We all know the score. Some are very happy with this formula. Others hate it and attack the whole system. Each party here assumes that this proto-Nicene Church of Rome is the only game in town and they like keeping it that way.
They want us to take sides being either 'for' or 'against' all this stupidity and while most of the world sits on the fence, the two sides square off against one another on the internet and elsewhere in deadly seriousness.
I couldn't be less interested in all this nonsense. It's like the whole 'gay marriage' controversy here in the United States a few years back. I am not going to march in the street for or against the proposition. I really don't care either way.
All that I care about is Alexandria. I have been in love with Alexandria since the day I first came into contact with the idea that a Greek colony was established in ancient Egypt. Of course, at first I could only think about Alexandria in terms of the razed library. But as a thoroughly westernized Jew I soon took a deep interest in Philo and whatever scraps of information I could get about Alexandrian Judaism. From there it was only a matter of time before I realized that Clement, Origen and the Origenist Patriarchs of Alexandria who reigned down through to the time of Arius (and perhaps at least a few of the later Arian or Arianist bishops) saw themselves essentially as a continuation of that original tradition.
My discovery of the throne of St. Mark in Venice only cemented that interest. It also allowed me to publish an important paper on the subject of this interconnectedness. But let's pull back from this for a moment.
How on earth did someone like me manage to get an academic paper published on the subject of the Jewish-Christian continuum in ancient Alexandria? The answer is very simple - no one is interested in the material. Indeed I would argue that most people don't even realize that there is this rival tradition to our inherited notions about the origins of the Church out there.
It is amazing but true. The Alexandrian tradition simply 'doesn't matter' to traditional scholarship of early Christianity. At best, they might allow Athanasius and later Alexandrian theologians 'into the fold' because they already walk and talk like us. There are always papers published on the subject of Origen and 'Origenism' because it is already assumed that 'Origenism' was 'invented' by Origen (i.e. it DOES NOT represent a continuation of older Alexandrian thought in any meaningful way).
Everything is done to preserve our inherited notion that Christianity always looked and sounded like it did for our ancestors. Indeed I think our dead ancestors would be very proud of the way we have defended their honor and their place in history.
Yet it is all one big lie. Origen did not invent 'Origenism.' He only adapted the original tradition of Alexandria to the changing political landscape of Christianity in the third century. Clement was active before him doing the same thing a generation earlier.
Heraclitus once wrote that we never step into the same river twice. What he meant by this is that the waters are always changing where we stand even if the total picture of 'the river' seems relatively stable.
The Imperial government of Rome was heavily involved in the reshaping of Christianity from the late second century. It's not like an apple dropped on Constantine's head and he got the idea to develop an Imperial sanctioned religion. Commodus, Septimius Severus, Severus Alexander, Aurelian and many others all had a disproportionate number of Christians serving in their court and had varying degrees of influence on the final product which ultimately emerged at the time of Constantine.
Indeed if the rabbinic literature can be so bold as to acknowledge SOME DEGREE of collusion between Judah the formulator of the Mishnah and one of these Antonine Emperors (I suspect it was Commodus but others have postulated differing ideas as to the identity of the figure named 'Antoninus') why is it so difficult for Christian scholars to do the same. The evidence is there in black and white in the writings of Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen and others.
As such I am not really that interested in the 'final product' that emerged at the time of Constantine - i.e. the so-called 'Nicene Creed.' But I am fascinated by the manner in which some mystery religion that was developed much earlier eventually became reworked and repackaged in Rome and eventually BECAME THAT FINAL PRODUCT.
Other scholars and investigators might have abused the information that I have uncovered and argued that because there is this 'long development period' before the final product of 'Imperial Christianity' was finally unveiled that it is all 'one big lie.' I do not see things that way. Perhaps part of the reason for that is that I see a parallel development in Judaism in the period which spans the establishment of the Mishnah to the Talmud.
Something in the late Empire was 'encouraging' the development of 'safe' forms of Judaism and Christianity (and Samaritanism for that matter). I don't take this as a controversial suggestion. Indeed I would find it utterly amazing if we came across an ancient document which said that the official policy of the government was to allow these traditionally seditious forms of religion to be 'entirely self-governing' and to wholly establish their own doctrine without input from Caesar.
Yet that is what religious people want us to believe because it challenges the sacredness of their inherited assumptions.
What interests me instead is to figure out if there is enough evidence to piece together how Alexandrian Judaism because Alexandrian Christianity. The inherent difficulty here of course is that I might end up discovering that the path to discover this lost Shangri La has been buried by the mudslides of history. That there simply isn't enough information left for us to make sense of the lost Judeo-Christian milieu in ancient Alexandria.
All of this may be true. All of my efforts may prove to be fruitless. Yet what are the alternatives? How can I or anyone else continue to allow the nonsense that gets promoted in Jewish and Christian circles about the way each tradition developed in relation to one another. It is all one big lie.
Yet let's not stop there and become cynical or depressed. Let's act like adventurers and shout at the top of our lungs 'doesn't anyone want to know about the original Christian mystery religion of Alexandria?' Maybe we will end up looking foolish. Maybe no one will respond to this cry. But then again maybe someone will and together, we can change the way that we all look at history.
At least it's worth a try ...
