Why Does the Rabbinic Tradition Attribute One Its Prayers to the Founder of Christianity?

I have just stumbled upon an early Jewish tradition that goes back to at least the eleventh century that an important prayers in Judaism was written by the founder of Christianity - in this case St. Peter of Rome! The source is a handwritten note written in Yehiya Bashiri's Yemenite Baladi-rite Siddur (Prayer Book) (towards end of Microfilm # 26787 at the Hebrew University, or Microfilm # 1219 at the Ben Tzvi Institute) dated to the sixteenth century. Yet the story goes back much further than this.

Let's start with the Yemenite reference. The story that follows says that Simon Peter had forsaken the Christian religion at some time following Jesus' death, and he went off to live in Babylon. However, when he returned on a visit to the land of Israel, he was compelled by the local gentile inhabitants (those who were Christians and who controlled access to the Temple Mount) to remain amongst them in their own country, and not to return to Babylon. They had threatened him by saying that they would prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount if he would refuse to do so.

Here is the original story as well as the English translation:

והיה בבבל חכם גדול וראש סנהדרין ושמו שמעון כיפה. ולמה נקרא שמו שמעון כיפה שהיה עומד על האבן שנתנבא עליה יחזקאל והוא בנהר כבר והיתה האבן רועשת וצד האבן נענה ואומר בת קול נענה מן השמים לשמעון כיפה כיון ששמעו נצרים כך בבית המקדש ששמעון כיפה משתמש בבת קול ויש בו חכמה עד אין חקר ואין מספר והיו מתקנאין בישראל שאין בישראל כמותו. הכניס הקב"ה בלבו של שמעון כיפה עצה שיעלה לירושלם. כיון שעלה לירושלם והתפלל שם בחג הסכות נתקבצו אגמוטס והישיש הגדול של נצרים ובאו אצל שמעון כיפה להר הזיתים ביום הושענא. כיון שראו חכמתו אמרו נתיעץ ביחד ולא נניח כמות זה שיהיה בישראל. החזיקו בידו ואמרו לו לא נניחך שתחזור לבבל ותהיה עם היהודים אלא חזור עמנו ותהיה נצרי כמותינו ואנחנו נעשך ראש לכל הנצרים. אמר להם לא אניח דין ישראל. אמרו לו אם לא תחזור לדין נצרים אנו נהרוג אותך ונהרוג כל יהודי שיכנס למקדש. כשראו כך נתקבצו ונתחננו לו ואמרו לו אין עליך בזה הדבר כלום אשמה ועון. חזור עמהן ותהיה לישראל מושיע ותעשה ברוב חכמתך. כיון שראה שהגזירה קשה על ישראל חזר עם הנצרים ואמר להם אני חוזר לדינכם על מנת שלא תכו ולא תהרגו יהודי הבא בבית המקדש ולא תמנעום מן הזיתים. קבל הישיש עם שאר הנצרים אלו התנאים ושלא ימנעו יהודי מבית המקדש. ועוד התנה עליהם שיבנו לו מגדל גבוה ויכנס בתוכו ולא יאכל בעולם לא בשר ולא דבר אחר אלא לחם ומים לבד ואני אהיה מוריד (לרם) [לכם] קופה בחבל ותנו לי לחם בתוכה וכל כך עשה שלא יטמא במאכלם ולא ישתחוה לצלם. לאחר כך עשה סדור תפלות קרובוצות לכל השנה ויוצרות ומוספין על שמו כשם שעשה ר' אליעזר ביר' קילר. ושלח וקיבץ זקני ישראל וא"ל בבקשה מכם שתקחו ממני זה הסידור ותשלחוהו לבבל לראשי ישיבות אם ייטב בעיניהם ילמדוהו לחזנים ויתפללו בו כדי שיזכר שמי עמהם. שלחו אותו לר' נתן דצוציתא שהיה ראש גלות והראהו לראשי ישיבות ולסנהדרין ואמרו טוב הוא. ואמרו לזקנים קחו אותו ולמדוהו כל מי שרוצה יתפלל בו עד היום הזה. והיו מתפללין בו כל שבת וזה שמעון כיפה הוא שקורין אותו הנשטורין פטרוס. זה השלמת מעשה ישו. של ישו בן פנדירא דכפר באלהא רבא ואטעי עלמא בתרוי.

Now there was in Babylon a great wise man and the head of the Sanhedrin, and his name was Simon Caipha. Now why was he called Simon Caipha? Because he used to stand upon the rock which Ezekiel prophesied upon when he was on the River Chabar, and the stone would shake [as if there was an earth quake] and one side of the stone would answer [him] and they would say the 'bath kol' (a heavenly voice) had answered Simon Caipha out of heaven. When the Nazoraeans heard this in the Temple precincts that Simon Peter (lit. Caipha) had recourse to the 'bath kol' (a heavenly voice), and that he was endowed with wisdom beyond compare, they became jealous of Israel, for there was no one in Israel like unto him. The Holy One, blessed be He, had put within the heart of Simon Caipha counsel to go up to Jerusalem. When he had come up to Jerusalem and prayed there on the Feast of Tabernacles (Heb. Hag Hasukkoth), there came together Agmost and the great elder of the Nazoraeans, and went unto Simon Caipha to the Mount of Olives during [the last day of the feast, known as] Hoshanna. When they had seen his wisdom, they said unto him: Let us take counsel together, for we will not let aught that is like unto this remain amongst [the people of] Israel [which live abroad]. They held fast his hand and said to him: We will not let you return to Babylon and to be with the Jews [there]. Rather, come back unto us and be a Nazoraean like us, and we will make you the chief of all the Nazoraeans. He said unto them: I shall not leave the religion of Israel. They said to him: If you do not return to the religion of the Nazoraeans, we will kill you and will kill every Jew that enters the Temple precincts. When they [of Israel] saw that things came to that, they gathered themselves together and pleaded with him, saying: You have nothing to fear about this matter, neither guilt nor iniquity. Go back to them and be for Israel as a saver of life, and do according to thy abundant wisdom. When he saw that the decree was hard upon Israel, he went back to the Nazoraeans and said to them: I am coming back to your religion on the condition that you do not smite or kill a single Jew that comes to the Temple precincts, neither hold-back from them their olives. The elder accepted of his conditions, as well as the other Nazoraeans, that they not prevent a Jew from entering the Temple precincts. He also made with them another stipulation that they should build for him a high tower, into which he would go, and that he would not eat in this world flesh or anything else besides bread and water alone, [saying] that I will lower down for you a basket by a rope and put therein for me bread. Now he did all this so that he might not be defiled by their foods, neither bow down to a graven image.

Afterwards, he made a Prayer Book (siddur tefillloth) of liturgies for the entire year, as well as the 'yotzer' verses and 'Musaf' prayers, under [the acrostics] of his name, just as Eleazar the son of Rabbi Killir did, and sent and gathered together the elders of Israel and said to them: I beseech thee that you take from me this Prayer Book (Siddur), and send it to Babylon, to the heads of the academies there. If it should be pleasing in their sight, let them teach it to their [synagogue] cantors, and pray in it, so that my name might be remembered amongst them. They then sent it to Rabbi Nathan of Susitha, who was the Exilarch [at that time], and he showed it to the heads of the academies and to the Sanhedrin (the council or assembly of judges), and they said that it was good. They then said to the elders: Take it and learn it. Anyone who wishes let him pray in it. [And thus we have it] to this very day. Now they would pray in it each Sabbath day. Now this Simon Caipha, he it is that is called by the Nestorians 'Peter' (Petros)…

It is rarely reported there is persistent tradition which goes back as far as Simḥah b. Samuel, an outstanding student of Rashi that the head of Christianity - in this case St. Peter -was the author of this prayer Nishmat kol cha'i "the Soul of Every Living Thing." It is very difficult to explain.

The Nishmat is recited as part of the Shacharit (morning) service on Sabbaths and festivals immediately following 'Song at the Sea'. It is also said at the Passover Seder. The first paragraph was known in Mishnaic times, the second was composed during the talmudic period and the concluding part was added during the geonic period.

The connection with the Song of the Sea is interesting as it brings us back to the possibility that the prayer was somehow originally connected with Mark - the founder of Alexandrian Christianity - and then at a later date after the reference no longer made sense was associated with Peter by European Jewry.

Here is a rough translation of the original prayer which reads:

Nishmat kol chai t'vareich et shimcha Hashem Elokeinu, v'ruach kol basar t'faeir utromeim zichr'cha malkeinu tamid

The soul of every living being shall bless Your Name, Hashem, our God; the spirit of all flesh shall always glorify and exalt Your remembrance, our King.

Min ha-olam v'ad ha-olam atah Kel, umi-baladecha ein lanu melech goel u-moshia

From this world to the World to Come, You are God, and other than You we have no king, redeemer or savior.

Podeh u-matzil umfarneis umracheim b'chol et tzarah v'tzukah, ein lanu melech ela atah

Liberator, Rescuer, Sustainer and Merciful One in ever time of distress and anguish, we have no king but You!

Elokei harishonim v'ha-acharonim, Elokah kol b'riyot, adon kol toladot, ham'hulal b'rov hatishbachot, ham'naheg olamo b'chesed uvri-yotav b'rachamim

God of the first and of the last, God of all creatures, Master of all generations, Who is extolled through a multitude of praises, Who guides His world with kindness and His creatures with mercy.

VaHashem lo yanum v'lo yishan

Hashem neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Ham'oreir y'sheinim, v'hameikitz nirdamim, v'hameisiach il'mim, v'hamatir asurim, v'hasomeich nof'lim, v'hazokeif k'fufim, Lecha l'vad'cha anachnu modim

He Who rouses the sleepers, Who awakens the slumbers, Who makes the mute speak, Who releases the bound, Who supports the fallen, and Who straightens the bent - to You alone we give thanks.

