I Have Decided to Edit My Second Article on the Throne of St. Mark Online [Part Seven]

FIRST DRAFT

(need better Greek fonts)

As we have just seen, there is a paradoxical situation in our earliest Christian sources where we find a palpable hostility toward the lunar year of the Jews but no explicit reference to how this 'shadow' was ultimately overcome by the 'light' of truth.  The closest we get to anything resembling an explanation is a series of cryptic allusions to the idea that Jesus announced the establishment of the Alexandrian solar year in the synagogue in Galilee (Luke 4:19).  There is only one explicit reference to this concept in the Pauline writings, the statement in 2 Corinthians 2:6 "now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation."  These words would seem to indicate - at least from an Alexandrian perspective - that the revelation of the 'year of favor' had already taken place in the apostolic age.

In other words, it seems difficult to argue with the idea that all the earliest representatives of the Alexandrian tradition interpreted Luke 4:19 with a historical event connected to the Church abandoning the lunar year of the Jews in favor of the three hundred and sixty day solar year.  Nevertheless, as we will see in this section, Irenaeus offered a very influential interpretation of these same words intended undoubtedly to salvage the Quartodeciman tradition associated with his master Polycarp.  The 'year of favor' was not supposed to be a reference to a particular year of any length or number of days but an loose reference to - at least from Jesus's perspective - was a coming age when the Church would be at peace with the world around it, including having favorable relations with the Imperial government.

Perhaps it was owing to the influence of Irenaeus's interpretation that Origen chose to emphasize instead the phrase "the fulness of time" (τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου) from Galatians chapter 4. After all, here was a phrase which didn't seem to make any allusion to the Jewish concept of the Jubilee year (even though the connection is obvious) but moreover could not be understood in any other way except as a past historical event.  Indeed, if we look at the immediate context of this statement we see it again inexorably connected with  the standard Alexandrian condemnation of the observance of measures of time associated with the Jewish lunar year.  As such, from Origen's perspective at least, there can be no mistaking that Jesus's ministry was the very event that ended the old chronological system.

For we see in the fourth chapter of Galatians the apostle declares again that the individual Christian initiates are:

only subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου. But when the fullness of time had was come (ὁ πλήρωμα ὁ χρόνος ἐξαποστέλλω), God sent his Son ... to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. and because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable στοιχεῖα? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.(Galatians 4:1 - 10)

It should be obvious now to readers that when Irenaeus says that "they declare that Paul has often set forth, in express terms, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; and this was the same which is handed down by them in so varied and discordant forms" they were referencing passages like this one where baptism is described as an act of redemption.[1]

So once again we see the same nexus of concepts - viz. baptism, ἀπολύτρωσις from a law established through the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου and the overarching concept which connects everything together, the Jewish lunar year.  For the moment it might well be worth noting that Irenaeus makes explicit reference to the Marcosian interest in the στοιχεῖον throughout his description of the sect. It should be noted that strictly speaking στοιχεῖον meant a simple sound of speech, the first component of the syllable which differed from the concept of letter (γράμματα) but as Lidell Scott notes but are freq. not clearly distd. from them, as by Pl.Tht.l.c., Cra.426d; “τὰ ς. τῶν γραμμάτων τὰ τέτταρα καὶ εἴκοσι” .

This confusion is clearly in evidence in Irenaeus description of the beliefs of the heretic Mark when he writes:

the pronunciation of His name took place as follows:--He spoke the first word of it, which was the ἄρκη, and that utterance (συλλαβή) consisted of four στοιχείων. He added the second, and this also consisted of four στοιχείων. Next He uttered the third, and this again embraced ten στοιχείῳν. Finally, He pronounced the fourth, which was composed of twelve στοιχείων. Thus took place the enunciation of the whole name, consisting of thirty στοιχείων, and four συλλαβων. Each of these στοιχείων has its own peculiar letters, and character, and pronunciation, and forms, and images, and there is not one of them that perceives the shape of that [utterance] of which it is a στοιχεῖον.[AH i.14.1]

Irenaeus tells us that Mark has called "those names of the στοιχείων which may be told, and are common, AEons, and words, and roots, and seeds, and fulnesses, and fruits." [ibid 1.14.2] It is difficult often to understand what the Marcosians meant by στοιχείων. At one time we see the 'familiar' Valentinian Aeon 'Anthropos' is identified as a στοιχεῖον (AH i.14.3) at other times to letters or even numbers.

Perhaps it is best to go back to that interpretation shared by Clement and the Marcosians to gain some perspective on the use of στοιχείων in the context of Galatians chapter 4.  As we saw earlier Clement maintained almost verbatim the understanding of those of Mark that:

the fruit of this arrangement and analogy has been manifested in the likeness of an image, namely, Him who, after six days, ascended into the mountain along with three others, and then became one of six (the sixth)  in which character He descended and was contained in the Hebdomad, since He was the illustrious Ogdoad, and contained in Himself the entire number of the elements (ἅπαντα τῶν στοιχείων) ... And for this reason did Moses declare that man was formed on the sixth day; and then, again, according to arrangement, it was on the sixth day, which is the preparation, that the last man appeared, for the regeneration of the first, Of this arrangement, both the beginning and the end were formed at that sixth hour, at which He was nailed to the tree. For that perfect being Nous, knowing that the number six had the power both of formation and regeneration, declared to the children of light, that regeneration which has been wrought out by Him who appeared as the Episemon in regard to that number. Whence also he declares it is that the double letters contain the Episemon number; for this Episemon number, when joined to the twenty-four στοιχεῖοίς, completed the name of thirty letters.(AH 1.14.6)

As we shall see, there is a consistent understanding throughout the mysteries of those associated with 'Mark' that 'six' is added to various sums of letter or numbers to 'perfect' them.  According to the mystical allegory known also through Jewish sources, the letter episemon (or alternatively the Hebrew letter vav) was missing from the beginning of creation.[2]

In the case of the original understanding of the Marcosians the restoration of the six is not only described as occurring on the mountain of the Transformation but also in the 'redemption' (ἀπολύτρωσις) of the baptism that the Marcosians knew occurred in the Gospel of Mark chapter 10.[3]  Irenaeus choses only to explain the baptism in terms of the 'first' baptism narrative - i.e. the dove (a word whose numerological value in Greek is 801) coming down from heaven.  Yet it is patently obvious from the context of the statement of the Marcosians that they originally understood the number 'six' to be added at their ἀπολύτρωσις rituals.  This is easily resolved when we go back to Galatians that we are subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by our father. We were in slavery under τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου until the πλήρωμα ὁ χρόνος when God sent his Son to redeem those under law when God sent the Spirit into our hearts through baptism when the Spirit who calls out, "Abba" presumably to acknowledge the union with the Father in the bridal chamber (cf. Irenaeus AH i.21.3). The Aramaic word Αββα is presumably retained from the rituals of the Marcosians owing to the fact that the word has a numerological value of six (Αββα = 1 + 2 + 2 + 1).

Indeed it is rarely emphasized enough that Irenaeus's purpose is not to inform his readers about the 'truth' or the justification for the many beliefs of the Marcosians.  Irenaeus is a hostile witness to the tradition, a reporter who deliberately selects material from the beliefs of the sects to make them look as foolish as possible.  To this end we should not be surprised that he consistently avoids giving us 'the bigger picture' or the context of why this or that sect promotes seemingly irrational beliefs. To this end, we can see that he avoids making specific mention to the restoration process on the mountain concentrating instead on his familiar emphasis that "this Episemon number, when joined to the twenty-four στοιχεῖοίς, completed the name of thirty letters." Yet it should be equally obvious to people who take the time to read what is actually written here and in Clement that the three numbers mentioned as being present on the mountain (6 x 7 x 8 = 336) when added to the same "twenty-four στοιχεῖοίς" results in the same three hundred sixty number which Irenaeus does his best to avoid specific mention in his report.

In other words, where Agapius's short report brings the interest in 360 front and center, Irenaeus choses to emphasize a single and rather minor point (the establishment of the number thirty).  What can account for Irenaeus silence? One can make the argument that part of Irenaeus avoidance of the number 360 is the fact that it demonstrates quite clearly that the Marcosians actually maintained the original meaning of the various passages in the Apostolikon.  In other words, the reason the Apostle employed the rather perplexing term στοιχείων (which is rarely adequately explained by New Testament scholars) is because he was indeed thinking in terms of astrology.  In other words, the 'weak' στοιχείων were finally 'perfected' in the bridal chamber by means of being baptized into the number six - the same "number six" which the Marcosians said "had the power both of formation and regeneration, declared to the children of light, that regeneration which has been wrought out by Him who appeared as the Episemon in regard to that number" - i.e. the 'Father, viz. Αββα.

Indeed I am certain that part of the problem for modern interpreters of the various Pauline references to the στοιχείων is that they lack the necessary Sprachgefühl for the original terminology. Liddell Scott makes clear that the Christian use of the term is inevitably linked to the zodiac which after all is a circle of 360 degrees, often specifically linked to twelve divisions of heaven each with the value of thirty.  The most common use of the term related to the form of sun-dial the shadow of the gnomon, the length of which in feet indicated the time of day, ὅταν ᾖ δεκάπουν τὸ ς. when the shadow is ten feet long, Ar.Ec.652, v. Sch.; “ὁπηνίκ᾽ ἂν εἴκοσι ποδῶν . . τὸ ς. ᾖ” Eub.119.7, cf. Philem.83. Consider also “ς. καυσούμενα λυθήσεται” or στοιχειωματικοί "persons who cast nativities from the signs of the Zodiac," Ps.-Ptol.Centil. 9 and στοιχειογραφέω "to be written in the order of the Zodiac," Vett.Val.162.34, 335.30. Indeed that is why Liddell Scott emphasizes the following - ἄστρων στοιχεῖα the stars, Man.4.624; 2 Ep.Pet.3.10, cf. 12; esp. planets, “στοιχείῳ Διός” PLond.1.130.60 (i/ii A.D.); so perh. in Ep.Gal.4.3, Ep.Col.2.8; esp. a sign of the Zodiac, D.L.6.102; of the Great Bear, PMag.Par.1.1303.6. ς. = ἀριθμός, as etym. of Στοιχαδεύς, Sch.D.T.p.192 H."

To this end there can be no doubt that the followers of Mark understood the Apostolikon to be describing the superiority and accuracy of a division of the heavens into 360 over the original dispensation given by the Creator of a 354 day year.  All so-called 'antinomian' arguments develop from this basic question about the accuracy of the lunar year.  How could the Creator be the ultimate Lord of heaven if his original dispensation (i.e. the liturgical year) was fundamentally flawed. As such there were of course many mystical variations explaining why the 'six' had to be added to creation, but the most basic expression of the new world order was the transition away from the lunar calendar to a 360 day year.

