THE ROCK
I want to make it clear from the apostle defines who Christ is from the outset when he says that he was the “rock” [1 Cor 10:4] from which Moses gave water to the Israelites. The material here derives its original of course from the original narrative in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 where “rock” is rendered tsur or tsela respectively. Few people however can make sense of this argument of the apostle owing to our alienation from the original tradition. Our inherited Catholic prejudices delude us into thinking that “Jesus” and “Christ” are one and the same person.
We shall in due course get back to this discussion as it pertained to the apostle himself in due course but we have at the very least started to define the difference between what is “Jesus” and what is “Christ” in the Marqionite tradition. Irenaeus and Tertullian make clear that while Jesus is the power of mercy, the one who comes after i.e. the “Christ” who is the apostle is the power of judgment. In other words, the reader should start to see that position which each power occupies in the company of Israel corresponds now to the “first” and “last” appearance of the glory. The light of kavod guides the Israelites and certainly rains down their heavenly flesh with which they fed themselves in the wilderness no less than the “rock” gave the congregation the “waters of life.” The two roles are of course related to one another – they are indeed understood to spring from one and the same Father in Christian circles – but they are at the same clearly distinguished from one another.
In order to understand this concept properly we have to develop what amounts to being a mystical interpretation of the material associated with this original “rock.” How anyone can claim that “Christ” was now quite literally a physical rock which gave forth water when struck is simply beyond me. The reason of course that it works in the case of the kavod is that Jesus was an angel, and gods can do whatever they want whenever they want to. However it should be obvious that the person of the “Christ” is necessarily restricted to a historical individual living at the time of the gospel. The point then in saying that the “rock was Christ” was of course that the activity of tsur in Exodus 17:6 and tsela in Numbers 20:13 foretold of the coming of the “one who would come after.” Indeed if we are really to stick to the original logic of the time, we would say that yes, Moses indeed smote the rock which gave the Israelites the waters of life but that “the one who was to come after” would do the same thing in a better way.
Indeed the idea appears in Samaritan writings where the things of Moses are only a “deposit” of the total glory which was to come with the Ta’eb.[i] It shouldn’t be difficult to find acceptance that the same concept as at the core of the theology of the surviving “Pauline” tradition as well.[ii] So it is that we can see that not only does a common tradition lie behind both contemporary schools of Mark – one among the Gentile proselytes, the other within Samaritanism. I hope that the reader can also begin to see the possibility that what was obscured in the remembrance of one tradition of the apostle might be preserved in the other. The underlying concept in both schools then was that originally the one and the same “Mark” put himself forward as the who was to “complete” Moses’ expectation of one who was greater than him at the “end times” with all its eschatological implications.
The apostle then originally made reference to the “rock being Christ” because it was part of his own messianic claims. But how was the material from the Law of Moses supposed to do this exactly? Let us look first at what appears in Exodus 17:6 where the term rock is tsur. God says to Moses interestingly that “I will stand there before [paniym] you by the rock at Horeb and you shall smite the rock and there shall come water out of it so the people may.” [Ex 17:6] Of course the explicit meaning of the passage is exactly what you would get from the words which come off the page – i.e. Moses took his rod hit the rock water came out and God was there. But to take religious matters in this obtuse European manner entirely misses the point. The historical Mark was entirely wrapped up in the idea of “mysteries” or “secrets” being associated with religious texts and especially the very Law of Moses. There certainly was “something more” to the text which he understood had an “interior meaning” which was not revealed by literally taking the facts of the narrative.
We open this “hidden meaning” up for ourselves when we follow the methodology of the very figure of Mark. This means of course above all else to pay close to the original “double entendres” in the Aramaic and Hebrew meaning of words. One such example is found in the word paniym which means not only “before” (as in the standard text) but also “face” or “person.” In my mind it is a strong possibility that the apostle was drawing upon the idea that god himself was in the rock which Christ which ended up “giving water.” This point becomes even stronger when we see that the word tsur means “rock” only in Hebrew. The very same letters of the word in Aramaic however mean “form” or “image.”[iii] I will put forward the argument now that the mystical tradition associated with Mark read this particular passage as if the tsur was the active principle of the Christ whose purpose was to refashion humanity after a more perfect image than that of his first Creator – i.e. after the aforementioned kavod.
I happen to have a preference for “real history” over what religious scholars have tended to allow themselves to get caught up in. You know this thing called “Christian theology” which somehow operates in a void having no connection whatsoever to contemporary historical events. This kind of thinking allows our canonical Acts of the Apostltes to invent the idea that the messianic halakoth associated with Jesus developed in Palestine in the years leading up to the great revolt and not take sides. Of course once we really think about matters we can see a very good reason for the development of a counterfeit historical record. Leading members of the messianic halakhah which we identify with “Christianity” were on opposing sides each claiming to be the “awaited Christ,” the awaited “apostle” of Moses. Of course the reader should see that I am talking now about the well documented (and now “underground”) tradition that our apostles “Paul” and “Peter” were struggling against one another. Once we see that there real names were Mark and Simon and make clear that the historical context was the Jewish revolt of 66 – 70 A.D. any person of discernment should see who these figures actually were.
In any event the point of bringing up the greater historical context of the Markan idea of being refashioned after the original kavod to be “perfected” helps us “keep things real” as the saying goes. It makes clear that it was not just an abstract theological concept; it was rather a political statement in effect that if we go back to the “source” – to the beginning of our tradition – we can find common ground between us. Thus as we examine the apostle’s interpretation of material from Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20:13 where Israel was displayed as symbolically “drinking” from the tsur of God we can see at once that it was little more than a veiled reference to the coming of the “true leader” of the now broken community of Israel. In other words Israel would be “watered” through the appearance of “Christ” who is the “returning Moses” who is ha Shem (i.e. Moses spelled backwards) who “showed Himself holy among them.” [Num 20:13] Does any of this make any sense to my readers?
The closest way that we can make sense of this line of reasoning is to compare with things we already have a little familiar with so let’s use the example of the modern “pope.” The title itself comes from the word for “Father,” the core idea being that there is a Father in heaven whom we can’t see but was made visible through two living presences now. The first was Jesus on the cross where the “glory” – i.e. the kavod – was first displayed. The second was in the apostle who was head of the Church, the man who declared “you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” While we are used to thinking of “Peter” as the head of the Church it is equally obvious that the tradition of Marqion actively disputed this claim. “Little Mark” was the head of their tradition – i.e. the figure we call “Paul.” There are documents which witness the continued existence of these communities of Mark in the Near East, the Acts of Archelaus for one. However the best example of this original phenomenon is still to be found in Alexandrian Christianity where its popes sit in the chair of Mark rather than Peter.
The point of course is that once we begin to make sense of the existence of a Markan tradition which necessarily encroached upon the “territory” of our apostle “Paul” it is impossible not to see what the tsur reference in 1 Cor 10:4 really means. It is a statement about the mystical significance about the “head of the Church” who is at once a “second Moses” figure. There are two places where the “Father” can be witnessed – in the presence of a martyr who witnesses the “name of Jesus” (i.e. the crucifix or “crucifixion” if you will) and in the person of the Pope-figure. Already the idea is present in the Samaritan tradition of Mark who was their historical “second Moses” when it is said that “Moses as the prophet of rehuta (the returning of the face or person of God) and Mark is the prophet of fanuta (the turning away of the face or person of God).” The two exist on a parallel plane with one another – one in the beginning, the other “returning” at what was supposed to be the “end of times.”