Ilu finu molei shirah ka-yom, ulshoneinu rinah kahamon galaiv, v'siftoteinu shevach k'merchevei raki'a, v'eineinu m'irot ka-shemesh v'cha-yareyach, v'yadeinu f'rusot k'nishrei shamayim, v'ragleinu kalot ka-ayalot, ein anachnu maspikim l'hodot lecha Hashem Elokeinu Veilokei avoteinu, ulvareich et sh'mecha al achat mei-olef elef alfei alafim v'ribei r'vavot p'amim hatovot she-asita im avoteinu v'imanu

Were our mouth as full of song as the sea, and our tongue as full of joyous song as its multitude of waves, and our lips as full of praise as the breadth of the heavens, and our eyes as brilliant as the sun and the moon, and our hands as outspread as eagles of the sky and our feet as swift as hinds - we still could not thank You sufficiently Hashem, our God, and God of our forefathers, and to bless Your Name for even one of the thousand thousand, thousands of thousands and myriad myriads of favors that You performed for our ancestors and for us.

Mimitzrayim g'altanu Hashem Elokeinu, u-mibeit avodim p'ditanu

You redeemed us from Egypt, Hashem, our God, and liberated us from the house of bondage.

B'ra-av zantanu, uvsava kilkaltanu, meicherev hitzaltanu, u-midever milat-tanu, u-meichalayim raim v'ne-emanim dilitanu

In famine You nourished us and in plenty You sustained us, from Sword You saved us; from plague You let us escape; and from severe and enduring diseases You spared us.

Ad heina azarunu rachamecha, v'lo azavunu chasadecha V'al tit'sheinu Hashem Elokeinu lanetzach

Until now Your mercy has helped us, and Your kindness has not forsaken us. Do not abandon us, Hashem, our God, forever.

Al kein eivarim shepilagta banu, v'ruach unshama shenafachta b'apeinu, v'lashon asher samta b'finu, hein heim yodu vivar'chu vishab'chu vifa-aru virom'mu v'ya-aritzu v'yakdishu v'yamlichu et shimcha malkeinu

Therefore, the organs that You set within us, and the spirit and soul that You breathed into our nostrils, and the tongue that You placed in our mouth - all of them shall thank and bless and praise and glorify and exalt and revere and sanctify and declare the sovereignty of your Name, our King.

Ki chol peh lecha tishova, v'chol berech lecha tichra, v'chol komah l'fanecha tishtachaveh, v'chol l'vavot yiraucha, v'chol kerev uchlayot y'zam'ru lishmecha, kadavar shekatuv: Kol atzmotai tomarnah, Hashem mi chomocha, matzil ani meichazak mimenu, v'ani v'evyon migoz'lo

For ever mouth shall offer thanks to You; every tongue shall vow allegiance to You; every knee shall bend to You; every erect spine shall prostrate itself before You; all hearts shall fear You, and all innermost feelings and thoughts shall sing praises to Your name, as it is written: "All my bones shall say: 'Hashem, who is like You?' You save the poor man from one stronger than he, the poor and destitute from one who would rob him."

Mi yidmeh lach, u-mi yishveh lach, u-mi ya-arach

Who is like unto You? Who is equal to You? who can be compared to You?

Ha-Kel hagadol hagibor v'hanora, Kel Elyon, konei shamayim va-aretz

O great, mighty, and awesome God, the supreme God, Creator of heaven and earth.


N'halelcha unshabeichacha unfa-ercha unvareich et sheim kadshecha, ka-amur: L'David, bar-chi nafshi et Hashem, v'chol k'ravai et sheim kadsho

We shall laud, praise, and glorify You and bless Your holy Name, as it is said: "of David: Bless Hashem, O my soul, and let all my innermost being bless His holy Name!"

Now here is another interesting thing. When the prayer is referenced in the Talmud it is either identified as a prayer of thanksgiving for the rainfall that follows a drought or that it originally developed as an embellishment to Hallel said at the Passover seder. This view is based on the Talmudic discussion that calls for reciting Nishmat after Hallel over the fourth cup of wine. The Mishnah reads:

THEY FILLED THE THIRD CUP FOR HIM. HE THEN RECITES GRACE AFTER MEALS. OVER THE FOURTH [CUP] HE CONCLUDES THE HALLEL, AND RECITES THE GRACE OF SONG. BETWEEN THESE CUPS [i.e. the first, second and third] HE MAY DRINK IF HE WISHES; BETWEEN THE THIRD AND THE FOURTH HE MAY NOT DRINK.

And then the Gemara explains the what 'reciting the grace of song' means as follows:

R. Hanan said to Raba: This proves that Grace after meals requires a cup [of wine]. Said he to him: Our Rabbis instituted four cups as symbolizing freedom: let us perform a religious act with each.

Hence Grace is recited over the third. The Gemara concludes with a reference to our prayer:

What is ‘THE GRACE OF SONG’? Rab Judah said: ‘They shall praise Thee, O Hashem our God’; while R. Johanan said: ‘The breath of a living [etc.]’

It is no small witness then that R. Johanan b. Nappaha the original codifier of the Talmud thinks that the prayer is recited over the fourth cup. Yet what should we make of the fact that so many sources identify this 'embellishment' as having originated with the head of Christianity?

So let's develop our theory that this developed as an 'embellishment' of the traditional Passover seder. A number of scholars have already noted that the rituals associated with the heretic 'Mark' in Irenaeus had a similar origin. So we read:

Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour, so that Grace, who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,) and pouting from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: "May that Chaffs who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil." Repeating certain other like words, and thus goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing several other similar things, he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.[Irenaeus i.13.2]

Hippolytus's version of the ritual involving many cups is as follows:

This (heretic) alleged that there resided in him the mightiest power from invisible and unnameable places. And very often, taking the Cup, as if offering up the Eucharistic prayer, and prolonging to a greater length than usual the word of invocation, he would cause the appearance of a purple, and sometimes of a red mixture, so that his dupes imagined that a certain Grace descended and communicated to the potion a blood-red potency ... And this (Marcus), infusing (the aforesaid) mixture into a smaller cup, was in the habit of delivering it to a woman to offer up the Eucharistic prayer, while he himself stood by, and held (in his hand) another empty (chalice) larger than that. And after his female dupe had pronounced the sentence of Consecration, having received (the cup from her), he proceeded to infuse (its contents) into the larger (chalice), and, pouring them frequently from one cup to the other, was accustomed at the same time to utter the following invocation: "Grant that the inconceivable and ineffable Grace which existed prior to the universe, may fill thine inner man, and make to abound in thee the knowledge of this (grace), as She disseminates the seed of the mustard-tree upon the good soil." And simultaneously pronouncing some such words as these, and astonishing both his female dupe and those that are present, he was regarded as one performing a miracle; while the larger was being filled from the smaller chalice, in such a way as that (the contents), being superabundant, flowed over ... but they, horrified at the same time, and eager (to taste the contents of the cup), proceeded to drink (the mixture), as if it were something divine, and devised by the Deity.[Ref.vi.35,36]

I am not sure if my solution to this historical curiosity is any better than what they Jewish sources themselves say. Rabbi Simcha the disciple of Rashi says in his Mahzor Vitri, in the section on the Passover Haggadah where he writes about Birkas Hashir, referencesw a common belief in his days that Simon Peter had written the Nishmath Kol Hai. Simcha derides Simon Peter in harsh terms by calling him "Peter Hamor" – which is a play on words. Peter, in Greek, means "rock." "Peter Hamor," in Hebrew, means "the firstborn of a donkey." Rabbi Simcha goes on to say that anyone who says that Simon Peter wrote "Nishmath Kol Hai" will, when the Temple is rebuilt, have to bring for his atonement a fat sin-offering.

Is Colorbasus 'the Voice of Four' or 'the Voice of the Fourth' (רביעיא)'

I have been thinking about Colorbasus (so Irenaeus, Hippolytus gives 'Colarbasus') for some time now.  Almost everyone acknowledges this is yet another slip of the editors of Irenaeus, taking a Hebrew, Aramaic or Syriac word related to the number four - אַרְבַּע - and misconstruing it into the name of a person.

The credit of detecting the cause of the confusion belongs to C. A. Heumann (Hamburgische Vermischte Bibliothek, 1743, i. 145). He got rid of the mysterious double of Marcus by pointing out that Chol-arba (כלארבע) means "All-Four" i.e. the divine Tetrad, which in the scheme of Marcus stood at the head of the Pleroma. He was less successful in dealing with the details of the text: and F. C. Baur (K.G. d. 3 erst. Jahrh. i. 204) has rightly substituted Col (קול) for Chol (The Voice of Four for All-Four). Volkmar explains the appearance of s by the Aramaic commutation of ע with צ, and the o of several authorities by Theodoret's Kossianos for Kassianos: Colassae and Colossae afford a still better illustration. (from Wikipedia entry)

I am wonder whether the opening words of Genesis might be the context of Mark's interest in the 'four' or 'fourth':

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת

The fourth word  אֵת  is well attested as the 'alpha and omega' of Jewish mysticism.  It symbolizes the beginning and end of the Hebrew alphabet and is mystically 'expanded' as it were by אֲמִתּ (i.e. the beginning, middle and end of the alphabet) which as we have already noted is explicitly referenced by Irenaeus as descending from heaven to Mark.  If we assume that the 'fourth' is consistently mistranslated as 'four' we would read in Irenaeus's original:

Moreover, the fourth (word viz. אֵת) explaining these things to him (Mark) more fully, said:--I wish to show thee אֲמִתּ herself; for I have brought her down from the dwellings above, that thou mayest see her without a veil, and understand her beauty--that thou mayest also hear her speaking, and admire her wisdom. Behold, then, her head on high, אֵ and ת her neck, בֹ and שִׁ; etc.... Such is the body of אֲמִתּ, according to this magician, such the figure of the element, such the character of the letter. And he calls this element Man, and says that is the fountain of all speech, and the beginning of all sound, and the expression of all that is unspeakable, and the mouth of the silent Silence. This indeed is the body of אֲמִתּ. But do thou, elevating the thoughts of thy mind on high, listen from the mouth of אֲמִתּ to the self-begotten Word, who is also the dispenser of the bounty of the Father.(Irenaeus AH i.14.3)

I think there is something to this as we see the מִ in אֲמִתּ understood to have been involved in the restoration of וּ. It is interesting to note that the sixth word in Gen 1.1 is the fourth word with the addition of וּ or  וְאֵת. Anyway more to follow later ...

