A Request From a Regular Reader of this Blog in Corinth

My readers should know that even though I was born and lived practically every minute of my life in North America, I have always thought of myself in terms of being a 'good European.' The principle language of my household was German. My mother also spoke French and Italian. Toronto, believe it or not is home to the largest Italian population outside of Italy. I grew up principally among Italians and Greeks, all of which (coupled with the Canadian governments 'encouragement' of hyphenated identities for its population) made me favorably disposed towards traditional cultures. Indeed, the older the better (hence my ultimate 'rediscovery' of my Jewish identity even though my parents were had no interest in religion).

To this end, when I receive requests from people who live in the ancient places I write about - like Corinth (which I believe NEVER had any connection to the apostolic era) - I become especialy responsive to those requests.

Here is the original email that I received yesterday:

Hi mr huller my name is demitris i live in greece and i study religions you must think a lot of the apostle apollo of alexandria he is a mystery to the corinthian christianity he wsa a super philosopher or for a school of alexandrian philosophy like proto-gnostics its a mystery and someday i hope i find more about him kali sinixia have a good time there.

I directed Demitris to read the books of April DeConick, Birger Pearson and others who really provide a much more comprehensive understanding of the actual existing evidence. My interest is again in SPECULATING how all these bits and pieces of surviving evidence all fit together. As I have noted many times here, these are two different tasks. You shouldn't expect the person who builds your piano to write musical compositions. In a sense the two tasks are related but imagination is essential for the later process and too much imagination might be detrimental to the task of translating the primary source material.

In any event when I received this email today I thought I would have to actually tell him what I think. First the email:

Mr Huller did you now that apelles was at marcion school and lives at alexandria i think that you want to say that paul was marcion and apollo was apelles very exploring think you now i love to now more about proto-gnostics at alexandria

So here now is my first formal attempt to explain how I think Alexandrian Christianity developed. Hold on to your hats folks, you know my enemies are going to have their knives out whenever I expose my beliefs.

Yes I think that the coupling of 'the Apostle' (I avoid his title 'Paul' wherever possible for the sake of clarity) and Apolos in the letter alternatively identified as 'to the Corinthians' and 'to the Alexandrians' is a reflection of what is reported separately in various sources regarding 'Marcion of the Marcionites' and Apeles.

At the risk of boring my regular readers, I have demonstrated that:

(a) 'Marcion' is a typical heretical 'boogeyman' developed via a back formation from the Aramaic marqyone which means 'those of Mark.' As such - coupled with a half dozen other lines of proof - I assume that 'Marcion' is really Mark.

(b) the Catholic community invented 'Paul' as a means of making 'Marcion's' authority over his own writings. In other words, when Hippolytus denied both that Marcion was Mark and the Marcionite authority over the proper interpretation of the letter of Paul and the gospel of Mark we are getting close to the sacred ground that the Apostle who said 'my gospel' was really Mark.

I also think that only with this perspective does the argument for Alexandrian Episcopal primacy make any sense. The Apostle did indeed establish Christianity. He wrote the original gospel and established the original interpretation of his own text in the Epistle to the Alexandrians, the first epistle in the first canon.

This is the proper context to understand the term 'gnostic.' Once again popular culture gets it wrong.

The term “gnôstikoi” was used in ancient times to denote adherents of what we call Gnosticism, but it was used in this sense by their opponents, mainly early Catholic Christian writers. (Note that we call it Gnosticism. There was no Greek word “gnōstikismos” before the 19th century).

When these persons called themselves gnōstikoi, Gnostics, they used it not as a term denoting denominational adherence, like Presbyterians or Calathumpians, but rather as a description of their own nature and purpose.

The word is artificial. It is a deliberately made up technical term.

It is at this point that nearly all discussions of its origin go astray by assuming that the word was made up by the adherents of what we call gnosticism. The original intended meaning of the artificial term gnōstikoi is then guessed at. The guesses are necessarily vague, something like “those having, or claiming to have, special knowledge”. But in fact the term was invented centuries earlier, and it is known who made it up and precisely what was meant by it. The word was made up by Plato. Philo and his contemporaries would have known this fact, and would have known what Plato meant by the term.

As Morton Smith points out, it describes “the ideal king, the only man capable of knowing God, who would therefore act as the mediator between God and man; he would be, in effect, the Nous [the divine intellect] of his subjects, in whom he would restore their lost contact with the heavenly world from which he came.”


