I have already established that the Apostle intended to have people baptized on the seventh day of Passover (the Jews and Samaritans call the same day by different names). It has already been established in the literature that Christians of Alexandria, Syria and Aramaic speaking parts of the work continued this practice and ended up treating Holy Week as a 'Feast of Unleavened Bread' with Easter Sunday as the day of baptism. I have already shown that Mark (Marqe), already identified as the Apostle of the reformed Samaritan cultus (marginal note Leningrad Manuscript Mimar Marqe) Samaritan cultus, saw the day the Israelites crossed the Red Sea IN THE EXACT SAME MANNER as the Apostle of Christianity. Now I would like to augment that with a strange statement that never made sense to me in the Christian Apostle's writings. In the same work which assured us that the Apostle was proscribing Christians to continue to venerate a Christian version of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Cor 5.6 - 8) and furthermore confirmed that baptism was to be associated with the last day of that feast (1 Cor 10.1 - 3) he actually INTRODUCES THAT DISCUSSION with a reference to the idea that the catechumen who are baptized emerge with crowns or to use the language of the apostle 'already you have become rich. You have become kings—and that without us. How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you.' (1 Cor 4:8)
I had always noticed that this association of 'kingship' with baptism existed among the Mandaeans. It also appears in the references to the idea of the initiate 'reigning' in the Gospel of the Hebrews. I also knew that Jewish tradition understood that the Israelites received crowns and armor during the Exodus. Yet it all came together when I was cleaning up my desk today and read this in the writings of the Samaritan apostle Mark:
The water closed in over Pharaoh and all his people. Not even one of them survived, while all of Israel went forth like kings after having been slaves, exulting in their redemption [Mimar Marqe 2.3]
That closes the book my friends on a cult associated with Mark who employed Aramaic prayers, had a deep interest in kabbalah and had a baptism ritual called 'redemption.'
Irenaeus makes explicit the Marcosian interest in establishing this redemption baptism with establishing the initiates as reigning kings when we read:
Others, again, lead them to a place where water is, and baptize them, with the utterance of these words, "Into the name of the unknown Father of the universe--into truth, the mother of all things--into Him who descended on Jesus--into union, and redemption, and communion with the powers." Others still repeat certain Hebrew words, in order the more thoroughly to bewilder those who are being initiated, as follows: "Basema, Chamosse, Baoenaora, Mistadia, Ruada, Kousta, Babaphor, Kalachthei." The interpretation of these terms runs thus: "I invoke that which is above every power of the Father, which is called light, and good Spirit, and life, because Thou hast reigned in the body." [AH i.21.3]
I have demonstrated that others have already PROVEN the connection between a Christian baptism called 'redemption' and the seventh day of Passover. They are ignored by most people because it demonstrates that our existing liturgy has nothing to do with Jesus or the early Church which - surprise, surprise - was ENTIRELY ROOTED IN JEWISH PRACTICE.
I will not allow this situation to last very much longer ...
