Liberating Mark from the Surviving Copies of Irenaeus [Part Two]

This is a much shorter post in the series. I am utterly convinced that the heretic Marcus mentioned in the writings of Irenaeus is St. Mark. I have written about this in my book the Real Messiah and Birger Pearson dismissed my arguments. It is only in a forum like this that I can actually develop the proofs for my original assertion.

At bottom I see a connection between Clement's citation of the beliefs ascribed to the Marcosians in Irenaeus' writings - often word for word - and the traditional identification of St. Mark as the head of Clement's Alexandrian See. I have put forward fifty arguments to support this assertion. The idea would be that Irenaeus wasn't just attacking the arguments of To Theodore in Book Three of the Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called but specifically that he references a caricature of the contemporary practices of the Alexandrian tradition in Book One in his description of the so-called 'Marcosians.'

We have just argued in our last post that Irenaeus' original testimony about where he saw the Marcosians has been misunderstood. Irenaeus was originally saying that they were present in the Po Valley, near modern Venice 'the republic of St. Mark' rather than Lyons in the Rhone Valley.

I have made the case that Irenaeus's original reference to the river called Eridanos or Rhodanus misplaced the actual geographical location of the community.  Now I would like to overturn another common assumption about the Marcosians - viz. that they were a 'sect of the Valentinians.'

It is because of the CURRENT arrangement of the writings of Irenaeus that people just ASSUME that the Marcosians were a Valentinian sect.  Yet this has never made sense to me.  The first problem is - as Grant notes - Mark is never actually identified by Irenaeus as being present in the community at Erodanus.  But there is a more fundamental problem which rarely gets referenced  which is - why aren't the Marcosians included in Tertullian's Against the Valentinians?

I have noted that much of the material from the first twelve chapters of Book One of Irenaeus's Against All Heresies is included in Tertullian's adaptation.  The reason is simple.  Tertullian is writing against all the Valentinians.  As such it seems pretty clear that in the original text of Irenaeus which Tertullian used, the Marcosians weren't portrayed as an offshoot of the Valentinians.

Why do scholars still lump Mark with the Valentinians?  It is the corrupt phrasing of the surviving copies of Irenaeus again.

In the words which immediately follow the end of the material on 'the Valentinians' cited by Tertullian in Chapter Twelve, we see Chapter Thirteen begin by connecting 'Mark' to the Valentinians by beginning the account of his sect with the words:

But there is another among these heretics  who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. [AH i.13.1]

The critical edition puts the words which follow in the English translation - 'Marcus by name' - in brackets because it was evidently by a later hand.  It is usually assumed that Valentinus is being identified as Mark's master.  But it is worth noting that Epiphanius begins his account with the line which immediately follows:

He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him. [ibid]

Yet what confirms the possibility that this line was never originally there to 'connect' Mark to the Valentinians is that Hippolytus adds a completely different connecting sentence:


A certain other teacher among them, Marcus, an adept in sorcery, carrying on operations partly by sleight of hand and partly by demons, deceived many from time to time. [Hippolytus Ref. Haer vi.34]

The point is that while there is obviously SOME SORT of connection between the Valentinians and the Marcosians it seems to be left to all the early writers to invent some way that Mark developed his tradition from the preexisting school of Valentinus.

The bottom line is that the original texts of Irenaeus couldn't have had a description of the Valentinians which ends with the Marcosians.  This is the way ALL of our existing manuscripts of Irenaeus appear.  It is the way Hippolytus arranged his Refutation of All Heresies ALBEIT needing to invent the connecting phrase 'a certain other teacher among them (i.e. the Valentinians)."

So where the surviving copies of Irenaeus conclude the account of the Valentinians by listing the beliefs of various unnamed sects:

For some maintain that he was formed out of all; wherefore also he was called Eudocetos, because the whole Pleroma was well pleased through him to glorify the Father. But others assert that he was produced from those ten AEons alone who sprung from Logos and Zoe, and that on this account he was called Logos and Zoe, thus preserving the ancestral names.  Others, again, affirm that he had his being from those twelve AEons who were the offspring of Anthropos and Ecclesia; and on this account he acknowledges himself the Son of man, as being a descendant of Anthropos. Others still, assert that he was produced by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were brought forth for the security of the Pleroma; and that on this account he was called Christ, thus preserving the appellation of the Father, by whom he was produced.  And there are yet others among them who declare that the Propator of the whole, Proarche, and Proanennoetos is called Anthropos; and that this is the great and abstruse mystery, namely, that the Power which is above all others, and contains all in his embrace, is termed Anthropos; hence does the Saviour style himself the "Son of man."  

The sect of the Marcosians is introduced

But there is another among these heretics, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master ...

The account thus strangely develops from the last line in the original conclusion to account of the Valentinians - i.e. the Marcosians are introduced as, in effect, just another of these unnamed Valentinian groups before the 'full account' of the sect is referenced.

So when I look at ALL three versions of the material here, I find it impossible to believe that 'those of Mark' (i.e. the Marcosians) were originally identified as a Valentinian offshoot.  I look at Tertullian's report and I see a reproduction of what he or his source believed was ALL the information about 'the Valentinians' from Irenaeus .That original account ends WITHOUT including the Marcosians within the fold of Valentinian sects.   Tertullian stops reproducing information from Irenaeus's report about the Valentinians with AH i.12.4:

Now, concerning even the Lord Jesus, into how great a diversity of opinion are they divided! One party form Him of the blossoms of all the Æons. Another party will have it that He is made up only of those ten whom the Word and the Life produced; from which circumstance the titles of the Word and the Life were suitably transferred to Him. Others, again, that He rather sprang from the twelve, the offspring of Man and the Church, and therefore, they say, He was designated Son of man. Others, moreover, maintain that He was formed by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who have to provide for the establishment of the universe, and that He inherits by right His Father's appellation. Some there are who have imagined that another origin must be found for the title Son of man; for they have had the presumption to call the Father Himself Man, by reason of the profound mystery of this title [Against the Valentinians 39]

The surviving texts of Irenaeus reproduce this same material:

They have much contention also among themselves respecting the Saviour. For some maintain that he was formed out of all; wherefore also he was called Eudocetos, because the whole Pleroma was well pleased through him to glorify the Father. But others assert that he was produced from those ten AEons alone who sprung from Logos and Zoe, and that on this account he was called Logos and Zoe, thus preserving the ancestral names. Others, again, affirm that he had his being from those twelve AEons who were the offspring of Anthropos and Ecclesia; and on this account he acknowledges himself the Son of man, as being a descendant of Anthropos. Others still, assert that he was produced by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were brought forth for the security of the Pleroma; and that on this account he was called Christ, thus preserving the appellation of the Father, by whom he was produced. And there are yet others among them who declare that the Propator of the whole, Proarche, and Proanennoetos is called Anthropos; and that this is the great and abstruse mystery, namely, that the Power which is above all others, and contains all in his embrace, is termed Anthropos; hence does the Saviour style himself the "Son of man." [AH i.12.4]

But as I just noted the Marcosians are lumped together with the other Valentinians with the addition of the connecting sentence "but there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master." [AH i.13.1]

Now I believe the report of Hippolytus is decisive in proving that the Marcosian information appeared originally in a separate report from Irenaeus' original treatise 'against the Valentinians' which was later developed by Tertullian and possibly a subsequent orthodox editor. For Hippolytus DOES NOT reproduce any of this information which concludes BOTH Tertullian's and the surviving work attributed to Irenaeus but rather ends it with:

But the followers of Ptolemaeus assert that (Bythus) has two spouses, which they call likewise dispositions, viz., Ennoia and Thelesis (conception and volition). For first the notion was conceived of projecting anything; next followed, as they say, the will to do so. Wherefore also these two dispositions and powers--namely, Ennoia and Thelesis--being, as it were, mingled one with the other, there ensued a projection of Monogenes and Aletheia by means of a conjugal union. And the consequence was, that visible types and images of those two dispositions of the Father came forth from the invisible (Aeons), viz., from Thelema, Nous, and from Ennoia, Aletheia. And on this account the image of the subsequently generated Thelema is (that of a) male; but (the image) of the unbegotten Ennoia is (that of a) female, since volition is, as it were, a power of conception. For conception always cherished the idea of a projection, yet was not of itself at least able to project itself, but cherished the idea (of doing so). When, however, the power of volition (would be present), then it projects the idea which had been conceived. [Hippolytus Ref. Her. vi.33]

This material is found in Chapter Twelve Book One of Irenaeus's work and underlines in my opinion that Tertullian is closest to the original work. More on this later.