It is worth noting that the throne of St Mark that we have noted was built according to specifications that reflected the importance of the 360 day year also has clear astronomical symbolism. It is worth noting that the throne of St Mark that we have noted was built according to specifications that reflected the importance of the 360 day year also has clear astronomical symbolism. The four creatures depicted on the sides and back of the throne - the bull, the lion, the eagle and the man - all have a celestial representation, representing the zodiac path or ecliptic through which the Sun travels during the year.  Each is connected with a zodiac sign, and these four signs have been significant to observers for millenia.  The zodiac signs in question are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.  These zodiac signs can be seen as 'corners of the year,'; often called 'cross-quarters.'  Taurus marks the point at which spring is at its fullest.  Three months later comes Leo, with the heat is summer.  Another three months pass and the Sun is then in Scorpio, to mark the fall and then, after a further three months, the Sun appears in Aquarius, signifying the travails of winter.  In this way these four zodiac signs, in the form of four creatures, circle around the throne and, in a figurative sense, they form equidistant zodiac cross.  The throne or rather that very special individual who sat in the throne represents the cosmic Logos, riding the solar chariot performing its annual dance through the zodiac clouds.

So on the one hand we have a throne of St. Mark which has already been demonstrated to have been the earliest Alexandrian Episcopal throne and whose horizontal axis (i.e. its width and depth) when multiplied reveals the number 360 and then on the other hand we have a tradition associated with a heretic Mark which is later identified as deriving from Egypt which makes repeated statements about the'dimensions of the universe' equally 360 such as when Irenaeus writes:

The sun also, who runs through his orbit in twelve months, and then returns to the same point in the circle, makes the Duodecad manifest by these twelve months; and the days, as being measured by twelve hours, are a type of the invisible Duodecad. Moreover, they (the Marcosians) declare that the hour, which is the twelfth part of the day, is composed of thirty parts, in order to set forth the image of the Triacontad. Also the circumference of the zodiacal circle itself contains three hundred and sixty degrees (for each of its signs comprises thirty); and thus also they affirm, that by means of this circle an image is preserved of that connection which exists between the twelve and the thirty. Still further, asserting that the earth is divided into twelve zones, and that in each zone it receives power from the heavens, according to the perpendicular [position of the sun above it], bringing forth productions corresponding to that power which sends down its influence upon it, they maintain that this is a most evident type of the Duodecad and its offspring(AH 1.17.1)

Indeed if we look at what immediately follows these words Irenaeus seems to put forward a very garbled version of what we presume to be the original Alexandrian interest in 'redeeming' the lunar year.

Irenaeus immediately goes on to note that "in addition to these things, they declare that the Demiurge, desiring to imitate the infinitude, and eternity, and immensity, and freedom from all measurement by time of the Ogdoad above, but, as he was the fruit of defect, being unable to express its permanence and eternity, had recourse to the expedient of spreading out its eternity into times, and seasons, and vast numbers of years, imagining, that by the multitude of such times he might imitate its immensity. They declare further, that the truth having escaped him, he followed that which was false, and that, for this reason, when the times are fulfilled, his work shall perish."(AH 1.17.2) Clement of Alexandria explicitly tells us that 'eight' is the number of the Jubilee or 'year of favor' (i.e. 7 + 1)[3] but we should hold off on reconnecting with these matters for a moment and close the book on the connection between Clement and the Marcosians.

Clement has learned from Philo to interpret the sacred table of the temple in terms of the zodiac, "And loaves are placed on the seventh day on the sacred table, being equal in number to the months of the year, twelve loaves, arranged in two rows of six each, in accordance with the arrangement of the equinoxes; for there are two equinoxes every year, the vernal and the autumnal, which are each reckoned by periods of six months." (Philo, Spec. Leg. i 1 72; cf. Jos. Ant. iii 1 82). Yet Clement's interpretation is very different than Philo's perhaps because he is referencing Ezekiel 41:22 multiplying "three cubits high" by "the length thereof two cubits" to arrive at the conclusion that "the table which was in the temple was six cubits." When he factors in some other measurements he notes that "they add, then, the twelve cubits, agreeably to the revolution of the twelve months, in the annual circle, during which the earth produces and matures all things; adapting itself to the four seasons. And the table, in my opinion, exhibits the image of the earth, supported as it is on four feet, summer, autumn, spring, winter, by which the year travels."(Stromata 6.11)

The point is that as 'unnatural' as it may seem to us to imagine that the Apostle was developing a mystery developed from astrology or that the original Episcopal throne of Alexandria would reflect similar principles, Philo and Josephus make absolutely certain that the ideas fit perfectly in the original Jewish cultural milieu of the first century.  What stands in our way of restoring this original understanding is one man, or perhaps more fairly, one tradition within Christianity - the Asian tradition associated with Polycarp, Irenaeus and ultimately Hippolytus which did not deem it all necessary to completely abandon the liturgical year of the Jews developed as it was from a lunar calendar.  Indeed it is only through such a lens that Mark - or more correctly St. Mark - could be so demonized that he was identified as a μάγος or even worse - "Marcus, thou former of idols, inspector of portents, Skill'd in consulting the stars, and deep in the black arts of magic, Ever by tricks such as these confirming the doctrines of error, Furnishing signs unto those involved by thee in deception, Wonders of power that is utterly severed from God and apostate, Which Satan, thy true father, enables thee still to accomplish, By means of Azazel, that fallen and yet mighty angel,-- Thus making thee the precursor of his own impious actions."(AH 1.15.6) Indeed in the end, doesn't Mark's interest in astrological allegories and symbols place him all the more firmly in first century Alexandria?

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I Have Decided to Edit My Second Article on the Throne of St. Mark Online [Part Six]

FIRST DRAFT

So it is that when we attempt to develop a history of the Christian liturgical year before our earliest reliable source of information - viz. Clement - we find ourselves in a very difficult position.  For while there seems to be clear evidence from the end of the second century that the Alexandrians opposed the Quartodecimian faction's calculation of Easter based on a tradition Jewish lunar calendar[1] it is difficult to get a clear picture of how the Alexandrian liturgical calendar functioned or how it ultimately developed over time.  Nevertheless what cannot be doubted is the fact that the Alexandrian Church already had a distinct liturgical year but one which was of such antiquity that both the Roman and Palestinian churches bolstered their position against the Asian Quartodecmanist by citing their observance of "the holy day in unison and together."[2]

Indeed there is an unfortunate and undue emphasis on the literal 'calculation of Passover' in these critical debates in the late second century.  The real issue is clearly whether Christianity should have a liturgical year based on a lunar or solar calendar. There seems to be a clear emphasis in the earliest Alexandrian sources that Easter should emphasize the eventual triumph of the sun over the lunar year. This becomes absolutely clear in one of the few surviving references to the Alexandrian Anatolius, later associated with Laodicea in Syria who writes:

As we are about to speak on the subject of the order of the times and alternations of the world, we shall first dispose of the positions of diverse calculators; who, by reckoning only by the course of the moon, and leaving out of account the ascent and descent of the sun, with the addition of certain problems, have constructed diverse periods (Lat. circulos) self-contradictory, and such as are never found in the reckoning of a true computation; since it is certain that no mode of computation is to be approved, in which these two measures are not found together. For even in the ancient exemplars, that is, in the books of the Hebrews and Greeks, we find not only the course of the moon, but also that of the sun, and, indeed, not simply its course in the general,(gressus) but even the separate and minutest moments of its hours all calculated, as we shall show at the proper time, when the matter in hand demands it.[3]

Anatolius is criticizing Hippolytus's recent publication of a method of calculating Easter which he later describes as employing "certain unknown courses of the moon ... without, however, teaching thereby an exact method of calculating Easter." He cites instead what appears to be a chain of Alexandrian authorities dating back into what is now for us a historical 'dark age' in the Egyptian Church - i.e. Isidore, Jerome and then Clement - who Anatolius describes as "our predecessors, men most learned in the books of the Hebrews and Greeks" who although noting "similar beginnings for the months just as they differ also in language, have, nevertheless, come harmoniously to one and the same most exact reckoning of Easter, day and month and season meeting in accord with the highest honour for the Lord's resurrection."  Anatolius clearly means by this that they properly emphasize the day of the sun.

Yet Anatolius ranks Origen highest of all Alexandrian authors and he describes his predecessor as "the most erudite of all, and the acutest in making calculations" from "a little book on Easter" (Peri Pascha?) which is explicitly referenced as follows by the now bishop of Laodicean bishop:

in this book, while declaring, with respect to the day of Easter, that attention must be given not only to the course of the moon and the transit of the equinox, but also to the passage (transcensum) of the sun, which removes every foul ambush and offence of all darkness, and brings on the advent of light and the power and inspiration of the elements of the whole world, he speaks thus: In the (matter of the) day of Easter, he remarks, I do not say that it is to be observed that the Lord's day should be found, and the seven days of the moon which are to elapse, but that the sun should pass that division, to wit, between light and darkness, constituted in an equality by the dispensation of the Lord at the beginning of the world; and that, from one hour to two hours, from two to three, from three to four, from four to five, from five to six hours, while the light is increasing in the ascent of the sun, the darkness should decrease.

Various commentators have scratched their heads over the reference (which does not survive in our existing MS of the Peri Pascha).  Yet it is obviously derives from Origen's frequent reference to a contemporary Alexandrian 'Feast of Unleavened Bread' which is to be celebrated 'with bitterness' (or alternatively 'bitter herbs' cf. Ex. 12.8)[5] until the eighth day, which is the traditional date of the crossing of the sea.[6]

For our purposes it is enough to say that Origen makes explicit a connection between the Jewish technical term motsa'e shabbat 'the goings of the Sabbath' (plural construct suffix) or the transition from the seventh to the eighth as being embodied in the ἀνατολή of the sun.  This must have been a core concept in ancient Alexandria and is here only described with reference to images of light and darkness.  Nevertheless one can also see that in the Letter to Theodore of Origen's predecessor Clement, the rising of the sun over the waters which killed the Egyptian armies of Pharaoh, is connected to a baptism of the dead ritual which interestingly takes place after seven days of the release of a beloved νεανίσκος from a tomb just before the setting of the sun that day.  Jesus 'rising' αναστασ is clearly an allusion to the eventual resurrection of Christ in Mark 16:9. But the overriding liturgical setting in the Church of St. Mark according to Clement seems also to make reference to a 'piercing' of a sevenfold barrier of darkness with "those who are being initiated into the great mysteries" being "led" into "the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils."  Anyone familiar with the oldest Coptic churches would expect the Episcopal throne to be physically kept within the ἀδυτον, an area separated from the rest of the church by a curtain or veil.[7]

This is not the place to develop a systematic understanding of what the original Alexandrian liturgy might have looked like or how the Exodus narrative might have been interpreted to support the idea of a 'baptism on behalf of the dead.'  Nevertheless it is interesting to note that the idea of abandonment of the lunar calendar of the Jews seems to emerge in the context of a 'death baptism.'  The apostle begins with a warning for his hearers to see to it "see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which is according to ordinance of men and the worldly στοιχεῖον rather than on Christ."  What follows can be clearly be understood as a description of an ancient Christian liturgy.  The Marcosians are explicitly cited by Irenaeus as promoting the idea that Paul knew and referenced their ἀπολύτρωσις baptism (AH i.21.2, they would also undoubtedly have translated στοιχεῖον as 'letters' rather than our 'basic principles' of the world).[8]  It might be useful then to continue the process of reading Colossians chapter 2 as a description of what ultimately became the Alexandrian liturgy.