So it is that we should see that this “last apostle” of Chrsitianity was essentially saying that he himself was made refashioned after the image of the original kavod and now could in turn be used to help initiates “perfect themselves” after the glory of the father which he retained. So why would this doctrine have been actively repressed by theologians living in the age of Antoninus? Well let’s come to terms with what is so heretical about this idea. The gist of this understanding is that when Moses hid from the theophany on Sinai he only became glorified by its lower power – i.e. the “hand.” He hid in the crevice of the rock and saw only “in part.” The underlying point was that “now at the end of times” this person of “little Mark” claimed to have witnessed the “full glory of the Father” through what I argue was the testimony of the crucified Jesus.
In other words those who believed in the messianic claims of Mark understood that they partook of a “more perfect” covenant than that which was delivered by Moses. In fact no one should think that Mark himself necessarily was going out of his way to “blaspheme” the original cult of Moses. Indeed this was the work of later theologians who were opposed to the particular claims of the apostle’s revelation. A careful examination of both Jewish and Samaritan eschatological expectation accepts the idea that the one who is to come had as part of his mandate the rewriting of the Torah “according to perfection.” This idea is certainly in the Samaritan Asitar text, it is implicit in Marqeh and present as well in Sabbatai Sevi and derived associations. Of course I would take matters one step further and say that the same understanding is present also in Mohammedism and most importantly for our examination the underlying mushlem tradition which goes back to the historical “Marqion.”
So it is that I now stress to my readers that this in no way was the supposedly “antinomian” tradition of Marqion out of step with traditional messianic expectation. The Marqionite argument that the “water” of the tsur of Christ (i.e. the covenant which came at the end of times in association with the “last apostle”) was purer than that of Moses during the Exodus from Egypt could just as easily be found in Sabbatism or even for that matter in the writings of Marqeh. The point is that we should not bring Marqion in from the cold as it were and recognize him for what he really was – i.e. a “returning Moses” claimant. As I have long argued once we break through the obstacle of “Paul” as a separate historical figure placed on the path to knowledge by the Catholic Church we can begin to make sense that it was Marqion himself who was making the argument of the apostle in our canon. Our claim that the apostle was really named “Paul” who was a person name “Saul” was invented after the Marqionite tradition had been effectively dismantled by the Imperial authority and another “invented tradition” was drafted to put in its place.
Indeed if we look earlier in the material in our First Epistle to the Corinthians where the “rock was Christ” reference comes from we see in the previous chapter of the same text the glimmer of a “second Moses” argument emerging in the present context. The apostle actually begins the discussion which leads to the discussion of the tsur as God by emphasizing that he alone is the true “spokesman” of God.” We read:
Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. [1 Cor 9:1, 2]
The specific controversy regarding whether or not he was an apostle – i.e. that he was “like Moses” the shalika – is of course rooted in the political situation of 66 – 70 A.D. in Palestine where another, Simon bar Gorias, claimed at the same time to be this “messianic” figure.
We should however be careful to notice that the way he answers the question is very significant here. There are three which we can discern here all of which come back to the apostle’s identity as the historical figure of Mark. The first is that his claim that his beholding of the Lord through Jesus God is now a “proof” that he was “an apostle.” Very interesting … We however should ask how should seeing Jesus prove that one was an apostle? Our inherited Catholic prejudice identifies an “apostle” as necessarily having had to have witnessed Jesus firsthand. Yet the story we inherited from Acts says that Paul didn’t see Jesus or if he did it was after the crucifixion. The Marqionite tradition however can be demonstrated to have had a latent understanding (which was never discussed openly) that the apostle was present at the crucifixion. If as I suggest the truth was that the heretics who came before Catholic Chrsitianity knew better who the apostle really was – i.e. that our “Paul” was really Mark – we can I believe understand who this apostle who was the “beholder of God” really was.[iv]
The next “proof” of his status as “an apostle” is that the disciples of the apostle have been established as his “work” – Aramaic pala, Hebrew po’olo. We must ask again what about being an “apostle” necessarily predicates establishing others his po’olo? Indeed when we move on to the third statement we get I think a little closer to the truth when he says that not only are they his “work” but this proves his “seal” – Syriac khatma - or his having “impressed” on them of his image is puzzling. The only means that this statement can be made sense of is in fact is if it was almost immediately connected with the material at the beginning of chapter 10 – i.e. the place where the apostle identifies himself as the tsur which was with the Israelites during their years in the wilderness. This idea is hardly without precedent. Our knowledge of the existence of a shorter Marqionite version of this very same “Corinthian” address supports this assumption.
Indeed scholars have long noticed that when for instance Tertullian goes through the material in this letter he skips over large portions of what appears in our Catholic text. The Church Father claims that Marqion “erased” material, but as Williams notes a more convincing argument is that the Catholics who came after the heresiarch added material which supported their reconstitution of the reformed Church. In other words, Marqion’s text undoubtedly went almost directly from the idea of the manner in which the apostle “sealed” his disciples as his “work” in God [1 Cor 9:1, 2] to the idea that he was the tsur of God [1 Cor 10:4] by way of his disciples being baptized in imitation of the ancient Israelites going through the sea [1 Cor 10:1 – 3]. The one other “authentic” passage in chapter 9 was the very important statement of 1 Cor 9:9,19 “it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he only speaks for us doesn't he?”
The question now of course is how this original section of material from 1 Cor 9 – 10, cleansed of its dilution at the hands of Catholic editors, fits into our discussion of the apostle as a “better” Moses? The clearest manner in which get an idea of the “heresy” at the heart of Marqionitism then is to return to our reconstruction of the original context of the statement at 1 Cor 10:4. Tertullian at once alludes to the specific emphasis of the Marqionite community when he says that this is:
the very apostle whom our heretics adopt interprets the law which allows an unmuzzled mouth to the oxen that tread out the corn, not of cattle, but of ourselves and also alleges that the rock which followed (the Israelites) and supplied them with drink was Christ
The Catholic text immediately has “Paul” in 1 Cor 9:10 suddenly change his original line of reasoning and say in effect that this reference to beasts is only to be taken allegorically and that yes we are “really to interpret the Law as having one and the same god with Christianity.
In my mind the Catholic editor however not only wrote some new material by his own hand he also inserted the “chunk” at 1 Cor 9:18 – 22 from another epistle (in my mind from chapter 10 – 13 of what is now 2 Corinthians) in order to obscure the reference of our “Paul” preaching not just to Gentiles but also to the Jews. Once however Tertullian alerts us to the original heretical connection between 1 Cor 9:8 – 10 and 10:1 we can at last come to actual “real meaning” of the material. Just look at what appears in Numbers 20:11 where Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.” [Num 20:11] Can we now see where the original question of whether the true God is concerned with men or oxen?
