THE GOSPEL OF ME - FOUND AGAIN!

The question which stands before us is whether we can begin to make out the events which came at the end of the now one hundred and twenty year old “elder” from Tiberias. Indeed can we develop a picture of the last days of Mark in the Antonine age? I think that we can and I start with the confirmation in the rabbinic writings that “another” – a rival of the now underground neo-Pharisaic tradition – attained the lifespan of Moses viz. one hundred and twenty years old. Why would it be so necessary for Jews to not only one of their “fathers” in the age of Mark but indeed three consecutive “heads” of the tradition each lived to one hundred and twenty in succession unless it came against the backdrop of a similar accomplishment by their rival? So it is that we hear

Already the Samaritans make the case that “Marqeh” was the equivalent of “Mosheh” which while never alluding directly to his lifespan in my mind necessarily must have originally included this detail. In the case of Christianity our greatest repository of information regarding the “Elder” it cannot be overlooked that “John” the founder of the Catholic Church is only allowed to live until the beginning of the reign of Trajan. The history of this figure and his banishment to Patmos in my mind ultimately comes as a result of Josephus’ invention of this separate character and his “perpetual imprisonment” as a means of disguising his identity to later Christian readers of the material of the Jewish War.

Nevertheless the literature associated with the Elder seems to go back to an early Jewish recognition of Mark as “John” which in the tradition of Leucius makes clear his “heretical origins.” I see Clement’s strange story of “John” setting up his churches against a backdrop of “defections” to the cause of the “robbers” belies an underlying Palestinian origin to the original Acts of John. Indeed the transplanting of this original Palestinian tradition follows a pattern throughout Polycarp’s reestablishment of the original Marqionite epistles away from addressees in the former kingdom – i.e. Galilee, Caesar Philippi, Laodicea, Alexandria – to places within the new Catholic “sphere of influence” in Greece and Asia Minor viz. “Galatia,” “Philippi,” Ephesus, Corinth and Thessalonica. I believe that we can read Lucian’s Passing of Perigrinus and an important story regarding “Marcian” in Socrates Scholasticus as testimonies to the transfer of the new Christian heartland away from Syria and to Asia Minor in the period of Antoninus also.

In any event the eventual replacement of Syrian Mark by the Catholic “John” was completed by Polycarp’s obvious falsification of the original Syriac “Ignatian canon” (witness again by Lucian). What we see developing throughout were a series of artificial “front men” to obscure the original primacy of Mark through the development of two Catholic “apostles” who demonstrate the original elder’s willingness to “work with” Peter. In the case of Paul’s subordination to Peter there is “Luke” (whose very name is a corruption of the Aramaic “John” – i.e. l’yukhanon). With regards to John his greatest authority (after of course Polycarp) was Ignatius (whose very name means “fiery angel”). In each case aspects of the original elder were sublimated into a Catholic authority figure who supports the reforms posited by Polycarp in the age of Antoninus and of course the accompanying “war against the heresies” which merely “facilitated” the Imperial tribunes weeding out presbyters of the original tradition.

If we look again then the idea of “Mark” living on to the age of Antoninus is not something akin to “idle speculation” but of course entirely in keeping with the reports of the early Church Fathers. This is especially once we identify “Marqion” as the very figure of “little Mark” who appeared as the “disciple whom Jesus” loved in the gospel. Clement knows full well that this “Mark” was understood to have been converted to Christianity when before “Simon heard for a little the preaching of Peter.” I have searched high and low looking for any kind of a reference to a “Simon” who was attached to the “preaching of Peter” and can only come up with the figure of the heretic Simon Magus which entirely fits the original context of the statement. If this can be conceded we have a date for Marqion which goes back to the beginning of the apostolic age if not earlier which when coupled with the universal acknowledgement of Marqion’s continued existence in the age of Antoninus confirms our one hundred and twenty year age for the patriarch of Christianity.

Indeed after our lengthy analysis of Celsus testimony in the last section the underlying question necessarily arise as to whether Marqionitism could have possibly reached its zenith without the presence of its original “little Mark”? It was most certainly a personality cult driven by the understanding that “Marqion” himself was the apostle, paraclete and “Christ” – viz. “the one who was to come after” Jesus. We see from the testimony of a Marqionite community at Edessa in the third century that “little Mark” was still imagined to hover over the community as a guardian and protector even speaking through the “elders” and “judges” of the tradition. I cannot therefore imagine that Marqionitism could have continued on specifically with that name unless its founder lived on from the apostolic age and the universal testimony of all the Church Fathers confirms it.

