Why the name 'Marcion' Might be a Backformation of 'Those of Mark' in Aramaic

I am very confident now that we've turned the corner on the issue of the authenticity of the Mar Saba document. I know there will always be atheists and their enemies - the pious -  who will deny any other possibility than the existing model for the development of Christianity.  But for the rest of us, it is a day to celebrate because a new day is dawning.  It is a day when the Alexandrian origins of Christianity will at last shine forth.

Between you and me and the door post, the reality is that once we get beyond these two extremist positions (i.e. the atheists and the pious) scholarship will actually have to THINK about the origins of Christianity (rather than continue to manufacture a patchwork of inherited opinions from the Acts of the Apostles, Irenaeus, Eusebius and the Liber Pontificalis).

I tell you folks, the Alexandrian tradition with its line of Patriarchs seated in the throne of St. Mark, becoming one with Jesus through their enthronement in the Evangelist's chair will gain a lot of attention.

It will also gain the status as an acceptable model for explaining the origins of Christianity (i.e. that the tradition developed out of St. Mark, his gospel and his throne before being systematically assaulted in the late second through early fourth century).

I am about to re-present my arguments for identifying Clement's Alexandrian faith in St. Mark with the sect of 'Marcosians' of Irenaeus Against the Heresies Book One Chapters 13 - 21.  Yet before I do I want to demonstrate how THINKING about names that have come down to us through the Church Fathers helps liberate us from ignorance.

Most people just hear the name 'Marcion' and all the half-truths developed by the early Fathers comes out.  But here is a much simpler and more believable explanation to consider, developed by Professor Ruairidh Boid of the University of Monash a while ago.

Markion might be a back-formation from Aramaic Marqiyônê (singular Marqiyona) meaning the followers of Mark. So there might never have ben a Markion, only a Mark. Whether Markiônai would be the standard Greek for followers of Mark is something I would have to look up to be sure, but I think it would be one of a about three possibilities. Marcosians, in Greek Markôsai, would be natural as well. Perhaps compare Epiphanius’s invention of a person called Ebion, founder of the group called Evyonim in Hebrew. (Though the form evyon is a unit and the form Marqiyon- is a compound).

All I ask my readers is to ask themselves whether it is possible that three WHOLLY SEPARATE sects associated with a guy or 'guys' named Mark who wrote a gospel could have existed in antiquity.  I think they are all separate descriptions of one and the same MISREPRESENTED tradition.  More to follow ...