Mark was making the case that he as the “more perfect Moses” was commission only to save men; Moses was “less than perfect” because he concerned himself with beasts. Of course the early heretics obsessed about the true God being concerned only with the “spiritual” portion of humanity while the tradition god of Moses with the “psychics” and yet another “power” – the devil – for the “animal” portion. I don’t want to get into the complexities of this understanding but I cannot help but see that the underlying conception here was that of a Mark himself as not only the “apostle” but the “last apostle,” a concept necessarily connected with the ‘returning one” expectation of Samaritanism. As the second Moses who displayed the fuller glory of which the original head of Israel was only a deposit we can I think begin to make out many of the controversies associated with supposedly “antinomian” tendencies of Marqionitism.
Yet our question must be in the end whether or not we can discern why the apostle says that he as the Christ is also the tsur of God? This is critical if we want to move our understanding from a theory about the Marqionite tradition to something which had broader theological implications. If as I suggest Mark was the apostle we call “Paul” and hailed himself not as a spokesperson for the messianic claims of the Catholic Church with Jesus as its messiah but rather as a second and indeed final Moses what does it mean when he identifies himself with the tsur? We have already I think developed the original groundwork for this understanding through the threepart argument of his apostlehood in 1 Cor 9:1, 2. First he witnessed the Father through the presence of Jesus (presumably a revelation “beheld” through his martyrdom), then he himself became transformed into the image he witness – i.e. the Father [cf 1 Cor 4:14] – and then finally he “impressed” his image on to his adherents making them “sons.” [cf 1 Cor 4:15]
Indeed in my mind the only way that we will be able to get to the heart of this matter is if we again go back to what I see as the one and the same theological understanding of Mark as preserved in the Samaritan tradition. The section of text which I will be citing from Book Four of the Memar Marqeh does not specifically deal with the material of either Exodus 17:6 or Numbers 20:13 but rather is a systematic exposition of the connection between the tsur and the “returning one” of Moses. As my readers will immediately recognize, the arguments contained in the first three or four chapters of this book will provide us with important new information in which we can settle the original identity of our apostle “Paul” as Mark as his claims to be the awaited “apostle.”
We will concentrate our efforts on one section of text in particular, Marqeh’s treatment of Deuteronomy 32:3, 4 – “I will proclaim the name of the LORD, [I will] praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock [tsur] his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.” The Samaritans knew full well that the greatest prophetic statement of Moses is to be found in the messianic song of Deuteronomy 32. It is not surprising then that we find Marqeh spend an extraordinary amount of his time on this particular chapter– far more than any comparable section of material in the Law – in his greater work. The idea that this Great Song was connected with the appearance of the messiah is confirmed in Jewish sources. Yet Mark develops his understanding in the Memar Marqeh in a way that is all his own developing a common understanding to Jews and Samaritans that Moses is now “prophesizing” about the coming of the future redeemer.
It is of absolute significance that the tsur is here understood to be the “perfect work” – Hebrew tamym po’olo – not the least of which because we heard the apostle earlier declare that each of his disciples were a “work” stamped after his image. I have also long argued that the very Catholic identity of “Paulos” for the apostle comes from a manipulation of this central reference. Yet we must ask again how does this claim connect back to the claim of the apostle that the “rock was Christ”? In chapter three we see Mark read the Hebrew word tsur as if it were supposed to be read in Aramaic – i.e. as meaning “form” or “image” rather than “rock.” The point then is that the community shall drink the waters of life (yet another familiar Christian allusion) from the “image” of God which stands before them.
It is the surviving Samaritan text of Mark, the one and the same apostle which clarifies matters for us even further. For Mark here alludes to an idea which was common to the earlier heresies of Christianity and certainly the very core of 1 Cor 10:4 emphasizing that those of the “returning one” will in effect establish a “new covenant” after the “image” of glory which was “more perfect” or indeed “better” than that at Creation. This is the very idea behind the Marqionite emphasis of its savior as “Chrestos” as we see from early archaeological remains of the sect. There was at the bottom of each sect of Mark the idea that the perfection of the Most High which ultimately “completes” the original creation only appears at the end of times with the appearance of the “last apostle” as it were. This why the original Law emphasizes that Moses did not see the true glory of the father but only what was “in part” – i.e. only the “hand” of God.
We should not be led away by the propaganda of the Church Fathers and indeed all the reformist ministers of each Palestinian tradition in the age of Antoninus. The original tradition of Mark was not saying that the Creator was “bad” in any way as even the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to acknowledge. What was in the beginning was “good” albeit not yet made “perfect.” Do we know understand the meaning of Jesus words when he finally “gives up the ghost” on the cross – i.e. “It is perfect”? It is this image which transformed him – i.e. “little Mark” – into the long prophesized “perfect work” tamym po’olo of God – through his beholding of the presence of the “better God” the Father. This idea appears throughout the tradition associated with Marqionitism – viz. Justus and Tatian – and is the ultimate context for understanding the whole tradition of the apostle in the period 70 – 140 A.D. spread throughout the Palestinian communities of Judea, Samaria and Galilee.
The apostle holds himself up as the tamym po’olos (hence his name “Paulos”) arguing by implication that the original Moses was just a deposit of the original glory of the firstborn of which he was the “final” and indeed “complete” manifestation. I would like also to understand how Mark develops the idea that tsur – i.e. rock/image – is the means by which the original creation will be perfected in the end times. Citing the reference “the tsur that begot you” [Deut 32:18] Marqeh says that God “began with the one and ended with the other.” We see him go on to identify “the beginning” with a “first word” which is likened to the garden planted by Abraham [Gen 21:33]. He never the less goes on to say that “in the end” the “’tsur which begot you’ takes away the son who errs and disobeys.” This is in my mind an argument on behalf of why the appearance of “another glory” was necessary in the first place – i.e. that a large portion of Israel and perhaps the world was not being improved by the original system set up by the first Moses.
Mark acknowledges of course at least a few of those of the old covenant were blessed like Isaac “cultivating the garden of righteousness” but argues that something had to be done for the “errant and disobedient son.” Yet what could be done? We see elsewhere Mark speaks of a contemporary revelation of the kingdom through “Titah” where “living trees” will perfect the inhabitants of Israel. However in this particular section of material Mark uses a line of reasoning which clearly reflects contact with the theology of the Marqionites and various “spin off” sects in the middle of the second century. We hear him speak of the Creation and in specific the “form of Adam” which is “glorified over all. The Lord empowered it over all forms.” However it no less than the very world after which its image was drawn is not absolutely perfect. No speculation about why the Creation is “less than perfect” – i.e. only “good” – is ever advanced by the surviving Samaritan material of Marqeh only that to say that it was part of God’s plan “in the end” to perfect it according to his kavod.
Mark goes on to reflect what is contemporary “scientific” understanding about the body of man being made from four elements (water being the first “for it is an element needed by all”) and develops a lengthy commentary about each in the covenant of Israel. We then hear how this “good” Creation is to be made “complete” with its recasting after the form of the “perfect work” when he writes:
Let us magnify our Lord and be humble before his greatness and believe in him and Moses his prophet who used the phrase the phrase tsur and conjoined it with the word perfect [tamym] (in Deut 32:4)
We can of course at once see countless “Christian parallels” of this central Markan truth – i.e. that which was advanced among the Gentile proselytes – in the writing of the same apostle. Here we are only dealing with the specific adaptation of this doctrine for a Samaritan audience. There was certainly also a specifically Jewish version of it as well which might be discernable among the fragments at Qumran and various traditions of “Metatron.”