The point now is that it simply doesn't make any sense to me the way Patristic scholars act as if 'everything is just right' with the surviving text of Irenaeus's Against All Heresies. There were differing versions of the same work, the variation being attributed - I think - to the fact that the work was artificially created by Hippolytus as a collection of treatises of various lengths by the original author.

The 'Redemption' of the Marcosians in a Historical Context

I have long argued that Irenaeus's reference (AH i.20.1 - 4) to a 'redemption' baptism in Mark chapter 10 is a clear allusion to LGM 1 (the first bit of 'extra material' in the Alexandrian copies of the Gospel According to Mark referenced in Clement's Letter to Theodore). All the pieces are there including a connection to Salome. Nevertheless I was flipping through Schaff's discussions of a contemporary ritualized 'interest' in a mythologized 'redemption' fable which is important to keep in mind in these discussions. Schaff writes:

all the essential elements of the later church doctrine of redemption may be found, either expressed or implied, before the close of the second century. The negative part of the doctrine, the subjection of the devil, the prince of the kingdom of sin and death, was naturally most dwelt on in the patristic period, on account of the existing conflict of Christianity with heathenism, which was regarded as wholly ruled by Satan and demons. Even in the New Testament, particularly in Col. 2:15, Heb. 2:14, and 1 John 3:8, the victory over the devil is made an integral part of the work of Christ. But this view was carried out in the early church in a very peculiar and, to some extent, mythical way; and in this form continued current, until the satisfaction theory of Anselm gave a new turn to the development of the dogma. Satan is supposed to have acquired, by the disobedience of our first parents, a legal claim (whether just or unjust) upon mankind, and held them bound in the chains of sin and death (Comp. Hebr. 2:14, 15). Christ came to our release. The victory over Satan was conceived now as a legal ransom by the payment of a stipulated price, to wit, the death of Christ; now as a cheat upon him (1 Cor. 2:8, misapprehended) either intentional and deserved, or due to his own infatuation. (This strange theory is variously held by Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Augustin, Leo the Great and Gregory the Great. See Baur, ch. I. and II. p. 30-118.093).

The point is that we can't hope to make sense of the ancient Church if we impose our inherited concepts of 'what Christianity is supposed to be' upon texts like Clement's Letter to Theodore.

I think the Clement's witness of a mystery ritual developed by St. Mark at Alexandria which doesn't necessarily involve water (see Brown's discussion of this) is paralleled by an ambiguity in Irenaeus' report about the baptism practices of 'those of Mark' developed from Mark chapter 10. Irenaeus says that 'some' Marcosians use water and others don't implying, I think, that the source for their 'second baptism' was inherently ambiguous about the presence of water in the narrative, like LGM 1.

I know this may be too advanced for many readers who - let's face it- are still struggling with the authenticity of 'Secret Mark' but Schaff's remarks make clear to me that ALL OF THESE highly fabulous interpretations of 'redemption' developed from Marcionitism. Again, I don't want to overwhelm the reader with information but the Marcionites have the clearest understanding of the CONTEXT for why EVERYONE ELSE was developing mythical interpretations of the 'buying and selling' of slaves for Christ 'redeemed' through ritual water immersion.

Before I go too far with this interpretation let me remind my readers of my conviction that the name 'Marcion' is a back-formation of Marcioni, a Semitic gentilic plural meaning 'those of Mark.' In other words, those described as 'Marcosians' were really 'Marcionites' who were trying to adapt to the 'new rules' of the Roman Church 'empowered' by assistance from the Emperor Commodus.

More to follow ...

Liberating Mark from the Surviving Copies of Irenaeus [Part One]

When Jeffrey recently challenged those who accept the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore to put the text in a late second century context, I think he felt quite confident that he and his fellow 'hoaxers' know what the true context of the period was. There really are only two Church Fathers whose writings have survived in any great number - Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. As I have noted many times at this site, Clement is a complete mystery to us. Even someone as close as Origen never references his name or his writings.

My guess is that Clement's reputation was already associated with controversy and heresy in this early period. So his name became 'unspeakable' in the third century.

I am not even sure that 'Titus Flavius Clemens' was even his real name. This appellation seems to get recycled in every period of 'Christian history' and going back to a real historical Roman senator who seems to have converted to Judaism in the late first century.

Looking at the surviving manuscripts of Clement of Alexandria, I can't help but notice that the first pages of most of the material - the one where the name of the author would normally appear - have a tendency to go missing or omit the name of the author. I have always struggled with the collection called Excerpta Ex Theodoto that just get thrown into the middle of a collection of writings attributed to 'Clement.'

I wonder whether Theodotus was Clement's real name and the Excerpta Ex Theodoto unmask his true 'heretical' beliefs. But that's another story ...

The point is that you can't just accept what 'tradition' tells us about the historical individuals that make up the 'Ante Nicene Church Fathers,' their beliefs or their writings. I love Roger Pearse's site, I really do because he provides people like me with useful English translations of texts I wouldn't otherwise know. I always find it disappointing when he displays a rather uncritical (and ultimately disinterested) attitude toward the contradictions and blind spots of our knowledge of Patristic texts.

I don't know Peter Jeffrey or Craig Evans or Larry Hurtado personally in the way that I wake up each day to the thoughts and musings of Roger Pearse. Nevertheless I imagine - perhaps naively - that they share a basic sameness in their attitude towards these 'blind spots.' I imagine that they ultimately believe that it doesn't matter how little we know about Clement or Irenaeus. What matters is that we believe that they were 'connected at the hip' as it were to the same holy Catholic tradition.

The problem with this view in my mind is that it is totally stupid. I don't have a problem with stupidity of course. I find stupidity quite liberating and indulge in its glory whenever I have the opportunity. Yet for me, thinking about the Church Fathers and the origins of Christianity is my one chance to take something serious so I do it with real intensity.

The bottom line for me is that I can't possibly see how these conservative scholars can argue that we know ANYTHING about Irenaeus or Clement with any degree of certainty. Sure, THEY HAVE CERTAINTY. But their certainty about the late second century comes from an inherited assumption about fairy tales involving a 'holy Catholic Church,' the Holy Spirit acting as a conduit for God and his Church and other ludicrous things.

If you want to believe in this stuff, you are all entitled to do so. There just isn't any evidence to support these beliefs.

Take Irenaeus for example. There is a whole inherited tradition about him being a bishop of Lyons who suffers martyrdom in a certain period and the like but it's all unsupported from Irenaeus's writings.

At the same time there are other reports - including statements from Irenaeus' own hand (AH iv.30.1) which place Irenaeus in Rome very close to the Emperor Commodus. I think that the pattern of the age in which Irenaeus lived and the period which follows suggests Imperial involvement in the development of Roman Catholic tradition. There are those who are going to disagree with me of course and put forward the official position of the Church. The point is that there are arguments to be made from Irenaeus' own writings which challenge the basic assumptions of people like Jeffrey, Evans and Hurtado which rarely get heard because no one is really that interest in Irenaeus quite frankly.

I would argue with my readership that THEY SHOULD get interested in Irenaeus in a hurry. The future battle lines over the Mar Saba document will be fought in the trenches of the Patristic writings. The underlying motivation of all the conservative scholars who argue against the authenticity of To Theodore is anger that it dares to challenge the idea of the supremacy of the Episcopal See of Rome.

These men believe in the Holy Spirit. They hope that they are connected to it and the tradition of their ancestors dating back to Irenaeus and they - unconsciously or otherwise - wage war against a text which says that the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of all gospel traditions, derived from Alexandria rather than Rome. Yes they bring up homosexuality and all sorts of other nonsense that are used to 'inflame the troops' but the real issue at the heart of this debate is that some text has dared to challenge to their inherited weltanschauung. For this reason Morton Smith is a devil and the text his 'counter gospel.'

I don't even think they know why they hate this text so much. It is the 'Holy Spirit' which connects them to Irenaeus which 'causes them' to want to refute and destroy this knowledge falsely so called.

I would argue that this arena offers people like us a chance to 'even the score' with the Patristic tradition which demonized the alternative forms of Christianity. Let's take the time to study the writings of the Church Fathers and do what Irenaeus claims to have done against the representatives of the Alexandrian tradition namely that we "shall also endeavour, according to our moderate abilities, furnish the means of overthrowing these inherited assumptions, by showing how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements. Not that we are practised either in composition or eloquence; but our feelings of affection for truth will prompt us to make known to everyone those doctrines which have been kept in concealment until now, but which are at last, through the goodness of God, brought to light. "For there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be made known." [AH i.Preface 4 adapted]

I don't think most of my readers realize how paper thin our knowledge of the period actually is. It's like when Jeffrey and Carlson argue that homosexuality in the late second century was 'totally different' than the form that was current at the time of Morton Smith. Leaving aside the emptiness of the claims that either Morton Smith or the Mar Saba document are 'gay,' has anyone even taken these men to task for their expertise on homosexuality in the Alexandria in the late second century, let alone the period when Morton Smith was writing.

