spirit says by David: Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly: that is, the counsel of the nations which know not God: for those are ungodly who worship not the God that truly is. And therefore the Word says to Moses: I am He that is: but they that worship not the God that is, these are the ungodly. And hath not stood in the way of sinners: but sinners are those who have the knowledge of God and keep not His commandments; that is, disdainful scorners. And hath not sat in the seat of the pestilential: now the pestilential are those who by wicked and perverse doctrines corrupt not themselves only, but others also. For the seat is a symbol of teaching. Such then are all heretics: they sit in the seats of the pestilential, and those are corrupted who receive the venom of their doctrine.

I have already written about this passage in another post. Irenaeus is now directly attacking the Alexandrian see of St. Mark. Many scholars have argued that because there are no references to Alexandria as the See of St. Mark the tradition should be viewed as an invention from a later period. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Alexandrian tradition and Mark were viewed as threats to the new authority of Rome because Alexandria was the original home to Christianity. Irenaeus DISPLACED this authority by means of his association with the court of Caesar [AH iii.30.1]

Now, that we may not suffer ought of this kind, we must needs hold the rule of the faith without deviation, and do the commandments of God, believing in God and fearing Him as Lord and loving Him as Father. Now this doing is produced by faith: for Isaiah says: If ye believe not, neither shall ye understand. And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them. Since then faith is the perpetuation of our salvation, we must needs bestow much pains on the maintenance thereof, in order that we may have a true comprehension of the things that are.

Because of the nature of the 'controversy' over the authenticity of 'Secret Mark' most scholars have limited themselves to examining whether or not the ideas of To Theodore 'fit' the writings of Clement of Alexandria. I have always been struck by the manner in which Clement's use of the concept 'truth' in To Theodore are reminiscent of Irenaeus' here and in Against the Heresies where indeed - as we have just seen - they mean (or are always linked with) the concept of episcopal chair. As such I have written a number of posts that when Clement writes about Mark leading his "hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils" he means 'to his episcopal chair' which is in turn the 'truth' which establishes the faith.

Now faith occasions this for us; even as the Elders, the disciples of the Apostles, have handed down to us. First of all it bids us bear in mind that we have received baptism for the remission of sins, in the name of God the Father, and in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was incarnate and died and rose again, and in the Holy Spirit of God. And that this baptism is the seal of eternal life, and is the new birth unto God, that we should no longer be the sons of mortal men, but of the eternal and perpetual God; and that what is everlasting and continuing is made God; and is over all things that are made, and all things are put under Him; and all the things that are put under Him are made His own; for God is not ruler and Lord over the things of another, but over His own; and all things are God's; and therefore God is Almighty, and all things are of God.

I hope my readers have managed to follow my argument so far. For now Irenaeus has come back to my original point - namely that the Proof of the Apostolic Preaching is a correction of the Marcosian faith that baptism is based on the LGM 1 (the first addition to Secret Mark in to Theodore). I know that everyone else in the Secret Mark debate is still stuck on the 'authenticity question.' Most have not realized that Irenaeus clearly alludes to a type of baptism associated with Mark chapter 10. I want to go beyond this and see that Irenaeus is in fact always correcting a 'heretical doctrine' associated with baptism. The point is that it is undeniable that in this letter addressed to one 'of Marcus' Irenaeus is in fact developing the point cited about in Against the Heresies Book One Chapter 21 - namely that there is only one baptism - the baptism of John described as 'animal' there and identified as associated with another God - the Jewish God - in the Origen Contra Celsus Book 1:67. That is why Irenaeus stresses in his account that:

it is necessary that things that are made should have the beginning of their making from some great cause; and the beginning of all things is God. For He Himself was not made by any, and by Him all things were made. And therefore it is right first of all to believe that there is One God, the Father, who made and fashioned all things, and made what was not that it should be, and who, containing all things, alone is uncontained. Now among all things is this world of ours, and in the world is man: so then this world also was formed by God.

Scholars haven't even made the connection between Irenaeus attack against the baptismal practices of Marcosians on the one hand and the initiation described in LGM 1 of Secret Mark. How are they even going to understand what follows which goes to the most important point of all - a battle to the very heart of the liturgical significance of baptism. I have already written about this extensively at my blog - LGM 1 is the Alexandrian Ogdoad baptism which Irenaeus wrote against in his lost treatise On the Ogdoad.