In the section which follows Mark displays a characteristic of which is recognized even by the early Catholic Church Father Irenaeus – he develops a mystical understanding of the “divine place” for how the Creation is made “perfect” – i.e. tamym – drawn entirely from its constituent Hebrew letters. We read:
For the tsur [Aram form] and the mind was the body perfected and set up quite apart from any created thing. Therefore T (the first letter of TMYM) here becomes an element. T magnifies all perfection. He puts Y in the middle (of MYM) [and] as for the two M’s the first M represents the elements of Creation and the ten words and the words of the covenant and the mercies. The second M is the number of days of his fasting. Thus he inserted Y between the two (M’s) and magnified the proclamation of it with the word PO’OLO (his work Deut 32:4) which he made a seal for the words of praise.
Now I don’t mean to take advantage of the readers ignorance of the writings of the apostle among the Samaritans but one can I hope see him develop a kind of an imaginative word play where each letter signifies an individual character in a kind of cosmic drama unfolding at the end times.
The idea of the tau as the cross is of course well established in early Christian literature where the shape of the letter in some Aramaic scripts bears striking resemblance to a crucifix. The two Ms are equally obvious – one is Moses (i.e. the one who establishes the ten words etc.) and the power of the Creator, the second is Marqeh who emerges after the forty day fast [Exodus 34:28] where Samaritan expectation holds that the one who writes the perfect Law will be established. Y or yod has of course a long history of mystical significance in the tradition of Israel having the numerical value of ten as well as being the first letter of many of the most important names of the tradition including Yahweh, Ysrael and Yeshua. I will contend that whatever the name the reader happens to endorse as being signified by this Y that stands between the first and the last Moses it necessarily denotes the very type of angel signified by “Jesus” in the Marqionite tradition of Christianity.
Once we come to terms with the fact that it is this “last Moses” and his witness of the complete glory of the firstborn angel through the “Y” entity (the angel “Israel”?) we can come to terms with what comes next in the second chapter of Book Four of the Memar Marqeh where the apostle concludes his last analysis by saying:
At the beginning He mentioned Creation and also at the end He magnified [or “greatened”] man’s form. He blessed the whole with the two words TAMYM PO’OLO (his perfect work Deut 32:4)
The reader should finally see that it is through the “perfect Paulos” that the form of man which was created in the beginning was finally completed at the end of times. This is of course as aforementioned not an isolated reference in the Samaritan works of Mark but indeed appears throughout the early section of Book Four. In the chapter which precedes this material, in fact we see that it is said that the first power “formed” (bara) creation but the second power “called” (qara) forth its completion no less than the emphasis there and here on “greatening” or “magnifying” what was first in this “second creation.” We should again recognize that all of these very same ideas can be found to be represented in Marqionitism and its very different understanding of the apostle.
The real question then is not whether there was a relationship between the Christian cult of Mark and that of Samaria but how far the relationship originally went. Did the Samaritan Mark originally put forward “Jesus”? That the apostle of the Gentile proselytes put forward the “glory Jesus” as the power through which his “better god” was revealed is evident through the Marqionite reading of passages like “I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.” [Rom 15:17] or the letter’s conclusion “the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus” [Rom 16:17]. The same pattern continues through the rest of the epistles and their reference to the crucifixion of the “glory Lord” [1 Cor 2:8], the Eucharist as participation in the “glory god” [1 Cor 10:31], him as image of the perfect man [1 Cor 11:7], humanity as sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power [1 Cor 15:43], the “greater glory” of the person of Christ [2 Cor 3:11 – 18; 4:4] when the original Moses etc.
Where as it is certain that the ideas of Mark which are represented in the Samaritan tradition carried over to Christianity, it is not at all clear if the same thing can be said in reverse. I do however raise the possibility of a carry over in what follows in chapter three Marqeh’s emphasis on the transformation power of the words KY KOL (“for all” Deut 32:4). For we read him say:
As the first (i.e. KY - Kavod Yeshua?) is the beginning of this world, so the second is the beginning to the next world (or “world to come”). For all his ways (Deut 32:4) is a pointed allusion to the Day of Vengeance … Observe the great prophet Moses instructing of the Day of Vengeance. KY is the beginning and KOL the end. Moses knew the beginning and the end. Great is the mighty prophet Moses for what he revealed of the way of the True One where is there is the like of Moses and who can compare with Moses the prophet whose like has not arisen … a prophet who is above the unseen and dwells among the living ones. His head reached into the darkness of the deep [and] through him Israel were victorious.
Of course if anyone who wants to understand the original concept of the returning Moses as it pertains to Mark in the late first and second century A.D. must necessarily read the whole section of chapter three of Book Four of the Memar Marqeh. Yet it should apparent that the reference here to the True One is the one prophesized by Moses who will come at the what was originally the end times, in a manner parallel to the paraclete who “comes [and] will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” [John16:8]
If we can now see from 1 Cor 10:4 that the apostle referred to himself as the tsur which was “prophesized” to water the Israelites at the end of times and from Rom 9:33 and that he was the same messianic tsur which caused Jerusalem to stumble, is it finally possible to finally prove the specific identification of “Mark” with the rock? I certainly think so. For once we accommodate ourselves to the idea that the Marqionite tradition did not simply fall off the face of the earth but lived on as the official religion of the kingdom of Osorhone. When this understanding is properly digested it cannot be without significance that a surviving text identifies a figure called “little Mark” who is specifically identified twice as:
the rock on which the house was built with the most solid foundations; and when the rain descended, and the floods and the winds burst in and beat upon that house, it stood firm: for it had been built on the most solid and immoveable foundations.
Notice of course the complete absence of according this role of “the rock” to Peter as our tradition does – this is a wholly separate tradition which represents the earliest core to organized Christianity.
The Acts of Archelaus is clearly a surviving fragment of the original Marqionite tradition (albeit heavily censored by later Catholic editors). It not only continues the understanding of “little Mark” as the “rock” but indeed many of the other messianic interpretations unique to the sect. Indeed we first hear from Origen that the Marqionites held that the apostle himself was the Paraclete. The reworked Catholic Acts of Archelaus identifies that it was Jesus who“says of this Paraclete, "He shall receive of mine” him therefore [Jesus] selected as an acceptable vessel; and He sent this Paul to us in the Spirit. Into him the Spirit was poured; and as that Spirit could not abide upon all men, but only on Him who was born of Mary the mother of God.” Or again “again, that it was the Paraclete Himself who was in Paul, is indicated by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel, when He says: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray my Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." In these words He points to the Paraclete Himself, for He speaks of "another" Comforter. And hence we have given credit to Paul, and have hearkened to him when he says, "or seek ye a proof of Christ is speaking in me?" and when he expresses himself in similar terms, of which we have already spoken above.
The point is of course that once we start to chip away at our supposedly “firm” identity of our apostle Paul we realize at once that no one even heard of him before the middle of the second century. Eznik of Colb identifies Marqion as claiming that he had the original revelation in Christ which Catholics attributed to “Paul” – and now we can see why. Mark represented the tamym po’olo, the tsur through which the new community of Israel received its “waters of life.” Yet the lingering identification of “Paul” as Christ can still be discerned in the Catholic tradition. The idea of course becomes hard to avoid when we back to where we started with regards to his self-identification as the “last apostle” – i.e. the “completion” of the deposit of Moses. However we should also note what was so incredibly controversial about this line of reasoning. Mark was not merely claiming that he was “like Moses” or a “second Moses” but indeed a better Moses whose very presence was indeed superior to the original son of Amram.