The point is that they like to intimidate people with their expertise in various subjects related to the period but the reality is that what they excel in is the promotion of a few cherished 'assumptions' about 'the truth of Christianity' which can be refuted and destroyed by someone with the intellectual capacity of a five year old IF THEY BOTHERED TO CRITICALLY EXAMINE THE WRITINGS OF IRENAEUS AND CLEMENT.

That is why I spend so much time going back to the idea that our fundamental assumption about Irenaeus are flawed. There is no reason to accept all the claims about him being from Lyons. These are a development I think from two points which emerge in Book One of his Against All Heresies.

The first is when he writes in the preface that:

Thou wilt not expect from me, who am resident among the Keltae, and am accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect, any display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, or any excellence of composition, which I have never practised, or any beauty and persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions.

This is drawn from the corrected Greek and Latin texts but it should be noted that our oldest witness, Epiphanius, has something else here:

Thou wilt not expect from me, who am resident among the Delphois, and am accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect, any display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, or any excellence of composition, which I have never practised, or any beauty and persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions.

The other supposedly 'explicit' reference to Irenaeus' connection with Lyons is that which appears in the section which deals with Marcus. We read:

Such are the words and deeds by which, in our own district of the Rhone, they have deluded many women, who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. [AH i.13.5]

Of course scholars take this statement at face value not recognizing (a) the corrupt state of the manuscripts and far more importantly (b) the fact that other readings of Irenaeus' original report identify the local as Spain rather than France.

How could a reference to a region called Ῥοδανουσίασ in the surviving Greek copies of Irenaeus' work explain the confusion? Well let's admit that this is the ONE geographic reference in the whole report from which Jerome, Sulpicius Severus and Hieronymus all derive their understanding that report about Marcus being in Spain.

What scholars have failed to notice is that there is a common confusion over the length of a river alternatively called Rhodanus or Eridanos which runs through ALL of the places identified as 'going over to Mark' - viz. the Rhone valley, Spain and northern Italy. I think that Irenaeus originally referenced ONE OF THESE PLACES with an original reference to Rhodanus or Eridanos which caused all the subsequent confusion.

Let's start with the error of Jerome and other sources who place Mark in Spain. There can be no doubt that it is the identification of the river as 'Eridanos' which caused the confusion.

The myth of Phaeton has it that Helios's sun tried to ride the solar chariot for a day. Phaeton was unable to control the fierce horses that drew the chariot as they sensed a weaker hand. First it veered too high, so that the earth grew chill. Then it dipped too close, and the vegetation dried and burned. He accidentally turned most of Africa into desert; burning the skin of the Ethiopians black. Rivers and lakes began to dry up, Poseidon rose out of the sea and waved his trident in anger at the sun, but soon the heat became even too great for him and he dove to the bottom of the sea.

Eventually, Zeus was forced to intervene by striking the runaway chariot with a lightning bolt to stop it, and Phaëthon plunged into the river Eridanos. Helios, stricken with grief, refused to drive his chariot for days. Finally the gods persuaded him to not leave the world in darkness. Helios blamed Zeus for killing his son, but Zeus told him there was no other way.

The point here is that Pliny and others long noted the confusion over this river which was thought to flow from Italy into France and finally into Spain. As one source notes:

The Greeks erroneously spoke of the river Rhodanus, or Eridanos, in connection with the tale about the Heliades. They placed it in Iberia - that is Spain; sometimes wrongly asserting even, according to Pliny, that both this Iberian Rhodanos or Eridanos, and the river called by the Romans the Padus or the Po, discharged themselves by one common mouth on the shores of the Adriatic. Pliny adds: "They (the Greeks) may be all the more easily forgiven for knowing nothing about amber, as they are so very ignorant of geography."

 Ἠριδανός was the name for the Po river and the ambiguity inherent in surviving copies of Irenaeus work makes it quite possible that Irenaeus was writing at Rome and speaking about the heretics associated with Mark congregating in 'our region of Eridanos' - i.e. in northern Italy.

This hypothesis is confirmed by another source which notes in its article on the Rhone:

Cluverius in his ancient geography may be consulted respecting the confusion of names incident to the Greek writers. The gross mistake, of saying the Rhone meets the Po and flows, with one of its branches or arms to the Adriatic sea, while the other disembogues itself in the Sardinian Sea ... It is remarkable that the Greek scholiast of Apollonius, who is very sensible, and in general a well-informed writer, conspires with his author in this gross error and says "the Rhone a river belonging to the country of the Celtes, mixing his water with the Eridanus, and then dividing, proceeds in two channels to the sea: with one he flows into the Ionian gulf, with the other, into the Sardinian sea. A strange description this of the Rhone ... It is evident that the poet confounds with the Rhone other rivers of Italy, as the Ticinus and the Addua which irrigate Piedmont and Lombardy and fall into the Po; and some of them, as the Atiso, which fall into the lake of Garda pretty near approach the Rhone. It is probable that he confounds the Arno which flows by Florence and meets the Tuscan sea with that branch of the Rhone which (according to him) passes into the Sardinian sea [p. 118]

What is especially interesting about this possibility is the connection back to St. Mark. For there are always persistent traditions 'remembered' by the Venetians regarding the presence of St. Mark in the Po Valley. The most prominent ancient city in the region was Aquileia (2 Tim iv.10), which was Venice's precursor in the region (120 km distance).

The story of course is that Peter sent Mark to convert the population and he established Hermagoras as the first bishop. Hermagoras duly took up his office, and ruled the church at Aquileia with great distinction until he was captured by infidels and crowned with martyrdom. Rufinus the great translator of Origen was also from Aquileia.

The question then that stands before is whether Irenaeus was writing from Rome referencing activity of 'followers of Mark' in the Po Valley or the Rhone valley in France or - as Jerome and others note - Spain. I tend to think the Italian locale is the correct one. Birger Pearson for one notes that Hippolytus' report demonstrates that there were Marcosians in Rome. The tenth century historian Agapius confirms Rome as the locale of Marcus from an independent ancient source. There are scholars such as Foerster who accept the idea that Rome and Italy might well have been the place of Marcus' activity.

The bottom line is that readers have one of two choices. They can continue to believe that some heretical boogeyman named 'Marcus' came and went in the late second century, not leaving a trace anywhere in souther France, or that the reports have something to do with a tradition associated with St. Mark EXACTLY WHERE modern Italians identify it to have lasted today - viz. the modern 'republic of St. Mark' Venice.

It is worth noting that not all legendary tales are without foundation ...

Hippolytus Proves that Irenaeus' Original Work (Against All Heresies) Only Dealt with the Valentinians and Marcosians

It's as plain as day, my friends. I can't believe other scholars haven't noticed this. Hippolytus mentions Irenaeus twice in his Refutations of All Heresies. The first is when Hippolytus draws from his description of the Marcosians:

For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation in a more unconstrained spirit, has explained such washings and redemptions, stating more in the way of a rough digest what are their practices. (And it appears that some of the Marcosians,) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received (the secret word just alluded to), but they have learned that always they should deny. [Ref. Her vi. 37]

The second time appears at the end of Book Six when he writes:

These assertions, then, those who are of the school of Valentinus advance concerning both the creation and the universe, in each case propagating opinions still more empty ... And inasmuch as these statements are trifling and unstable, it does not appear to me expedient to bring them before (the reader. This, however, is the less requisite,) as now the blessed presbyter Irenaeus has powerfully and elaborately refuted the opinions of these (heretics). And to him we are indebted for a knowledge of their inventions, (and have thereby succeeded in) proving that these heretics, appropriating these opinions from the Pythagorean philosophy, and from over-spun theories of the astrologers, cast an imputation upon Christ, as though He had delivered these (doctrines). But since I suppose that the worthless opinions of these men have been sufficiently explained, and that it has been clearly proved whose disciples are Marcus and Colarbasus, who were successors of the school of Valentinus, let us see what statement likewise Basilides advances.[Ref. Her. vi.50]

Will someone please explain to me why - if Hippolytus' copy of Irenaeus had the section dealing with all the other heretics deriving from Simon including the Bsilideans - why isn't Irenaeus cited here and in any of the other heresies dealing with these sects.

The answer is clear. Chapters 23 - 31 were not a part of Irenaeus' original treatise. Hippolytus would have referenced Irenaeus there too. Chapters 23 - 31 were added later by someone trying to reconcile their two systems.