That is why my discovery of the original Episcopal throne of Alexandria is so important. The Throne of St. Mark demonstrates that the original evangelist –- St. Mark himself –- was conceived as sitting on a throne like the earthly representative of an ancient sun god or like Plato’s “gnostic” philosopher king. The presence of numerous and varied symbols, codes and kabbalistic ciphers typical of what we call Gnosticism on the throne along with symbols that express Platonic doctrine adds weight to the theory that what we call gnosticism arose out of a kind of Jewish Platonism.

Many scholars have noted an uncanny similarity between the theological concepts behind the gospel and the writings of Philo. The surviving Christians of Alexandria –- the Copts –- maintain that Mark the original evangelist was Philo’s cousin. The Throne of St. Mark at long last gives independent confirmation that there was indeed a historical relationship between the two.

I just read an article by Bucur on the mystery religion of Clement. Even though he apparently can't stand me (he wouldn't be the first) and won't let me write an article for his latest project and even though he thinks the Hypotyposeis are genuine and I don't AND AND AND he doesn't accept the authority of To Theodore and i do - we arrive at the exact same conclusions about what lay at the heart of the Alexandrian religion of Clement.

This.

The point is of course that Bucur in my opinion doesn't 'get' all the implications of his superior knowledge of the writings of Clement. The throne he acknowledges was the subject of the Alexandrian mysteries HAD POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS. He doesn't get Judaism either because he always goes back to this idea that the merkavah mysticism was just like a bunch of guys smoking weed and 'speculating' about something they imagined in their 'mind's eye.'

No my friends, the throne was real and it had real political implications. The man who sat in the throne - i.e. the man called 'Papa' (father) - was superior to the 'ruler of the world' - i.e. Caesar.

The coming of the kingdom of heaven (or indeed 'the existence of the kingdom of heaven in the here and now of contemporary Egypt) was indeed recognized as a threat by the Roman authorities and rightly so.

The veneration of the gnostikoi riding through the heavens in a solar throne was not added to theological imagery at the time of Constantine, though it was certainly strengthened then under the influence of Mithraism.

It was noticeably present in the earliest Jewish sectarian influences on Christianity –- viz. those of the Essenes and Therapeutae. Josephus mentions the Essenes “offering certain prayers to [the sun], as though entreating him to rise” (War II.128).

Philo says of the Therapeuts: “They are accustomed to pray twice a day, at morning and at evening. When the sun is rising entreating God … so that their minds may be filled with heavenly light.” (Philo, De Vita Contemplativa, I:27). We can infer that this veneration was almost immediately transferred to a ‘second advent’ theology present in the earliest gospels (Matthew XXIV:27; Diatessaron 42:14, 15 “for as the lightning cometh out of anatolē, and shineth even unto the west; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be”).

We see Clement and Origen (Nicetas, Catena on Matthew, XIII:46; Origen, De Principiis, I.5.5) describing the Messiah's resurrection as being of the nature of the rising of the Sun in the East. Origen specifically cites Matthew XXIV:27 to prove the Messiah's Second Coming to be from the East (Anastasius Sinaita, Guide, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. 89, cols. 77f; Origen, Commentary on John, I:25). The fact that the early Church Fathers from the time of Hippolytus have identified the Essenes as the precursors of Christianity is noteworthy. Eusebius’s claim of the Alexandrian Therapeutae having been established by St. Mark himself is of particular interest in this connection (Church History III:28).

While many scholars have dismissed the claim, it is part of the official doctrine of the Coptic Church, which asserts it to be known by tradition, independently of Eusebius. Morton Smith (Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973, p. 27) observes that the legendary details of this transmission and the specific context of Eusebius’ statement imply that he got the idea from Clement of Alexandria, the earliest Catholic representative in the city. Mark represents the historical link between the early Jewish communities venerating the sun and the subsequent Christological symbolism.

There Demimtris is a start to understand what I thing was going in Alexandria at the beginning of Christianity. Those who rejected the authority of the 'Father' i.e. the man who sat in the throne and set up their own schools became 'heretics.' Those who did so outside of Egypt were apparently called 'Carpocratians.'

I hope that answers some of your questions. More to follow ...