After shunning what is clearly the 'ordinances' of Jewish law and its contemporary interest in kabbalah, the apostle references his hearers as having witnessed an image of "Christ" dwelling in "all the πλήρωμα of the Deity."  Through this initiatory process they too "have been given πλήρωμα in Christ, who is the κεφαλή over every power and authority."  Yet before we go any further we should notice at once that κεφαλή can clearly also be a liturgical reference to the beginning of the year.  Fitzmeyer demonstrates that κεφαλή renders ראש into Greek some 281 times however it should be noted that the specific term 'rosh hashanah' never occurs in the Torah.  It is as old as our oldest surviving Jewish sources and it is there explicitly connected with the year of favor or if you will the Jubilee " "The first of Tishrei is the beginning of the year (rosh hashanah) for years, sabbatical cycles, and the jubilee?" (Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah 1.1)  We shall come back to all of this later but it should be enough to see that Alexandrians like Clement who connect the year of favor with the 360 day solar year could well have understood a reference to Christ as the 'head' in terms of him being the beginning of a new understanding of the year, or to use Jerome's rendering of Origen's lost original explanation of Luke 4:19 - a 'new Kalends.'[9]

It is worth noting that the apostle immediately after dismissing Jewish ordinances and their stoicheion tou kosmou reminds them of the new liturgical system which is:

in him [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.  Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the κεφαλή, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.  Since you died with Christ to the worldly στοιχεῖον, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

It should be obvious to any reader that the concept of Christ as the 'head' of something new is inextricably interwoven with the rejection of the liturgical cycle of the Jewish lunar year.  According to this rival solar liturgy the initiate after being 'baptized into death' rises out of the waters and is redeemed from the darkness of the old ways.

It is of course difficult to get a precise handle on how this idea developed in Alexandria in the years which lead up to Clement implicity declaring that Jesus announced the coming of a three hundred sixty day year from the synagogue in Galilee (Luke 4:19). Nevertheless there are clear echoes of this passage in Colossians in various writers before and after Clement which give us some crucial clues. The Clementine Homilies makes a puzzling reference also to some who are "well instructed in the doctrines taught by Moses, finding fault with the people for their sins, called them sons of the new moons that are according to the moon."[10] Heracleon similarly (fragment 21) makes reference to the idea in the Kerygma Petri that the 'you' in John 4:22 (i.e. "you worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews.”) "stands for the Jews and the Gentiles. . . We must not worship as the Greeks do, who believe in the things of matter, and serve wood and stone, nor worship the divine as the Jews. They who think they alone know God do not know him, and worship angels, the month, and the moon [emphasis mine]."[11]

Clement however, it should be noted cites the very same passage in the Kerygma Petri in a little more detail and offers some support for its days from the New Testament held in common by other churches:

And that it is said, that we and the Greeks know the same God, though not in the same way, he will infer thus: "Neither worship as the Jews; for they, thinking that they only know God, do not know Him, adoring as they do angels and archangels, the month and the moon. And if the moon be not visible, they do not hold the Sabbath, which is called the first; nor do they hold the new moon, nor the feast of unleavened bread, nor the feast, nor the great day."  Then he gives the finishing stroke to the question: "So that do ye also, learning holily and righteously what we deliver to you; keep them, worshipping God in a new way, by Christ." For we find in the Scriptures, as the Lord says: "Behold, I make with you a new covenant, not as I made with your fathers in Mount Horeb." He made a new covenant with us; for what belonged to the Greeks and Jews is old. But we, who worship Him in a new way, in the third form, are Christians. For clearly, as I think, he showed that the one and only God was known by the Greeks in a Gentile way, by the Jews Judaically, and in a new and spiritual way by us.(Stromata 6:5)

While it is consistent throughout all of these authors that there was a firm Alexandrian tradition from the very earliest period which rejected the liturgical year of the Jews based as it was on an imperfect lunar calendar in favor of some rival solar based system, the exact details of how and where one system began and the other ended is hard to come by.  Perhaps at least part of this difficulty arose from the Marcionites who, not only preserved a 'letter to the Alexandrians' in their New Testament canon, but who emphasized that the apostle's introduction of the new liturgy was a complete rejection not only of the old Jewish system but also a condemnation of the Jewish god.[12]

The Alexandrians themselves must have been very careful to distinguish their official position from that of the Marcionites.  This may in part explain why there is such a reluctance to explain how it was that Alexandria 'switched' or turned away from a lunar based liturgical system to the three hundred and sixty day calendar first introduced by St. Mark.  Origen however, whose patron Ambrosius was after all a (former) Marcionite ultimately gives us the clue to bring us back to our original interest in the 'year of favor.'  For he, in the tenth book on his Commentary on John he makes specific allusion to Colossians 2:16 and writes:

now in what manner, in those heavenly things of which the shadow was present to the Jews on earth, those will celebrate festivals who have first been trained by tutors and governors under the true law, until the fullness of the time should come [emphasis mine], namely, above, when we shall be able to receive into ourselves the perfect measure of the Son of God, this it is the work of that wisdom to make plain which has been hidden in a mystery; and it also may show to our thought how the laws about meats are symbols of those things which will there nourish and strengthen our soul. But it is vain to think that one desiring to work out in his fancy the great sea of such ideas, even if he wished to show how local worship is still a pattern and shadow of heavenly things, and that the sacrifices and the sheep are full of meaning, that he should advance further than the Apostle, who seeks indeed to lift ourminds above earthly views of the law, but who does not show us to any extent how these things are to be. Even if we look at the festivals, of which passover is one, from the point of view of the age to come, we have still to ask how it is that our passover is now sacrificed, namely, Christ, and not only so, but is to be sacrificed hereafter.(Comm John 10:12)

Of course his reference to the 'fullness of time' might well sound like a generic reference to some ambiguous age to some unfamiliar with Origen's writings. However a brief overview of other references in the Commentary of John and elsewhere will make absolutely clear again that he is explicitly referencing the 'year of favor' - i.e. the yearlong period of Jesus's ministry - as the very point in which the shadow of lunar worship was pierced by the new system of righteousness introduced by Christ.

In various works such as his On Prayer the connection between the 'ministry of Jesus' and 'the fulness of time' is made absolutely explicit viz. "the fullness of the time is in the sojourn of our Lord Jesus Christ, when they who desire receive adoption as sons."[12]  But at the very beginning of the Commentary on John Origen speaks of Moses and the prophets having knowledge of 'the fulness of time' ultimately arriving at knowledge of Christ's glory:

We must not, however, forget that the sojourning of Christ with men took place before His bodily sojourn, in an intellectual fashion, to those who were more perfect and not children, and were not under pedagogues and governors. In their minds they saw the fulness of the time to be at hand--the patriarchs, and Moses the servant, and the prophets who beheld the glory of Christ. And as before His manifest and bodily coming He came to those who were perfect, so also, after His coming has been announced to all, to those who are still children, since they are under pedagogues and governors and have not yet arrived at the fulness of the time, forerunners of Christ have come to sojourn, discourses (logoi) suited for minds still in their childhood, and rightly, therefore, termed pedagogues. But the Son Himself, the glorified God, the Word, has not yet come; He waits for the preparation which must take place on the part of men of God who are to admit His deity. And this, too, we must bear in mind, that as the law contains a shadow of good things to come, which are indicated by that law which is announced according to truth, so the Gospel also teaches a shadow of the mysteries of Christ, the Gospel which is thought to be capable of being understood by any one.(Comm John 1:9)

Yet as Hanson notes we should be careful to read this passage in the right context.  As he notes from several other passages in Origen's writing, Origen is actually saying that Moses and Elijah only received this perfect knowledge of the glory of Christ when they were standing as witnesses at the Transfiguration.[13]  This context is very important also because it is a revelation where Jesus is understood to transform himself into someone sitting on a throne.[14]

In the end there are tentative grounds for establishing a very early Alexandrian tradition which understood Jesus's ministry to be connected with the coming of a new age which would see the abandoning of the Law and the prophets and the lunar based liturgical year which developed out of these sources.  Alexandria seems to be 'ground zero' of this tradition.  As such both Roman and Palestinian sources inevitably go to the Alexandrian well as it were to combat 'Judaizers' in the Church such as the so-called Quartodeciman factions of Asia.  Yet the original Alexandrian system seems also to have had problematic elements.  As we shall see shortly Irenaeus, while never specifically condemning the 'Quartodecimianists' chooses instead to anathematize  key parts of the original Alexandrian doctrine including its identification of the 'year of favor' as a historical event which already took place and its mystical interest in the number 'six' (which is necessary to add to any lunar year to arrive at the three hundred and sixty day calendar of the Alexandrian Church).

Irenaeus's approach can be explained in part by his loyalty to his master Polycarp (who is always lumped together with the Quartodeciman camp).  Nevertheless it must also be supposed that Irenaeus recognized that the Alexandrian tradition necessarily raised the status of Alexandria at the expense of Rome (cf. AH 3.3.2f).  Irenaeus, in other words, was not so much interested in ultimately preserving the lunar calculations of the Asiatic Church as establishing and associating any new compromise with Rome as the new center of power.  A parallel approach can be seen at Nicea where a qualified acceptance of Alexandrian Easter traditions were offset by unacceptable demands (at least from the perspective of Arius, the presbyter of the traditional seat of power in Alexandria, the martyrium of St. Mark)  that the church compromised its original monophysite interpretation of the nature of Christ.

More to follow ...