My Theory About the Original Shape of Irenaeus's Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called Books One and Two

I know that almost no one reading this blog cares as much about Irenaeus as I do.  Nevertheless I hope that I have at least convinced some of them that the study of Irenaeus matters more than the study of the gospel.

God didn't establish the canonical gospels - Irenaeus did.

To this end the perplexing structure of the Five Books Against All Heresies (properly identified as the Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called) is more important in my mind that all the effort put into 'solving' the synoptic problem.

We have five books which Robert McQueen Grant and others feel were written over the course of the reign of Commodus.  I have argued that Irenaeus never intended to write a five book work.  Rather, Hippolytus or some editor operating in the mid-third century developed the current structure out of a series of independent treatises written by Irenaeus.

As I noted earlier the 'glue' which ties the five volume work together is the preface which introduces each new volume to the reader (clearly NOT written by Irenaeus) and the lengthy conclusions which attempt to reconcile Irenaeus' understanding that all the heresies came from Valentinus with the framework of Hippolytus' later work which traced the origins of heresy back to Simon the Samaritan.

When these later additions are removed it is glaringly apparent that Book Three and Book Four of the five volume work were originally conceived as independent works.  The original material behind Book Three as I noted was written against the Alexandrian tradition and ideas contained in Clement's Letter to Theodore.   The material behind Book Four argued that the establishment of the Church in Rome represented the 'true Exodus' from the heretical ideas of Egyptian Christianity.

I have been working to uncovering the original material in Book Two for some time.  The problem always was that I couldn't see any single thread which ran throughout the contents of the work as a whole.  It just seemed to me to represent an addition to the arguments of Book One (i.e. the systematic compendium of heresies which developed from Valentinus).

The more I looked at it I could only liken it to the Tosafot or medieval commentaries in Judaism. The word tosafot literally means "additions" and it is generally accepted that the reason they are called "additions" is because the authors were "adding" things to the Talmud.

I couldn't shake the idea that Book Two in Irenaeus's Against All Heresies represented a Tosafot to Book One and as such it didn't need to have any discernible structure as a separate work.

That idea eventually gave way to the understanding that I have now which is that when the third century editors ADDED the second chronology which begins with Simon and continues to the Cainites (AH i.23.1 - 31.1) they had to shorten the original work to make room for this new material.

I think Book Two represents original material taken out of Book One and assembled as a kind of sloppy compendium.

Why do I think this? Well, one of the first signs for me is that - once you remove the prefaces to each work written by the third century editor - it is glaringly apparent that Book One doesn't have a proper beginning and Book Two does.

Book One Chapter One actually begins with the words:

Dicunt esse quendam in invisibilibus, et inenarrabilibus alitudinibus perfectum Aeonem, qui ante fuit. Hunc autem et Proarchen, et Propatora, et Bython vocant: esse autem illum invisibilem, et quem nulla res capere possit. Cum autem a nullo caperetur, et esset invisibilis, sempiternus, et ingenitus, in silentio et in quiete multa fuisse, in immensis aeonibus. Cum ipso autem fuisse et Ennoean, quam etiam Charin, et Sigen vocant: et aliquando voluisse a semetipso emittere hunc Bythum initium omnium, et velut semen prolationem hanc praemitti voluit, et eam deposuisse quasi in vulva ejus, quae cum eo erat, Sige. Hanc autem suscepisse semen hoc, et praegnantem factam generasse Nun, similem et aequalem ei, qui emiserat, et solum capientem magnitudinem Patris. Nun autem hunc, et Unigenitum vocant, et Patrem, et Initium omnium.

They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent AEon, whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennoea, whom they also call Charis and Sige. At last this Bythus determined to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of comprehending his father's greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. [AH i.1]

The more I kept looking at these words I knew that they were not the original opening lines of the Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called. No one would begin a work like this.

The idea that what now appears at the start of Book One originally APPEARED AFTER SOMETHING ELSE which has now been removed is confirmed by a look at Tertullian's Against the Valentinians which places this material in the middle of chapter seven:

They call him in essence the Perfect Aeon; as an individual they call him Propater (Original Father) and Proarche (Original Beginning), also Bythos (Abyss), which name does not suit at all someone living in heaven. They postulate that he is unborn, immeasurable, infinite, invisible, and eternal. They assume of course that they have proved him to be such if they postulate qualities everyone knows he should have. In the same way they say he existed before anything else. I declare that this is indeed true, but I criticise them in nothing more than in this, the fact that the one they say existed before anything else they discover to be subsequent to everything else, indeed subsequent to things not of his own making. Anyway, let's grant that his so-called Bythos existed infinite ages ago in deep and profound calm, in the great peace of a peaceful and (so to speak) insensate godhead, as Epicurus declares. Despite this, they assign a companion to this individual, who is supposed to be alone, a second entity named Thought, whom they also call Charis and Sige. Perhaps they served--in that praiseworthy calm--to encourage him to produce the beginnings of the universe from himself. Like semen he places this beginning in his Sige just as in a womb. Sige accepts it right away, becomes pregnant, and bears (in
silence, of course)--whom? Nus (Mind), resembling the Father and equal in all respects. Specifically he alone can grasp the Father's vastness and his inconceivable magnitude. Consequently, he himself is called "Father" and "Beginning of the universe" and (as his proper name) "Monogenes" (i.e. only begotten) [Against the Valentinians 7]

There isn't a scholar who has ever studied this material who has ever doubted for a minute that Tertullian's Against the Valentinians was developed from Book One of Irenaeus Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called. But few of them ever delve to deeply into the disagreements between the two versions of the text that have come down to us.

The point of this first discussion is to note that Tertullian clearly understands that something preceded what now stands as the first chapter in Irenaeus' book. Indeed Tertullian's version of the work has six chapters ahead of these words.

It is also worth noting that MOST of the material which follows in Irenaeus is retained by Tertullian, but there are notable differences in order - and most importantly - the OBVIOUS editorial addition in chapters eight, nine and ten are NOT present in Tertullian's text. The borrowing from Irenaeus in Tertullian has been outlined by Riley (thanks to Roger Pearse) as follows:

CHAPTER VII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.1.1
CHAPTER VIII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.1.2-3
CHAPTER IX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.2.1-2
CHAPTER X -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.2.3-4
CHAPTER XI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.2.5-6
CHAPTER XII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.2.6
CHAPTER XIII -- Begins with material from Iren. 1.3.1 and continues with Iren.1.4.1.
CHAPTER XIV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.4.1
CHAPTER XV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.4.2-4 (LOOSELY)
CHAPTER XVI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.4.5
CHAPTER XVII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.4.5- 1.5.1
CHAPTER XIX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1. 5. 1
CHAPTER XX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.2
CHAPTER XXI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.3-4
CHAPTER XXII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.4
CHAPTER XXIII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.4
CHAPTER XXIV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.5
CHAPTER XXV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.5.6
CHAPTER XXVI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.6.1
CHAPTER XXVII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.7.2
CHAPTER XXVIII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.7.3-4
CHAPTER XXIX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.7.5 AND 1.7.3
CHAPTER XXX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.6.2-4
CHAPTER XXXI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.7.1
CHAPTER XXXII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.7.1 AND 1.7.5
CHAPTER XXXIII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.12.1
CHAPTER XXXIV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.11.5
CHAPTER XXXV -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.11.5 (VERY CLOSELY)
CHAPTER XXXVI -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.12.3
CHAPTER XXXVII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.11.3
CHAPTER XXXVIII -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.11.1
CHAPTER XXXIX -- FROM IRENAEUS 1.12.3

I can't stress how important this work of figuring out what the shape of Irenaeus' original text looked like BEFORE it was transformed in third century Rome. I think Tertullian was using an older version of the material and didn't even know the title, 'Five Books Against All Heresies.'

More to follow ...

Was There Something 'Queer' About the Alexandrian Tradition in the Second Century?

This is the one post that I have avoiding writing for some time.  I almost started writing this blog to say outlandish things.  Since that time the blog has morphed into a chance to share some ideas with people before die.  Nevertheless I have always wanted to tackle this idea that there is 'something queer' about To Theodore and that this 'causes' all sorts of conservative scholars to question it's authenticity.  

For Jeffrey that something queer is ... well, that the text has a number of homoerotic references, and what's more, they can only be allusions to the homosexual lifestyle which was current at the time Morton Smith found the manuscript.

Now I admit, I am not as nuanced as I should be on the difference between ancient and modern homosexuality.  I have this remarkably stereotypical notion of the gay male as a constant throughout recorded history.  Maybe I should re-read the Satyricon sometime in the future or better yet watch the Fellini film.