The fact is that we have indeed only one confirmed citing of “Marqion” during the reign of Antoninus and then a series of related general “witnesses” undoubtedly related to it then the “heresiarch” essentially falls off the historical map thereafter. Indeed the very man who claims to have witnessed him was, it should be pointed out, his sworn political enemy – Polycarp of Smyrna, the very founder of our Catholic tradition. Should we accept this testimony of this rival that while in Rome Polycarp “happened to have met” Marqion asking to be “recognized” by him? I certainly think so – albeit after much scrutiny about what that report really means. Indeed I want the reader to see that there are many good reasons to accept that Marqion was in Rome at this time however “when,” “where,” “how” and “why” the two men (and indeed most of the known figures of Christianity at the time) were gathered in Rome wholly escapes the Catholic tradition – perhaps intentionally so.

I think that once we hear what Origen tells us about the time when Celsus actually wrote his anti-Marqionite treatise – i.e. at the beginning of Antoninus rule – helps put the “meeting” between Polycarp and Marqion in context. For Celsus makes the important statement that about the contemporary age that “if [a Christian] transgresses [the prohibition of the Emperor on their cultus] even in secret, he is sought out and punished with death” has direct implications on our one direct sighting of Marcion – i.e. by Polycarp of Smyrna. Celsus seems to have met another figure known to the Catholic tradition from Polycarp’s same visit to the city firmly establishing the possibility that Celsus’ call for support for the Emperor’s “re-design” of Christianity reflected events at Rome during Polycarp’s visit to the city c. 147 A.D. Indeed Polycarp is the only Christian who is known to have left the city alive …

Does everyone remember the actual story of the founder of our tradition being at Rome in the reign of Antoninus and reported to us by his devoted followers Irenaeus? It goes like this:

Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Do you recognize me? ""I do recognize thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”

The key thing to see here is that Marqion is clearly asking to be “recognized” as Jesus – i.e. the firstborn – but Polycarp counters that he is the “serpent” i.e. the firstborn of the Satan. Why would Marqion be asked to be seen as the mere martyr of his tradition (indeed Mark the Father was after all “better” than what came before him) unless as I suggest Marqion was himself being martyred at this very time.

Indeed I ask my readership what other situation could a Marqionite identify himself with being “Jesus” other than being “crucified” or martyred? The very thing happens when Polycarp himself is about to be executed – the whole scene transforms into a “second gospel” narrative. I take this whole issue up in more detail in another work but for the moment but let us first notice the contemporary context. This is the first time that this “letter of Paul” – i.e. one of “Pastoral texts” which most scholars acknowledge were not actually written by the apostle - was ever cited by any known authority. Von Campenhausen thinks that Polycarp likely wrote the text himself and I couldn’t agree more. Yet notice the reference to someone refusing to change his opinion and as a result “having condemned himself.” In Greek the idea of “self-condemnation” is autokatakritos. In Aramaic the phrase is khayeb nephesh. Yet the underlying assumption is the same – that is to fall victim to Imperial persecution.

This is again clearly the implication of the statement we just saw in Celsus regarding Christians being hunted down in the period. The title of Celsus’ very work “the True Word” reflects clearly a historical response to the original “antithesis” of Marqion which also carries this title. As we return to Irenaeus’ preservation of his master’s testimony regarding the meeting with Polycarp in the very age where Celsus reports a death sentence was hanging over the head of “unrepentant Christians” in what other manner should we now take the reference to heretics like Marqion “causing themselves to be punished” unless as I suggest Marqion was brought before Antoninus to adopt changes to his tradition or face execution. Did Marqion then die a martyr? Well let us put one thing forward for certain – given the importance of martyrdom to the tradition – why wouldn’t the Church Fathers have mentioned such a failure to attain “perfection”?

Indeed I ask my reader to look carefully at another reference in Tertullian when he says that:

In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus vouchsafed to come down from heaven, as the spirit of saving health [spiritus salutaris]. I cared not to inquire, indeed, in what particular year of the elder Antoninus. He who had so gracious a purpose did rather, like a aura canicularis [viz. dog-like spirit] exhale this health or salvation, which Marcion teaches from his Pontus.

As Deterring shows elsewhere Marqion never came from Pontus – the identification comes from his followers being likened to the Cynical followers of Diogenes who originally came from Sinope in Pontus. “Aquila” as well and oh yes Serapis, that “other” Alexandrian divinity also originally derived his origins from Sinope in Pontus …

Yet why would Tertullian have claimed that the spirit which came out of Marqion while he was in Rome at the time of Antoninus was not a “spirit of salvation” but rather “only like a dog”? The answer is obvious. It is a reference to docetic conception of martyrdom which passes the “soul of Jesus” from martyr to “beholder.” Polycarp denies that Marqion was Christ; he says that instead of witnessing the “firstborn of God” he was just raising the serpent, testifying to his “other god” the Devil. In any event we see much the same thing reflected in Tertullian’s testimony from the third century when he says that Marqion and Valentinus “lived not so long ago,-in the reign of Antoninus approximately and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed freedom [i.e. eleutherus] until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled.” Expelled because of curiosity? But by whom? Of course we have already seen – by “Pius.”

