Bucur on the 'Vision of God in Anthropomorphic Form' at the Heart of the Gnostic Mysteries of Clement's Alexandria

I was just fliping though Bogdan Bucur's recent article on Clement of Alexandria again and noticed that he can be read to confirm my theory about the enthroned Patriarch sitting on this chair being at the heart of the gnostic mysteries of Alexandria. Of course, I sent Bucur some photos of the throne and he has not responded nor do I expect him to respond. Academics always want to leave things in the arbitrary world of 'texts.' They avoid going outside into the real world of history like vampires shun sunlight.

In any event here are Bucur's comments that I thought worthy of transcribing:

According to Clement, "the gnostic tradition according to the canons of truth" comprises, first, an account of the world's coming into being, beginning with "the prophetically uttered Genesis" followed by an ascent to the subject matter of theology (epi to theologikon eidos)."

Bucur and other writers rightly see parallels here with traditional methods of Jewish mystical speculation. Not only is Genesis always the starting points of these discussions but they end with a vision of God as an anthropomorphic being enthroned on the heavenly chariot. In what follows Bucur attempts to identify the term theologikon eidos with Ezekiel's vision:

As for the theologikon eidos, Stromateis 1.28.176 explains it as a matter of visionary contemplation, epopteia, the highest part of philosophy according to Plato and Aristotle. Indeed epopteia, a term whose roots lie in the language of the Eleusinian mysteries, has come to designate since Plutarch, the highest part of both Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Clement does the same by equating it with Plato's 'dialectics' and Aristotle's metaphysics. Rizzerio is certainly correct to conclude that "epopteia represents for Clement the highest knowledge that a human being can obtain, corresponding to that very vision of God, accessible only to a few, without thereby growing into a non-rational (arazionale) mystical knowledge."

Yet eidos also happens to be a term used in several LXX renderings of visionary texts. In Gen. 32.31 - 32 eidos theou is used in connection with God's anthropomorphic appearance as warrior who wrestled Jacob; in Num. 12.8 Moses sees the glory of God en eidei; finally in Ezek 1.26 the anthropomorphic 'glory of God' on the chariot throne is referred to as homoioma hos eidos anthropou. Moreover we know that the Jews and the Christians of the Greek Diaspora were fond of drawing a connection between Ezekiel 1.26 and the Platonic theory of forms (e.g. eidos anthropou in Parm 130C). Perhaps Clement intended to suggest, in the subtle manner characteristic of the Stromateis that 'the subject matter of theology' is both Plato's 'vision of truly great mysteries' and the Biblical notion of God's anthropomorphic appearance on the divine chariot-throne.[p. 332 - 333]

I would actually take matters one step further. Bucur has only limited himself to thinking in terms of literary references (all scholars inevitably do). The reality was that the Alexandrian tradition ALWAYS initiated its catechumen by exposing them to the image of St. Mark's representative (i.e. the Patriarch of Alexandria) sitting on the divine chariot-throne as they reenacted the crossing of the Red Sea during their baptism as the seventh day went out into the eighth (the Ogdoad).

This is what Clement means when he writes in the Letter to Theodore:

to the stories already written [the evangelist Mark] added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

The 'truth hidden by seven veils' is the episcopal throne I have discovered in Venice as it rested in the inner sanctum (which in old churches was separated from the main church by a veil or curtains). This throne was plundered from Alexandria in 828 CE (and which I have tracked down eyewitnesses to its presence in the Church of St. Mark dating to the third century CE). I think Bucur has revealed the basis to the gnostic mysteries of Alexandria without even knowing it.

Remember 'gnostic' in its original Platonic context (certainly known to Clement) means "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." Once again, as I have said time and again - Clement understood the Patriarch and the line of Patriarchs which preceded him to the 'gnostics' of the Alexandrian community.