The point however is that I don't think that Jeffrey is any more of an expert on this subject than I am.  Nevertheless I do take issue with with the claims of his study right at the outset when he writes in the Secret Gospel Unveiled:

I emphasize that the writings I discuss are about homosexual behavior, not about the condition of being homosexual. (p. 155)

The problem I have is that I don't see any 'homosexual behavior' in the Letter to Theodore.  There are insinuations of 'something going on' between 'naked man and naked man' but as I noted at someone else's blog, the way the idea is presented in the document it amounts to being little more than a game of broken telephone.

Clement is - we assume - responding to Theodore's reporting of something that the Carpocratians have said about Secret Mark.  I have never been able to figure out the original context.  Is it that:

(a) the Carpocratians have honestly misunderstood the contents of the Alexandrian 'secret' Gospel of Mark?
(b) the Carpocratians are deliberately misrepresenting the contents of the Alexandrian 'secret' Gospel of Mark?
(c) the Carpocratians are reporting the contents of their own Gospel of Mark?

There are endless possibilities here and I really don't know which one is the right one because there really isn't much to go on.  I don't understand how people like Jeffrey and Watson can just limit themselves to Morton Smith's interpretation of the material.  That would seem to me to unnecessarily steer the discussion toward the forgery proposition without any tangible proof that the text is actually a forgery.

In any event, my real purpose for writing this blog was to argue the unthinkable - maybe there was just something 'queer' about the Alexandrian tradition that was causing the Carpocratians to ridicule the contents of LGM 1 (the first addition to Secret Mark mentioned in the Letter to Theodore)?  I know this sounds outlandish.  We always tend to think of 'Christianity' as a monolithic concept and I will admit there is nothing gay about the Roman Church.

Well, let's just stop there for a moment.  Couldn't the 'naked man and naked man' comment coming from the Carpocratians be nothing more than a slam against the Alexandrian Church much in the way all sorts of people have been slandering the Roman Catholic Church in modern times?

Now I have already pointed to a parallel Jewish gay slur against Jesus in the Toledoth Jeshu and the Tractate Gittin, the former alleging that one of Jesus's disciples 'descended' into him.  Irenaeus develops the same language against the heretics who claim that Christ descended into Jesus or vice versa (the Latin descendo as I have noted can mean 'to penetrate' sexually).

The whole argument that the Mar Saba document references actual homosexual practices in ancient Alexandria never made sense to me.  What I see instead is the idea that the Carpocratians were ridiculing  a general 'queerness' in the appearance of Alexandrians.

What do I mean by that?

Well let's get back to Jeffrey's main point.  He tells us that he's going to deal with 'homosexual behavior' but what does that really mean?   There is no explicit reference to homosexuality in the text.  No one ever managed to catch Morton Smith having sex with another man or admitting that he carried on this way.  So a book which promises to only deal with 'homosexual behavior' can't deal with its original promise.

The reality however is that when someone points out an individual as being 'gay' they rarely have a photo of this person demonstrating 'homosexual behavior.'  What passes as 'homosexual behavior' in the real world is appearance.  Do they look 'queer'?  Do they act 'queer'?   This determines who is gay and who isn't on the cover of the National Enquirer at least.

Now what about a man wearing a dress?  Is that 'homosexual behavior' in Jeffrey's book?  Or what about castration?  Maybe not in contemporary homosexuality but - as I have learned from using the Google search engine tonight - eunuchs had a reputation for often being male prostitutes in antiquity.

Why do I bring this up?  Because I think it is far more plausible to argue that the 'naked man and naked man' reference from the Carpocratians that Theodore reports to Clement is much more plausibly understood to be a gay slur against a tradition so intimately associated with ritual castration.

Origen was not the only Alexandrian engaged in this sort of thing.  His patron Ambrosius was supposedly a 'converted' Marcionite but it is interesting that Marcionitism is always connected with ritual castration too.  Let's make a list of Christians identified as eunuchs before the third century:

1. Jesus (Tertullian Monogamy 5. 6)
2. St. Mark ("Philosophumena", VII, xxx)
3. St. Paul (Tertullian Monogamy 3)
4. St John (ibid Monogamy 17; Jerome vol. vii. p. 655; cf. Leucius Acts of John)
5. 'Marcion' (Tertullian AM 1)
6. The Marcionite priesthood (ibid)
7. the Egyptian contemporaries of the unnamed Alexandrian in Justin's report (Justin I Apol. XXIX)
8. Julius Cassianus (c. 165 - 185 CE)
9. Hyacinthus (fl 180 CE) described by Hippolytus (Philosophumena 5.7) 'a presbyter, though an eunuch rather advanced in life.' He was a trusted agent of Marcia, the official concubine of the Emperor Commodus. I suspect he came over from Alexandria.
10. Pope Demetrius of Alexandria (189 - 234 CE)
11. Origen of Alexandria (fl 220 CE)

Now we know very little about the private lives of ANY Christians in the second century. Isn't it strange that we should have so many confirmed eunuchs on the list already?

So let me restate my main point. I think that the Carpocratians are acting here like high school boys when they accused their rivals of possessing a gospel narrative which referenced 'naked man with naked man.' I think they were ridiculing the ritual castration practices in contemporary Alexandria.

Yes, that sounds crazy to many but I bet they haven't read Severus of Al'Ashmunein's account of the contemporary Alexandrian Church.

Demetrius, who is universally acknowledged to have been the head of the church at the time of Clement is reported to have been married but puts away his wife and agrees to castrate himself. The problem for some was that Demetrius wasn't a virgin before being made a eunuch. So it is that the report that Severus cites tells us that Denetrius had to demonstrate his 'disinterest' in women, eventually putting aside his wife.

Severus begins by assuming that everyone reading the story has already heard the information in another source. He goes on to tell us that the Alexandrian population was scandalized by having Demetrius as their Patriarch. He somehow has to prove that he is a eunuch but decides it would be impolite for him to display his castrated member.

As such Demetrius has a plan. He decides instead to perform a miracle which would make clear to all that his flesh had been transformed by ritual castration (perhaps this is the same reason Origen is called 'Adamantius').

We are told that the church gathered around the throne of St. Mark and Demetrius stood up and arranged for a fire to be built and he placed himself in the flames:

You have now heard, my friends, this great wonder. This man had made himself an eunuch of his own free will, so that he was more glorious than those that are born eunuchs; and therefore the fire had no effect upon this saint, nor upon his garments, nor upon those of his wife, because he had extinguished the flames of lust. But now let us abridge our discourse upon this subject, and return to the history, glorifying God for ever and ever. So when the clergy had prayed, they said to the patriarch : «We beg of thy Holiness to explain to us this wonderful mystery.» And he replied : «Attend, all of you, to what I say. Know that I have not done this seeking glory from men. My age is now sixty-three years. My wife who stands before you is my cousin. Her parents died and left her when she was a child. My father brought her to me, for he had no other child than me, and she was the only child of my uncle. So I grew up with her in my father's house, and we dwelt together. When she was fifteen, my parents resolved to many me to her, in order that their possessions might not pass to a stranger, but that we might inherit them. So the wedding was performed, as men do such things for their children; and I went in to her. And when they had left us alone, she said to me : «How could they give me to thee, seeing that I am thy sister?» So I said to her : «Listen to what I say. We must of necessity remain together in this chamber without being separated all our lives, but there must be no further connexion between us, until death shall part us; and, if we remain thus in purity, we shall meet in the heavenly Jerusalem, and enjoy one another's company in eternal bliss.» And when she heard this, she accepted my proposal; and her body remained inviolate. But my parents knew nothing of our compact. Then the wedding-guests demanded the customary proof of the consummation of the marriage, as you know is done by foolish men; but my mother said to them : 'These two are young, and the days before them are many.' Thus we kept our purity; and when my parents as well as her parents were dead, we remained orphans together. It is now forty-eight years since I married my wife, and we sleep on one bed and one mattress and beneath one coverlet; and the Lord, who knows and judges the living and the dead, and understands the secrets of all hearts, knows that I have never learnt that she is a woman, nor has she learnt that I am a man; but we see one another's face and no more. We sleep together, but the embraces of this world are unknown to us. And when we fall asleep, we see a form with eagle's wings, which comes flying and alights upon our bed between her and me, and stretches its right wing over me, and its left wing over her, until the morning, when it departs; and we behold it until it goes. Do not think, my brethren and ye people who love God, that I have disclosed this secret to you to gain the glory of this world which passes away, nor that I have told you this of my own will; but it is the command of the Lord, who bade me do it, for he desires the good of all men, and he is Christ our Saviour."