The story which again comes from the Church Fathers was that there was some kind of gathering in contemporary Rome. As we have seen both Celsus and Polycarp seemed to have ran into “Marcellina” a figure whom the Catholic tradition seems to identify with “Harpocratians” from Alexandria (but I think there is good reason to see that she is really “Philumena” the head of the Marqionite church or a dominant sect created immediately after Marqion’s execution). Indeed it is safe to say that prominent Christian teachers seemed to have flocked to (or been rounded up and sent to) Rome at this time. Not only was Valentinus said to have come “under Hyginus” and expired his last breath under Pius we hear in Tertullian again that after being expelled by the figure “Marcion, indeed, [went] with the two hundred sesterces which which he had brought into the church, and when banished at last to a permanent excommunication, they scattered abroad the poisons of their doctrines.” Of course “scattering abroad” renewed “heresies” need not mean that they themselves went in person but as I suggest over and over again their believing “eye-witnesses” who received their soul into their hearts.

Indeed that the new Catholic Church at first attempted to make it appear as if Marqion “confessed” the new standard of orthodoxy is obvious from Tertullian’s follow up statement that “afterwards, it is true, Marcion professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him-that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the church all the others whom he had been training for perdition: he was prevented, however, by death.” The Church Father also makes reference to a letter supposedly written by the hand of Marqion which said much the same thing. Can anyone now see the basic pattern which is unfolding? Whether called “Mark” (Alexandria) or “John” (Asia Minor) the Catholic Church necessarily developed itself out of a reconstitution of the historical figure of both names who was originally remembered as “little Mark” of the gospel.

Only the most obtuse scholars take these reports about “Marqion” at face value – i.e. that he lived on for a generation after Antoninus wandering the earth and developing his church as a schism from our main body. Anyone who has ever take the task of making sense of the reports critically ends up concurring with the eminent von Harnack who emphasizes that:

only after Marcion did those in the great church begin the purposeful work of deriving from heaven the holy church … and of combining the congregations here on earth into an actual community and unity on the basis of a fixed doctrine that is rooted in the New Testament, just as Marcion did. This demonstrates that by means of his organizational and theological conceptions and by his activity Marcion gave the decisive impetus towards the creation of the old catholic church and provided the pattern for it.

Of course I take matters one step further than von Harnack, von Campenhausen and the original German tradition. I construct entire scenario where Marqion was brought to Rome at the beginning of the reign of “Pius” and seemed to go along with the reforms encouraged by Antoninus only to have secretly published his “antitheses” i.e. the True Word which was followed by Celsus response and finally Mark’s execution in the Colloseum of Rome in 147 A.D.

Am I the only one who “reads between the lines” here and sees that Marqion was brought before Antoninus and made to agree to changes to his religion not once but twice until finally he was martyred at Rome? Let us now notice that the whole trials of Marqion being brought to the city for trial seem to me to be almost perfectly preserved in the Syriac version of the Letter of Ignatius. Of course Polycarp forged the recent letters of the apostle as he did the earlier letters which appear in the Marqionite canon. Only in the case of what became the “Ignatius” letters Polycarp’s fingerprints are all over the documents as well as the names of individuals he would insert into both canons of texts. “Ignatius” is just a Latin translation of an Aramaic identification of Mark as seraph which means both “fire” and “angel.” The idea goes back to the experience of Moses and the burning bush. With Mark “giving up the ghost” countless of his faithful believers (and not-so-faithful believers like Polycarp) were gathered to see if they could “receive his soul” as they gazed at his dismembered corpse.

This method of execution was of course entirely ironic in nature – “poetic” if the killing of a martyr can be construed in such a way. In almost every report we have available to us we see that the former head of the Church was mauled by wild dogs. As we have already shown, Mark had always been identified as “doglike” and now in the end Caesar was going to mock his “Pontic nature” by disgracing his “divine presence” with one of the most ignominious ways of dying known to man. Indeed the report of an execution of the “infidel king” appears certainly in Jewish reports already identified as “Agrippa” references. We see for instance in Sanhedran 39b the conclusion of a long section where Mark is now identified as an “infidel” or “king” is in a debate with Gamaliel (and later other figures) about the relative merit of the traditional god of Israel. The sages rebuff the attempt of the “infidel” to bring all the people of Israel together but it is where the text digresses in what follows which is particularly interesting for us.