Why New Testament Scholarship's COMPLETE Ignorance About Judaism Has Failed to Understand Marcionitism

I don't blame people who aren't Jewish for not understanding Jews. I don't think Jews even understand what makes them tick. What is dangerous however is when 'experts' - you know, the people that wear the hat which says 'Trust Me I Know' - convince everyone around them to accept simple-minded statements like 'Marcion didn't like the God of the Jews or Judaism.' I mean, I guess there are more pressing problems out there. The country - and the whole world - are falling apart. Why should Marcionitism matter so much?

Well, my answer is simple.

The state of the world doesn't affect how much time I have to live on this earth. If there were good times or bad times, the state of the world 'out there' only gets in the way of our collective attempts to get at 'the truth.' I am not an atheist so my purpose is not to 'debunk' Christianity.

If I was a nihilist I would just go out and manage a bordello.

So for me it's all about time. We only have a few more years - perhaps generations - to figure this all out.  What gets in the way of things to a greater degree than any kind of economic collapse is - as we have noted here - Elaine Pagels sloppy scholarship, promoting ridiculous idea that 'the apolutrosis rituals was established among the followers of Ptolemy.'

This 'redemption' baptism was the exclusive domain of the followers of Mark.  Irenaeus and Hippolytus MAKE THIS ABSOLUTELY EXPLICIT.  We will never find the proper liturgical context for the baptism ritual of 'Secret Mark' as long as Pagels distracts peoples attention from its original connection with St. Mark.

But now on to the bigger lie - the nonsense that Marcionitism was hostile to Judaism.

I wish New Testament scholars could just stop continuing to spin this stuff.  Of course I suspect that all of their so-called expertise even with regards to the Christian testament has more to do with recycling what other people have said before them rather than actually understanding the material at hand.

So let me try to explain how Marcionitism developed from the Torah. Let's start with the opening words:

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

It is well established within Judaism that these words can be translated as the familiar 'in the beginning God created' or a second meaning 'Because of beginning' or 'With beginning created Elohim (the gods).'

The preposition בְּ in בְּרֵאשִׁית can have this meaning and is witnessed by Targum Yerushalami (frag.) and Nachmanides (ad. loc.), Bereshit Rabba 1:1, Azriel of Gerona Peirush ha-Aggadot 81 as well as the Zohar which explains it:

With this בְּרֵאשִׁית the unknown or concealed one created the palace. This palace is called אֱלֹהִים. The secret is בְּרֵאשִׁית, _____ בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

The subject of the verse אֱלֹהִים 'gods' follows the verb בָּרָא 'created.' In typical hyperliteral fashion, the authors of the Zohar insist on reading the words in the exact order in which they appear, thereby transforming אֱלֹהִים into the object. That means that the subject is now unnamed but that is perfectly appropriate because the true subject of emanation is unnameable. The opening words of the Bible no longer mean 'in the beginning God created' but rather x 'the unknowable' with beginning created אֱלֹהִים, the palace.

With this understanding it should be completely obvious that the Marcionite notion that there was another God in heaven hardly has anything to do with an attempt to diminish the value of the Jewish god. It is entirely consistent with established interpretation of the Torah.

It is also certain that the opening words of the gospel recognize or develop a parallel interpretation to the Jewish mystical interpretation of the first words of Genesis.

If we go one step further we consistently see Jewish mystical literature connect the created 'gods' אֱלֹהִים with the word אֵלֶּה (these) which appears at the end of the creation section in Genesis 2:4:

אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם

These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created

The word אֵלֶּה has a numerical value of 66. The very same as we noted about the name John יון as a possible diminutive of יוחנן.

There is a consistent understanding in the earliest sources about the Marcosians that they took an interest in expressing the sixth letter as essentially two sixes. While these discussions now take place in Greek the sixth Hebrew letter - vav (ו) - is fully spelled out it appears as two sixes side by side - viz. וו - and has a value of 66.

In the coming days I will cite from the surviving Jewish and Samaritan mystical literature to demonstrate that Marcosian kabbalah was developed from the same tradition which ultimately spawned classic works like the Zohar and the Mimar Marqe. Mark's spin on the tradition was that he was the 66 - the power which created the world and needed redemption.

I wonder whether all of this mystical interest in the number six had something to do with the Marcionite understanding that Jesus was crucified within a generation of the year 6000. So much to learn, so much to think about ...

Marcionite Kabbalah

I know it must sound strange when I argue that the so-called 'Marcionites' stand closer to Judaism than the Catholics - but then again WTF do most New Testament scholars know about varieties within the various traditions associated with Moses.  In any event, here's a sample of something I noticed in Eznik of Kolb which I KNOW escaped everyone else's notice.  Here is the original French translation of Eznik's De Deo (Maries and Merciers in Patrologia Orientalis Tome XXVIII Fascicule 3 p. 669):

Mais cette autre chose encore qu'ils disent est plus impie que tout, savoir "Quand vit le Bon, qui au troisième ciel siegéait, telle quantité d'âmes - les âmes de vingt-neuf générations! - en proie aux supplices dans la géhenne, ému de pitié pour elles, il envoya Jésus, son fils, pour aller prendre ressemblance d'esclave, et, sous forme humaine, se produire.[IV vii 375]

and my rough Canadian-who-took-French-until-university-but-never-managed-to-speak-the-language translation would be:

But this other thing they say is even more wicked than all the rest, ie "When the Good God, who sat in the third heaven, saw so many souls - the souls of twenty nine generations - saw them suffering torments in hell, he was moved with pity for them, it happened that he sent Jesus his son to go to resemblance of a slave, in human form.

The part that interests me of course is the identification on the part of the 'Marcionite' that Jesus died just before the year 6000 (29 x 20 = 5880). This is very much in keeping with traditional Jewish mystical speculation and seems to echo Clement of Alexandria's understanding of the age he was living in (and that of a certain Jew named Judah referenced by Severus of al'Ashmunien who lived in Alexandria at the time of Clement).

All I have to say is - notice the number six. More to follow ...

The Marcionite Gospel and Secret Mark

You must all know how much it pains me to use the term "Marcionite" as I see absolutely NO evidence outside of the typical heretical scaremongering of the Church Fathers that a "Marcion of Pontus" ever had any historical existence.  Nevertheless it would be impossible to argue that the Church Fathers were describing a wholly imaginary phenomenon either.

As I have noted many times here it is only A THIRD CENTURY ROMAN tradition associated with Irenaeus that claims that 'Marcion' was the head of 'the Marcionites.'  There is very little in the way of hard evidence that Irenaeus actually referenced such a figure.

The surviving copies of Book One of the Five Books Against All Heresies only references 'Marcion' in the part which was appropriated from Justin's Syntagma (i.e. AH i.27.2, 3; i.28.1).  There is no specific reference to 'Marcionites' anywhere in the work.

Indeed as almost everyone knows Irenaeus's original 'lectures' (cf. Photius) must have only referenced the Valentinians and the Marcosians as two separate but ultimately related sects.  It was the specific arrangement of the First Book by a Roman editor which placed the Valentinians BEFORE the Marcosians.  One could argue that this was deliberate misinformation to prove that the Marcosians weren't preserving the original Alexandrian tradition associated with St. Mark the Evangelist (which must have been their original claim)

The point is that if the original βάρβαρον διάλεκτον [AH i.pref.2] that Irenaeus composed his original works against the Valentinians and Marcosians was Aramaic or Syriac (something I have written quite a bit about here) then the equivalent Aramaic term to 'the Marcosians' would be the marqiyone.  I think that the survival of early manuscripts of Hegesippus's catalogue of heresies referencing Μαρκιωνισταί  which later writers transformed into 'Marcionites,' copies of Justin's Apology which reference Μαρκιανοί  which is also corrected to read 'Marcionites' again as well as surviving literary witnesses to the fact the name for Marcionites in Syriac would mean 'those of Mark' in Aramaic all points to the fictitious nature of 'Marcion.'

'Marcion' was created through backformation from the original Aramaic term.  The head of the Marcionites was St. Mark.  Hegesippus, Justin and Irenaeus were all native Aramaic and Syriac speakers.  All or at least some of these men were sources for Tertullian whose translation of original Semitic material written AGAINST MARK and his sect 'the Marqiyone' still belies a typically Syrian emphasis on one true gospel - viz. the so-called Diatessaron.

I cannot help but hear echoes of an original treatise referencing only two single, long gospels - both in essence resembling the Diatessarion - but which was later adapted by some later source (Hippolytus? Tertullian?) to make it accord with the fourfold gospel known to the Church in the period.

The reason that my suggestion about the real meaning of the term 'Marcionite' is so important is that it points to them being in possession of an ur-Mark which must have had some relation to 'Secret Mark.'  This is why Hippolytus references (and ultimately rejects) a contemporary report that the gospel of the Marcionites was 'according to Mark.'

We know that the opening words of the Marcionite gospel were Mark 1:1.  The same thing is present in copies of the surviving Diatessaron.Both the Marcionite gospel and the Diatessaron 'retain' Mark's enthronement ending (otherwise from whence came the idea that Marcion himself was 'enthroned' with Jesus cf. Origen Homilies on Luke). Many of the 'Marcionite textual variants' only appear as such if we follow the Roman claims of the third century that they used a bastard copy of the Gospel of Luke.  The same 'variants' actually agree often times with known western variants of Mark.

The reason I find this so interesting is that the Marcionite gospel DID NOT HAVE the Jesus baptized by John narrative or as Holmes writes:

According to Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, he rejected the genealogy and baptism of Christ; whilst from Tertullian's statement (chap.vii.) it seems likely that he connected what part of chap. iii.--vers. 1, 2--he chose to retain, with chap. iv. 31, at a leap.. He further eliminated the history of the tempation. That part of chap. iv. which narrates Christ's going into the synagogue at Nazareth and reading out of Isaiah he also rejected, and all afterwards to the end of yet.  Epiphanius mentions sundry slight alterations in capp. v. 14, 24, vi. 5, 17. In chap. viii. 19 he expunged h mhthr autos, kai adelfoi autou. From Tertullian's remarks (chap. xix.), it would seem at first as if Marcion had added to his Gospel that answer of our Saviour which we find related by St. Matthew, chap. xii. 48: "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" For he represents Marcion (as in De came Christ, vii., he represents other heretics, who deny the nativity) as making use of these words for his favourite argument. 