When Demetrius had finished this discourse, the people all fell upon their faces on the earth, saying : «Verily, our father, thou art more excellent than many of the saints; and God has shewn his mercy towards us in making thee head over us." And they gave thanks to him, and besought him to forgive their evil thoughts of him. Then he gave them his blessing, and prayed for them; and they dispersed to their own homes, praising God. And after this, Demetrius bade his wife depart to her house.[History of the Coptic Patriarchs Book One]

The narrative continues with Demetrius giving a lengthy oration about how he found his wife and women generally repulsive. It ends with the claim that Demetrius remained patriarch forty-three years. In his time there was a disturbance at Alexandria, and the emperor Severus banished him to a place called the quarter of the Museum; and there he died on the 12th. day of Barmahat, which, I believe, was the day of the manifestation of his virginity." The manifestation of his virginity I assume means that only when he died could people behold his nakedness and see that he had underwent castration.

That Severus would cite from a source that argued that the head of the contemporary Alexandrian Church needed to be castrated is very telling. I think it provides grounds for understanding why the Carpocratians would ridicule the initiation described in LGM 1. The Alexandrians looked queer and so their gospel must also contain gay references.

It is interesting also that it can be inferred that Severus also describes Clement in similar language (though not quite exactly):

Among the holy men of this time was Serapion also, who was patriarch of Antioch; and when he died Asclepiades, the confessor, was appointed, and his degree was exalted. And Alexander wrote to the people of Antioch with regard to Asclepiades, saying thus : «Alexander, the servant of God, and believer in Jesus Christ, addresses the holy church in Antioch, in the Lord, with joy, by the hand of the chaste priest Clement.

The bottom line is that having Demetrius associated with this strange characteristic of the Alexandrian tradition is enough. It makes more sense to interpret LGM 1 as a Carpocratian jibe against the 'girly-men' of the Alexandrian church than it does think Morton Smith forged the text. I don't even think that Morton Smith was gay, let alone that LGM 1 is a reference to 'homosexual behavior.'

The Alexandrian tradition just happened to look 'queer' and the Carpocratians just happened to have exploited that characteristic.

A Question from a Regular Reader

Question: I have been re-reading The Real Messiah for the third time, and following your blog. I have a question, which I am certain not to be the first person to ask it. Please consider that I ask my question as a layman, not as an academic, so I am open to a straight answer.

Your book and various sources have Marcus Agrippa living into the 90's CE. I have been re-reading The Real Messiah for the third time, and following your blog. I have a question, which I am certain not to be the first person to ask it. Please consider that I ask my question as a layman, not as an academic, so I am open to a straight answer. The history of the Coptic Church gy Pope Shenouda III states clearly that St. Mark died on April 25, 62 CE after having been dragged through the streets of Alexandria.

I have not done much sourcing yet, but the "official" Coptic version as it is known today seems to derive from Eusebius, who of course was the official [Roman] "catholic" historian. I have read how the Roman Church effectively 'took over' the church in Alexandria by or about 300 CE. Do you think that the early records from Alexandria were thus 'doctored' to make it appear that Marcus Agrippa and St. Mark could not possibly have been the same person? Or that the records of Alexandria were simply replaced with the official story as dictated by Rome?

We have a list of the patriarchs of Alexandria, with years of accession, with St. Mark as patriarch until 68 CE, succeeded by Anianus, etc. Do you think that this list has been falsified? If St. Mark/Marcus Agrippa actually lived into the early 90's, could the first two or three patriarchs following St. Mark been fabricated? Perhaps the personages are correct, but the dates of their accession have been "adjusted" to fit an earlier chronology? Is the story about St. Mark's death real history, or religious history? A factual event, but also placed at an earlier date?

I don't mean to take up your time, but I am curious to know how you have resolved this apparent contradiction for yourself.

Answer: I don't think that anyone outside the most pious Copt who believes that any of the dates for the Patriarchs of Alexandria are anything other than a general guess.  But let me answer the points in order:

1. "The history of the Coptic Church gy Pope Shenouda III states clearly that St. Mark died on April 25, 62 CE after having been dragged through the streets of Alexandria."  

Yes, all of that's true but as I demonstrate in my article for the Journal of Coptic Studies the story of the martyrdom of St. Mark in the Boucolia can't be dated much earlier than the end of the fourth century.  This is important because it suggests - as I note in my article - that the events surrounding the martyrdom of the 'last' Patriarch of Alexandria - Peter I (c. 300 CE) became confounded with St. Mark himself.  

If you read the Passio Petri Sancti tradition there is a clear attempt by the editors to blur the distinction between Mark and Peter I.  Both martyrdom traditions developed in the same period (c. 390 CE).  The Passio continually references the martyrdom of St. Mark, both men die in similar ways, in the same place and most importantly there are no witnesses for the details of St. Mark's death in the Boucolia before the Passio.

It is worth noting that (a) Michael the Syrian identifies Mark's body as being buried in Paneas and (b) the Letter to Theodore does not reference the death or the burial of St. Mark in Alexandria.  

The bottom line is that I have demonstrated that the body which is now taken to be St. Mark's in Venice (and which presumably was the same one stolen from his church in Alexandria in 828 CE) is that of a fourth century Alexandrian Patriarch.  We actually have a description of an Italian noble who saw the body and the evidence seems to suggest that he is Peter I rather than St. Mark.  

2. "Do you think that the early records from Alexandria were thus 'doctored' to make it appear that Marcus Agrippa and St. Mark could not possibly have been the same person? Or that the records of Alexandria were simply replaced with the official story as dictated by Rome?"

I see things in a very different way. The first two Patriarchs can be viewed as just the splitting up of the Greek and Jewish names of Marcus Agrippa.

Mark (43–68)

Anianus = John (68–82)

The Patriarchs which follow seem to be little more than a confused assembly of prominent Alexandrian figures:

Avilius = Sabellius noted heretical boogieman

Cerdo = heretic associated with Marcion

Primus = 'first' i.e. Mark

Justus = the secretary of Marcus Agrippa. I note the similarities between the two figures in my book.

Eumenes is probably an actual person. Might even have been the unnamed Patriarch referenced in Hadrian's Letter to Servianus - "And after a lapse of a year and some months, Eumenes (q.v.) succeeded in the sixth place to the presidency of the community of the Alexandrians" [H.E.IV.5.5].

Markianos or Mark (the tradition is unclear). Could be the historical figure associated with the 'Marcion' who visited Rome in the middle of the second century.

Celadion = 

Agrippinus =

As you might know I think that Demetrius election was imposed on the Alexandrian community and Clement and Origen likely represented crypto-Patriarchs or Patriarchs in exile.  The only reason that the 'Origenist' Patriarchs that followed were likely only allowed to flourish because of the fact that Rome was losing control of Alexandria.

The situation in Alexandria regarding their 'remembrance' of who Mark was is no different than what we find among the Samaritans.  If you hit someone over the head long enough they will lose consciousness and even forget their own identity.

Can To Theodore Be Used to Help Explain How the Alexandrian Church Learned to Tolerate the Acts of the Apostles?

It is impossible to deny that the Acts of the Apostles dates from an earlier period. But how earlier are we are talking about here? The early second century? I'd date it to the middle of the second century and - as I have noted many times before - I don't link the text with the existence of an author named 'Luke.' The internal evidence of Acts suggests to me that it was developed with the understanding that Mark-John/John-Mark was the glue that held the Petrine and Pauline Churches together.

The idea that Paul eventually rejected Mark-John/John-Mark in favor of another companion was introduced by Irenaeus. Most people who write about these matters have never had any real sense of intimacy with his writings beyond the 'catalogue of heresies' in Book One (which they read superficially anyway).

In order to help foster a greater intimacy with the other books of Irenaeus I have placed a link to Chapter Fourteen of Book Three where Irenaeus introduces 'Luke' to his readers. I stress over and over again that we can't continue to read the books that make up his Refutation and Destruction of Knowledge Falsely So Called 'buffet style' (i.e. where we pick a little of this and a little of that to help foster inherited prejudices).

As I have argued in a previous post, Book Three is a systematic refutation of the Alexandrian tradition as developed by Cleemnt in the Letter to Theodore. Did Irenaeus know the contents of to Theodore? I don't know. But he certainly was aware of arguments that appear in the Mar Saba document.

Irenaeus begins [AH iii.1] attacking Clement's central understanding that after some inferior expression of 'faith' was written in the name of Peter and the apostles, the heretics whom Irenaeus attacks claim a superior testimonial 'according to perfect knowledge.' He then references Clement's understanding of how Mark wrote his gospel in a secret manner which required initiation into a mystical program developed by the Evangelist himself [AH iii.2].