The narrative suddenly breaks of into an extended commentary on Obadiah and its prophesy against “Edom” which we have already shown is a codeword for “Agrippa” and Christianity. We read:

And there went out the cry [or “song”] throughout the host: [I Kings XXII, 36, ed. with reference to Ahab's death at Ramoth in Gilead] R. Aha b. Hanina said: [It is the song referred to in the verse.] When the wicked perish, there is song; [Prov. XI, 10] [thus] when Ahab b. Omri perished there was 'song'.

Clearly anyone who has ever read the passage in its entirety with our examination of the evidence raised so far can see that “Agrippa” is the king whose fall is seen to be celebrated among the heavenly host by some of the rabbis. It is interesting to note however that not all the rabbi’s either celebrated or thought that God enjoyed the downfall of the “infidel” king. Apparently some of the assembled authorities were not so completely scornful of their old master.

One authority specifically makes reference to the drowning of the angel of Egypt in the sea where God “rebukes” those celebrating “Agrippa’s” downfall saying that:

In that hour the ministering angels wished to utter the song [of praise] [Cf. Isa. VI, 3] before the Holy One, blessed be He, but He rebuked them, saying: My handiwork [the Egyptians] is drowning in the sea; would ye utter song before me!

The point then is that the whole issue of “Agrippa” and his status as the “other” of God was still a touchy subject at the time. Indeed R. Jose b. Hanina tries to find a middle path arguing that God “Himself does not rejoice, yet He causes others to rejoice. Scripture supports this too, for it is written, [And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good … so yasis will the Lord] cause rejoicing [over you by destroying you], [Deut. XXVIII, 63 in the Hiphil (causative)] and not yasus [so will the Lord rejoice etc.] This prove it.”

Indeed the very description of how this modern Edomite “infidel” king met his end is specifically referenced in the next line where we read:

[And dogs licked his blood] and the harlots washed themselves. [I Kings XXII, 38] R. Eleazar said: This was in clear fulfilment of two visions, one of Micaiah, the other of Elijah. In the case of Micaiah it is written, If thou returned at all in peace the Lord hath not spoken by me [I Kings XXII, 28] in the case of Elijah it is written, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth. [Ibid. XXI, 19]

This specific end for the Emperor is alluded to earlier in the very lines where “the Emperor proposed to R. Tanhum, 'Come, let us all be one people.” The rabbi says “Very Well,' he answered, 'but we who are circumcised cannot possibly become like you [because they are already cut] do ye become circumcised and like us.' The Emperor replied: 'You have spoken well; nevertheless, anyone who gets the better of the king [in debate] must be thrown into the vivarium, [i.e. the place of wild beasts] So they threw him in, but he was not eaten. Thereupon [the] heretic remarked: 'The reason they did not eat him is that they are not hungry.' They threw him [the heretic] in, and he was eaten.” [Sanhedrin 39a]

Now before we proceed to look at the other “prophesy” which Sanhedrin 39b sees fulfilled in the death of the Edomite “infidel” king let us fix a little more firmly the specific date of some of these details in the Antonine age. Abodah Zarah 10a is by far the most powerful (and indeed consequently the silliest) testimony with regards to Rabban Judah’s influence over Antoninus. It begins with a reference of the regret which the Jews had with regards to their founding patriarch (a man who could have asked anything of Caesar) didn’t ask for control of Tiberias right away. This apparently went to Baba Rabba as we see from the reports which emerge from Abul Fath. Yet the story insinuates that the Jewish patriarch did indeed conspire in the ultimate execution of this same “infidel” king of Sanhedrin 39.

We read Abodah Zarah 10b infer that “the Emperor was seeking Rabbi's guidance without openly taking counsel with an outsider on matters of state. Rabbi, likewise, would not commit himself to more than offering his advice by mere insinuation.” The question of course is now what did Judah “insinuate” to Antoninus? We read in what follows that:

Antoninus mentioned to him that some prominent Romans were annoying him. Rabbi thereupon took him into the garden and, in his presence, picked some radishes, one at a time. Said [the Emperor to himself] his advice to me is: Do away with them one at a time, but do not attack all of them at once. But why did he not speak explicitly? — He thought his words might reach the ears of those prominent Romans who would persecute him. Why then did he not say it in a whisper? — Because it is written: For a bird of the air shall carry the voice.

Who were these “Romans” who were ultimately executed by the Emperor? I think everyone already has an idea but let us now confirm matters for sure.