Yet this isn't the only way that we can see that the Marcionite gospel actually represented a 'fuller' gospel of Mark (with material found in other gospels).  There is the recurring pattern where Tertullian's source says that Marcion has erased things from the Catholic gospel - which we presume is Luke because of Tertullian's addition of new words in the introduction - until of course we realize that these 'expunged words' don't ever appear in Luke!

Holmes again has to explain this state of affairs so he comes up with a ridiculous 'hypothetical' namely that:

Tertullian might quote from memory, and think that to be in Luke which was only in Matthew--as he has done at least in three instances. (Lardner refers two of these instances to passages in chap. vii. of this Book iv., where Tertullian mentions, as erasures from Luke, what really are found in Matthew v. 17 and xv. 24. The third instance referred to by Lardner probably occurs at the end of chap. ix. of this same Book iv., where Tertullian again mistakes Matt. v. 17 for a passage of Luke, and charges Marcion with expunging it; curiously enough, the mistake recurs in chap. xii. of the same Book) ... Tertullian says (in the 4th chapter of the preceding Book) that Marcion erased the passage which gives an account of the parting of the raiment of our Saviour among the soldiers. But the reason he assigns for the erasure--'respiciens Psalmi prophetiam'--shows that in this, as well as in the few other instances which we have already named, where Tertullian has charged Marcion with so altering passages, his memory deceived him into mistaking Matthew for Luke, for the reference to the passage in the Psalm is only given by St. Matthew xxvii.

It is absolutely impossible to believe that Marcion both 'added' things from Matthew to his own gospel AND Tertullian's source was so stupid that he didn't realize that he was accusing Marcion of removing things from 'Luke' which are only found in Matthew.

The solution to all of this goes back to what we noticed about oral traditions related to St. Mark's gospel writing efforts in Alexandria.  The original Gospel of Mark originally included material found in sources outside of Luke.  I don't want to go through the list right now but the Marcionite interest in the Paraclete, coupled with the early traditions of Marcion as the disloyal secretary of John all point to what we would call 'Johannine material' present in the Marcionite text (something pointed out by Turmel over a century ago).

It is far easier I think to demonstrate that Irenaeus actually knew of a 'fuller gospel of Mark' when he writes:

For the Lord, revealing Himself to His disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who imparts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the Jews, who imagined that they, had [the knowledge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected His Word, through whom God is made known, declared, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]." Thus hath Matthew set it down, and Luke in like manner, and Mark the very same; for John omits this passage. They, however, who would be wiser than the apostles, write [the verse] in the following manner: "No man knew the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him];" [Irenaeus AH iv.4.1]

The point of course is that this heretical variant was found in the Marcionite gospel. The idea that our canonical Mark was shorter than an Alexandrian original is most clearly witnessed in Clement's letter to Theodore. But I have went one step further by pointing out that the Marcionite canon included a letter to the Alexandrians. How could Clement's Alexandrian Gospel of Mark - a text so utterly intertwined with the Alexandrian liturgy - be understood to exist in a canon WITHOUT a letter to the Alexandrian Church? How could Mark's Alexandrian gospel not been fused to a Marcionite canon built around an Apostolikon reinforcing Alexandria's primacy?

The solution of all solution is to go back to the reference in Hippolytus which says essentially 'the Marcionites are wrong - Mark's gospel and Paul's letters don't when taken together support their heretical beliefs.'  But this is a stupid argument because the Marcionite clearly had a different version of each.  The Gospel of Mark they used DID NOT have the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.  Indeed 'John' isn't even referenced until chapter 5.  As the Marcionites baptized their catechumen one would think there had to have been a reference to the sacrament in the narrative - but where?

I would argue that the Marcionite baptism was based on LGM 1 (the first reference to material that appeared in the Alexandrian Gospel of Mark which was either removed or did not appear in the Roman text of the same name).  Already Harvey notes parallels between Marcionite baptismal practices and those of the Marcosians.  I would argue that the term 'Marcionite' (or marqyone) is only the Aramaic equivalent to Μαρκιανισταί.  The two sects were undoubtedly one and the same, really amounting to related Syriac and Egyptian sects which derive their origins from a common Markan ancestor.

The situation with regards to the gospel is also undoubtedly the same.  There must have been an Aramaic ancestor to Mark.  Morton Smith realized as much and now that defenders of his discovery no longer have to make clever arguments to distance Smith from the text he discovered, maybe we can now actually get somewhere in terms of understanding where 'Secret Mark' fit within the framework of early witnesses to the original gospel narrative ...

Mark and Marcion: Second Century Ecclesiastical Pimpin'

A dark and sinister heretical boogeyman manages to convince your wife that you should let him into your house.  He tells you that he is the only authority on Christ and his gospel.  You smell a rat but your foolish wife - well - you know how women are.  She convinces you to let your guard down.  She sighs and bats her eyes and you give in.

"Okay you can have this strange heretic stay with us in our house."

Like a giddy schoolgirl she becomes all excited and quickly opens the door and allows him in.  You go off to work, still having misgivings about this man with crazy eyes, horns on his head, beard and goatee and then when you come home you learn - he's defiled your wife!  

This utterly stupid story is repeated over and over in the writings of the Church Fathers.  The wicked man is always named either Mark or Marcion (the latter as we have already noted is derived from the former through back formation).

It is one of the clearest proofs that the two names belong to the same historical individual.

Let's go back to our last post.  We were studying all the references to there heretic 'Mark' in Book One of Hippolytus's compilation of Irenaeus's writings Against All Heresies.  We accepted the prevailing opinion in scholarship that chapters 22 - 31 were added from Justin's lost Syntagma.  We were demonstrating how Irenaeus's portrait of the heretic Mark derive from his efforts in the late second century to demonize the Evangelist and founder of the Alexandrian tradition who happens to share the same name.

We have now arrived at Section 5 of Chapter 13 of Book One which happens to contain clearest parallels between Mark and Marcion.  These parallels just happen to the 'juiciest' references in all of the Church Fathers. Irenaeus tells us that:

Moreover, that this Marcus compounds philters and love-potions, in order to insult the persons of some of these women, if not of all, those of them who have returned to the Church of God--a thing which frequently occurs--have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they have been defiled by him, and that they were filled with a burning passion towards him. A sad example of this occurred in the case of a certain Asiatic, one of our deacons, who had received him into his house. His wife, a woman of remarkable beauty, fell a victim both in mind and body to this magician, and, for a long time, travelled about with him. At last, when, with no small difficulty, the brethren had converted her, she spent her whole time in the exercise of public confession, weeping over and lamenting the defilement which she had received from this magician.[AH xiii.5]

I don't believe a word of this nonsense. But if you reference it online you are bound to get someone citing Ehrman or someone else to the effect that all of this is to be taken metaphorically. But how do they explain away the fact that Mark and Marcion are engaged in what Americans today refer to as pimpin'?

The information comes from Asia Minor and notice that the deacon is married. Members of the presbytery would not be married in a so-called 'Marcionite' Church. Then there is the question of how 'Mark' was let in the house in the first place. From Hippolytus's report it is plainly evident that the Marcosian Church that there was a well established ecclesiastical hierarchy completely with bishops and other functionaries.

How is it possible that 'Marcus' was some heretical boogeyman sleeping over in people's houses and defiling their wives rather than tending to his flock on three different continents?

The parallel idea that Marcion was also sneaking into peoples houses and defiling their virgins HAS TO BE related to this nonsense. Already at the time of Justin we read that:

the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son. And this man many have believed, as if he alone knew the truth, and laugh at us, though they have no proof of what they say, but are carried away irrationally as lambs by a wolf, and become the prey of atheistical doctrines, and of devils. For they who are called devils attempt nothing else than to seduce men from God who made them. [Apology 58]

While it is difficult to prove that the 'seduction' here is meant to be explicitly taken in a sexual manner there are obvious parallels to Irenaeus's description of Mark as "drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above. Thus it appears as if he really were the precursor of Antichrist ... [and] he is regarded by his senseless and cracked-brain followers as working miracles by these means." [AH i.13.1] Hippolytus's parallel remembrance begins with a clear reference to demonic powers too "Marcus, an adept in sorcery, carrying on operations partly by sleight of hand and partly by demons, deceived many from time to time. This (heretic) alleged that there resided in him the mightiest power from invisible and unnameable places ..." [Ref. vi.34]

It should be noted that Hippolytus's report (which I say is closer to the lost original 'lecture' of Irenaeus) is almost completely devoid of these charges of sexual misconduct which appear in the Five Books Against All Heresies. The material borrowed from Justin's Syntagma on Marcion which is introduced into Irenaeus's work is similarly devoid of sexual reference but it is not difficult to see its begins in various 'seduction' motifs which are present. We read: "Although they [the Marcionites] do not confess the name of their master [i.e. Simon], in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy?" [AH i.27.4]

It is interesting to note that the first Marcionite to actually be accused of sexual misconduct was a disciple - Apelles - rather than 'Marcion' himself. Tertullian says that Apelles "after suffering a carnal fall from the school of Marcion in respect of a woman, and thereafter a spiritual overthrow in respect of the virgin Philumena, adopted from her the preaching of a three-dimensional body of Christ, yet without a nativity." [De Carne Christi 6] Twice in the same essay however Tertullian makes clear that this 'carnal fall' was meant to be taken allegorically. The virgin Philumena is CLEARLY an angel and not a person -

Now the apostle will answer that angel of Philumena's in the same terms in which, so long ago, he prophesied of the heretic himself, saying, Even if an angel from heaven preach the gospel to you otherwise than we have preached it, let him be anathema [ibid]

And Tertullian repeats this same citation in relation to the 'virgin angel' Philumena "No less, Even if an angel from heaven preach the gospel to you otherwise than we, let him be anathema, is directed against the energeme of Apelles' virgin Philumena." [De Carne Christi 17] and again "The Holy Ghost had even then foreseen that there would be in a certain virgin Philumene an angel of deceit, 'transformed into an angel of light,' by whose miracles and illusions Apelles was led (when) he introduced his new heresy."[De Prescr. 6]

I have long argued that Apelles was really Apollos from the Marcionite Epistle to the Corinthians (which as have long noted was identified by them as 'to the Alexandrians.' I think this Apelles is the man who was expelled from the community in chapter 5 of the letter owing to his involvement in porneia. The Apelles story in Tertullian represents a garbled reference to that original situation viz. " he rather forsook the continence of Marcion, by resorting to the company of a woman, and withdrew to Alexandria, out of sight of his most abstemious master. Returning therefrom, after some years, unimproved, except that he was no longer a Marcionite, he clave to another woman, the maiden Philumene (whom we have already mentioned), who herself afterwards became an enormous prostitute. Having been imposed on by her vigorous spirit, he committed to writing the revelations which he had learned of her." [ibid 30]

My guess is that the figure identified as 'Cerinthus' i.e. the 'Corinthian' owing to his presence in what was now called the 'Corinthian' epistle was a remembrance of this situation too. In this case however Apelles was originally attacked for 'going back' to the Wisdom of the Torah. Pseudo-Tertullian, however develops the argument the other way - i.e. by alerting the readers to the carnality of these heretics, continued to call Philumena a prophetess that actually seduced Apelles.