We shall in due course get back to this discussion as it pertained to the apostle himself in due course but we have at the very least started to define the difference between what is “Jesus” and what is “Christ” in the Marqionite tradition. Irenaeus and Tertullian make clear that while Jesus is the power of mercy, the one who comes after i.e. the “Christ” who is the apostle is the power of judgment. In other words, the reader should start to see that position which each power occupies in the company of Israel corresponds now to the “first” and “last” appearance of the glory. The light of kavod guides the Israelites and certainly rains down their heavenly flesh with which they fed themselves in the wilderness no less than the “rock” gave the congregation the “waters of life.” The two roles are of course related to one another – they are indeed understood to spring from one and the same Father in Christian circles – but they are at the same clearly distinguished from one another.
In order to understand this concept properly we have to develop what amounts to being a mystical interpretation of the material associated with this original “rock.” How anyone can claim that “Christ” was now quite literally a physical rock which gave forth water when struck is simply beyond me. The reason of course that it works in the case of the kavod is that Jesus was an angel, and gods can do whatever they want whenever they want to. However it should be obvious that the person of the “Christ” is necessarily restricted to a historical individual living at the time of the gospel. The point then in saying that the “rock was Christ” was of course that the activity of tsur in Exodus 17:6 and tsela in Numbers 20:13 foretold of the coming of the “one who would come after.” Indeed if we are really to stick to the original logic of the time, we would say that yes, Moses indeed smote the rock which gave the Israelites the waters of life but that “the one who was to come after” would do the same thing in a better way.
Indeed the idea appears in Samaritan writings where the things of Moses are only a “deposit” of the total glory which was to come with the Ta’eb.[i] It shouldn’t be difficult to find acceptance that the same concept as at the core of the theology of the surviving “Pauline” tradition as well.[ii] So it is that we can see that not only does a common tradition lie behind both contemporary schools of Mark – one among the Gentile proselytes, the other within Samaritanism. I hope that the reader can also begin to see the possibility that what was obscured in the remembrance of one tradition of the apostle might be preserved in the other. The underlying concept in both schools then was that originally the one and the same “Mark” put himself forward as the who was to “complete” Moses’ expectation of one who was greater than him at the “end times” with all its eschatological implications.
The apostle then originally made reference to the “rock being Christ” because it was part of his own messianic claims. But how was the material from the Law of Moses supposed to do this exactly? Let us look first at what appears in Exodus 17:6 where the term rock is tsur. God says to Moses interestingly that “I will stand there before [paniym] you by the rock at Horeb and you shall smite the rock and there shall come water out of it so the people may.” [Ex 17:6] Of course the explicit meaning of the passage is exactly what you would get from the words which come off the page – i.e. Moses took his rod hit the rock water came out and God was there. But to take religious matters in this obtuse European manner entirely misses the point. The historical Mark was entirely wrapped up in the idea of “mysteries” or “secrets” being associated with religious texts and especially the very Law of Moses. There certainly was “something more” to the text which he understood had an “interior meaning” which was not revealed by literally taking the facts of the narrative.
We open this “hidden meaning” up for ourselves when we follow the methodology of the very figure of Mark. This means of course above all else to pay close to the original “double entendres” in the Aramaic and Hebrew meaning of words. One such example is found in the word paniym which means not only “before” (as in the standard text) but also “face” or “person.” In my mind it is a strong possibility that the apostle was drawing upon the idea that god himself was in the rock which Christ which ended up “giving water.” This point becomes even stronger when we see that the word tsur means “rock” only in Hebrew. The very same letters of the word in Aramaic however mean “form” or “image.”[iii] I will put forward the argument now that the mystical tradition associated with Mark read this particular passage as if the tsur was the active principle of the Christ whose purpose was to refashion humanity after a more perfect image than that of his first Creator – i.e. after the aforementioned kavod.
I happen to have a preference for “real history” over what religious scholars have tended to allow themselves to get caught up in. You know this thing called “Christian theology” which somehow operates in a void having no connection whatsoever to contemporary historical events. This kind of thinking allows our canonical Acts of the Apostltes to invent the idea that the messianic halakoth associated with Jesus developed in Palestine in the years leading up to the great revolt and not take sides. Of course once we really think about matters we can see a very good reason for the development of a counterfeit historical record. Leading members of the messianic halakhah which we identify with “Christianity” were on opposing sides each claiming to be the “awaited Christ,” the awaited “apostle” of Moses. Of course the reader should see that I am talking now about the well documented (and now “underground”) tradition that our apostles “Paul” and “Peter” were struggling against one another. Once we see that there real names were Mark and Simon and make clear that the historical context was the Jewish revolt of 66 – 70 A.D. any person of discernment should see who these figures actually were.
In any event the point of bringing up the greater historical context of the Markan idea of being refashioned after the original kavod to be “perfected” helps us “keep things real” as the saying goes. It makes clear that it was not just an abstract theological concept; it was rather a political statement in effect that if we go back to the “source” – to the beginning of our tradition – we can find common ground between us. Thus as we examine the apostle’s interpretation of material from Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20:13 where Israel was displayed as symbolically “drinking” from the tsur of God we can see at once that it was little more than a veiled reference to the coming of the “true leader” of the now broken community of Israel. In other words Israel would be “watered” through the appearance of “Christ” who is the “returning Moses” who is ha Shem (i.e. Moses spelled backwards) who “showed Himself holy among them.” [Num 20:13] Does any of this make any sense to my readers?
The closest way that we can make sense of this line of reasoning is to compare with things we already have a little familiar with so let’s use the example of the modern “pope.” The title itself comes from the word for “Father,” the core idea being that there is a Father in heaven whom we can’t see but was made visible through two living presences now. The first was Jesus on the cross where the “glory” – i.e. the kavod – was first displayed. The second was in the apostle who was head of the Church, the man who declared “you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” While we are used to thinking of “Peter” as the head of the Church it is equally obvious that the tradition of Marqion actively disputed this claim. “Little Mark” was the head of their tradition – i.e. the figure we call “Paul.” There are documents which witness the continued existence of these communities of Mark in the Near East, the Acts of Archelaus for one. However the best example of this original phenomenon is still to be found in Alexandrian Christianity where its popes sit in the chair of Mark rather than Peter.
The point of course is that once we begin to make sense of the existence of a Markan tradition which necessarily encroached upon the “territory” of our apostle “Paul” it is impossible not to see what the tsur reference in 1 Cor 10:4 really means. It is a statement about the mystical significance about the “head of the Church” who is at once a “second Moses” figure. There are two places where the “Father” can be witnessed – in the presence of a martyr who witnesses the “name of Jesus” (i.e. the crucifix or “crucifixion” if you will) and in the person of the Pope-figure. Already the idea is present in the Samaritan tradition of Mark who was their historical “second Moses” when it is said that “Moses as the prophet of rehuta (the returning of the face or person of God) and Mark is the prophet of fanuta (the turning away of the face or person of God).” The two exist on a parallel plane with one another – one in the beginning, the other “returning” at what was supposed to be the “end of times.”