We see a slight segue in what follows where various stories proving that Rabban was “tight” with the Emperor emerge. They exchange herbs and leeks with one another and even each other’s family. There is even the stupid story of Antoninus having “a cave which led from his house to the house of Rabbi.” It is said that “every time [he visited Rabbi] he brought two slaves, one of whom he slew at the door of Rabbi's house and the other [who had been left behind] was killed at the door of his own house.” Of course the Emperor does this so as to have the meetings “kept secret” (and indeed so that no one else will know that he was so slavish to the new head of Judaism that he bent over to have him get into bed!).

Yet there was a topic to the “secret meetings” which we see is to establish the hope that “there will be no remnant to the house of Esau.” Judah (again undoubtedly developing the idea of the plot to execute members of the original messianic tradition tells the Emperor to tackle his enemies one by one – destroy the “kings” of Edom “but not all her kings; 'all her princes', but not all her officers; 'Her kings', but not all her kings.”

Indeed one of those “Edomites” who is to be spared the “purging” of the messianic kingdom is a strange figure whose name literally mean “Cut.” Why “cut”? We will find out in the story but “son of Salom[e]”? Come on, it should be obvious who this is! In any event we see that the identification of him as “cut” is because he was “perfect” before his execution except for one detail – he wasn’t circumcised. So we read now the original reference to Antoninus is now obscured by a general reference to “a Caesar who hated the Jews” even though this narrative comes from originally pro-Marcionite factions within the new “orthodoxy” of Judaism. The rabbis wish to find a way of keeping the “akher” saved after his execution by Antoninus so that the “apostle of the uncircumcised” was somehow miraculously “cut” on his way to execution.

We read that the debate between the “son of Salome” and the Emperor derives from the same tradition as the section we referenced earlier from Sanhedrin 39a where the “infidel king” has a debate with R. Tanhum (about circumcision) and “they threw him in, but he was not eaten. Thereupon [the] heretic remarked: 'The reason they did not eat him is that they are not hungry.' They threw him in, and he was eat.” The king here says again “'You have spoken well; nevertheless, anyone who gets the better of the king [in debate] must be thrown into the vivarium.” Now we read that the Emperor sees the Palestinian tradition is a “wart” or “sore” which must be removed from the “body politic” of Rome but this “son of Salome” chided him that it would be an impossibility.

We read again that:

Keti'ah b. Shalom addressed them [about the persecution of Israel] as follows: 'In the first place, you cannot do away with all of them, for it is written, For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven. [Zech. II, 10] Now, what does this verse indicate? Were it to mean that [Israel] was to be scattered to the four corners of the world, then instead of saying, as the four winds, the verse would have said, to the four winds? It can only mean that just as the world cannot exist without winds, so the world cannot exist without Israel. And what is more, your kingdom will be called a crippled kingdom.' To this the king replied: 'You have spoken very well; however, he who contradicts the king is to be cast into a circular furnace'. On his being held and led away, a Roman matron said of him: 'Pity the ship that sails [towards the harbour] without paying the tax'. Then, throwing himself on his foreskin he cut it away exclaiming: 'Thou hast paid the tax thou wilt pass and enter [paradise]'.

Of course very few individuals are ever accorded the unshakable claim that they entered paradise in the rabbinic tradition. Indeed the Mishnah (certainly written before this incident behind this report) identifies the specific number as being four where as aforementioned the heretic “akher” is one, Ben 'Azzai, Ben Zoma and Akiba the others.

The problem of course is who of the four figures identified here could the “belatedly circumcised” son of Salome be if not “akher”? Indeed why or indeed how on earth could a sage have been uncircumcised until his last day? Moreover given the fact that the story is entirely stupid as “real history” we must assume that the man in question actually was executed without being “cut” – whom on earth could there be in the Jewish tradition beside “Akher” who can be demonstrated to have a whole literature of sages “leaping into the underworld” to save him from perdition after the fact. We can be certain that “akher” was not circumcised just as he did not follow the other laws of the traditions of Moses in the manner in which the sages understood them to be properly observed. Yet even here his support was so strong that the whole narrative of his last days being executed by Antoninus had to be retold as if a miraculous incident occurred to bring him into accordance with the normative Judaism of the later period.

Indeed the same “correction” of history occurs with regards to the death of “akher” the teacher of Meir in the surviving tradition. We read in the Palestinian Talmud the interesting story that:

After [Akher] was buried, fire came down from heaven and burned his grave. They told Rabbi Meir: "Your teacher's grave is on fire." Rabbi Meir went to visit it, and found it ablaze. What did Rabbi Meir do? He took off his cloak and spread it over the grave. He recited the verse: Spend the night here. When morning comes, if the Good One wants to redeem you -- let him redeem you. And if he doesn't want to redeem you -- then, by God, I will redeem you [Ruth 3:13]. Which he understood as follows: Spend the night here -- this refers to the present world, which is dark as night. When morning comes -- this refers to the future world, which is all one long morning -- If the Good One -- this is God, who is good, of whom the Bible says that he is good to all, and has mercy on all his creation [Psalm 145:9] -- If he wants to redeem you -- let him redeem you. And if he doesn't want to redeem you -- then, by God, I [Rabbi Meir] will redeem you! The flames died down.