[1] Eusebius Church History 5.25
[2] ibid
[3] fragment from Ægidius Bucherius, of the Society of Jesus
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10] Yet in the beginning of the world men lived long, and had no diseases. But when through carelessness they neglected the observation of the proper times, then the sons in succession cohabiting through ignorance at times when they ought not, place their children under innumerable afflictions. (Clementine Hom 22) cf also Diognetes 4 "And as to their observing months and days, as if waiting upon the stars and the moon, and their distributing, according to their own tendencies, the appointments of God, and the vicissitudes of the seasons, some for festivities, and others for mourning,--who would deem this a part of divine worship, and not much rather a manifestation of folly?"
[11]
[12] it is amazing how little of the Marcionite interpretation of Col 2:16 will allow us to hear. Tertullian allows us to hear what amounts to being a Marcionite question to the Catholics namely "Did he [i.e. God], you ask, wipe out observances he himself had appointed? Better he than someone else: else if it were some other, then that other supported the Creator's judgement, by abolishing observances the Creator had himself passed sentence on. But this is not the place for asking why the Creator has broken down his own laws: it is enough that we have proved he intended to break them down, so as to put it beyond doubt that the apostle has set up no rules in opposition to the Creator, since this removal of the law was the Creator's intention."[Tertullian Against Marcion 5:4] It is amazing to see that Tertullian can't tell us much beyond "when he says, Let no man judge you in meat and drink or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon or the sabbath, which are the shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ, what think you, Marcion? We are not now discussing the law, except that here too he explains in what way it is superseded, by being transferred out of shadow into body; that is, from figures into the truth, and that is Christ. So then the shadow belongs to him whose is the body; which means that the law is his whose also is Christ. Separate them off, to one god the law, to another god Christ, if indeed you can separate any shadow from that body of which it is the shadow. Evidently Christ belongs to the law, if he is the body of it, the shadow."
[13]
[14]

I Have Decided to Edit My Second Article on the Throne of St. Mark Online [Part Five]

FIRST DRAFT

I should be noted that there is good reason to believe that the exact wording of Origen's original statement is in some doubt. The Homilies of Luke survive thanks to a Latin translation of Jerome. Not only do we find great variation between the Latin texts of Jerome when compared to other preservations of Origen's writings from other sources, Tzamalikos notes that Jerome's use of kalends in the last citation should cause us to question the ponder the what the original Greek text might have looked like - "the calends were the first day of each month in the Roman calendar. The term καλένδαι only entered Greek in the sixth century through John Laurentius Lydus. This short expression may well be an interpolation by Jerome essaying to communicate the implied notion to Latin readers."[1]

The catenae as we noted have already completely transformed everything which follows, "But perhaps the divine word has concealed some mystery in the preaching of a year of the Lord ..." The best thing that we can do now is to assume that Origen originally referenced a very Jewish conception related to the Jubilee - viz. "other days are to come, not days like those we now see in the world; there will be other months" and then some notion of a different order to the calendar.

While there is very little that survives which from the messianic interpretation of any sect for this original passage it is worth noting that 11Q13 (11QMelch) mentions the end of an old calendar - "its interpretation for the last days refers to the captives" - in relation to Isa 61:2, before breaking off and becoming fragmentary. A close parallel perhaps can also be found in the Hasmonaean period where the apocalyptic literature now associated with Qumran all seem to encourage the use of a 'messianically' inspired solar calendars. As Stern notes all of these seem ultimately to have been resisted by the native Jewish population:

lt is only in the Hellenistic and Hasmonaean periods that Jewish sources begin to set out explicitly how the calendar is reckoned. Some of these sources describe the calendar in much detail: in particular, the books of Enoch, Jubileet, and calendrical texts from Qumran. These show a distinctive preference for solar calendars. However, it should not be inferred from these sources that the calendar observed in practice by the Jews was solar. The polemical tone of Jubilees suggests, quite on the contrary, that many Jews did not follow its solar calendar, and preferred instead a calendar that was lunar.[2]

Stern points to Ben Sira in Palestine and to Aristobulus in Alexandria that our "sources from this period confirm the existence of a lunar calendar.

Indeed Stern also goes through the writings of Philo to show that at the time of the advent of Christianity, the Jewish community in Alexandria was still maintaining a lunar calendar. In one quote interestingly passage from Philo he notes that there is even a contemporary call to 'resist' the temptation of the Egyptian solar calendar:

But not all (peoples) treat the months and years alike, but some in one way and some in another. Some reckon by the sun, others by the moon. And because of this the initiators of the divine festivals have expressed divergent views about the beginnings of the year, setting divergent beginnings to the revolutions of the seasons suitable to the beginnings of the cycles. Wherefore (Scripture) has added, 'This month (shall be) to you the the beginning," making clear a determined and distinct number of seasons, lest they follow the Egyptians, with whom they are mixed, and be seduced by the customs of the land in which they dwell." (Quaestiones ad Exodum 1.1 Marcus 1953: 4 - 5).

As Stern notes "by 'Egyptians' he meant, no doubt, the Egyptians of his own day as much as those of the biblical narrative." Not only did the Egyptians have a solar calendar in the period but Stern also notes that "This passage expresses, if only implicitly, the significance that a distinctive, lunar calendar must have had for the Jewish identity of the Alexandrian community."[3]

Yet it is very interesting to note that the Alexandrian throne of St. Mark not only preserves an inscription taken together with various iconographic references to the Jubilee and its introduction of a new 'first year' but more over testifies that this new messianic community adopted a three hundred and sixty calendar like that used by the contemporary Egyptian population. For Dorigo, in what is certainly one of the most important studies of the throne of St. Mark, noted the object was deliberately manufactured according to specifications which reflected the importance of the number three hundred and sixty.[3]

Wladimiro Dorigo, former professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Venice notes that the throne of St. Mark was constructed according to deliberate mystical symbolic measurements. Dorigo initially being tipped off by the Phoenician character of the iconography tried to determine the measuring system which might have been used in the throne's construction to better date the throne. He eventually became certain that it was developed according to an 'inch' and 'foot' measurement that had existed since ancient times in Beirut.[4]

Dorigo notes that the same measurement seems to have been used across the Near East at a very early date, as an alternative to the more familiar cubit. In the case of the throne the inch is around 2.82 cm in length, leading to a foot measuring between 33 cm and 34 cm. Dorigo noticed that a definite pattern began to emerge in which all the measurements of the throne represented even numbers of inches. These he quotes as being 12, 52, 40, 12, 20, 18, 20 and 18. He adds that not only that this would be impossible to attribute to coincidence but that two of the most important numbers - the width and depth of the throne 18 and 20 respectively - when multiplied result in the number three hundred and sixty.

The fact that we know that the Alexandrian Church already adopted the three hundred and sixty day solar calendar of Egypt at a very early date is one thing. The throne also, as demonstrated by Dorigo and many others, has strong solar imagery. The iconography strongly suggests the throne is the Hebrew merkavah or solar chariot and its occupant the tsemach (Gk anatole) or 'rising sun.' On each side he is flanked by the four living creatures of Ezekiel.

Yet when we go beyond the parallel of the 'year one' inscription and Origen's allusion to a change of calendars accompanying the same 'year of favor' his predecessor Clement explicitly connects the same 'year of favor' to the number three hundred and sixty when he writes:

The three hundred and sixty bells suspended from the robe are the space of a year, 'the acceptable year of the Lord proclaiming and sounding the magnificent epiphany of the Savior.(Stromata V 37.4)

And again in a passage which reflects his connection with the heretical followers of Mark condemned by Irenaeus a generation earlier:

And again in the same book: "And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old," and so on. And that it was necessary for Him to preach only a year, this also is written: "He hath sent Me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." This both the prophet spake, and the Gospel. Accordingly, in fifteen years of Tiberius and fifteen years of Augustus; so were completed the thirty years till the time He suffered. (Strom 1:21)

or again elsewhere:

and thirty, or as in some, twelve, they say points out the preaching [of the Gospel]; because the Lord preached in His thirtieth year; and the apostles were twelve.(Strom 6:  )

Looking at all the evidence there can only be one meaning behind Clement interpretation - that Jesus's announcement of the year of favor (Luke 4:19) represented nothing short of a complete transformation of the traditional 354 day Hebrew lunar calendar into the 360 day solar year that came to characterize Alexandrian Christianity.  We should see that the throne of St. Mark testifies to the exact same thing with its mention of  'year one' and its deliberate manufacture to reflect the number 360.

It is incredible to see how many of the Egyptian Christian writings of Nag Hammadi reflect an interest in this number.  The most explicit confirmation of Clement's connection between the solar year and the year of favor is the so-called Valentinian Expositions now fragmentary "the Decad from Word and Life brought forth decads so as to make the Pleroma become a hundred, and the Dodecad from Man and Church brought forth and made the Triacontad so as to make the three hundred sixty become the Pleroma of the year. And the year of the Lord [...perfect...]."  Earlier in the same treatise the 'three hundred and sixtieth' is clearly also a reference to a collection of heavenly powers.[6]  There are a number of ways that the 360 powers are divided into smaller units in the literature.  The Nag Hammadi text Eugnostos describes it in term of a multiplication of seventy two heavenly powers (12 x 6) multiplied by five 'spirituals,'[7] but notice the definite relationship to the 'year of favor' again later in the same treatise:

Therefore our aeon came to be as the type of Immortal Man. Time came to be as the type of First Begetter, his son. The year came to be as the type of Savior. The twelve months came to be as the type of the twelve powers. The three hundred and sixty days of the year came to be as the three hundred and sixty powers who appeared from Savior. Their hours and moments came to be as the type of the angels who came from them (the powers), who are without number.[8]

There is remarkable affinity with the ideas of Eugnostos to the understanding developed in the Pistis Sophia, an Egyptian text preserved independently from the Nag Hammadi discovery.  There 'Yew' (Iao) is said to have "set three-hundred-and-sixty over them, and he set five other great rulers as lords over the three-hundred-and-sixty and over all the bound rulers, who in the whole world of mankind are called with these names: the first is called Kronos, the second Arēs, the third Hermēs, the fourth Aphroditē, the fifth Zeus."[9]

Yet there can be no doubt where the Alexandrian (or Egyptian) interest in the number three hundred and sixty derives its ultimate origin - the followers of Mark.  It is only owing to the unfortunate compilation of Irenaeus's original treatise against the Marcosians immediately following the separate 'Against the Valentinians' (see Tertullian's Adversus Valentinianos) that has led later Patristic writers to misidentify the followers of Mark as a Valentinian sect.[10]  As many writers have already referenced Clement's consistent employment of so-called 'Marcosian' material, the emerging picture from Alexandria of the tradition of St. Mark being rooted in the same number should at least open the possibility to reasonable people that Irenaeus's was originally demonizing the rival tradition's association with 'heresy' in order to bolster the argument for Roman primacy.

