When You Actually Start Thinking About the Implications of Chapter Seven of Book Two of the Mimar Marqe the Implications are Pretty Staggering

In my last post I made a flippant comment to the effect that 'it should be obvious' what the implications of what I discovered in the most important book in the Samaritan tradition. Then when I left my computer to drive around running errands this afternoon it actually struck me ... The implications of the discovery aren't fully exhausted by my argument then.

Look at it this way.

Marqe isn't just pointing to the significance of the number eight in the story of Israel 'passing over' Promised Land. No, I think there is much more there.

We should pay close attention to the manner in which he cites BOTH the Hebrew and the Greek translation of Exodus.

Clearly the Hebrew text came first. So it is that Marqe says that the first word of Exodus Chapter 15 is אָז because - in effect - Moses was prophesying about the 'ogdoad.' Then Marqe goes on to also reference the Greek translation.

It is impossible to believe that it is a mere coincidence that Marqe references both (a) the Greek word tote in a specifically Aramaic form that adds up to 88 and then (b) goes on to say that the whole phrase 'then sang' has a similar meaning.

The whole phrase אָז יָשׁר in Hebrew - i.e. 'then sang' - does not equal 8, 88 or 888. Yet in Greek 'then sang' does indeed equal 888.

Marqe's ability to reference the idea that not only 'Moses' but the Alexandrian translators of the Pentateuch also knew as the 'secret meaning of the passage' - i.e. that Song of the Sea was about the 'ogdoad' principle.

Clearly, the Greek translators couldn't have achieved the 'eighthness' of the word 'then' - אָז - in the Greek word tote. Marqe however was privy to a tradition that they did manage to display the ogdoad principle when the all the letters of the phrase τότε ᾖσε are counted.

They add up to 888 as I have already shown.

The point here is that it wasn't just Marqe who was privy to this ancient interest in the number eight. Leaving aside early Christianity for a moment (which we must recognize developed OUT OF some form of Judaism or Samaritanism), the understanding is referenced also in Philo's allegorical explanation of Exodus 15:1 also.

Philo's first reference to the opening lines of the Song of the Sea are in the Second Book of Allegorical Interpretations. Once we factor in ALL subsequent references it will be readily apparent that the charioteer referenced in the Song represents for Philo's Alexandrian tradition the principle of Nous (or mind) because of its implied 'eightness.'

So he writes in this first reference that:

And we must also inquire, what is the reason why Jacob says, that "the rider will fall Backward,"(Gen 49:17.} and Moses says, that "the horse and his rider have been thrown into the sea." We must say, therefore, that that which is thrown into the sea is the Egyptian disposition, which indeed flies and escapes under the water, that is to say, under the advance of the passions. But the rider who falls backwards is not one of the persons who loves to yield to the passions; and the proof is, that Moses calls the one the horseman (hippeus), and the other the rider (anabateµs). Now it is the business of the horseman to subdue the horse, and when he resists the rein to make him tractable; but it is the part of the rider to be conveyed wherever the animal carries him, and in the sea it is the office of the pilot to guide the ship, and to keep it straight, and to preserve it in the right course; but it is the part of the sailor to endure all that happens to the ship.

And in reference to this the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned in the sea, but dismounting from them awaits the salvation of the master. Accordingly, the word of God in Leviticus recommends men "to feed on those creeping things which go on four feet, and which have legs above their feet, so that they are able to leap with Them;"{Lev 11:22} among which are the locust, and the attacus, and the acris, {these are different kinds of locusts.} and in the fourth place the serpent-fighter; and every properly; for if pleasure, like a serpent, is an unprofitable and pernicious thing, then the nature which contends against pleasure must be a most profitable and saving thing, and this is temperance. Fight thou then, O my mind, against every passion, and especially against pleasure, for "the serpent is the most subtle of all the beasts that are upon the earth, which the Lord God has made." [All. Inter. II:103 - 105]

So far we only have Philo identifying the charioteer as embodying the principle of 'four' but as we see in the next reference to Exodus 15:1 in his writings Philo makes clear that the charioteer really represents a pair of tetrads:

And the same hymn is sung by both the choruses, having a most admirable burden of the song which is beautiful to be sung. And it is as follows: "Let us sing unto the Lord, for he has been glorified gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the Sea."(Ex. 15:1.} For no one, if he searches ever so eagerly, can ever discover a more excellent victory than that by which the most mighty army, four-footed, restive, and proud as it was, of the passions and vices was overthrown. For the vices are four in genus, and the passions likewise are equal in number. Moreover, the mind, which is the character of them all, the one which hates virtue and loves the passions, has fallen and perished--the mind, which delighted in pleasures and appetites, and deeds of injustice and wickedness, and likewise in acts of rapine and of covetousness. [Husbandry 82, 83]

There is clearly a pattern hidden in these references; one which is already known to Marqe (with regards the uncanny parallels between the ideas in Marqe and Philo see Alexander Broadie's A Samaritan Philosophy).

Philo doesn't just say that both the passions and vices are each four but that "the mind (nous) is the character of them all." In the previous citation he says that this mind is symbolized by the rider thrown in the water for "the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned in the sea, but dismounting from them awaits the salvation of the master."

Given the fact that Christians of Alexandria identified baptism as 'the ogdoad' there is clearly some basis for thinking that A PRE-EXISTENT tradition connecting the number 'eight' to the principle of baptism BECAUSE of the crossing of the sea as the seventh day 'went out' in the eighth day.

It was because this understanding of the 'ogdoad' being related to the crossing of the sea AND - more specifically - the fact that the number 888 began the Song of the Sea that the translators of the LXX ALSO rendered the name 'Joshua' in the specific form Iesous. The form was chosen because Joshua delivered the people to the Promised Land AND the principle of redemption was the ogdoad.

This is what Marqe knew and - we must infer - this very same mystical tradition was known to Mark the author of the first gospel because he chose to name the angel who descended out of heaven (remember the shared Alexandrian and Marcionite interest in identifying 'Iesous' as an angelic being). In other words, it is only we who have learned to identify 'Jesus' as a man who became God. This was not the original Alexandrian understanding. Any name could have been chosen by the original author of the gospel for the angel who initiated him into the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

Mark chose the name Iesous for the same reason that Marqe passed on a tradition about the opening lines the LXX translation of Exodus 15:1 - τότε ᾖσε. It was the ogdoad that interested them - and in specific the association of 888 with the crossing of the sea. Iesous was the one who symbolically crossed the waters to the Promised Land in order to establish 'perfection' for humanity.

Ephraim's report that the Marcionites insisted on calling Jesus - Isu (yod-samek-vav) - can now be understood as their employment of the Greek name Iesous even within Aramaic speaking communities of the sect.

One further note. We have the surviving Samaritan copies of the writings of Marqe in Aramaic where 'Mark' here references to the 888 principle at the beginning of the LXX (or Samaritikon) translation of the Song of the Sea. We have the Marcionites engaging one another in Aramaic in Ephraim's day but still preserving the Greek form of the name Iesous. We also have Irenaeus, Hippolytus and various other Church Fathers report of an Aramaic speaking sect of 'Marcus' who continued to manifest various kabbalistic principles in Greek letters as well as Hebrew.

How can anyone - even Birger Pearson - doubt the central claim of my Real Messiah that these communities went back to one and the same historical Mark? The only candidate that makes any sense in this regard HAS TO BE Marcus Julius Agrippa

Read the damn book ...