The underlying reference now to “fire” is connected with the flame which rises up over the grave of the heretic (who likely was seen to be an embodiment of Uriel).

The Babylonian Talmud of course tells much the same story albeit where Meir is unable to completely the task of “redeeming” the heretic and instead “rabbi John” does. We read there that:

Rabbi John said: "That was a fine trick [of Meir's], to roast his teacher! The man was right here among us, and we could not save him. But if I were to take him by the hand [and bring him with me to Paradise], who is there who could snatch him away from me?" He added: "When I die, I will make the smoke stop rising from his grave." When Rabbi John died, smoke stopped rising from "the Other One's" grave. The speaker [at Rabbi John's funeral] began his eulogy: "Even the gatekeeper [of hell] could not stand up to you, our teacher."

There of course many ways to look at the story here about “John” coming to the rescue of “Akher” preventing once and for all the “fire” associated with the angel of the presence from illuminating his grave but it cannot help but be seen to follow a pattern where something about the leader of the Palestinian tradition in the “black hole” period requires “correction” on the part of later writers of orthodoxy.

The narrative of the “suddenly circumcised” son of Salome has the patriarch now being cast into a furnace and giving all of his possession to the friends of Akiba (the same tradition whom Meir is said to have been a disciple of by later authorities to disguise his heresy). Upon this “instant conversion interestingly a “bath-kol” – i.e. a voice from heaven which exclaimed: 'Keti'ah b. Shalom is destined for [eternal] life in the world to come!' Rabbi [on hearing of it] wept saying: 'One may acquire eternity in a single hour, another may acquire it after many years!' Indeed the tradition of Abodah Zarah 10b immediately connects the story back to the main narrative about Rabban’s plotting with Antoninus by concluding with the words “Antoninus attended on Rabbi: Artaban attended on Rab. When Antoninus died, Rabbi exclaimed: The bond is snapped!” In other words, the Jewish traditions “favor” with Rome only occurred during the reign of Antoninus and the execution of “akher” certainly occurred at the beginning of that period.

Now if we return back to the original material which we examining from Sanhedrin 39b we see that not only was the original Edomite infidel thrown to wild beast but there is also a reference to “harlots washing themselves in the blood” of the dead king. I will of course argue that the reference is to one specific individual a “whore” who carried on the heretical tradition through receiving the spirit of Marqion through “beholding” his martyred example of Christ. In other words, the very thing which Polycarp denied – i.e. that he did not see the firstborn of God in Mark’s martyred example – the whore certainly claimed she did and became his living representative. Is all of this too far fetched? Let me say at once that one can read Sanhedrin 39b in such a way that our “Polycarp” – i.e Ephraim “the disputer” - is identified as the figure who ultimately brought down the “house of Edom.”

The rabbis say that Ephraim was also an “Edomite proselyte” who interestingly was also a student of Meir (elsewhere it is inferred that he also learned from Simon ben Lakish). They also speak of his bringing down the “house of Edom” in terms of the “wood of the axe which fell the tree coming from the same forest.” In any event the more interest “bit” about the death of the infidel king (aside from the dog reference) is the presence of an interest in “harlots being washed in his blood.” Sandhedrin 39b connects this with some kind of “picture” connected with the “passionless” or “sterile” king (not too many of those in the history of Israel). Yet we might see this as originally part of the Berenice cult were the image of Jesus’ crucifixion heals the afflicted – even “perfecting” them.

Indeed I am intrigued by the parallels between the death of the infidel king and Marqion with regards to the presence of a “harlot.” Tertullian interestingly writes at length about a figure called “Apelles” who is connected with “Philumene” whom he describes as “an enormous prostitute. Having been imposed on by her vigorous spirit he committed to writing the revelations which he had learned of her.” As I have already hinted on more than one occasion that the early Christians identified the angel which came forth out of Jesus and Marqion as Pele the angel of good counsel [Isa 9:6] we should begin to see what I am suggesting happened in the immediate aftermath of the martyrdom of Mark under Antoninus. “Apelles” is ha Pele the very being who spoke to Moses from the burning bush [Eusebius In Praise of Constantine]. In the same way it was “Pele” that Mark’s spirit would commune with a new generation of believers and I am certain that one of the first candidates who claimed to have received it was that of Philumene called “Marcellina.”