Ephrem by contrast speaks of "Bardaisan [who] was rational in public, – but under cover it raged on in blasphemous secrets. – He is (like) a seduced woman, who commits adultery in an inner (secret) room. – Marcion is a whore, who acted shamelessly." It is, in any case, almost certain that Bardaisan’s adultery and Marcion’s harlotry should be understood as their being seduced by Satan. The offspring produced by this ‘intercourse’ is called ‘the children of the snake’ in stanza 13.

The important point throughout is that what the Church Fathers were originally taking aim at is the prominent role that women were taking in the Markan Church. So Jerome accused Marcus of misleading unlearned men and high-born women, and of engaging in unlawful intercourse. The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles called Marcus a spiritual successor of Simon Magus and Hippolytus reports that Marcus even allowed women to offer up the Eucharist. For Jerome's purpose Marcus confirms the illicit sexual behavior of heretics, the sexually loose women heretics tend to attract, the seduction of weak-minded uneducated men, and lastly but no less important, the unbroken succession with Simon Magus.

This also sheds light on Jerome's attitude towards women. The heretical women represent 'typologically' behavior unbecoming of orthodox women. Each of them embody various aspects of a negative feminine tradition ; for example : Helena and the Bands of Women are the originating types of doctrinal/sexual depravity.

Marcion's unidentified woman is guilty of 'seducing' others at Rome, while Constantia and Lucilla engage in similar sinister activities behind the scenes. Philumena and Prisca/Maximilla are excellent examples of demonically seduced women who believe God is speaking through them in prophetic fashion. They also falsely imitate the apostolic duties of legitimate bishops. Agape seems to personify the most damnable example of a woman 'out of place' as she audaciously teaches Priscillian and pretends to perpetuate a legitimate succession of apostolic truth.

Jerome, in a sense, left the best for last in Letter 133 with Agape, a Gnostic woman as the quintessential exemplar of the female heretic. 'Galla' and the 'sister', encouraged by Priscillian, are presented by Jerome of perpetuating heresy freely without any seeming reliance [submission] on male authority. Jerome presented to Ctesiphon a 'hall of fame' of women clearly out of place in the Church, and his warning is that Pelagius and his female followers, like the Priscillianists, have overstepped the acceptable boundaries of orthodox definitions of the role of women.

To this end, I think we have finally gotten to the bottom of why the Markan tradition (both in its Marcosian and Marcionite forms) prompted this kind of attack from the Church Fathers. They deeply feared the role women were playing in the Church and so in the end the founder of the sect - alternatively identified as 'Mark' or 'Marcion' is developed into a heretical boogeyman who corrupts women from their intended state of purity. So Epiphanius tells us that:

there appeared a man named Marcion, who was the son of a certain bishop of the land of Pontus. He found there a pious girl who stayed day and night at the church; she was a virgin. Marcion seduced her and corrupted her [Panarion 42.1.1]

There are clear examples from the Alexandrian tradition of parallel behavior among 'Markan' women. We shall bring them forward shortly. The one point that we should take especial care to notice is that ONLY THESE TWO heretics - Mark and Marcion - have this sort of reputation.

Two second century ecclesiastical 'pimps' and their names represent variations on our 'Mark.' Hmmmm.  Must be a coincidence again ...

On the Jewish Roots of 'Marcion'

I have always been struck by the Jewish roots of Marcion. Here is another reference which - if read critically - suggests a deeper relationship than previously realized:

Concerning Theodotion, who was from Pontus. But after this, in the time immediately following, that is, in the reign of Commodus----I mean, of Commodus ----there was a certain Theodotion of Pontus, of the doctrine of Marcion, the heresiarch of Sinope. Having become angered with his heresy, he turned aside to Judaism and was circumcised and learned the language of the Hebrews and their writings; he also published (a translation) on his own account. He published many things in agreement with the seventy-two, for he derived many (peculiar) practices from the translational habit(s) of the seventy-two. Now you become the judge, O great lover of the good, of such a matter as this, whether the truth is more likely to be found with these three----I mean Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion ----who, moreover, were not together, but were remote from one another in both time and place; and there were not many, but only three, and yet they were unable to agree. [Epiphanius Weights and Measures 17]

Debunking the Myth of 'Marcion' Once and For All

I have had an ongoing but entirely cordial debate with one of the readers of my blog as to whether the Marcionites (Μαρκιωνισταί) was originally derived from an Aramaic term which meant 'those of Mark.' During the course of answering some of his objections I stumbled upon this reference in the very early Hegesippus which I think settles the issue once and for all.

The passage in question deals with the various heretics which sprang up in the Church in the second century. We read:

But Thebuthis, because he was not made bishop, began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects among the people, like Simon, from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius, from whom came the Cleobians, and Dositheus, from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthæus, from whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus, from whom came the Masbothæans. From them sprang the Menandrianists, and Marcionists, (Μαρκιανισταί) and Carpocratians, and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ.”[Eusebius Church History iv.22]

Schaff notes that there was some controversy over this reference to the Μαρκιανισταί saying "There is some dispute about this word. The Greek is Μαρκιανισταί, which Harnack regards as equivalent to Μαρκιωνισταί, or “followers of Marcion,” but which Lipsius takes to mean “followers of Marcus.” The latter is clearly epigraphically more correct, but the reasons for reading in this place Marcionites, or followers of Marcion, are strong enough to outweigh other considerations (see Harnack, p. 31 ff. and Lipsius, p. 29 ff.)."

Given that we have evidence from the East that the Marcionites were called mrqywni, a term which means 'those of Mark' in Aramaic, it is impossible not to believe now that this early reference to Μαρκιανισταί shows that subsequent references to the Μαρκιωνισταί were either ill informed or deliberately misleading.

The reference I am speaking of is from the Life of Mar Aba written in Syriac "for he (Mar Aba) called a Christian a Marcionite (mrqywni) following the local custom."

There was no such a person as Marcion, my friends. Lightfoots mentions a Syriac version of the Hegesippus this might just cement the deal.

It's amazing that no one noticed this before my friend Professor Boid but then again I always said he was smarter than the rest of these pretenders ...

UPDATE - More Μαρκιανοί references discovered:

Justin Dialogue With Trypho 35 "Yet they style themselves Christians, just as certain among the Gentiles inscribe the name of God upon the works of their own hands, and partake in nefarious and impious rites.) Some are called Μαρκιανοί, and some Valentinians, and some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and others by other names; each called after the originator of the individual opinion, just as each one of those who consider themselves philosophers, as I said before, thinks he must bear the name of the philosophy which he follows, from the name of the father of the particular doctrine." This reference is almost ALWAYS mistaken to be a Marcionite reference http://books.google.com/books?id=BvhVdzn0tagC&pg=PA209&dq=%CE%9C%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%AF&hl=en&ei=2NsBTNDBFILMNePRqJQC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%CE%9C%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%AF&f=false. Harnack mentions also "the Marcianisten in Theodosius. Codex XVI, 5, 65 (Law v. May 30 = 428 Justinian. I, 5, 5).

Professor Boid Confirmed that the Audiani Might Have Their Name Derived From an Aramaic Root Meaning 'to Confess'

I am ALWAYS suspicious of the abilities of Patristic authors to invent heretics. The list of non-existent heretics continues to grow the more we put their heresiological writings under a microscope. There never was an 'Ebion' of the 'Ebionites.' There never as an Elxai of the 'Elchasites.' 'Marcion' was a back formation developed to explain away original Aramaic reports about 'those of Mark' (Aram. Marqione). The heretic 'Cerinthos' was invented out of some misunderstanding involving the Greek city of Corinth (Gr. Korinthos). Tertullian makes clear that those called 'Valentinians' deny there was ever a 'Valentinus' at the head of their tradition. There never was a second century heretic named 'Marcus' who came into women's houses and defiled them. There never was a sect who called themselves 'the Ophites' or 'Naasenes,' the 'Encratites,' the 'Docetae' and all the rest.

Even more disturbing is the tendency of later Fathers of the Church to attack those they disagreed with by claiming that they formed a 'recent sect' around a prominent leader in their community - viz. 'the Arians' (Arius was just a continuation of the original Origenist line of Patriarchs of Alexandria victimized by the usurper Alexander and his 'back room deal' with Hosius of Cordoba and the Emperor Constantine).

So it is that when we arrive at the story of a certain 'Audius' who came from Mesopotamia and started a schism claiming that the Nicene Church had fallen away from the original celebration of Easter (i.e. that it originally paralleled the Jewish custom of a seven day festival ending on the 21st of Nisan) we should be very suspicious.

While Epiphanius says that the sect has roots in Syria, Mesopotamia and Aramaic speaking regions he rolls the account of the sect together with a description of Arian 'resistance' to the Nicene formula. It is worth noting that Origen references the fact that the Alexandrian custom was exactly what was held by the Audians (i.e. the existence of a Christian 'Feast of Unleavened Bread' which differed in character from the Jewish celebration in its pronounced 'bitterness' before the eighth day). The Liber Pontificalis similarly echoes that the Alexandrian custom was established as early as the time of Victor of Rome who first fought against it.

My doubts about the existence of an 'Audius' are based on the fact that the name suspiciously resembles the universal Aramaic root for 'confession' which we see (thanks to the CAL website)

ʾwdʾh, ʾwdytʾ v.n.C confession

1 confession JLAtg, LJLA.
1 thanksgiving JLAtg.