To this end when we hear from Agapius that the 'heretic' Marcus maintained a similar interest in the number three hundred and sixty, it should be seen as as the source of all later expressions of the paradigm going back to the founding of the Alexandrian tradition. The throne - only occupied by the representative of the Evangelist during services[11] - represents the concept of the new aeon, the ruler of the new age governed according to the principle of solar year.[12]  So Marcus, aka 'St. Mark,' is envisioned as promoting the idea that:

three hundred and sixty gods exist in all eternity, and they together created the world and each of them governed it in turn; power belonged to each of them for one day a year during which he was the sole master of it; among them, some loved good, the others evil. But united they had the ability to do good and evil, and they could choose in this regard. The chief of the gods sent the Lord Christ, may he be glorified, who was a part of his nature, in order to get men to worship him alone and obey him. Learning of this, the gods stirred up mankind against him, and these crucified him.[13]

A careful examination of the parallels between the writings of Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus's condemnation of the like-minded 'followers of Marcus' will make it absolutely certain that both have our throne in mind with their mutual understanding that the 'year of favor' is embodied by the number three hundred and sixty.  It will also reveal that the Marcosian interest in the redemption of the world through the restorative power of the Episemon (number six) is really only an allegory for the addition of six days to the lunar calendar to make it accord with the solar year (i.e. 354 + 6 = 360).  


More to follow ...


[1]
[2]
[3] W. DORIGO, La cosidetta “cattedra di San Marco”, in Venezia Arti, 3, 1989, pp. 5–13
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7] Eugnostos Then the twelve powers, whom I have just discussed, consented with each other. males (and) females (each) were revealed, so that there are seventy-two powers. Each one of the seventy-two revealed five spiritual (powers), which (together) are the three hundred and sixty powers. The union of them all is the will.
[8] Eugnostos continues "And when those whom I have discussed appeared, All-Begetter, their father, very soon created twelve aeons for retinue for the twelve angels. And in each aeon there were six (heavens), so there are seventy-two heavens of the seventy-two powers who appeared from him. And in each of the heavens there were five firmaments, so there are (altogether) three hundred sixty firmaments of the three hundred sixty powers that appeared from them. When the firmaments were complete, they were called 'The Three Hundred Sixty Heavens', according to the name of the heavens that were before them. And all these are perfect and good. And in this way the defect of femaleness appeared."
[9] And elsewhere in the Pistis Sophia "Jesus continued in the discourse and said: "It came to pass then thereafter, that the father of my father,--that is Yew,--came and took other three-hundred-and-sixty rulers from the rulers of Adamas who had not had faith in the mystery of the Light, and bound them into these aërial regions, in which we are now, below the sphere. He established another five great rulers over them,--that is these who are on the way of the midst."  See also Hippolytus's description of the astrologers "For as the power of spirit is fire, so also that of earth is water; . . . and the elements themselves, when computed and resolved by subtraction of enneads, terminate properly, some of them in the masculine number, and others of them in the feminine. And, again, the ennead is subtracted for this cause, because the three hundred and sixty parts of the entire (circle) consist of enneads, and for this reason the four regions of the world are circumscribed by ninety perfect parts. And light has been appropriated to the monad, and darkness to the duad, and life to light, according to nature, and death to the duad. And to life (has been appropriated) justice; and to death, injustice. Wherefore everything generated among masculine numbers is beneficent, while that (produced) among feminine (numbers) is mischievous. For instance, they pursue their calculations thus: monad--that we may commence from this--becomes 361, which (numbers) terminate in a monad by the subtraction of the ennead. In like manner, reckon thus: Duad becomes 605; take away the enneads, it ends in a duad, and each reverts into its own peculiar (function)."
[10]
[11]
[12] or as the Gospel of the Egyptians describes it "Domedon Doxomedon, the aeon of the aeons, and the throne which is in him, and the powers which surround him, the glories and the incorruptions"

אגריפס + Ἰησοῦς = 360

I have been working on an important paper which has to do with the symbolic meaning of the throne of St. Mark.  To make a long story short Dorigo (1989) realized that it was designed according to specifications which reflected the number 360.  It was always well known that the Marcosians venerated this number. But I figured out that their interest in the Episemon (the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet used for counting) was owing to the difference between the lunar year (354 days) and the ancient solar year (360 days).  When the Episemon (or vav) was reconciled with the old calendar of the Jews it becomes the 360 day year of the Egyptian Church.

I have always thought that the secret narrative of the gospel involving "two becoming one" has something to do with Jesus who was taken to be the representative of the Episemon because his name had six letters (Ἰησοῦς see Irenaeus AH i.14.1) becoming one with little Mark.  Now I have realized that the name Agrippa has the same numerological value as the lunar year (60 + 80 + 10 + 200 + 3 + אגריפס = 1) so once again 354 + 6 = 360.

Bar Hebraeus on Marcion

Most of it is pretty standard stuff but this line stood out to me "With regard to the Gospel he [Marcion] did not accept Luke and he says that the New Testament was given by the Good and the Old Testament by the Just to whom he [Marcion] gives the name Creator." [source] Notice that bar Hebraeus only says that Marcion REJECTED Luke not that he used a corrupt copy of Luke.  The idea that Marcion used Luke is stupid and can't possibly work given all the evidence.

I Think I Figured Out the Original Context of the Marcosian Interest in the Number Six

Yes, the Hebrews always believed that the sixth letter was involved in the creation of the world. Yes, there were a number of interesting traditions related to the 'sixthness' of the universe but one thing I always overlooked - and it is very important when considering the Alexandrian Church. The Hebrew lunar calendar has 354 days; the Alexandrian Church shifted to a 360 calendar (cf. Clement Strom.i.24). In other words, six days were added to the traditional calendar of the Jews or as we see in Maimonides:

By how much does the solar year exceed the lunar year? By approximately 11 days. Therefore, whenever this excess accumulates to about 30 days, or a little more or less, one month is added and the particular year is made to consist of 13 months, and this is the so-called embolismic (intercalated) year. For the year could not consist of twelve months plus so-and-so many days, since it is said: throughout the months of the year (Num 28:14), which implies that we should count the year by months and not by days.[Maimonides Mishneh Torah Sanctification of the New Moon Translated from the Hebrew by Solomon Gandz, Yale Judaica Series, Volume 11, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956]

The 11 day difference between the 'full' 365 day solar calendar becomes six when the five epagomenes are subtracted.

I Have Decided to Edit My Second Article on the Throne of St. Mark Online [Part Four]

FIRST DRAFT

I have made a great effort to demonstrate that what I see as clear evidence which suggests that there was a pre-existent Alexandrian tradition which passed on a highly mystical form of scriptural exegesis. This tradition was passed on through such luminaries as Clement and Origen, although there must have been many more representatives in antiquity.[1] The historical reality we are faced with when attempting to reconstruct the Alexandrian Christian tradition is that only the writings of these two Alexandrians have come down to us in any great number.

But there is another phenomenon which gets little attention and that is that each successive generation of Alexandrians seems to want to distance itself from prominent predecessors. In the case of Clement he goes out of his way to distance himself from Julius Cassianus, in the case of Origen we have the curious situation that despite our possession of a great number of his writings, never to explicitly mention Clement by name. Moreover it is well established that subsequent generations of Alexandrians in the third and fourth centuries seemed to have distanced themselves from Origen including Arius, the presbyter of the martyrium of St. Mark in the early fourth century. The same stigma eventually becomes associated with the name 'Arius' too.

So it is that when we look at the paucity of references to St. Mark in Alexandrian writers or the lack of explicit identification of the Alexandrian tradition as being 'of Mark' (outside of the recently discovered Letter to Theodore, Gregory Nazianzus's Oration for Athanasius and the Passio Petri Sancti associated with Peter I) we must examine this in light of the equally strange phenomenon just cited - viz. each successive generation of Alexandrian writers disassociating itself with its predecessors. One could argue of course that this is a sign of immaturity i.e. that of a new tradition 'finding its legs.' This is the typical approach to Origen's 'excessive tendency for allegory.' Yet I feel that this ignores the historical reality of the late second, third and early fourth centuries in Alexandria.

Tzamalikos in his recent study of one of the most important references to the concept of the Jubilee offers another explanation which I feel is much closer to the mark. Origen in tackling Luke 4:18 - 28 its reference to Isaiah chapter 61 and its 'year of favor' makes reference to a secret doctrine which I think might go back to the inscription on our throne:

So we should consider what those things are that he spoke through the prophet and later proclaims about himself in a synagogue. He says, "He sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor." [Lk 4.18] The "poor" stand for the Gentiles, for they are indeed poor. They possess nothing at all: neither God, nor the law, nor the prophets, nor justice and the rest of the virtues. For what reason did God send him to preach to the poor? "To preach release to captives.'' [Lk 4.18] We were the captives. For many years Satan had bound us and held us captive, and subject to himself. Jesus has come "to proclaim release to captives, and sight to the blind.'' [Lk 4.28] By his word and the proclamation of his teaching the blind see. Therefore, his "proclamation" should be understood ἀπὸ ϰοινου not only of the "captives" but also of the "blind." [Lk 4.18]


"To send broken men forth into freedom. . . ." [Lk 4.19] What being was so broken and crushed as man, whom Jesus healed and sent away? "To preach a year of favor to the Lord. . . ." [Lk 4.19] Following the simple sense of the text, some say that the Savior preached the Gospel in Judea for only one year, and that this is what the passage "to preach a year of favor of the Lord and a day of retribution" means. But perhaps the divine word has concealed some mystery in the preaching of a year of the Lord. For, other days are to come, not days like those we now see in the world; there will be other months, and a different order of Kalends. Just as those will be different, so too will there be a year pleasing to the Lord. But all of this has been proclaimed so that we may come to "the acceptable year of the Lord," when we see after blindness, when we are free from our chains, and when we have been healed of our wounds.[Origen Homily on Luke 32.3 -5]

As I noted earlier the standard way of interpreting this statement by Origen is "a typical example of his allegorical reading method (plain sense/ divine mystery)."[2] Yet I prefer Tzamalikos approach which takes into account Origen's need to cloak and ultimately transform an original Alexandrian interpretation owing to contemporary Imperial pressure.