It is important to note that Irenaeus never directly references the role of a disciple named Mark anywhere in the chapter save for a statement in the middle of the book that a variant gospel in the name of the Evangelist was central to at least some of the heretics he was referencing - viz. "Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified." [AH iii.11.7]

I have outlined my argument for where parallels exists between the early material in Book Three and the Letter to Theodore in a previous post. I have also noted it can be argued that lurking behind Irenaeus' assertion of the primacy of the Roman Episcopal See [AH iii.4] is the pre-existent claim of the very heretics Irenaeus is struggling against that the Alexandrian See was even older and directly tied to St. Mark, THE witness of the Passion of Christ, or even 'Theorimos' (i.e. witness of God) as the modern Alexandrians boldly identify him.

I argued in that last post also that Irenaeus' famous expression of the Gospel as a four-faced revelation [AH iii. 9 - 11] can be seen to be both a refutation of the pre-existent Alexandrian understanding and a development from the central symbol of that tradition - viz. the throne of St. Mark adorned with the four hiyyot from the Jewish prophetic writings.

The central point now is that Acts must have been introduced as a kind of 'first attempt' to reconcile the Alexandrian tradition with the rest of the world. Yes, Alexandria is glaringly absent from the entire narrative (save for a mere footnote with the introduction of Apollos). However having Mark-John/John-Mark as the albeit ultimately subordinated 'glue' which held the two churches of Peter and Paul together could have been tolerable for an Alexandrian like Clement IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM.

How so?

Well let's consider 'the timeline' of To Theodore for a moment. If John-Mark/Mark-John was indeed the Alexandrian St. Mark (as all Alexandrians have held since the reception of that Antiochene text) then the subordination of head of the Alexandrian Church in this period (c. 50 - 60 CE) would fit within the very parameters of the chronology of To Theodore.

Clement says that it was only after Peter died a martyr that Mark came to Alexandria and wrote the gospel of Mark. Where formerly he was attached to Peter even as a 'son' he attained full manhood c. 70 CE.

How old was Mark when he came to Alexandria? Well let's rephrase the question - how old did the Alexandrian tradition think Mark was when he was a disciple of Jesus. The Passio Petri Sancti portrays him as a young boy dressed in the leather tunic of the high priesthood.

Let's say he was ten for argument sake in the year that Jesus underwent his Passion.

I date the Passion to 37 CE based on the traditional Alexandrian dating of the resurrection on March 25th. We can slide this date back to 33 CE for those who prefer inherited Western presuppositions about the gospel narrative. The bottom line is that one can immediately see how the Alexandrian tradition could have accommodated itself to the idea of Mark subordinating himself to Peter and Paul in the 50's and 60's when he was 'twenty-something' only to go on to write the 'perfect gospel,' establish himself as the head of the Alexandrian tradition and develop its sacred mysteries only when he had attained full manhood and the status of magister.

Again, I can't help but hear that there is some kind of reference to the concept of Christ as magister in Irenaeus appeal to the heretics to accept the Gospel of John in Book Two:

He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be a perfect magister for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that He might be "the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence," the Prince of life, existing before all, and going before all.

They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that which is written, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," maintain that He preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month, [but] they are forgetful to their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a magister? [AH ii.22.4]

The arguments that Irenaeus is attacking in Book Two of his Against All Heresies are clearly those which Clement develops in Book Six Chapter Eleven of his Stromata. This is the section of text where Schaff and other scholars have noted reflect Clement's undeclared 'appropriation' of the doctrine of 'those of Mark.'

As I have already noted the reason why Clement and the Marcosians 'think' that Jesus had a one year ministry is because they 'preferred' the Gospel of Mark where this idea is plainly manifested. Of course, as we already noted, Irenaeus makes absolutely plain that 'those who prefer the Gospel of Mark' also argue that Jesus and Christ were two different individuals - Jesus 'suffers' on the Cross while Christ witnesses the Passion 'impassably.'

We already know who the Alexandrian tradition thinks witnessed the Passion. We have already demonstrated that Severus of Al'Ashmunein identifies this same St. Mark as the Christ of the Alexandrian tradition. Is it really that much of a leap of logic to suppose that Irenaeus is already referencing the pre-existent idea that these 'Marcosians' identified 'Christ' as a magister when he wrote the gospel?

The only difference of course is that Irenaeus argues that Jesus and Christ are one and the same.

Nevertheless, when we examine the puzzling question of how the Acts of the Apostles - a text which utterly ignores the Alexandrian tradition - could have been embraced by this very same tradition, I think the Letter to Theodore offers us some assistance.

Clement and the contemporary Alexandrian Church must have understood that the Alexandrian tradition itself was only created after the composition of the Gospel of Mark (which as almost all modern studies conclude was written 'after' the traditional date of Peter's martyrdom).

If then, the mystery religion of Alexandria only developed AFTER this date (to Theodore indicates that Mark's status as 'mystagogue' develops from the composition of the perfect gospel) then all what came before it represent necessarily something 'less than perfect.' As such - when you really think about it - it would be perfectly acceptable to the Alexandrians to accept this 'foreign text' which said that BEFORE Mark attained perfection he hung around Peter, Paul and the rest of the Church - until finally attaining the perfect age of a magister.

The bottom line here is that even if the Letter to Theodore were somehow proved to be a forgery, the logic for how the Alexandrians learned to accept the Acts of the Apostles would necessarily parallel its central historical understanding.

As such when the Mar Saba document says that:

during Peter's stay in Rome he [Mark] wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter ... he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected ... [and] 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.[To Theod. I.15 - 28]

It is impossible to argue that this understanding is something 'bizarre' or 'unheard of' as some who promote the forgery hypothesis are wont to do. They just haven't taken the time to consider what one would expect from an Alexandrian document in this period.

As I noted many times at this blog, the real mystery is how and why Alexandrians would ever have accepted a text like the Acts of the Apostles, which basically ignores their own tradition. It is akin to how the Jews ever learned to accept the Torah when the city of Jerusalem is never explicitly referenced anywhere in the narrative.

The Acts of the Apostles is a document which promotes the sacredness of Antioch. Given that we know that Clement of Alexandria used and accepted Acts (albeit as many have noted as a document of subordinate value to the gospels) the only way that he could have endured its claims about another city is if (a) he lived in an age where Antioch had already been eclipsed by Rome and (b) the idea that Mark was 'just' a young lad in the period described by this narrative and the superior revelation of the superior Episcopal See of Alexandria was understood to manifest itself when he attained the age of a magister.

In summa - the Mar Saba text isn't strange. Those promoting these ideas haven't bothered to establish any intimacy with the Alexandrian tradition.

Was Clement a Crypto-Marcosian?

"Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings." [Philip Schaff note on Eusebius Church History iv.11.4]


" ... for on comparison of the sections just cited from Clement and from Irenaeus [regarding the Marcosians] the coincidences are found to be such as to put it beyond doubt that Clement in his account of the number six makes an unacknowledged use of the same [Marcosian] writing as were employed by Irenaeus." [William Smith A Dictionary of Christian Biography p. 161]

"Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism, actually uses Marcus number system though without acknowledgement (Strom, VI, xvi)." [Arendzen JP. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX]

Peter Jeffrey has recently challenged those of us who accept the authenticity of to Theodore to put it into a late second century context. In order to do this you have to find someone who accepts the authenticity of to Theodore who also has intimate familiarity with the second century Church Fathers.

Not a long list I am afraid.

As I have noted here many times, it is almost impossible to read the writings of Irenaeus, Hippolytus or Tertullian if you aren't already sold on the 'orthodox program.' If you don't believe that the Holy Spirit was being passed Jesus to his disciples to Polycarp and the rest of the God squad, chances are you're going to fall asleep reading more than a chapter or too of any of these books.

I think part of the appeal of To Theodore (and the 'gnostic writings' writings generally) is that you have a large number of people in America especially who want to 'find God' without having to accept the authority of the Church. Finding 'new writings' of early Christians in a jar somewhere also has a lot of other peripheral things going like challenging that same authority so it takes on a kind of 'entertainment value' you don't find in Irenaeus.

The bottom line is that it is difficult for most observers who WANT to Theodore to be authentic to develop an argument about how it fits within a late second century or early third century Christian milieu.

Those who claim it is a hoax can in a sense just attack it for sounding 'strange.' My difficulty with this argument is that they haven't considered the possibility that Alexandrian Christianity from the period might indeed have been just that - strange - when compared with everything we have come to accept from our Roman sources (or sources that accepted the teachings that were coming out of Rome in the period).

As such if to Theodore's doctrines were indeed 'strange' they might well have embodied the 'strangeness' of contemporary Alexandrian doctrines.