So it is that we should see that this “last apostle” of Chrsitianity was essentially saying that he himself was made refashioned after the image of the original kavod and now could in turn be used to help initiates “perfect themselves” after the glory of the father which he retained. So why would this doctrine have been actively repressed by theologians living in the age of Antoninus? Well let’s come to terms with what is so heretical about this idea. The gist of this understanding is that when Moses hid from the theophany on Sinai he only became glorified by its lower power – i.e. the “hand.” He hid in the crevice of the rock and saw only “in part.” The underlying point was that “now at the end of times” this person of “little Mark” claimed to have witnessed the “full glory of the Father” through what I argue was the testimony of the crucified Jesus.
In other words those who believed in the messianic claims of Mark understood that they partook of a “more perfect” covenant than that which was delivered by Moses. In fact no one should think that Mark himself necessarily was going out of his way to “blaspheme” the original cult of Moses. Indeed this was the work of later theologians who were opposed to the particular claims of the apostle’s revelation. A careful examination of both Jewish and Samaritan eschatological expectation accepts the idea that the one who is to come had as part of his mandate the rewriting of the Torah “according to perfection.” This idea is certainly in the Samaritan Asitar text, it is implicit in Marqeh and present as well in Sabbatai Sevi and derived associations. Of course I would take matters one step further and say that the same understanding is present also in Mohammedism and most importantly for our examination the underlying mushlem tradition which goes back to the historical “Marqion.”
So it is that I now stress to my readers that this in no way was the supposedly “antinomian” tradition of Marqion out of step with traditional messianic expectation. The Marqionite argument that the “water” of the tsur of Christ (i.e. the covenant which came at the end of times in association with the “last apostle”) was purer than that of Moses during the Exodus from Egypt could just as easily be found in Sabbatism or even for that matter in the writings of Marqeh. The point is that we should not bring Marqion in from the cold as it were and recognize him for what he really was – i.e. a “returning Moses” claimant. As I have long argued once we break through the obstacle of “Paul” as a separate historical figure placed on the path to knowledge by the Catholic Church we can begin to make sense that it was Marqion himself who was making the argument of the apostle in our canon. Our claim that the apostle was really named “Paul” who was a person name “Saul” was invented after the Marqionite tradition had been effectively dismantled by the Imperial authority and another “invented tradition” was drafted to put in its place.
Indeed if we look earlier in the material in our First Epistle to the Corinthians where the “rock was Christ” reference comes from we see in the previous chapter of the same text the glimmer of a “second Moses” argument emerging in the present context. The apostle actually begins the discussion which leads to the discussion of the tsur as God by emphasizing that he alone is the true “spokesman” of God.” We read:
Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. [1 Cor 9:1, 2]
The specific controversy regarding whether or not he was an apostle – i.e. that he was “like Moses” the shalika – is of course rooted in the political situation of 66 – 70 A.D. in Palestine where another, Simon bar Gorias, claimed at the same time to be this “messianic” figure.
We should however be careful to notice that the way he answers the question is very significant here. There are three which we can discern here all of which come back to the apostle’s identity as the historical figure of Mark. The first is that his claim that his beholding of the Lord through Jesus God is now a “proof” that he was “an apostle.” Very interesting … We however should ask how should seeing Jesus prove that one was an apostle? Our inherited Catholic prejudice identifies an “apostle” as necessarily having had to have witnessed Jesus firsthand. Yet the story we inherited from Acts says that Paul didn’t see Jesus or if he did it was after the crucifixion. The Marqionite tradition however can be demonstrated to have had a latent understanding (which was never discussed openly) that the apostle was present at the crucifixion. If as I suggest the truth was that the heretics who came before Catholic Chrsitianity knew better who the apostle really was – i.e. that our “Paul” was really Mark – we can I believe understand who this apostle who was the “beholder of God” really was.[iv]
The next “proof” of his status as “an apostle” is that the disciples of the apostle have been established as his “work” – Aramaic pala, Hebrew po’olo. We must ask again what about being an “apostle” necessarily predicates establishing others his po’olo? Indeed when we move on to the third statement we get I think a little closer to the truth when he says that not only are they his “work” but this proves his “seal” – Syriac khatma - or his having “impressed” on them of his image is puzzling. The only means that this statement can be made sense of is in fact is if it was almost immediately connected with the material at the beginning of chapter 10 – i.e. the place where the apostle identifies himself as the tsur which was with the Israelites during their years in the wilderness. This idea is hardly without precedent. Our knowledge of the existence of a shorter Marqionite version of this very same “Corinthian” address supports this assumption.
Indeed scholars have long noticed that when for instance Tertullian goes through the material in this letter he skips over large portions of what appears in our Catholic text. The Church Father claims that Marqion “erased” material, but as Williams notes a more convincing argument is that the Catholics who came after the heresiarch added material which supported their reconstitution of the reformed Church. In other words, Marqion’s text undoubtedly went almost directly from the idea of the manner in which the apostle “sealed” his disciples as his “work” in God [1 Cor 9:1, 2] to the idea that he was the tsur of God [1 Cor 10:4] by way of his disciples being baptized in imitation of the ancient Israelites going through the sea [1 Cor 10:1 – 3]. The one other “authentic” passage in chapter 9 was the very important statement of 1 Cor 9:9,19 “it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he only speaks for us doesn't he?”
The question now of course is how this original section of material from 1 Cor 9 – 10, cleansed of its dilution at the hands of Catholic editors, fits into our discussion of the apostle as a “better” Moses? The clearest manner in which get an idea of the “heresy” at the heart of Marqionitism then is to return to our reconstruction of the original context of the statement at 1 Cor 10:4. Tertullian at once alludes to the specific emphasis of the Marqionite community when he says that this is:
the very apostle whom our heretics adopt interprets the law which allows an unmuzzled mouth to the oxen that tread out the corn, not of cattle, but of ourselves and also alleges that the rock which followed (the Israelites) and supplied them with drink was Christ
The Catholic text immediately has “Paul” in 1 Cor 9:10 suddenly change his original line of reasoning and say in effect that this reference to beasts is only to be taken allegorically and that yes we are “really to interpret the Law as having one and the same god with Christianity.
In my mind the Catholic editor however not only wrote some new material by his own hand he also inserted the “chunk” at 1 Cor 9:18 – 22 from another epistle (in my mind from chapter 10 – 13 of what is now 2 Corinthians) in order to obscure the reference of our “Paul” preaching not just to Gentiles but also to the Jews. Once however Tertullian alerts us to the original heretical connection between 1 Cor 9:8 – 10 and 10:1 we can at last come to actual “real meaning” of the material. Just look at what appears in Numbers 20:11 where Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.” [Num 20:11] Can we now see where the original question of whether the true God is concerned with men or oxen?
Mark was making the case that he as the “more perfect Moses” was commission only to save men; Moses was “less than perfect” because he concerned himself with beasts. Of course the early heretics obsessed about the true God being concerned only with the “spiritual” portion of humanity while the tradition god of Moses with the “psychics” and yet another “power” – the devil – for the “animal” portion. I don’t want to get into the complexities of this understanding but I cannot help but see that the underlying conception here was that of a Mark himself as not only the “apostle” but the “last apostle,” a concept necessarily connected with the ‘returning one” expectation of Samaritanism. As the second Moses who displayed the fuller glory of which the original head of Israel was only a deposit we can I think begin to make out many of the controversies associated with supposedly “antinomian” tendencies of Marqionitism.