Before we get into how the 'Trinity baptism' of Irenaeus and the Ogdoad baptism of the Alexandrians are about the liturgical date of Christ's resurrection let's continue to read what follows in Irenaeus' narrative:

Thus then there is shown forth One God, the Father, not made, invisible, creator of all things; above whom there is no other God, and after whom there is no other God.

This is the first refutation of the Alexandrian ogdoad concept (as we will see Irenaeus acknowledges only seven heavens; the heretical idea of a god higher than the highest god in the seventh heaven is the 'ogdoad'). And he continues:

And, since God is rational, therefore by (the) Word He created the things that were made; and God is Spirit, and by (the) Spirit He adorned all things: as also the prophet says: By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. Since then the Word establishes, that is to say, gives body and grants the reality of being, and the Spirit gives order and form to the diversity of the powers; rightly and fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God. Well also does Paul His apostle say: One God, the Father, who is over all and through all and in us all. For over all is the Father; and through all is the Son, for through Him all things were made by the Father; and in us all is the Spirit, who cries Abba Father, and fashions man into the likeness of God. Now the Spirit shows forth the Word, and therefore the prophets announced the Son of God; and the Word utters the Spirit, and therefore is Himself the announcer of the prophets, and leads and draws man to the Father.

All of this once again has to be understood in its proper context - i.e. a refutation of the PRE-EXISTENT 'Marcosian' doctrine that Jesus came from the heaven above the realm of the Jewish god to 'perfect' the Jewish god's creation according to HIS image. As I have noted many times at this post, Jesus was originally conceived as 'the Father' and the little neaniskos 'the Son.' Irenaeus continues by noting:

This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father: through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God and man. And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led forth into the way of righteousness; and who in the end of the times was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God.

And for this reason the baptism of our regeneration proceeds through these three points: God the Father bestowing on us regeneration through His Son by the Holy Spirit. For as many as carry (in them) the Spirit of God are led to the Word, that is to the Son; and the Son brings them to the Father; and the Father causes them to possess incorruption. Without the Spirit it is not possible to behold the Word of God, nor without the Son can any draw near to the Father: for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of the Son of God is through the Holy Spirit; and, according to the good pleasure of the Father, the Son ministers and dispenses the Spirit to whomsoever the Father wills and as He wills.

As I noted most scholars don't even realize that the 'Trinity baptism' is here being developed against an Alexandrian 'ogdoad baptism.' They just 'zone out' and 'agree' with whatever it is that Irenaeus is arguing because it is familiar. Let us understand that the whole FAMILIAR system is reactionary. We are told that because 'the gospel says' that Jesus rose on a Sunday THIS IS THE OGDOAD. This Sunday is now identified as the Ogdoad. It is also the basis to our whole system of 'threes' - the third day (after crucifixion) and the liturgical justification for its three dunk baptism into the Trinity. But the Alexandrians clearly had a gospel like the Gospel of Peter which reinforced the baptism on the eighth day of the feast of Unleavened Bread. I have argued that this is the proper context of LGM 1. This is precisely why we see an argument AGAINST maintaining Jewish tradition in Christianity in the orthodox tradition. Yet in Irenaeus we see a more pointed argument against the Alexandrian Jewish understanding of that there were two powers in heaven - i.e. of mercy and justice (cf. Irenaeus AH iii.25). So in this text we also see the same argument now clearly rooted in an attack against the Alexandrian faith of Mark:

And by the Spirit the Father is called Most High and Almighty and Lord of hosts; that we may learn concerning God that He it is who is creator of heaven and earth and all the world, and maker of angels and men, and Lord of all, through whom all things exist and by whom all things are sustained; merciful, compassionate and very tender, good, just, the God of all, both of Jews and of Gentiles, and of them that believe. To them that believe He is as Father, for in the end of the times He opened up the covenant of adoption; but to the Jews as Lord and Lawgiver, for in the intermediate times, when man forgat God and departed and revolted from Him, He brought them into subjection by the Law, that they might learn that they had for Lord the maker and creator, who also gives the breath of life, and whom we ought to worship day and night: and to the Gentiles as maker and creator and almighty: and to all alike sustainer and nourisher and king and judge; for none shall escape and be delivered from His judgment, neither Jew nor Gentile, nor believer that has sinned, nor angel: but they who now reject His goodness shall know His power in judgment, according to that which the blessed apostle says: Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; but according to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who shall render to every man according to his works. This is He who is called in the Law the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of the living; although the sublimity and greatness of this God is unspeakable.