Tzamalikos, referencing Origen's hesitation in this passage, notes that "[t]his is a way for him to connote the doctrine of apokatastasis obliquely, without having to explicate this to his audience."[2] He also points to a number of other places in the Homilies on Luke where Origen makes clear that he is prevented by fear of retribution:

I do not know whether we should divulge such mystical things before this sort of audience, particularly among those who do not examine the essence of the Scriptures, but are happy with the barest sense alone. It is dangerous. [Homily on Luke 23:5]

This idea that expounding 'the truth' has danger associated with it is reinforced in many other passages in his writings such as his declaration in the Homilies on Ezekiel:

I freely confess the maxim spoken by a wise and faithful man, which I often invoke: "It is dangerous even to speak truly about God." For not only are the false things said about him dangerous, but likewise things that are true and that are brought forth at the wrong time give rise to danger to the one who speaks them. [Homily on Ezekiel 1:11.3]

The Homilies on Luke are generally regarded as having been written after his expulsion from Alexandria and relocation in Caesarea in 232. He continued to write in his new home until the persecution of Decius (c. 250 CE) prevented him from continuing these works. Origen was imprisoned and barbarously tortured which discontinued his ability to author new works.[3] He was still alive on the death of Decius only lingering on until his death, probably, from the results of the sufferings endured during renewed persecutions at the age of sixty-nine.[4]

It is worth noting that Tzamalikos limits his discussion of the 'secret doctrine' associated with the Jubilee to the familiar Origenist notion of ἀποκατάστασις. He points to the fact that Origen says elsewhere in the Homilies that "Luke was unwilling to record these things [i.e. the ἀποκατάστασις] explicitly, whereas John proclaimed some things that were too sublime to be committed to writing."[ ] But I think this approach is far too limiting. The origin of the supposed 'Origenist' interest in ἀποκατάστασις actually derives from the Jewish doctrine of tikkun olam (תיקון עולם) which is itself only one part of the original expectation associated with the Jubilee year.[ ]

To this end I think that the tradition cited by the great Coptic historian Severus of al'Ashmunein is far closer to the mark when he says that Origen was in 'danger' owing to his continuing to promote specifically Jewish doctrines. We read:

So when Origen, whom Demetrius had excommunicated, saw that the Church had rejected him, he went to the Jews, and expounded for them part of the Hebrew books, in a new fashion; and he concealed the prophecies which they contain of the Lord Christ, so that when he came to the mention of the thicket in which the ram of Abraham, the Friend of God, was caught by its horns, which the Fathers interpret as a type of the wood of the Cross, Origen even concealed and abandoned this interpretation. He wrote books full of lies and containing no truth.[ ]

I have written elsewhere about the fact that the throne of St. Mark has its central image on its backrest a ram standing in front of the tree of life. It makes far more sense then to see Origen's 'heresy' as being connected with the preservation and maintenance of specifically Jewish doctrines - undoubtedly connected with Alexandria's Jewish community as we saw earlier.

In this case, Origen is clearly going beyond a mere discussion of his own views on ἀποκατάστασις and going back to the Jewish understanding of the 'year of favor' as the Jubilee year. He not only references what he calls "the simple sense of the text" that "some say that the Savior preached the Gospel in Judea for only one year, and that this is what the passage 'to preach a year of favor of the Lord and a day of retribution means'" but also a "mystery in the preaching of a year of the Lord." What can that possibly mean? The only clue Origen gives us here is that there is promise from Jesus's preaching in his year long ministry "there will be other months, and a different order of Kalends." The Catena Aurea has reworked Origen's material to make it reflect Irenaeus's arguments against Alexandrian heretics who similarly promoted Jesus's year long ministry from a previous generation - i.e. that the "acceptable year of the Lord" is "the whole time from His advent onwards to the consummation," after which there follows "the day of retribution that is the judgement."[AH ii.22.2]

Yet it must be said that what is cited in the Catena is clearly not Origen's view.  Origen is clearly sheltering a tradition which dates back through previous generations of Alexandrians and which Irenaeus attacked and vigorously opposed.  What was this original Alexandrian understanding of the coming Jubilee announced by Jesus from the scroll of Isaiah regarding the coming of a 'Jubilee year'?  The only way that this will be made manifest to us is to go back through previous generations of Alexandrian exegesis of Isa 61:2, first through the figure of Clement of Alexandria (whom Origen goes out of his way never to explicitly reference in his many writings) and then the interpretation of 'those of Mark' who Irenaeus condemns but whose understanding can be demonstrated to be secretly at the heart of Clement's exegesis.

When all of this is undertaken we will be in a position to explain the inscription of 'year one' on the Alexandrian throne.  It was an apparent reference to the idea that Mark's alleged enthronement in Alexandria was seen as a fulfillment of Jesus's prophecy of the coming 'year of favor.'  In other words, the sitting of Mark in the chair that became the symbol of the continuation of the Alexandrian Church through the generation was itself taken to be a historical marker, that this event marked the end of a previous age and the beginning of the process of  ἀποκατάστασις which formed the core theological interest of the Origenist Patriarchs which sat in St. Mark's chair throughout the third and early fourth centuries.

[1]
[2] Stephen Davis personal correspondence.
[3] Eusebius, Church History VI.39
[4] Eusebius, Church History VII.1

Marcion is the Diminutive Form of Marcus in Syriac Too

I just brought forward Hilgenfeld's arguments in favor of Marcion being a diminutive form of Marcus in Greek.  Now I have realized also that Marcion is also a diminutive of Mark in Syriac (actually it is something that a professor of Semitic languages showed me years ago in university but I somehow pushed it to the back of my mind). 


Marqiyon would be (theoretically at least) the diminutive of Marqos. In other Aramaic dialects it would Marqai or Marqon.  I think Marcion was a name originally established in Syriac or Aramaic and then translated into Greek. The first witness is Polycarp; Polycarp was a native Aramaic speaker as was Irenaeus (more on that later). 

More on Samuelsson's Questions About What σταυρός Meant in Christianity

I think if we are going to probe into what σταυρός originally meant the place to start is here:

ω ανοητοι γαλαται τις υμας εβασκανεν τη αληθεια μη πειθεσθαι οις κατ οφθαλμους ιησους χριστος προεγραφη εν υμιν εσταυρωμενος (Gal 3:1)

which is translated in a number of different ways:

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? (KJV)

Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth among you as crucified? (World English)

The part that has always puzzled me is the idea of being crucified 'among you' εν υμιν εσταυρωμενος. To me it sounds like an extension of the "From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal 6:17) concept. In other words, I imagine that the Apostle was really arguing that the proof of the εσταυρωμενος is manifest his own person (i.e. that whatever σταυρός meant it was displayed in the person of the Apostle!) 

In other words, the Apostle was walking around with signs on his body that there was a εσταυρωμενος. 

I know this sounds crazy but I have always thought that John 20:19 has a bizarre scenario where the disciples are hanging out with a guy that they don't know really is Jesus but this is confirmed when he"showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord." 

I still don't know what σταυρός means but neither do any of the experts it seems.

The Proximity of Queen Julias Berenice's Fortress (Bottom Left) and the Christian Shrine of St. Berenice (Top Right) in Paneas

I Have Decided to Edit My Second Article on the Throne of St. Mark Online [Part Three]

FIRST DRAFT

When considering the influence of the Jewish concept of sabbatical years and the Jubilee in Christianity there is a surprising difference between the Alexandrian and Roman schools of thought on this matter.  We will develop that shortly but it is worth dispelling some inherited presuppositions about Alexandria and its Christian sages.  While it is usually assumed that Alexandria represents the home of 'allegorical' interpretations of scripture while the rest of the world was strictly literal this is certainly not the case with regards to the Jewish concept of the Jubilee year.

The Roman tradition for instance, typified by Irenaeus does its best to argue that Christians should interpret any reference to such 'Jewish' concepts in an entirely 'spiritually' way as we shall see.  The Alexandrian school beginning with Clement and continuing through to his successor Origen, by contrast, emphasize the original understanding that a Jubilee is literally a cycle of seven sabbatical years plus one which has deep significance to the understanding of the founding of Christianity.

An example from Origen - whose writings survive in greater number than any other Alexandrian writer - might be a useful starting point for this discussion.  We see in his Homilies on Ezekiel a struggle to maintain the original Jewish understanding in a Christian environment which - officially at least - said there was no room for the observances of sabbaths.  Origen nevertheless maintains that: despite the restrictions of the greater Church, he still understands the world to be governed by 'sabbatical cycles':

For when the earth is offended and again enjoys itself on its Sabbaths, it is not entirely offended, nor does it entirely exult. For in some manner, it is instructed with its inhabitants, and it learned to celebrate the Sabbaths, whether in shadow or in truth, according to the condition of its nature. This is why, by a more mysterious interpretation, the Sabbath is practiced after seven years of holy earth, until it pleases God to dwell in it; but if they become sinners on it, the land no longer bears the Sabbath every seven years, but seventy. We have the word about seventy years certified in the sacred literature, both in Jeremiah and in Daniel [cf. Lev 25:4; Jer 25:11; Dan 9:2] (Hom. Ezek. 4.4)

In other words, Origen is remarkably putting forward that despite the official position of the Church on the abandonment of the veneration of sabbaths, the world is nevertheless still 'mysteriously' governed by cycles of seven.

Similarly in his Homily on Numbers Origen makes explicit reference to the concept of the Jubilee saying that:

we have often and abundantly shown in many passages of the scriptures that the number fifty contains the mystery of forgiveness and pardon. For there is both the fiftieth year which is called Jubilee by the Hebrews, in which there is remission both of property and slavery and debt, (Lev 25.10) and there is the tradition in the law that the fiftieth day after Passover is a feast day.(cf. Lev. 23:15) Moreover, in the Gospel, when the lord was teaching the parable of forgiveness and pardon, he introduces some debtors, “one who owed fifty denarii and the other five hundred." (cf Luke 7:41) Now the numbers fifty and five hundred are related; for ten times fifty makes five hundred. Moreover, in another respect that number is made sacred; for if the perfection of the number one is added to the seventh seven, it makes five hundred. (Hom. Num. 2.3)

This is not the only place in Origen's writings where he says that Jesus knew and used the concept of Jubilee.  In one sense, we might make the case that it would be difficult for a Jew living in the first century of the common era NOT to be aware of this concept.  Yet as we shall see shortly, Origen goes beyond merely referencing the Jubilee as some sort of 'historical curiosity' in Judaism.  He clearly presents his belief that Jesus came to announce nothing short of the transformation of the world in a specific Jubilee year.