Yet our question must be in the end whether or not we can discern why the apostle says that he as the Christ is also the tsur of God? This is critical if we want to move our understanding from a theory about the Marqionite tradition to something which had broader theological implications. If as I suggest Mark was the apostle we call “Paul” and hailed himself not as a spokesperson for the messianic claims of the Catholic Church with Jesus as its messiah but rather as a second and indeed final Moses what does it mean when he identifies himself with the tsur? We have already I think developed the original groundwork for this understanding through the threepart argument of his apostlehood in 1 Cor 9:1, 2. First he witnessed the Father through the presence of Jesus (presumably a revelation “beheld” through his martyrdom), then he himself became transformed into the image he witness – i.e. the Father [cf 1 Cor 4:14] – and then finally he “impressed” his image on to his adherents making them “sons.” [cf 1 Cor 4:15]
Indeed in my mind the only way that we will be able to get to the heart of this matter is if we again go back to what I see as the one and the same theological understanding of Mark as preserved in the Samaritan tradition. The section of text which I will be citing from Book Four of the Memar Marqeh does not specifically deal with the material of either Exodus 17:6 or Numbers 20:13 but rather is a systematic exposition of the connection between the tsur and the “returning one” of Moses. As my readers will immediately recognize, the arguments contained in the first three or four chapters of this book will provide us with important new information in which we can settle the original identity of our apostle “Paul” as Mark as his claims to be the awaited “apostle.”
We will concentrate our efforts on one section of text in particular, Marqeh’s treatment of Deuteronomy 32:3, 4 – “I will proclaim the name of the LORD, [I will] praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock [tsur] his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.” The Samaritans knew full well that the greatest prophetic statement of Moses is to be found in the messianic song of Deuteronomy 32. It is not surprising then that we find Marqeh spend an extraordinary amount of his time on this particular chapter– far more than any comparable section of material in the Law – in his greater work. The idea that this Great Song was connected with the appearance of the messiah is confirmed in Jewish sources. Yet Mark develops his understanding in the Memar Marqeh in a way that is all his own developing a common understanding to Jews and Samaritans that Moses is now “prophesizing” about the coming of the future redeemer.
It is of absolute significance that the tsur is here understood to be the “perfect work” – Hebrew tamym po’olo – not the least of which because we heard the apostle earlier declare that each of his disciples were a “work” stamped after his image. I have also long argued that the very Catholic identity of “Paulos” for the apostle comes from a manipulation of this central reference. Yet we must ask again how does this claim connect back to the claim of the apostle that the “rock was Christ”? In chapter three we see Mark read the Hebrew word tsur as if it were supposed to be read in Aramaic – i.e. as meaning “form” or “image” rather than “rock.” The point then is that the community shall drink the waters of life (yet another familiar Christian allusion) from the “image” of God which stands before them.
It is the surviving Samaritan text of Mark, the one and the same apostle which clarifies matters for us even further. For Mark here alludes to an idea which was common to the earlier heresies of Christianity and certainly the very core of 1 Cor 10:4 emphasizing that those of the “returning one” will in effect establish a “new covenant” after the “image” of glory which was “more perfect” or indeed “better” than that at Creation. This is the very idea behind the Marqionite emphasis of its savior as “Chrestos” as we see from early archaeological remains of the sect. There was at the bottom of each sect of Mark the idea that the perfection of the Most High which ultimately “completes” the original creation only appears at the end of times with the appearance of the “last apostle” as it were. This why the original Law emphasizes that Moses did not see the true glory of the father but only what was “in part” – i.e. only the “hand” of God.
We should not be led away by the propaganda of the Church Fathers and indeed all the reformist ministers of each Palestinian tradition in the age of Antoninus. The original tradition of Mark was not saying that the Creator was “bad” in any way as even the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to acknowledge. What was in the beginning was “good” albeit not yet made “perfect.” Do we know understand the meaning of Jesus words when he finally “gives up the ghost” on the cross – i.e. “It is perfect”? It is this image which transformed him – i.e. “little Mark” – into the long prophesized “perfect work” tamym po’olo of God – through his beholding of the presence of the “better God” the Father. This idea appears throughout the tradition associated with Marqionitism – viz. Justus and Tatian – and is the ultimate context for understanding the whole tradition of the apostle in the period 70 – 140 A.D. spread throughout the Palestinian communities of Judea, Samaria and Galilee.
The apostle holds himself up as the tamym po’olos (hence his name “Paulos”) arguing by implication that the original Moses was just a deposit of the original glory of the firstborn of which he was the “final” and indeed “complete” manifestation. I would like also to understand how Mark develops the idea that tsur – i.e. rock/image – is the means by which the original creation will be perfected in the end times. Citing the reference “the tsur that begot you” [Deut 32:18] Marqeh says that God “began with the one and ended with the other.” We see him go on to identify “the beginning” with a “first word” which is likened to the garden planted by Abraham [Gen 21:33]. He never the less goes on to say that “in the end” the “’tsur which begot you’ takes away the son who errs and disobeys.” This is in my mind an argument on behalf of why the appearance of “another glory” was necessary in the first place – i.e. that a large portion of Israel and perhaps the world was not being improved by the original system set up by the first Moses.
Mark acknowledges of course at least a few of those of the old covenant were blessed like Isaac “cultivating the garden of righteousness” but argues that something had to be done for the “errant and disobedient son.” Yet what could be done? We see elsewhere Mark speaks of a contemporary revelation of the kingdom through “Titah” where “living trees” will perfect the inhabitants of Israel. However in this particular section of material Mark uses a line of reasoning which clearly reflects contact with the theology of the Marqionites and various “spin off” sects in the middle of the second century. We hear him speak of the Creation and in specific the “form of Adam” which is “glorified over all. The Lord empowered it over all forms.” However it no less than the very world after which its image was drawn is not absolutely perfect. No speculation about why the Creation is “less than perfect” – i.e. only “good” – is ever advanced by the surviving Samaritan material of Marqeh only that to say that it was part of God’s plan “in the end” to perfect it according to his kavod.
Mark goes on to reflect what is contemporary “scientific” understanding about the body of man being made from four elements (water being the first “for it is an element needed by all”) and develops a lengthy commentary about each in the covenant of Israel. We then hear how this “good” Creation is to be made “complete” with its recasting after the form of the “perfect work” when he writes:
Let us magnify our Lord and be humble before his greatness and believe in him and Moses his prophet who used the phrase the phrase tsur and conjoined it with the word perfect [tamym] (in Deut 32:4)
We can of course at once see countless “Christian parallels” of this central Markan truth – i.e. that which was advanced among the Gentile proselytes – in the writing of the same apostle. Here we are only dealing with the specific adaptation of this doctrine for a Samaritan audience. There was certainly also a specifically Jewish version of it as well which might be discernable among the fragments at Qumran and various traditions of “Metatron.”