This acknowledgement of Irenaeus' faith in the Jewish god is followed by a confirmation that there is only one God contained within seven heavens. Notice that he is emphatic about this. There is no heretical 'ogdoad.'

Now this world is encompassed by seven heavens, in which dwell powers and angels and archangels, doing service to God, the Almighty and Maker of all things: not as though He was in need, but that they may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual. Wherefore also the Spirit of God is manifold in (His) indwelling, and in seven forms of service is He reckoned by the prophet Isaiah, as resting on the Son of God, that is the Word, in His coming as man. The Spirit of God, he says, shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, (the Spirit of knowledge) and of godliness; the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. Now the heaven which is first from above, and encompasses the rest, is (that of) wisdom; and the second from it, of understanding; and the third, of counsel; and the fourth, reckoned from above, (is that) of might; and the fifth, of knowledge; and the sixth, of godliness; and the seventh, this firmament of ours, is full of the fear of that Spirit which gives light to the heavens. For, as the pattern (of this), Moses received the seven-branched candlestick, that shined continually in the holy place; for as a pattern of the heavens he received this service, according to that which the Word spake unto him: Thou shalt make (it) according to all the pattern of the things which thou hast seen in the mount.

I hope that by now the reader is actually GOING BEYOND the superficial understanding that scholars typically give to this text. Irenaeus is not just 'reinforcing' a pre-existent tradition of the apostles. No, my friends, he is inventing a new tradition attacking the REAL 'apostolic tradition' associated with Alexandria. That is why he keeps reinforcing the number seven. It is easy to see how LGM 1 reinforces the 'ogdoad' concept. Our existing gospel of Mark says that "and they were in the road going up to Jerusalem." People in antiquity couldn't walk on roads at night time. It would have been only natural that when we read "and they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there" we should assume that these took place while the sun was still shining near the end of the day. When Jesus approached the tomb then, the day had not yet ended when Jesus "went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb." We are told that "Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich." The resurrection was on the first day. I would argue that from going into the house the counting of "after six days" begins. That means that the business about "in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body" happens on the seventh day. Most people don't realize that the word 'evening' here - ὀψία - literally means 'at the end of the day.' In other words, we have day one (Jesus discovering the resurrected youth) + six days to get up to the time when the youth comes to Jesus naked with a linen cloth and then once the sun goes down another day is reckoned according to the Jewish calendar when Jesus baptized the youth 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."

As such, Secret Mark is (secretly) witnessing the 'ground of reason' - to borrow a phrase from Heidegger - for the Alexandrian practice of identifying baptism as 'the ogdoad.' If scholars weren't stuck on the issue of To Theodore's 'authenticity' this would have been readily apparent to smarter men than me. The problem of course is that these men easily get distracted. They sometimes even deliberately distract themselves.

This my friends, is the real context of the first addition to Secret Mark. This is when the Samaritans said that the ancient Israelites crossed the sea. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that the resurrection narrative at the end of the text had Christ raised on the eighth day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as with the Gospel of Peter (notice that Serapion associates the Gospel of Peter with a 'Marcianus' again). So it is that we see Irenaeus conclude his opening words, with the statement of the TRUE ROMAN BELIEF that:

Now this God is glorified by His Word who is His Son continually,and by the Holy Spirit who is the Wisdom of the Father of all: and the power(s) of these, (namely) of the Word and Wisdom, which are called Cherubim and Seraphim, with unceasing voices glorify God; and |80 every created thing that is in the heavens offers glory to God the Father of all. He by His Word has created the whole world, and in the world are the angels; and to all the world He has given laws wherein each several thing should abide, and according to that which is determined by God should not pass their bounds, each fulfilling his appointed task.

The point is my friends that Irenaeus' beliefs does not represent the original apostolic faith. The baptism ritual of Secret Mark is older. It is the very thing he is writing to correct. Just read my other posts.