The answer that those promoting the hoax proposition will inevitably respond with is that either there was no separate Alexandrian tradition in the period (J Harold Ellens) or that Clement isn't as far removed from Roman orthodoxy as the Letter to Theodore.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument that To Theodore can be demonstrated to be un-Clementine in any way. In my opinion the real difficulty we have is even defining who or what constitutes authentic 'Clementine' thought.

I happen to side with the school of Photius of Constantinople with regards to acknowledging that the Hypotyposeis were not written by Clement. There are clear contradictions between what the author of the Hypotyposeis says about Peter and Cephas being two different disciples of Jesus and the real Clement of Alexandria saying that they are different names of the same historical individual. Photius and his student Arethas of Caesarea came to same conclusion about the text through a completely different set of concerns.

The point is that once you throw out the Hypotyposeis all significant 'conflicts' with 'accepted texts' of Clement of Alexandria immediately disappear.

All that is left is a lingering question - why did Clement only pretend to accept Roman orthodoxy and secretly posit instead Alexandria as the superior Episcopal See? The answer of course should be obvious. While Clement might not have been born in Alexandria, it was his home and people generally root for the home team.

To be honest I have always found it more unusual that someone in a position of power in Alexandria would willing accept the authority of a rival See. But then again, as I said, I don't begin with the assumption that these people were all governed by some supernatural power which filled them with superhuman altruism and unselfishness.

I have argued instead that there are signs that Irenaeus was very familiar with arguments that appear in To Theodore and his response to many of Clement's central claims show up throughout the Five Books Against All Heresies (or the Refutation and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So Called.

As to the question of how Clement could on the one hand, pretend to be loyal to the emerging orthodoxy of the See of St. Peter, and then secretly adhere to a native doctrine associated with St. Mark, isn't that the very presumption behind Irenaeus' Five Book Against All Heresies?

I mean, Irenaeus spells out at the beginning of Book One that there are these heretics hiding in the Great Church and he is going to provide a manual describing 'how to spot a heretic' so that bishops can effectively hunt them down. Among the groups which he describes are a sect he calls 'those of Mark' who have 'hidden writings' including a gospel which differ markedly from the accepted texts of the Catholic Church.

Does anyone doubt that the gospel of the heretic Mark was a heretical 'gospel according to Mark'? Birger Pearson apparently has reservations and said so in his review of my book.

Yet if greater minds than both of us have already determined that Clement was influenced by the religious community centered around this 'Mark', and if later Church Fathers determined that this Mark that was so influential to heretics came from Egypt (Sulpicius Severus, "His. Sac.", II, 4) why is it so controversial to connect St. Mark of Alexandria with the heretic Mark?

Of course the case for identifying St. Mark as the heretic Mark is much more nuanced than this. I have developed fifty parallels between Irenaeus' Marcosians and Clement of the Markan See of Alexandria to advance my case. Yet at its most most fundamental, I would like to ask my readers whether they think it at least possible that this Markan tradition of Alexandria was systematically demonized and marginalized by the emerging tradition at Rome?

If you don't take my word for it why not consult the head of the contemporary Alexandrian Church Pope Shenouda III who in his recent popular work the Evangelist Mark writes:

How much injustice did St. Mark receive from the followers of St. Peter? They tried to rob him his apostolic dignity, and credit all his efforts to somebody else? I mean St. Peter.

SUMMARY OF THEIR CLAIMS:

1- Denying his fellowship to the Lord during the period of the Lord's ministry on earth and that he became Christian only after the resurrection at the hands of St. Peter.
2- They claimed that St. Mark's Gospel was written by St. Peter.
3- They attempted to credit all St. Mark's preaching, even that in Egypt and the Five Western Cities to St. Peter.

Strange was the fact that they tried to falsify the history of our fathers and our church.

My point I guess is that people like Jeffrey begin with the idea that 'Christian orthodoxy' begins and ends with Rome. There are other possibilities which haven't even been seriously investigated in order to explain the claims of the Letter to Theodore and the most obvious being the persistent claim of the Alexandrian tradition that their Episcopal tradition was separate from all others and went back to a figure named St. Mark who was not only a disciple of Jesus but THE witness of the historical Passion.

I am not here to stand up and claim that everything about the Alexandrian Episcopal claims are accurate (although I think they are ultimately truer than the silly Roman claims regarding Peter). The point is that you can't begin to develop an argument for the authenticity of to Theodore without taking seriously the underlying formula for Alexandrian Episcopal succession.

With that in mind, we are left with the problem of having to explain why Clement would ultimately accept - at least superficially - Irenaeus' canon and his Roman Christian orthodoxy but secretly held another canon and another understanding of 'truth.' In short, what caused the development of Alexandrian 'crypto-Christianity'?

In the Wikipedia entry for crypto-Christianity it is said that:

Crypto-Christianity commonly refers to the secret practice of the Christian religion, usually while attempting to camouflage it as another faith or observing the rituals of another religion publicly. In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted or Christianity was outlawed, instances of crypto-Christianity have surfaced.

While during the initial development of the Christian Church under the Roman Empire it did indeed often have to practice in secret, the term crypto-Christianity is not usually applied to that era because the Christians did not publicly declare adherence to another religion, but simply did not publicly declare their Christianity.

Yet I think this is absolutely ridiculous. The whole premise of Irenaeus' Against All Heresies is that there are 'false brethren' within the great Church centered in Rome who only hypocritically hold fast to the beliefs he was espousing.

Already in the beginning of Book One he speaks of writing the material which follows for the sake of weak in the church who do not "perceive not the true character of these men ... because [while] their language resembles ours, while their sentiments are very different." [AH Pref. 2] As I have emphasized many times before Irenaeus is speaking of a worldwide Church which has members within its ranks who likely hold heretical beliefs described in its pages or as he puts it:

the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world.

But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no one is greater than the Master); nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition. For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it.[AH i.10.1,2]

I ask my readers, do claims of the most conservative among those who promote the hoax position based upon an unquestioned acceptance of these claims of Irenaeus make any real sense? Does anyone actually believe that the doctrines of the Petrine Church were sown in Egypt as Irenaeus claims in the EXACT SAME WAY as they were in every place in the world only to disappear and be replaced by another so-called heretical tradition associated Mark?

Of course the advocates for this claim will argue that Mark was only a representative of a doctrine first established by St. Peter in Rome. But I find this highly suspect. I would argue that it makes a lot more sense to imagine a number of different doctrines spreading in the world all claiming to be 'the true beliefs' of Christianity and then in the late second century Irenaeus with the assistance of Imperial backing from his friends in the Imperial court [AH iv.30.1] consolidated (mostly through intimidation) all the other traditions to accept a new template for orthodoxy - or else.

For those who are not convinced of my claims, I leave you with the conclusion to Irenaeus First Book where he openly acknowledges that the compendium is only the first step towards ridding the world of unwanted and ever-persistent heresies. The final step is the punishment and eradication of these noxious weeds or as Irenaeus writes that:

I have laboured to bring forward, and make clearly manifest, the utterly ill-conditioned carcase of this miserable little fox. For there will not now be need of many words to overturn their system of doctrine, when it has been made manifest to all. It is as when, on a beast hiding itself in a wood, and by rushing forth from it is in the habit of destroying multitudes, one who beats round the wood and thoroughly explores it, so as to compel the animal to break cover, does not strive to capture it, seeing that it is truly a ferocious beast; but those present can then watch and avoid its assaults, and can cast darts at it from all sides, and wound it, and finally slay that destructive brute.

So, in our case, since we have brought their hidden mysteries, which they keep in silence among themselves, to the light, it will not now be necessary to use many words in destroying their system of opinions. For it is now in thy power, and in the power of all thy associates, to familiarize yourselves with what has been said, to destroy their wicked and undigested doctrines, and to set forth doctrines agreeable to the truth. Since then the case is so, I shall, according to promise, and as my ability serves, labour to destroy them, by refuting them all in the following book. Even to give an account of them is a tedious affair, as thou seest. But I shall furnish means for destroying them, by meeting all their opinions in the order in which they have been described, that I may not only expose the wild beast to view, but may inflict wounds upon it from every side.[AH i.31.3,4]

I know that people who believe in Irenaeus and the doctrines he was promoting want to believe that these references to 'destroying opinions' and the 'killing of animals' just happen to be overblown hyperbole I am not so sure. I think there were documented executions of Alexandrians and other heretics during the reign of Commodus while Irenaeus and members of his Church sat in the Imperial court and received money from Caesar [iv.30.1].

I think a case can be made that Clement HAD TO superficially adopt Irenaeus's canon and his orthodoxy in order to maintain his influence over the Alexandrian community. He need only look to the contemporary example of Apollonius of Alexandria for some perspective ...