In the section which follows Mark displays a characteristic of which is recognized even by the early Catholic Church Father Irenaeus – he develops a mystical understanding of the “divine place” for how the Creation is made “perfect” – i.e. tamym – drawn entirely from its constituent Hebrew letters. We read:
For the tsur [Aram form] and the mind was the body perfected and set up quite apart from any created thing. Therefore T (the first letter of TMYM) here becomes an element. T magnifies all perfection. He puts Y in the middle (of MYM) [and] as for the two M’s the first M represents the elements of Creation and the ten words and the words of the covenant and the mercies. The second M is the number of days of his fasting. Thus he inserted Y between the two (M’s) and magnified the proclamation of it with the word PO’OLO (his work Deut 32:4) which he made a seal for the words of praise.
Now I don’t mean to take advantage of the readers ignorance of the writings of the apostle among the Samaritans but one can I hope see him develop a kind of an imaginative word play where each letter signifies an individual character in a kind of cosmic drama unfolding at the end times.
The idea of the tau as the cross is of course well established in early Christian literature where the shape of the letter in some Aramaic scripts bears striking resemblance to a crucifix. The two Ms are equally obvious – one is Moses (i.e. the one who establishes the ten words etc.) and the power of the Creator, the second is Marqeh who emerges after the forty day fast [Exodus 34:28] where Samaritan expectation holds that the one who writes the perfect Law will be established. Y or yod has of course a long history of mystical significance in the tradition of Israel having the numerical value of ten as well as being the first letter of many of the most important names of the tradition including Yahweh, Ysrael and Yeshua. I will contend that whatever the name the reader happens to endorse as being signified by this Y that stands between the first and the last Moses it necessarily denotes the very type of angel signified by “Jesus” in the Marqionite tradition of Christianity.
Once we come to terms with the fact that it is this “last Moses” and his witness of the complete glory of the firstborn angel through the “Y” entity (the angel “Israel”?) we can come to terms with what comes next in the second chapter of Book Four of the Memar Marqeh where the apostle concludes his last analysis by saying:
At the beginning He mentioned Creation and also at the end He magnified [or “greatened”] man’s form. He blessed the whole with the two words TAMYM PO’OLO (his perfect work Deut 32:4)
The reader should finally see that it is through the “perfect Paulos” that the form of man which was created in the beginning was finally completed at the end of times. This is of course as aforementioned not an isolated reference in the Samaritan works of Mark but indeed appears throughout the early section of Book Four. In the chapter which precedes this material, in fact we see that it is said that the first power “formed” (bara) creation but the second power “called” (qara) forth its completion no less than the emphasis there and here on “greatening” or “magnifying” what was first in this “second creation.” We should again recognize that all of these very same ideas can be found to be represented in Marqionitism and its very different understanding of the apostle.
The real question then is not whether there was a relationship between the Christian cult of Mark and that of Samaria but how far the relationship originally went. Did the Samaritan Mark originally put forward “Jesus”? That the apostle of the Gentile proselytes put forward the “glory Jesus” as the power through which his “better god” was revealed is evident through the Marqionite reading of passages like “I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.” [Rom 15:17] or the letter’s conclusion “the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus” [Rom 16:17]. The same pattern continues through the rest of the epistles and their reference to the crucifixion of the “glory Lord” [1 Cor 2:8], the Eucharist as participation in the “glory god” [1 Cor 10:31], him as image of the perfect man [1 Cor 11:7], humanity as sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power [1 Cor 15:43], the “greater glory” of the person of Christ [2 Cor 3:11 – 18; 4:4] when the original Moses etc.
Where as it is certain that the ideas of Mark which are represented in the Samaritan tradition carried over to Christianity, it is not at all clear if the same thing can be said in reverse. I do however raise the possibility of a carry over in what follows in chapter three Marqeh’s emphasis on the transformation power of the words KY KOL (“for all” Deut 32:4). For we read him say:
As the first (i.e. KY - Kavod Yeshua?) is the beginning of this world, so the second is the beginning to the next world (or “world to come”). For all his ways (Deut 32:4) is a pointed allusion to the Day of Vengeance … Observe the great prophet Moses instructing of the Day of Vengeance. KY is the beginning and KOL the end. Moses knew the beginning and the end. Great is the mighty prophet Moses for what he revealed of the way of the True One where is there is the like of Moses and who can compare with Moses the prophet whose like has not arisen … a prophet who is above the unseen and dwells among the living ones. His head reached into the darkness of the deep [and] through him Israel were victorious.
Of course if anyone who wants to understand the original concept of the returning Moses as it pertains to Mark in the late first and second century A.D. must necessarily read the whole section of chapter three of Book Four of the Memar Marqeh. Yet it should apparent that the reference here to the True One is the one prophesized by Moses who will come at the what was originally the end times, in a manner parallel to the paraclete who “comes [and] will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” [John16:8]
If we can now see from 1 Cor 10:4 that the apostle referred to himself as the tsur which was “prophesized” to water the Israelites at the end of times and from Rom 9:33 and that he was the same messianic tsur which caused Jerusalem to stumble, is it finally possible to finally prove the specific identification of “Mark” with the rock? I certainly think so. For once we accommodate ourselves to the idea that the Marqionite tradition did not simply fall off the face of the earth but lived on as the official religion of the kingdom of Osorhone. When this understanding is properly digested it cannot be without significance that a surviving text identifies a figure called “little Mark” who is specifically identified twice as:
the rock on which the house was built with the most solid foundations; and when the rain descended, and the floods and the winds burst in and beat upon that house, it stood firm: for it had been built on the most solid and immoveable foundations.
Notice of course the complete absence of according this role of “the rock” to Peter as our tradition does – this is a wholly separate tradition which represents the earliest core to organized Christianity.
The Acts of Archelaus is clearly a surviving fragment of the original Marqionite tradition (albeit heavily censored by later Catholic editors). It not only continues the understanding of “little Mark” as the “rock” but indeed many of the other messianic interpretations unique to the sect. Indeed we first hear from Origen that the Marqionites held that the apostle himself was the Paraclete. The reworked Catholic Acts of Archelaus identifies that it was Jesus who“says of this Paraclete, "He shall receive of mine” him therefore [Jesus] selected as an acceptable vessel; and He sent this Paul to us in the Spirit. Into him the Spirit was poured; and as that Spirit could not abide upon all men, but only on Him who was born of Mary the mother of God.” Or again “again, that it was the Paraclete Himself who was in Paul, is indicated by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel, when He says: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray my Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." In these words He points to the Paraclete Himself, for He speaks of "another" Comforter. And hence we have given credit to Paul, and have hearkened to him when he says, "or seek ye a proof of Christ is speaking in me?" and when he expresses himself in similar terms, of which we have already spoken above.
The point is of course that once we start to chip away at our supposedly “firm” identity of our apostle Paul we realize at once that no one even heard of him before the middle of the second century. Eznik of Colb identifies Marqion as claiming that he had the original revelation in Christ which Catholics attributed to “Paul” – and now we can see why. Mark represented the tamym po’olo, the tsur through which the new community of Israel received its “waters of life.” Yet the lingering identification of “Paul” as Christ can still be discerned in the Catholic tradition. The idea of course becomes hard to avoid when we back to where we started with regards to his self-identification as the “last apostle” – i.e. the “completion” of the deposit of Moses. However we should also note what was so incredibly controversial about this line of reasoning. Mark was not merely claiming that he was “like Moses” or a “second Moses” but indeed a better Moses whose very presence was indeed superior to the original son of Amram.
# © 2006 by World Star International Inc. Marcus Julius Agrippa Jr. 