If we go line by line through the various statements which Tertullian says regarding “Apelles” – i.e. ha Pele the angel of great counsel [Isa 9:6] – we would understand the manner in which this being was understood to have been “sent forth” from Marqion into the person of the “harlot” Philumene. Just look at what follows again in Tertullian when we read:

It was indeed necessary that there should be heresies and yet it does not follow from that necessity, that heresies are a good thing. As if it has not been necessary also that there should be evil! It was even necessary that the Lord should be betrayed; but woe to the traitor! So that no man may from this defend heresies. If we must likewise touch the descending crown [stemma] of Apelles, he is far from being" one of the aged [vetes] like his instructor and praeformātor [one that forms or arranges beforehand] Marcion; he rather forsook the continence of Marcion, by slipping to the company of a woman, and withdrew to Alexandria, out of sight of his most abstemious master.

For God’s sake can’t people see what is being said here? The spirit of Marqion – i.e. Pele – left his martyred body and “returning therefrom, after some years, unimproved, except that he was no longer a Marcionite, he clave to another woman, the maiden Philumene.” In other words, the leader of the Marqionite Church after Marqion was a woman.

The whole reference to Pele’s alleged abandonment of continence was just a humorous allusion originally to him “going into” a woman i.e. a sexual euphemism. The fact is that in the last section of the work we demonstrate quite clearly that “Apelles” was really a “fiery angel” i.e. Pele from which I will argue the Catholic identity of “Paul” was ultimately tied up. Indeed I see Polycarp’s claim that received his authentication from “John” to be little more than a spin from the popular experience of the time associated with “Mark” viz. Marqion. In other words, Polycarp and Philumene (“portion of Pele”) were both partaking of the same experience only attributing it to two different beings for two very different purposes. One to transform the original “heretical tradition” into something which was more in keeping with the Emperor’s dictates and the other essentially to perpetuate a dying spirituality at least in European heartland.

In Tertullian Against Marqion Book Four we see the relationship between Marqion going to Rome and the production of the gospel referenced in the Church Father’s denial of a contemporary Marqionite claim that they alone posses the original text of Christianity saying:

No one censures things before they exist, when he knows not whether they will come to pass. Emendation never precedes the fault. To be sure, an amender of that Gospel, which had been all topsy-turvy from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone-so long looked for by [Jesus], who was all along regretting that he had been in so great a hurry to send out his apostles without the support of Marcion!

Most scholars completely miss the reference but it comes up again in the Acts of Archelaus in relation to Mani – Tertullian is ridiculing the Marqionite claim that Marqion is the paraclete.

Tertullian pokes fun at the idea that in the contemporary age of Antoninus Pius people like Philumene (and of course Polycarp even though the Church Father would never dare mention it) were composing new gospels in light of their having received the spirit from Marqion’s execution. He writes:

But for all that, heresy, which is for ever mending the Gospels, and corrupting them in the act, is an affair of man's audacity, not of God's authority; and if Marcion be even a disciple, he is yet not "above his master; " if Marcion be an apostle, still as Paul says, "Whether it be I or they, so we preach; " if Marcion be a prophet, even "the spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets," for they are not the authors of confusion, but of peace; or if Marcion be actually an angel, he must rather be designated "as anathema than as a preacher of the gospel," because it is a strange gospel which he has preached.

All of these were clearly “categories” which were originally applied to the figure of Marqion i.e. “disciple” of Jesus, the one “apostle” of God (like Moses), the one “prophet’ like Moses. But now let us notice also that it is impossible for Antoninus Pius not to have known that the death of Mark would not have caused such a tremendous upheaval with every believer thinking that he had received the spirit of God and that he had now the authority to compose a new gospel. Was this perhaps the Emperor’s real intention?

In other words, we should ask whether Antoninus Pius deliberately set up a situation where so great a plethora of new gospels would be established alongside a systematic persecution and destruction of traditional Marqionite texts that sanctioned works of Polycarp – i.e. the creation of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would serve as a new standard against the excesses of “innovation” within Christianity? I certainly think so. The original Marqionite gospel of course was about Jesus coming to earth to announce Mark as the awaited Christ. It had all the authentic stories from the later texts Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in their original order. But with every Tom, Dick and Harry of antiquity claiming that he was the next Jesus and the next Christ it was only natural that the majority of reasonable people would want to go back to a “reliable” tradition about Jesus “at the beginning” of Christianity which is exactly what Polycarp’s church was arranged to provide for them.