I would argue that there are many references in Origen's writings which make clear that the Jubilee was at the heart of the Alexandrian interpretation of the gospel.  Indeed I think moreover that these references point to Origen having received a pre-existent understanding of the Alexandrian Church being established in 'year one' or a Jubilee year.  For the moment however it will suffice for us to look at one more reference in the writings of Origen - the Second Homily on Genesis - which is universally regarded by scholarship as a rare example of Origen borrowing from the writings of his predecessor Clement.  This remarkable reference occurs as part of a discussion of God's command to Noah to construct the ark through which humanity would be saved viz. "And thus you shall make the ark: the length of the ark three hundred cubits and the breadth fifty cubits and its height thirty cubits, you shall assemble and make the ark, and you shall finish it on top to a cubit." (Gen 6:13 LXX)

Unlike Clement and his predecessors, who developed a detailed mystical discussion of all three numbers referenced in Genesis (i.e. 30, 50 and 100) Origen, while briefly referencing the details of this earlier discussion concentrates his efforts on the significance of the number fifty which he says not only "has been consecrated as the number of forgiveness and remission" but adds moreover that:

according to the law there was a remission in the fiftieth year, that is, so that if someone had sold off his property, he might receive it back; if a free man had come into slavery, he might regain his freedom; a debtor might receive remission; an exile might return to his fatherland. Therefore Christ, the spiritual Noah, in his ark in which he frees the human race from destruction, that is, in his Church, has established in its breadth the number fifty, the number of forgiveness. For if he had not given forgiveness of sins to those who believe, the breadth of the Church would not have been spread around the world. (Hom. Gen 2.5)

It would be wrong for readers to get so completely distracted by Origen's likening of Jesus to Noah that they assume that Origen isn't also passing on to a reflection that the contemporary Alexandrian Church had developed out of a traditional Jewish interest in the Jubilee.

As such it is very important to pay special attention to the greater context of this statement.  Origen is developing a mystical interpretation of the dimension of the length and width of the ark.  Before this reference to the significance of the number fifty (which represented the 'width' of the ark) he references also the mystical significance of the number one hundred (which is related to the length of the ark):

three hundred is three one hundreds. Now the number one hundred is shown to be full and perfect in everything and to contain the mystery of the whole rational creation, as we read in the Gospels where it says that "a certain man having a hundred sheep, when he lost one of them, left the ninety-nine in the mountains and descended to seek that one which he had lost and when it was found he carried it back on his shoulders and placed it with those ninety-nine which had not been lost." This hundred, therefore, is the number of the whole rational creation, since it does not subsist from itself but has descended from the Trinity and has received the length of its life, that is the grace of immortality, from the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit. (ibid)

The reader should pay special attention to Origen's discussion because he is clearly and unmistakably recycling older 'gnostic' teachings and recasting them in a way that 'fits' with contemporary orthodoxy. As we shall demonstrate shortly Origen not only is wholly appropriating his predecessor Clement's symbolic interpretation of the ark but ultimately reaching back to ideas associated with heretical teachers condemned by Irenaeus of Rome.

Despite the superficial addition of the reference to the orthodox concept of 'the Trinity'in his analysis it is not at all difficult to see that Origen has merely borrowed the interpretation of the parable associated with the gnostic followers of Mark (Μάρκος) in Irenaeus.[1]  We should pay special attention to the conclusion of his exegesis of the original passage in Luke and Matthew by noting that Jesus came to restore the one "fallen by ignorance from the one hundred."(ibid)  This is a clear paraphrasing of a gnostic interpretation refuted in Against All Heresies as Irenaeus notes that the followers of Mark promote associating the number one hundred with 'knowledge' and ninety nine with deficiency - "wherefore also they, by means of their "knowledge," avoid the place of ninety-nine, that is, the ὑστέρημα." (Irenaeus AH i.16.2)

To this end, it should be seen as entirely misleading to think of Origen as a relentless inventor of allegories.  Much closer to the truth is the fact that he often merely rework traditional Alexandrian interpretations in a way  that would keep up with ever tightening standards of orthodoxy originating in Rome. One might even regard his patron Ambrose, a former Valentinian and possible 'Marcosian,' as having the clever Origen on his payroll for the specific purpose of assimilating traditional Alexandrian exegeses of scripture with normative belief outside of the limits of the domain of the See of St. Mark.

In the passage from the Second Homily on Genesis just cited, Origen has clearly taken as his starting point what is written in Clement's Stromata Book Six Chapter 11 but he has went out of his way to stay away from passage in the original that have resemble things said in Irenaeus's report on the Marcosians.[2]  So when we compare what appears now in Origen with what appeared originally in Clement we see that Clement begins with a mystical discussion of the appearance of the number 318 (written out as τιὴ) from Gen. 14:14 which ultimately derives from the Epistle of Barnabas.[3]  Clement immediately switches to what we will demonstrate is a Marcosian tradition condemned by Irenaeus:

Now the number 300 is, 3 by 100. Ten is allowed to be the perfect number [emphasis mine]. And 8 is the first cube, which is equality in all the dimensions -- length, breadth; depth ... such, then, is the style of the example in arithmetic. And let the testimony of geometry be the tabernacle that was constructed, and the ark that was fashioned, -- constructed in most regular proportions, and through divine ideas, by the gift of understanding, which leads us from things of sense to intellectual objects, or rather from these to holy things, and to the holy of holies. For the squares of wood indicate that the square form, producing fight angles, pervades all, and points out security. And the length of the structure was three hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty, and the height thirty; and above, the ark ends in a cubit, narrowing to a cubit from the broad base like a pyramid, the symbol of those who are purified and tested by fire. And this geometrical proportion has a place, for the transport of those holy abodes, whose differences are indicated by the differences of the numbers set down below.  And the numbers introduced are sixfold, as three hundred is six times fifty; and tenfold, as three hundred is ten times thirty; and containing one and two-thirds (epidimoiroi), for fifty is one and two-thirds of thirty.  Now there are some who say that three hundred cubits are the symbol of the Lord's sign; and fifty, of hope and of the remission given at Pentecost; and thirty, or as in some, twelve, they say points out the preaching [of the Gospel]; because the Lord preached in His thirtieth year; and the apostles were twelve.(ibid)

Not only does Clement echo Origen's interest in the fifty as the number associated with the Jubilee and the one hundred as the embodiment of perfection,[4] the whole discussion ultimately derives its origins from Philo's Question and Answers on Genesis II.5.[5]

The point now is that the numbers thirty, fifty and one hundred can be demonstrated to have the same symbolic meaning from before the advent of Alexandrian Christianity.  The ideas were actually taken over from the first century Jewish community and passed on in the name of 'Mark.'  This becomes obvious when we see Irenaeus condemn as heretical at the end of the second century almost every idea in the last passage we just cited from Clement.  For instance Irenaeus condemns 'gnostics' who develop mystical theories about Jesus's name using Greek letters (AH ii.24.2), who reject "those sacred names which do not reach a numerical value of one hundred, but only contain the numbers summed by the left hand, are corruptible and material," (AH ii.24.6) who "strenuously endeavour to demonstrate the Thirty by the ark of Noah, the height of which was thirty cubits ... [and that] the length of the holy tabernacle was thirty cubits and if they meet with any other like numbers (in the writings of Moses), they still apply these to their Thirty" (AH i.18.4), who "say that to indicate [the Thirty]  the Lord came to be baptized at the age of thirty years" (AH ii.10.2), who "affirm that [Jesus] suffered in the twelfth month, so that He continued to preach for one year after His baptism; and they endeavour to establish this point out of the prophet (for it is written, "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of retribution"), being truly blind, inasmuch as they affirm they have found out the mysteries of Bythus, yet not understanding that which is called by Isaiah the acceptable year of the Lord," (AH ii.22) and who "maintain that the twelve apostles were a type only of that group of twelve." (AH ii.21.1)  I would argue that one of the reasons Origen avoid specifically referencing the mystical significance of the ark having a height of 'thirty' is because to do so would make explicit his connection with heresy as defined by Irenaeus.

It is utterly incredible that one paragraph in Clement's Stromata Book Six yields no less than six gnostic 'warning signs' identified in the writings of Irenaeus.  But we can do much better than loosely identifying Clement and Origen as perpetuating 'Valentinian' or 'gnostic' teaching.  It was specifically Marcosian - it was 'of Mark' - as Schaff and others are ready to admit.  They point to the crown jewel in these arguments, a side by side comparison of another passage from this same section in Clement's Stromata Book Six Chapter Eleven which effectively makes it impossible to see Clement as anything other than a crypto-Marcosian.

Irenaeus in discussing the beliefs of the aforementioned followers of Mark notes that they have a very 'mathematical' interpretation of the Transfiguraton narrative:

He asserts that the fruit of this arrangement and analogy has been manifested in the likeness of an image, namely, Him who, after six days, ascended into the mountain along with three others, and then became one of six (the sixth), in which character He descended and was contained in the Hebdomad, since He was the illustrious Ogdoad, and contained in Himself the entire number of the element ... [a]nd for this reason did Moses declare that man was formed on the sixth day; and then, again, according to arrangement, it was on the sixth day, which is the preparation, that the last man appeared, for the regeneration of the first, Of this arrangement, both the beginning and the end were formed at that sixth hour, at which He was nailed to the tree. For that perfect being Nous, knowing that the number six had the power both of formation and regeneration, declared to the children of light, that regeneration which has been wrought out by Him who appeared as the Episemon (i.e. the six) in regard to that number.[AH i.14.1]

The exact same teaching is found a little later in that same passage in Clement which seemed to be connected by Irenaeus to the teachings of often unnamed gnostics:

Thus the Lord, who ascended the mountain, the fourth, becomes the sixth, and is illuminated all round with spiritual light, by laying bare the power proceeding from Him, as far as those selected to see were able to behold it, by the Seventh, the Voice, proclaimed to be the Son of God; in order that they, persuaded respecting Him, might have rest; while He by His birth, which was indicated by the sixth conspicuously marked, becoming the eighth, might appear to be God in a body of flesh, by displaying His power, being numbered indeed as a man, but being concealed as to who He was. For six is reckoned in the order of numbers, but the succession of the letters acknowledges the character which is not written. In this case, in the numbers themselves, each unit is preserved in its order up to seven and eight. But in the number of the characters, Zeta becomes six and Eta seven. [Strom.6.14]

There can be doubt whatsoever that at least part of Clement's teaching is a recasting of the very same teaching of 'Mark' the Egyptian (Sulpicius Severus Sacred History II.44; Jerome Ep. 75, 3). Origen in turn is a further 'watering down' or adjustment of this original doctrine to confirm with contemporary tastes outside of Egypt.

However before we return to see how the Marcosians, Clement and Origen continued to perpetuate a Jewish understanding of the Jubilee against Roman attempts to allegorize the original formula to the point it was no longer recognizable, let us note one more surprising fact that often gets over looked.  The followers of Mark were necessarily older than Clement.  When Irenaeus who was writing either at the same time as Clement or slightly earlier can recount stories from Asia Minor and various other regions beyond his own locale we must assume that the tradition of Marcus went back as far as the middle of the second century.  Yet when we take a second look at their core teaching about the destruction of the sixth letter (the Episemon) it is absolutely clear that this teaching was known and apparently condemned by Philo as early as the first half of the first century.