ʾwdyyh v.n.C thanksgiving

1 thanksgiving Jud.
2 confession JBA.

hwdʾh n.f. confession

1 confession JLAtg.

mwdynw, mwdynwtʾ (mawdyānū, mawdyānūṯā) n.f. confession

1 confession Syr. --(a) witnessing to the faith, martyrdom Syr.
2 office of confessor Syr.

swmbwlwn n.m. confession

1 confession Syr.
2 annunciation Syr.

šwdyʾ (šuddāyā) v.n.D confession

1 confession Syr.
2 promise Syr.
3 (gram.) proposition Syr.

twdy, twdytʾ (tawdīṯā) n.f. praise

1 praise Syr.
2 thanks Syr.
3 confession Syr.
4 sect Syr.
5 religion Syr.

Now it is well established that the followers of Meletius of Lycopolis (who went on to sit in the Episcopal throne of Mark during the confusion that marked the great persecutions of Diocletian) identified itself by the name 'the Church of the Martyrs' inherently objecting to the reacceptance by other bishops of people who chose to avoid the risk of martyrdom. We know that Melitius' influence extended even so far away as Palestine and it is said that Melitius ordained Arius.

Could the existence of a 'Church of the Confessors' in the East be related to a 'Church of the Martyrs' in Egypt. I think so and I think it provides the context for the later Jacobite 'alliance' between the same two regions in the sixth century. More work is clearly needed but I think that we have the beginnings of an understanding for the continuing influence of Markan (or Marqione to use the Aramaic term) influence into the Islamic period.

But we all have to remember, the Dialogues of Adamantius, the writings of Ephrem the Syrian and other sources make clear, the name 'Marcionite' was IMPOSED on the sect from without. They referred to themselves simply as 'Christians' and had the exclusive right to this name in the East. One also imagines that this privilege was TAKEN AWAY from their Alexandrian brothers in the late second century unless 'modifications' were made to their original faith. As time went on, we must also suppose, these demands only increased until at the time of Constantine it was impossible to go along with them any more ...

How I Might Have Solved a Two Thousand Year Old Mystery at a Local Massage Parlor ...

No it wasn't how to keep sex interesting while married. Nor was it really a 'massage parlor.' My wife has been raving about a Chinese reflexology unit that just opened in our area that charges $25 for an hour long massage. But the point is that as I was leaving to get $25 massage (it ended up being $40 dollars because I felt bad getting such a good deal - I felt obligated to tip the man in order to make sure it wasn't such a good deal!) I was flipping through Jastrow as I do almost as a kind of habit and I saw for the first time that יוֹנָ as a possible variant of יוֹנָה (p. 569).

Boid had long ago pointed out to me that aside from meaning dove the term could also have been a diminutive of יוחנן (John).

The reason I am so interested in יוֹנָ as a possible diminutive of John is that it has a numerical value of 66. We have seen the manner in which the Marcosians understood the sixth letter to have fallen from heaven in the beginning. While the arguments Irenaeus sites from his Marcosian contacts reference the episemon (the 6th letter of the Greek alphabet) the 6th letter of the Hebrew alphabet - vav (ו) - has always been the subject of mystical speculation among the Jews.

When the letter is spelled out it is represented as two sixes - viz. וו - which is also the number 66.

Indeed, even though Irenaeus cites Marcosian ideas that developed in the Greek language it is not difficult to see allusions to the understanding that the sixth letter actually had a value of twelve because it was made up of two sixes.

So we read the female hypostasis announce to Mark:

Consider this present Episemon, she says-- Him who was formed after the Episemon, as being, as it were, divided or cut into two parts [Irenaeus AH i.14.7]

and again:

They therefore term the Duodecad--because it contains the Episemon, and because the Episemon [so to speak] waits upon it--the passion. And for this reason, because an error occurred in connection with the twelfth number, the sheep frisked off, and went astray; for they assert that a defection took place from the Duodecad [AH i.16.1]

And to make absolutely certain that the Marcosians 'added up' the letters which spelled out other letters:

You may more clearly understand what I mean by the following example:-- The word Delta contains five letters, viz., D, E, L, T, A: these letters again, are written by other numbers, and others still by others. If, then, the entire composition of the word Delta [when thus analyzed] runs out into infinitude, letters continually generating other letters, and following one another in constant succession, how much raster than that [one] word is the [entire] ocean of letters! [AH 14.2]

The point is that we can already see that the Marcosians would undoubtedly have recognized that the letter vav was itself an expression of two vavs and thus had a value of twelve or sixty six.

I think that if it is possible to argue that John the son of Zebedees name was spelled יוֹנָ (and I am actively trying to get a second opinion on this) then we have basis for understanding John was Jesus's beloved disciple THROUGH kabbalah.

Anyway I will think about it some more ...

Were the So-Called 'Audians' Marcionite?

I am working out the possible Aramaic origins of the name 'Audiani' (I suspect it isn't the name of a person at all but derived from the Syriac root meaning 'to confess') yet for the moment I would like to bring forward Theodoret's report on the sect:

The illustrious emperor thus took heed of the apostolic decrees, but Audaeus, a Syrian alike in race and in speech, appeared at that time as an inventor of new decrees. He had long ago begun to incubate iniquities and now appeared in his true character. At first he understood in an absurd sense the passage "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." From want of apprehension of the meaning of the divine Scripture he understood the Divine Being to have a human form, and conjectured it to be enveloped in bodily parts; for Holy Scripture frequently describes the divine operations under the names of human parts, since by these means the providence of God is made more easily intelligible to minds incapable of perceiving any immaterial ideas. To this impiety Audaeus added others of a similar kind. By an eclectic process he adopted some of the Manichean doctrines of Manes and denied that the God of the universe is creator of either fire or darkness. But these and all similar errors are concealed by the adherents of his faction.

They allege that they are separated from the assemblies of the Church. But since some of them exact a cursed usury, and some live unlawfully with women without the bond of wedlock, while those who are innocent of these practices live in free fellowship with the guilty, they hide the blasphemy of their doctrines by accounting as they do for their living by themselves. The plea is however an impudent one, and the natural result of Pharisaic teaching, for the Pharisees accused the Physician of souls and bodies in their question to the holy Apostles "How is it that your Master eateth with publicans and sinners?" and through the prophet, God of such men says "Which say, 'come not near me for I am pure' this is smoke of my wrath." But this is not a tithe to refute their unreasonable error. I therefore pass on to the remainder of my narrative.[Theodoret Church History Book IV Chapter IX]

What is so interesting about this passage is the variation of BOTH New and Old Testament citations from the sect. Compare the following:

How is it that your Master eateth with publicans and sinners?

with the received text of Mark:

How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? [Mark ii.16]

and the citation of Isaiah:

οἱ λέγοντες καθαρός εἰμι, μή μου ἅπτου οὗτος καπνὸς τοῦ θυμοῦ μου.

and the Septuagint passage reads

οἱ λεγοντες ποῤ& 191·ω ἀπ᾽ ἐμου, μὴ ἐγγίσῃς μοι ὅτι καθαρός εἰμι, etc

There is definitely something interesting here. More research is needed tho ..


”700700 Mark ii. 16. Observe verbal inaccuracy of quotation. and through the prophet, God of such men says “Which say, ‘come not near me for I am pure’ this is smoke of my wrath.”

My 'Conspiracy Theory' that the Roman Imperial Government Changed the Christian Veneration of the Eighth Day of Passover as the Proper Time for Baptism is Witnessed in the Fourth Century

For they [the Audians] choose to celebrate the Passover with the jews - that is, they contentiously celebrate the Passover at the same time that the Jews are holding their Festival of Unleavened Bread. And indeed, that this used to be the church's custom - even though they tell churchmen a slanderous thing in this regard and say "You abandoned the fathers' Paschal rite in Constantine's time from deference to the emperor, and changed the day to suit the emperor." And some, again, declare with a contentiousness of their own, "You changed the Passover to Constantine's birthday"

And if the Passover were celebrated on the same day each year, and it had been decided to keep it on that day at the council convoked by Constantine, what they say might be plausible. But since the rite cannot fall on the same day each year, their argument is worthless. The emperor was not concerned for his birthday, but for the unity of the church. In fact God accomplished two highly important things through Constantine, the most beloved of God and forever the most blessed. [One was] the gathering of an ecumenical council, and the publication of the creed that was issued at Nicaea and confessed the assembled bishops with their signatures - the deposition of Arius and the declaration to all of the purity of the faith. [The other was] their correction of the Passover for our unity's sake.

For long ago, even from the earliest days, the Passover was celebrated at different times in the church...[Epiphanius Vol. 2, pp.410-411; Book III, Heresy 70, chapter 9] (from tertullian.org)

Questions and Answers About the Real Messiah

I was contacted by a student at a seminary who wants to write an article about my book the Real Messiah.  This is always fun because my book is so deceptively stupid that I always like to imagine the look on people's faces when they realize how much effort it took to write a silly book based on all this research.

Having a lot of research behind a book doesn't necessarily make for an authoritative book.  Nevertheless it does separate the Real Messiah from some of the idiotic books out there that claim Jesus was from outer space, claim that Jesus and Mary got married and lived happily ever after in Utah and the like.  Anyway here are the questions the student gave to me followed by my attempt to answer them.

Question 1 How did you come to the conclusion that Marcus Agrippa was originally an integral part of the Passion story?

Answer: There is no direct evidence to suggest that Agrippa had any role whatsoever in Christianity. There is also no direct evidence to suggest that anyone other than Jesus was involved in the Passion narrative.

Only one basic paradigm of Christianity has survived the ages - namely that associated with a certain 'Jesus of Nazareth,' who as both God and the messiah came to be born of a virgin and as a divinely born son of a virgin gave his life upon on the cross in order to redeem the world.

Sure this paradigm 'makes sense' to most Christians.  It's like the way that everyone thinks they are beautiful or smart because Mommy or Daddy say they are.  Reality can hit people like a brick wall but imaginary claims about divinely born sons of virgins don't ever face that kind of scrutiny.  Most people 'become religious' as it were as a means of escaping this sort of reality.