Let us not forget that it must have been Polycarp who was the “brother” of “Pius” in the new Church, composed among other compositions the text called “the Shepherd” which was accepted by Irenaeus. The Muratian Canon writes that “Hermas composed The Shepherd quite recently in our times in the city of Rome, while his brother, Pius, the bishop, occupied the seat of the city of Rome. And therefore, it should indeed be read, but it cannot be published for the people in the Church, neither among the Prophets, since their number is complete, nor among the Apostles for it is after their time.” Another Latin manuscript speaks of the succession in Rome where after Hyginus “followed Pius, Hermas his own brother was; angelic "Pastor" he, because he spake the words delivered him.”

As I demonstrate elsewhere “Hermas” is only a variation of “Hermes” which can be connected back to Marqion through the Latin “Marcellus” – i.e. “little Mark” – and the similarity of the “Mercurius” as transcribed in Aramaic as “Marculus.” All of Polycarp’s most devoted students seemed to accept this new text like Irenaeus of Rome – how can he be excluded from the list of conspirators who compose the work pretending it came from the apostolic age. Of course we are willing to lay down the Shepherd as a forgery because it is no longer employed in our Churches but what of the fourfold gospel (which Celsus witnesses being invented in his time), the Acts of the Apostles and the false epistles of Paul (which Marqion rejected)? Who among us has the course to stare these devils in the eye?

In any event we can see the idea of the Marqionite gospel being “adulterated” in the time of Antoninus in several other sources including Tertullian’s response that:

even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion's, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus [Antoniniani Marcionis] then ours will be the gospel of the apostles.

Indeed with reference to Philumena again, Tertullian sees her as having composed a “spiritual exposition” which only appeared very late in the period of Antoninus or perhaps even that of his son Marcus Aurelius. Of course the Catholic Church Fathers boast that no copies of the heretical gospels exist for people to look at because the authorities have indeed confiscated those which could be found and put them to the fire.

Indeed in the same way these sources continually reinforce that the Catholic tradition went back to Peter which necessarily antedated the conversion of Marqion. Irenaeus writes for instance (AFG III) that “prior to Valentinus, those who follow Valentinus had no existence; nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion; nor, in short, had any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enumerated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity.” Yet it is folly to assume that because “Valentinus came to Rome in the time of Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus” and that “Cerdon [i.e. (k)Herodon = “Herod”] too, Marcion's predecessor, himself arrived in the time of Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop” that somehow Marqion could have lived on any longer than Antoninus.

Scholars of course have went far beyond anything which the Church Fathers say on the subject in order to strengthen the position of their Church against the evidence already shows – i.e. that Marqion’s church existed before the Catholic tradition. Once all the pieces begin to fit together the idea of nothing short of an organized conspiracy to adulterate the original Christian canon and indeed an unconscious contemporary cabal of scholars who are defenders of that faith pushing out dates as far as possible to rescue the obvious counterfeit nature of their own tradition.

Take the example of Marqion who has already once been identified as an “aged” individual in the age of Antoninus. How could it be possible for him to have lived on into the reign of the next Caesar? It simply doesn’t make sense and what is more we have no evidence to support such a notion. When Polycarp saw Marqion in Rome he was certainly martyred. Thus “kHer(o)don” is really one and the same with “Marqion” a man portrayed as “coming frequently into the Church, and making public confession, he thus remained, one time teaching in secret, and then again making public confession; but at last, having been denounced for corrupt teaching, he was excommunicated from the assembly of the brethren.” That both Valentinus and Marcion are said to have stretched between Hyginus, Pius and “flourished under Anicetus” really isn’t a contradiction. “Pius” was of course never really a “bishop” in this sense – he started the Catholic tradition and so appointed Anicetus as its first pastor.

The point is of course that Clement represents Marcion as an “elder," a predecessor to two early Gnostic teachers, Valentinus and Basilides having his original conversion occur c. 50 A.D. Tertullian for his part alludes to an age for Marqion of approximately one hundred and twenty years when we hear that:

there is no doubt that [Marqion] is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the Pius. Now, from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6 1/2 months. Just such an interval do they place between [Jesus] and Marcion. Inasmuch, then, as Marcion, as we have shown, first introduced this god to notice in the time of Antoninus, the matter becomes at once clear, if you are a shrewd observer. The dates already decide the case, that he who came to light for the first time in the reign of Antoninus, did not appear in that of Tiberius; in other words, that the God of the Antonine period was not the God of the Tiberian; and consequently, that he whom Marcion has plainly preached for the first time, was not revealed by [Jesus] (who announced His revelation as early as the reign of Tiberius).

In other words, Marqion must have thought that Jesus pointed himself out as his tradition’s “Christ” or indeed their “Paraclete.” Indeed Origen says that they held “the apostle” to have been just this – we demonstrate how “Marqion” was the original figure behind the Catholic invention of “Paul” in the closing section.