For just as Clement declares that Jesus's crucifixion in the sixth hour makes explicit that the sixth element or letter, the generative power behind all creation, has now been destroyed.  To this end all the letters which appear after it are understood to be 'diminished' by the value of one:

the sixth conspicuously marked, becoming the eighth, might appear to be God in a body of flesh, by displaying His power, being numbered indeed as a man, but being concealed as to who He was. For six is reckoned in the order of numbers, but the succession of the letters acknowledges the character which is not written. In this case, in the numbers themselves, each unit is preserved in its order up to seven and eight. But in the number of the characters, Zeta becomes six and Eta seven. (ibid)

This very same teaching is reported in Hippolytus's preservation of Irenaeus's original report as follows:

that the letter Eta along with the remarkable one constitutes all ogdoad, as it is situated in the eighth place from Alpha. Then, again, computing the number of these elements without the remarkable (letter), and adding them together up to Eta, they exhibit the number thirty. For any one beginning from the Alpha to the Eta will, after subtracting the remarkable (letter i.e. episemon) ... they subtract twelve, and reckon it at eleven. And in like manner, (they subtract) ten and make it nine. [Hippolytus AH 6:42]

Philo by contrast alludes to the exact example and words of Clement and connects it to a group of contemporary scaremongers who terrorized the superstitious population of Alexandria, using it to prove that the world was coming to an end:

some of those persons who have (in the past) fancied that the world is everlasting, inventing a variety of new arguments, employ also such a system of reasoning as this to establish their point: they affirm that there are four principal manners in which corruption is brought about, addition, taking away, transposition, and alteration; accordingly, the number two is by the addition of the unit corrupted so as to become the number three, and no longer remains the number two; and the number four by the taking away of the unit is corrupted so as to become the number three; again, by transposition the letter Zeta becomes the letter Eta ... But of the manner of corruption thus mentioned there is not one which is in the least degree whatever applicable to the world, since otherwise what could we say? Could we affirm that anything is added to the world so as to cause its destruction? But there is nothing whatever outside of the world which is not a portion of it as the whole, for everything is surrounded, and contained, and mastered by it. Again, can we say that anything is taken from the world so as to have that effect? In the first place that which would be taken away would again be a world of smaller dimensions than the existing one, and in the second place it is impossible that any body could be separated from the composite fabric of the whole world so as to be completely dispersed. Again, are we to say that the constituent parts of the world are transposed? But at all events they remain in their original positions without any change of place, for never at any time shall the whole earth be raised up above the water, nor the water above the air, nor the air above the fire. But those things which are by nature heavy, namely the earth and the water, will have the middle place, the earth supporting everything like a solid foundation, and the water being above it; and the air and the fire, which are by nature light, will have the higher position, but not equally, for the air is the vehicle of the fire; and that which is carried by anything is of necessity above that which carries it. Once more: we must not imagine that the world is destroyed by alteration, for the change of any elements is equipollent, and that which is equipollent is the cause of unvarying steadiness, and of untroubled durability, inasmuch as it neither seeks any advantage itself, and is not subject to the inroads of other things which seek advantages at its expense; so that this retribution and compensation of these powers is equalized by the rules of proportion, being the produce of health and endless preservation, by all which considerations the world is demonstrated to be eternal. [On the Eternity of the World XXII:113]

My point right now is not to attempt to prove that Philo was aware of the followers of Mark, but rather only to leave open the possibility that the contemporary Alexandrian teaching regarding the Jubilee need not necessarily be as old as our earliest surviving reference. There is a tradition which says that St. Mark established a catechetical school which blended Greek sciences and mathematics with the study of the Jewish scriptures. It is important to note that the fact that this claim cannot be proved, the idea that Clement and Origen were part of a pre-existent Markan tradition rooted in the first century Alexandrian Jewish community is at least confirmed by geography if not by logical inference.[6]

[1]
[2] Schaff for instance notes that "Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 (of his Against All Heresies and) ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings." Other studies have went into greater detail of Clement's borrowing from the sect associated with Mark and specifically identify Stromata Book Six as replete with references to doctrines identified by Irenaeus as belonging to the Marcosians..
[3] cf. Barnabas 9:7-8
[4] Clement's most explicit reference to Origen's identification of the one hundred as the number of perfection occurs a little later where, when establishes three divisions of humanity according to the three different numbers (30, 60 and 100).  Clement then says that "these chosen abodes, which are three, are indicated by the numbers in the Gospel -- the thirty, the sixty, the hundred. And the perfect inheritance (i.e. the one hundred) belongs to those who attain to "a perfect man," [made] according to the image of the Lord." (Strom 6.14)
[5] Cf. Questions and Answers on Genesis II.5 "Why did God give the measures of the ark in the following manner; the length to be of three hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof to be fifty cubits, and the height to be thirty cubits: and above it was to be raised to a point in one cubit, being brought together gradually like an obelisk? (#Ge 6:15). It was necessary that so vast a work should be constructed in conformity with literal directions, in order that so many animals, some of them of vast size, should be received into it, as individuals of each class were introduced with the food necessary for them; but if the matter is considered properly with reference to its symbolical meaning, then, for the comprehension of the formation of our body, we shall require to make use not of the quantity of cubits, but of the certain principles and proportions which are observed in them. But the proportions which are contained in them are of sixfold, and double, and other portions are added. For three hundred is six times as many as fifty, and ten times as many as thirty; and again fifty is by two thirds a larger number than thirty. Such then are also the proportions of the body; for if any one should choose to investigate the matter and inquire into it carefully in all its points, he will find that man is made in an exact proportion of measurement, neither being too long or too little; and if a string be let down from his head to his feet, he will find that to reach that distance it requires a string six times as long as the width of his chest, and ten times as long as the depth of his ribs and their breadth as a second part of depth added thereto. Such is the certain proportion, received in accordance with nature, of the human body formed on exact measurement of the most excellently made men, who are incorrect neither in the way of excess nor of defect. But again, it was with great wisdom and propriety that God ordained the summit to be completed in one cubit; for the upper part of the ark imitates the unity of the body; the head being forsooth as the citadel of the king, having for its inhabitant the chief of all, the intellect. But those parts which are below the head are divided into separate portions, as for instance into the hands, and in an especial degree into the lower parts, since the thighs, and legs, and feet are all kept distinct from one another, therefore whoever should wish to understand these matters, on the principle which I have pointed out, will easily comprehend the analogy of the cubits as I have related it. But above all things he must not be ignorant that each of these different numbers of cubits has separately a certain necessary proportion and principle, beginning with the first, those in the length of the ark. Therefore in its length it is composed of three hundred units, placed next to one another in continuation, according to the augmentation of units, from these twenty-four numbers, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twentyone, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. But the twenty-fourth number is above all others a natural number, being distributed among the hours of day and night, and also among the characters of language, {2}{he is referring to the Greek alphabet, which consists of twenty-four letters.} and literal speech; and it is also compounded of three cubes, being complete, full, and compacted in equality. For the number three constantly exhibits, as belonging to itself, the first equality of all, having a beginning, and a middle, and an end, all of which are equal to one another; and eight is the first cube, because it again has declared its first equality with the rest. But the number twenty-four has likewise a great number of other virtues, since it is the substance of the number three hundred, as has been already pointed out; this then is its first virtue; and it has another, since it is compounded of twelve quadrangular figures, joined to one another by a continuous unity; and besides of two long figures, and twelve double figures, being forsooth compounded of twos separately increased by two and two. Therefore the angular numbers which make up together the twelve quadrangular figures are these; one, three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, and twenty-three; but the quadrangular figure combines the following numbers, one, four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five, thirty-six, forty-nine, sixty-four, eighty-one, a hundred, a hundred and twenty-one, and a hundred and twenty-four. But those angular numbers which compose the other long figures are these; one, four, six, eight, ten twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four, being twelve in all; and after these come the compound numbers, two, six, twelve, twenty, thirty, forty-two, fifty-six, seventytwo, ninety, a hundred and ten, a hundred and thirty-two, and a hundred and fifty-six; being also twelve. And if you put together the twelve quadrangular figures, you will find a hundred and forty-four, and if you add the other twelve long figures, you will find a hundred and fifty-six; and from the combination of the two you will get the number three hundred, and the concord of full, and complete, and perfect nature rising up to the equal and infinite harmony; for a complete and perfect nature is the maker of equality, according to the nature of a triangle; but the equal and the infinite are the factors of inequality, according to the composition of the other long figure. But the universe consists of a combination of equality and inequality, on which account the Creator himself, even amid the destruction of all earthly things, placed a sort of fixed pattern of stability in the ark. This then is enough to say about the number three hundred. We must now proceed to speak of the fifty cubits, on the following principle; for in the first place it is composed of the right angle of the quadrangular figures; for a right angle is compounded of three, four, and five; and the square of these is nine, sixteen, and twenty-five, the sum total of which when added together is fifty; in the second place, the perfect number fifty is composed of these four triangles linked together, one, three, six, ten; and again of these four equal quadrangles also united together, one, four, nine, sixteen; therefore these triangles when collected together make twenty; and the quadrangles make thirty; and twenty and thirty added together make fifty. But if the triangle and the quadrangle are added together, they make a heptangular figure: so that it is contained by its virtue in the number of fifty, that divine and holy number; to which the prophet had regard when he proclaimed the jubilee festival; and the whole of the jubilee year is free and a deliverer. The third theorem is three triangles beginning with the unit, connected together in a continuous series, and three cubes beginning also with the unit, and connected together in a similar manner, which together make fifty; the examples of the first are one, four, and nine, which make fourteen; the examples of the second are, one, eight, and twentyseven, which together make thirty-six; and the sum total of the two when added together is fifty. Again, thirty is in an especial manner a natural number, for as in the series of units the number three is, so is the number thirty in the series of decimals; and that makes up the cycle of the moon, being the collection of separate months in full delineation; secondly, it is composed of four numbers, which are united in the continual series of these quadrangular figures, one, four, nine, and sixteen, which together make up thirty; on which account it was not without some foundation and sufficient reason that Heraclitus called that number "generation," when he said: a man in thirty years from the time of his birth can become a grandfather, inasmuch as he arrives at the age of puberty in his fourteenth year, at which age he is capable of becoming a father; and at the end of the year his offspring arrives at the birth, and again in fifteen years more begets another offspring like himself; and out of these names of grandfathers, fathers, and sons, as also out of the names of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, a generation complete in its offspring is produced.