I Have Been Receiving Emails Praising My Interview at Aeon Byte

Thanks for all the kudos who listened to my talk with Miguel Conner.  It has to be acknowledged that the one thing I could always do was talk.  Lazy, stupid, useless all these all aptly describe my character but so too loquacious and ultimately 'interesting' and entertaining.  Even when people I respect like Birger Pearson point out (in many cases accurately) the flaws in my book, I nevertheless get the confession 'it is nevertheless interesting' which always makes me smile.

I don't know know if everything I write about is one hundred percent accurate.  But I am also certain that most of what else is also out there in the marketplace of ideas in early Christianity is even less carefully thought out.  The realization that 'being interesting' was my greatest asset led me to create and maintain this blog so actively.

My whole purpose here is to encourage people to get out of familiar presuppositions.  It's like a verbose twenty minute acid trip in scholarship.

As I see it there are so many groups of people working very diligently in various specialized fields of research that what is needed is someone to start the process of 'synthesizing' all of what has already been developed by these 'little cliques' (if you live among 'regular folks' in the United States you pronounce the last word 'clicks' apparently).

My first book was a naive attempt at doing exactly that.  I had an idea that couldn't possibly be proved - i.e. identifying the real identity of St. Mark of history.

Why write such a book?  Because I thought it mattered.  Because the idea of Jesus being both God who falls from the sky to begin the gospel AND the awaited messiah of Israel always prevented me from engaging in any meaningful way with traditional scholars (this is why there are so few Jews doing any research into Christianity - the presuppositions of everyone in the field are completely illogical).

So now I wrote my first book.  I have staked out a position.  I am identified as holding the doctrine that the mysteries of Alexandrian Christianity were about St. Mark establishing a man-god in the Episcopal throne in his Church in the Boucolia.  I think Clement knew and believed in these mysteries.  I think Origen and all the Origenist 'Popes' who came after him (i.e. Hieraclas to Peter I) all knew and believed in these mysteries.

The reason why they 'bought into the system' was that the mysteries of were the foundation of their 'special place' in the community.  They were man-gods - the equal to angels - because they underwent successful 'initiation' into his mysteries.  They thought themselves superior to 'regular humans' and even Caesar because they were a 'reformed' human prototype.

And yes I think castration was a necessary part in this 'transformative' experience.

While it is difficult to PROVE  that what I propose to be the true mysteries of the Alexandrian community ARE in fact 'the true mysteries' as practiced in the late second to early fourth centuries, nevertheless it has to be noted that my ideas basically line up with what has been written in other studies . I just happen to go one step beyond mere 'regurgitation of the texts' and dare to speculate about how the whole system 'functioned' in the 'real work.'

And then there is my throne.  The throne of St. Mark which is in Venice provides a tangible context for all these ideas.  Soon there will also be Harry Tzalas' discovery of pieces of the old church of St. Mark which housed the relic.

I also want to stress to my readers that just like the gospel and the writings of the New Testament, the same object was interpreted in different ways in different ages.  The original 'pure gnosis' associated with the throne was viewed as something inherently heretical by the outside world in the late second century onward.  Then in the late third century, the Roman government developed efforts to infiltrate Alexandria with its Roman doctrine and complete the effort which was initiated (unsuccessfully) during Demetrius' initial foray into the Church.

At the very least further research will try and 'fit' the sacred object within the sacred mysteries in ways I have not been able to complete owing to my limited abilities.  I am just 'interesting' remember.  I only hope to 'interest' people in my discoveries.  In a future age, I hope that they will bear even greater fruit than I was able to grow in this present age.