They apparently want to afford the same kind of escapism to their God and so never scrutinize the claims associated with his 'messiahood' the way they would - let's say - the warranty on a new car.

The fact that 'everyone else' seems to think that the basic paradigm of Christianity makes sense is enough for people.  It is just a matter of adopting the 'correct perspective' to help digest this basically illogical and unpalatable understanding of Jesus the messiah God-man.

The way I see it 'Jesus the messiah God-man' is like someone saying 'I like steak,' 'I like coffee' and 'I like ice cream' therefore it makes sense to put them all together.

So let me tell you why I think the whole paradigm doesn't make sense.

It's illogical because someone like Jesus couldn't have been considered to be Jewish messiah.

It's illogical because a messiah can't start off as God.

It's illogical because a virgin can't by definition give birth.

It's illogical because God can't die.

It's illogical because a redeemer can't redeem us from Himself (or His creation).

Of course everyone recognizes that these things don't make sense.  However as noted above, people quickly learn that 'the correct manner' of solving these seeming inconsistencies is to just accept the position the authorities imposed on us - namely the Roman or later Byzantine traditions.

It would be wrong and unfair to claim that there isn't an effort from time to time to make all of this sound rational.  An evolving interpretation of Passion has continued for generations systematically jettisoning authentic parts of the original equation.

My attempt to understand the origins of Christianity began with the assumption that those jettisoned 'things' might have been removed because they were used by 'the heretics' (i.e. dissenting voices WITHIN Christianity) to bolster their unacceptable teachings.  The point then is that we don't have to choose between one of two positions - i.e. 'Christianity is absolutely true' and 'Christianity is absolutely false.'  Truth might be found in the trash can that stands outside the Church.

To this end, I focused my efforts on the one locale that seemed to be home to almost all of the heresies - Alexandria - and its humbled apostle Mark.  Mark isn't recognized as an apostle by the rest of the world.  He is made to walk around with Peter in the manner of a servant rather than - let's face it - the recipient of the central revelation of the whole religion.

This never made sense to me.

Having spent fifteen years of life studying various heretical traditions (or what can be gathered about their beliefs) I came to embrace the surviving Coptic tradition as the closest living form to those 'faiths forgotten.' I could discern a faint line which connected the earliest Alexandrian Jews and heretics (all heretics are essentially too faithful to Jewish principles in Christianity) to the remnant of Alexandrianism today (the Coptic faith).

The basic thread here was that someone else other than Jesus was the messiah in Christianity. Severus of Al'Ashmunein, the great tenth century Coptic historian makes it explicit - Mark is the Christ. The same idea can be traced back to the Passio Petri Sancti and other early Origenist traditions. When I uncovered that Clement and Origen promoted the idea that Marcus Julius Agrippa was the messiah of Daniel (an interpretation considered authoritative among the Jews) I decided to connect the two ideas and attempted to SPECULATE how these ideas might be incorporated in a heretical Passion narrative.

While as already stated there is no direct evidence to connect Marcus Agrippa to the Passion narrative the Coptic tradition connects Mark to all aspects of the event. Mark is understood to have carried the pitcher of water to the Passover celebration which essentially begins the Passion narrative, a Passover narrative which is understood to take place in Mark's house, Mark is identified as the 'eyewitness to the Passion' (Passio Petri Sancti) or the 'beholder of God' there just as the narrative ends in the house where the doors were shut which is again Mark's house.

Given that the Passion narrative is understood to have a beginning, middle and end with Mark I assumed that he had a larger role in earliest Alexandrian tradition i.e. before the persecution efforts against the city effectively subordinated the Egyptian Church to Rome (and thus 'Mark' to 'Peter'). Furthermore by establishing the date of the Passion according to Alexandrian sources (i.e. through finding which year could allow for Passover to lead to a resurrection on Sunday March 25th) I found it coincided with the year Agrippa alluding to his imprisonment in Jerusalem c. 37 CE.

Given that this year had special significance in Judaism (i.e. was a forty ninth year or the seventh Sabbatical year immediately followed by a Jubilee) I developed a scenario where the Passion narrative was interpreted as heralding Marcus Agrippa's liberation of the Alexandrian Jewish community the next year. I drew heavily from traditional Jewish assumptions about the Passover, the Akedah, the Jubilee and the expectation that the messiah would be associated with these events.

There is no direct evidence again that any Christian tradition at any time developed the Passion narrative in this way (although there are sources for eighteen month period between the Crucifixion and the Ascension).

There is necessarily a great deal of creativity involved in putting all these pieces together. I might not be right about everything. But IF we accept that Jews ever had a role in the development of Christianity's liturgy the existing orthodoxy represents a moving away from those original ideas. My ideas by contrast would be only natural for the first Jewish believers in Christianity. I think they are closer to the truth.

How the Parable of the 'Ninety Nine Sheep' PROVES that the Gospel was Originally Written in Aramaic

Here is something important for all people interested in the gospel and early Christianity. Remember when Irenaeus makes that important reference to Marcosian kabbalah?:

Wherefore also they, by means of their "knowledge," avoid the place of ninety-nine, that is, the defection--a type of the left hand,--but endeavour to secure one more, which, when added to the ninety and nine, has the effect of changing their reckoning to the right hand.[AH i.14.2]

The same thing is present in the Gospel of Truth with specific reference to what the 'hundred' represents:

He is the shepherd who left behind the ninety-nine sheep which had not strayed and went in search of that one which was lost. He rejoiced when he had found it. For ninety-nine is a number of the left hand, which holds it. The moment he finds the one, however, the whole number is transferred to the right hand. Thus it is with him who lacks the one, that is, the entire right hand which attracts that in which it is deficient, seizes it from the left side and transfers it to the right. In this way, then, the number becomes one hundred. This number signifies the Father.

Now it has been pointed out that an ancient method of counting is still employed in the Middle East which shifts numbers from the left to right hand at decads. Ninety nine would be on the left hand and one hundred moves the counting to the right.

Nevertheless the source for the interest in one hundred is absolutely Jewish. The number one hundred is represented by the letter Qof in the Jewish culture and also signifies God like we saw in the Gospel of Truth:

Qof means the Holy One (Qodosh), implying who does all, that has been mentioned, is holy. Resh means Roshoh (wicked), implying, who does the contrary is wicked. Why does the crown of the Qof look down upon the Resh? just as the Qodosh (Holy One, blessed be He) looks down upon the Roshoh (the wicked), saying: Turn from thy ways and I shall also give thee a crown. Why does the foot of the Qof hang unsupported? In order to admit of the wicked entering into the Qudoshim (holiness) if he turn from his ways. [Sabb. 104a]

Now what I have been reinforcing to my readership time and again here is that if we want to understand the mystical system developed by these Semites centuries ago, we have to leave our traditional way of thinking at home. When it came to the basic Marcosian idea that the fabric of the universe had been torn through the loss of the sixth letter vav/episemon the same basic idea could be expressed in many different ways.

The common idea is that our physical universe is 'one less' than perfection or the way things should be.

So the same basic concept of our world having a 'defect' could be explained as Irenaeus and the Gospel of Truth have it - viz. with respect to a complicated notion of 'things adding up to' ninety nine (i.e. witnessing that they are one short of perfection or 'the one hundred'). But this is clear a Greek adaptation of the original mystical concept in Judaism which is that if the loss of vav has pushed all the letters which come after it 'back' one place so letters from ten (yod) to one hundred (qof) all lose ten points to their value.

Irenaeus's Marcosian source clearly knows that this idea is part of the original understanding because just before our last citation from his report HE ALSO SAYS:

this Lambda, being the eleventh in order, descended to seek after one equal to itself, so as to complete the number of twelve letters, and when it found such a one, the number was completed, is manifest from the very configuration of the letter; for Lambda being engaged, as it were, in the quest of one similar to itself, and finding such an one, and clasping it to itself, thus filled up the place of the twelfth, the letter Mu [ibid]

Now if you read Irenaeus's original report the way ninety nine is reached seems utterly forced. It involves multiplying the Lambda (eleven) with Zambda (nine) to get ninety nine ALL THE WHILE REFERENCING the 'loss of position' for each of the letters which come after vav:

for Lambda is the eleventh in order among the letters ... and also forms a representation of the arrangement of affairs above, since, on from Alpha, omitting Episemon, the number of the letters up to Lambda, when added together according to the successive value of the letters, and including Zambda itself, forms the sum of ninety-nine [ibid]

My point through all of this is that THE ONLY REASON why the Marcosian system sounds so complicated and forced is because again IT IS TRYING TO ADAPT A CONCEPT ORIGINAL DEVELOPED IN HEBREW TO AN ALPHABET IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE (viz. Greek). The original idea was really much simpler and straightforward namely that after the vav left the universe GOD LOST HIS PLACE AS THE ONE HUNDRED AND RESH (THE SYMBOL OF EVIL - SEE ABOVE) NOW SITS IN THE POSITION FORMERLY HELD BY QOF (THE HOLY ONE).

It really IS that simple folks - another example showing that the later Greek kabbalah developed from an Aramaic original. Oh and by the way, it is easy to see how the idea that the letter 'R' symbolized a wicked usurper of the place that the Holy One was supposed to sit could have gotten the Marcosians in all kinds of trouble. 'Rome' the last I checked begins with the letter R and Rome is ALWAYS identified as the Malkut ha-resha'ah (Gen. R. lxxvi.) in near contemporary Jewish literature. Even Irenaeus (or perhaps Hippolytus) preserves a similar mystical understanding in his writings (AH v.30.3).

I guess you can see why the Romans weren't so crazy about this Marcosian sect ...

Anyway, I have literally been thinking about this example of the ninety nine sheep all night and wondering how it must have appeared in the original Aramaic gospel (if you haven't read Black's (1967), An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts stop reading this post and do so right now). In our gospels there are two parallel sayings which are presented together to explain the same idea. The sayings appear in Luke as:

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [Luke 15:4 - 10]

Now there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this represents a redevelopment of the original material. Notice the deliberate attempt TO INJECT A LESS 'MYSTICAL INTERPRETATION' in the first saying (now about righteousness) and notice the injection of another saying into the second (i.e. 'light a lamp ... find it').

