Fire Baptism as the Great Mystery of Alexandria

You can't believe what it was like having Blogger down for 30 hours. I actually had to get reacquainted with my wife last night. The only downside to the whole Blogger disaster is that all my posts - even the one I prepared for today - have been erased. As Fridays are always busy for me, I will have to rewrite the whole post tonight. I think it will be very critical in order to finally make sense of 'Secret Mark' and Clement's statement in to Theodore that Mark wrote:

an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the mustikas, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed.

If you go back to Morton Smith's 1973 book, you can see how he wasn't sure how to translate mustikas. It can mean either 'secret' or 'things pertaining to the mysteries.' In the end, I am certain he chose the wrong interpretation. The proper rendering should be that Mark wrote:

an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the things pertain to the mysteries, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed.

The context here being that SGM 1 (= the first addition to Secret Mark mentioned in to Theodore) is the first 'hint' of the fire ritual at the heart of the mysteries of Alexandria.

We know that the Alexandrian Church still engaged in a 'baptism of fire' in the third century from the writings of Origen. He likens the fire baptism to Joshua's crossing of the Jordan which is also referenced in SGM 1. I have argued that the mystery described in Secret Mark was established on the traditional date of crossing - i.e. the 10th of Nisan - and is ultimately connected with the tradition of Moses being enveloped by flames on the mountain as a preparation for his ritual enthronement. This is the 'mystery of divine kingship' and explains why the central expression of the cult of St. Mark is the evangelist's enthronement. In other words, as Zahn and many others have suggested - Mark is himself the initiated neaniskos of his gospel.

The next step is to connect the tradition that Moses passed on the mysteries of divine kingship to Oshea (later called Joshua through the reception of the divine name). Once we see that Moses's instruction of Joshua becomes the underlying paradigm for Secret Mark (where Jesus is Moses and Mark is Oshea) the only question left is establishing that fire immersion was the ritual preparation for Joshua's ultimate enthronement. As I will demonstrate tonight, this can be confirmed quite explicitly by the Samaritan narrative involving 'the great king' Baba Rabbah and his initiation of his nephew Libi. In other words, the Samaritan tradition remembers an ancient fire ritual which is certainly the source of the Patristic references to the Alexandrian 'baptism of fire.'

As we will show this rite ultimately originated from Moses's initiation of his disciple Oshea later called Joshua. It is 'hinted at' in Clement's reference to SGM 1 in the Letter to Theodore. Once this is acknowledged the text and the tradition are finally confirmed as authentic and the rest of us not blinded by ideological agendas can get to work uncovering the Samaritan origins of Christianity.

Hope you are as eager to see this post as I am to complete writing it ...