I am beginning to suspect that Luke knows the original Hebrew saying known to the Marcionites (against whom the gospel of Luke as a whole was developed in the late second century). For on the one hand we have a reference to a number of 'lambs' or sheep and on the other we have 'nine' things and one thing missing.

The Aramaic word for lamb is טלה and has a value of 44. The word for 'lambs' can be spelled either טלאים which has a value of ninety OR טליים which has a value of - well you guessed it - ninety nine.

As such I am certain that the Aramaic original of the gospel simply referenced someone having a single lamb (the vav) leave the fold of the טליים which has a value of ninety nine. Notice now how the strangeness of the 'ninety nine sheep' reference in our later gospels is entirely replaced by something natural in Aramaic.

If we think in terms of טלאים we witness the fall of the letter Qof because Qof is ninety. The letter M in Hebrew (spelled mem yud mim) is the first letter of the name 'Mary' and has a value of ninety also in this form.

But let's take matters one step further.

Let's ask where the Christian traditions outside of the Roman Catholic faith understood that the problem of the 'ninety nine' (i.e. the restoration of the last lamb) is referenced?

The answer is absolutely clear and certain - viz. Mark 5:21 - 34. There is no passage in the entire gospel which betrays signs of reworking like Mark 5:21 - 34. Irenaeus not only went out of his way to mention and refute the gnostic story of the restoration of the ninety nine but I believe he reworked the gospel in such a way in order to make it 'self-evident' how crazy the heretical tradition of Mark really was.

The point is that Mark 5:21 - 34 is now a DELIBERATE FUSION of two narratives - the original story of how Mary touched the hem of Jesus's cloak (טלית) which the gnostics referenced in all the explanations of the redemption of Mary the symbol of the lost lamb and then this other narrative unknown to the gnostics about Jairus and his twelve year old daughter.

As I have noted many times here the existing gospels were later redactions to 'foil' the original interpretation of the gnostics. To this end, the material is spread across three sometimes four texts all held to be 'one gospel' when read together as a way to effectively stamp out the original 'heretical' interpretation.

Take a close look at Mark 5:21 again. Can anyone REALLY deny that the story of Jairus was LAYERED ON TOP of the far more important narrative of the redemption of Mary Magdala? It's so obvious once you look at it with a critical eye it's not even worth debating. Everywhere in the writings of the Church Fathers we hear that the heretics take an interest in the story of Mary clinging to the cloak of Jesus while not one of them references the Jairus story.

I will argue that the layering in effect PREVENTS us from seeing the original context of the Mary Magdala story. As such a worthless narrative about Jairus and his daughter is fused directly on top of the original body of the redemption of Mary, where specifically the original ending of the redemption narrative becomes attached to Jairus's daughter and where the 'anonymous lady' is addressed with the standard orthodox insertion from Jesus to every sinner "Go in peace your faith has healed you." [Mark 5:34]

Let me illustrate how Irenaeus read the original narrative in the writings of the heretics:

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth . He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. "Your daughter is dead," they said. "Why bother the teacher any more?"

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe."

He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, "Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep." But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and he said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" ). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Clearly then the original passage simply read as follows:

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had received her menstrual flow. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Rise little lamb." Immediately the girl stood up; she was twelve years old. At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this ...

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that SOMETHING LIKE THIS last example was the original reading. The idea that she had her menstrual flow for "twelve years" is a diversionary tactic by the Roman editors of the canon. There never was a reference to a "twelve year old daughter of Jairus, a ruler of a city." If you want to go one step further Mary - Marcus Agrippa's older sister Berenice, was twelve years old - must have just received her menstrual flow.

The 'lesson' absolutely follows the implicit (and explicit) teachings of the so-called 'Gospel of the Egyptians' which as Clement notes ALWAYS references the idea of women 'unsexing' themselves (to quote Lady MacBeth) in order to receive salvation viz:

Salome saith: Until when shall men continue to die? (Now, the Scripture speaks of man in two senses, the one that is seen, and the soul: and again, of him that is in a state of salvation, and him that is not: and sin is called the death of the soul) and it is advisedly that the Lord makes an answer: So long as women bear children. [Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 9. 64]

And why do not they who walk by anything rather than the true rule of the Gospel go on to quote the rest of that which was said to Salome: for when she had said, 'I have done well, then, in not bearing children?' (as if childbearing were not the right thing to accept) the Lord answers and says: Every plant eat thou, but that which hath bitterness eat not. [Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 9. 66]

When Salome inquired when the things concerning which she asked should be known, the Lord said: When ye have trampled on the garment of shame, and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female. In the first place, then, we have not this saying in the four Gospels that have been delivered to us, but in that according to the Egyptians. [Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 13. 92]

The Lord said to Salome when she inquired: How long shall death prevail? 'As long as ye women bera children', not because life is an ill, and the creation evil: but as showing the sequence of nature: for in all cases birth is followed by decay.[ibid iii. 6. 45]

And when the Saviour says to Salome that there shall be death as long as women bear children, he did not say it as abusing birth, for that is necessary for the salvation of believers.[Excerpts from Theodotus, 67]

But those who set themselves against God's creation because of continence, which has a fair-sounding name, quote also those words which were spoken to Salome, of which I made mention before. They are contained, I think (or I take it) in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that 'the Savior himself said: I came to destroy the works of the female'. By female he means lust: by works, birth and decay.[Strom. iii. 9. 63]

Is there really any doubt any longer that the so-called 'Gospel of the Egyptians' is really 'Secret Mark' referenced under another (safer) name?

In any event, the point of course is that kabbalah is the only way to make sense of the secret teaching of the gospel - and more importantly - this understanding can only be properly understood once the gospel is restored to its original language, Aramaic.

Just look at the restored scene one more time. Mary is now on the ground holding on to Jesus's טלית which in the early system of writing at the time of the gospel (with no symbol to double the lamed) had a value of 449. Jesus then declares:

"טליתא קומי." Immediately the girl stood up

What is completely lost on everyone who doesn't have reference to the original Aramaic is that טליתא is essentially a pictogram illustrating the 'little one' - signified by the א - cleaving to the garment (טלית) of Jesus. What was once lacking (טלית = 449) is now restored (טליתא = 450 ) with the alef clinging to the garment.

I STRONGLY suspect this is how the legend of Berenice clinging to the garment of Christ developed. It was a symbol of the restoration.

Now for those who wonder why 450 would have any value in this system, they need only remember that round numbers like 450 drop their 'extra zeros' so 450 = 45. What is so significant about 45? Well, guess what? It's one of the most important words in Jewish mysticism.

You see for probably like forever Jews knew that if you took apart the name of God - i.e. the Tetragrammaton (יהו״ה) - and spelled out each letter that made up the Name i.e.:

יוד, הא, ואו, הא

The "secret Name" of God is 45 which adds up to the same number of Adam i.e. אָדָם (Adam). So the point then is that (a) the established understanding of the Marcosians understanding that the universe was defective owing to the loss of one letter in the beginning and (b) the idea of a lamb (טלה which equals 44) being restored by holding on to 'one' thing represented in the 'pictogram' טליתא is essentially a hidden teaching about humanity being made perfect by the addition of divinity.

Now for those readers who don't mind me taking this kabbalistic speculation one step further let me remind them that there is always one passage which is understood to express these ideas most perfectly - Proverbs 30 which as the reader will see IS CONNECTED WITH A PASSAGE WHICH THE APOSTLE UNDERSTANDS TO HOLD SOME GREAT SECRET GNOSIS. The beginning of Proverbs 30 reads:

Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended?
Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in his garment?
Who hath established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?
Every word of God is tried; He is a shield unto them that take refuge in Him [Proverbs 30:4,5]

I will leave the issue of Romans chapter 10 (and the different Marcionite recension) right now and only say that the Jewish mystics always took the line "what is his name?" i.e. מַה-שְּׁמוֹ to mean that 45 (מַה) is his SECRET name (Zohar, Yitro, 79a).

מַה of course is the equivalent of 'man' here symbolize man made whole. The 'perfect' example of man made full is Jesus who is identified as 'the word' in the Alexandrian tradition. Most people realize that in Aramaic מלה 'word' derives from the verb מלל which means 'to speak' but has a value of of 100.

The secondary meaning of מלל however is border or edge of a garment which figures prominently in ALL accounts of Mary cleaving to Jesus's garment but has strangely been taken out of Mark. So Matthew and Luke specifically tell us:

She came up behind him and touched the hem (or edge) of his cloak.[Luke 8:44 cf. Matt 9:20]

There can be absolutely no doubt that original Aramaic word for 'edge' or 'hem' is מלל and it was symbolically taken to mean that Mary held on to his words (or literally his 'speaking') in order to get healed.

Yet I wonder if the first readers of the gospel understood the very word 'word' מלה to be a pictogram of man (מַה) in this mystical formulation or Adam (i.e. the 45 = אָדָם) with the power of the 'fullness' of the thirty resting in his inner being (i.e. the lamed = 30).

What came to my mind was that if - as we mentioned at the beginning - there was some kind of idea of the letter R (ר) dislodging the Q (קֶ) from its position as the 100 the reconciliation of the two letters would have a value of 300 (or 30) which in turn - if understood to enter into the power of man (מַה).

If the letter קֶ and ר are understood to be the 'two' referenced by the Apostle in the saying:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the fence, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his gospel (or 'flesh') the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body [Eph 2:14 - 16]

You end up with a pictogram for the name 'Mark'- viz:

  רקֶ
מַ    ה
מרקֶה = Mark

Just a thought, for what might lay behind the Marcosian interest in the redemption passage ...

And one other note - why would the Marcionites have been interested in this saying if they didn't develop kabbalistic interpretation? I think the whole business about two separate sects - the Marcosians and the Marcionites - is all smoke and mirrors. By the third century the unrepentant followers of Mark were 'handled' with the 'Marcion myth' that he corrupted Luke etc. Thus getting around the tradition known to Hippolytus that they were really 'followers of Mark' and used the Gospel of Mark.

Remember Irenaeus the man might have come before Hippolytus but the Refutation and Overthrow of All Knowledge Falsely So Called was only assembled with Justin's Syntagma AFTER Hippolytus. The real 'lectures' of Irenaeus as Photius calls them are now all lost to us. We only know Hippolytus's VERSION of Irenaeus's writings ....