Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Secret Alias wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:17 pm But I might be wrong ... Just getting to the point I have to come up with AN ANSWER as I am getting on in years.
Hmm... and here I thought you were not yet fifty.
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Still. My son will be over the hill if he doesn't get on a professional club academy in the next 2 years. He's 14.
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

Post by Secret Alias »

The puppy is sleeping so I guess I might as well publish the first draft of the paper I am working on which tackles the identity of Marcion with my usual obtuseness.
Marcion and Paul’s ‘Stopover’ in Ostia
By You Know Who

The chair of St Peter is a living symbol of ecclesiastic authority. The occupant of the seat is traditionally understood to have power over all the churches of Christendom. While the justification for this belief is inevitably found in Matthew 16:18 and the writings of Irenaeus, there were dissenting voices even in antiquity. It will be contended in this paper that in second and third century Rome there was another chair – a ‘throne of St Paul’ – in the main Roman harbor of Ostia which believed that it was supreme authority over Christendom. This episcopal see had as its jurisdiction ‘the nations’ – that is all the churches in the world.

While knowledge of this Pauline see of Ostia has disappeared from our radar, it survives by another name with wholly negative connotations - ‘Marcionism’ that is the ‘heretical’ Christian tradition associated with a certain ‘Marcion’ of Sinope. An underlying connection between the Marcionite canon and the Epistle to the Romans specifically and the oldest strata of Roman Christianity has long been observed. We must suspect then that the reason Marcion is only ever seem in Rome is because ‘radical Paulinism’ had its origins there - or at least had an early presence in the environs - and challenged the authority of the rival see of Peter before being relegated to the fringes of the Empire in the third century.

It will be my contention that ‘Marcion’ as such never existed. As Chapman has already noted the name grew out of a deliberate attempt to obscure the original testimony of Hegesippus who mentioned meeting a certain ‘Marcellina’ while visiting Rome in 147 CE. Marcellina was a Roman Christian who was not under Anicetus’s jurisdiction. She belonged instead to the church originally established by Paul in Ostia and memorialized in the surviving Acts of Peter in Ostia presumably in the home of Marcus Granius Marcellus former proconsul of Bithynia and Pontus.

It assumed in this paper that the canonical Acts of the Apostles was a less accurate historical document than the Acts of Peter. Gaius of Rome’s testimony, cited in Eusebius’s Church History Book Five regarding a Pauline ‘trophy’ which is found by taking the road from the Vatican to Ostia. The Acts of Peter clearly portrays Paul establishing a community in Ostia and then leaving for Spain. Constantine’s decision to build the basilica of Paul Outside the Walls misunderstood Gaius’s original testimony. Gaius was not only acting as a Roman travel guide but referencing his own episcopal throne. For Gaius was known in antiquity as ‘the bishop of the nations’ or if you will the Pauline episcopal counterpart to the Petrine bishop of Rome.

I will develop a case for Ostia being the center of the Christian world through a critical examination of our surviving sources. This begins with the abandonment of the naïve approach to Patristic literature and especially the writings of Irenaeus. Against Heresies envisions the blissful rule of universal governance while subsisting in a dreary reality of plurality. The author begins with what ‘should be’ in order to displace ‘what is.’ Against Heresies tells us what he thinks is in the best interests of his own agenda repackaged of course as an apostolic ‘rule of truth.’ The point is of course that just because the author doesn’t tell us about a rival Pauline see of Ostia doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. In fact, we should expect him rather to exaggerate the chaotic contemporary sectarianism in order to advance his agenda of absolute monarchic rule.

Döllinger advanced an understanding of a rival episcopate that was rooted in the Roman harbor owing to the discovery in the late nineteenth century of the Philosophumena a ‘rival edition’ of Against Heresies attributed to Origen. Döllinger erred in attributing the text to Hippolytus and others have explored the possibility that Gaius was the actual author of this text. I shall presume Gaian authorship of the Philosophumena as well as the Little Labyrinth cited by Eusebius. As such, the understanding of Döllinger and later Harnack is modified to hold that Gaius was opposing Zephyrinus and Callistos from the Pauline see of Ostia. Gaius likely opposed not only the fourfold gospel and the canon promulgated by Against Heresies but more specifically the supposed ‘Johannine church of Asia Minor’ invoked by them. In other words, a new understanding of orthodoxy was being introduced in the late second century in Rome which happens to be the very tradition we presume to have always been authoritative.

Because many of us have literally been baptized into the faith that Against Heresies was hawking to contemporary readers we unconsciously ‘buy into’ its agenda. We accept its contention that Rome was a hotbed of ‘heresy’ likely because Gaius tolerated at least a few established Roman ‘schools’ of thought from his position of authority. This is undoubtedly why Against the Valentinians – yet another surviving edition of Irenaeus’s original heretical treatise – depicts Gaius as presiding over an ‘aeonic orgy’ of initiates actively deflowering virgins, all the while professing a seemingly self-contradictory doctrine of devotion to eunuchs and celibacy. We shall take up the issue of the gospel conflict that played out between the two communities in a subsequent paper. But it should be acknowledged that Against Heresies presents what it claims is a traditional ‘Johannine’ understanding of orthodoxy that was preserved by Polycarp and brought to Rome at the time of Anicetus. But we shall emphasize that this meeting – no less than the appearance of Marcion in Rome – never happened. It derived its origins from the falsified material from Hegesippus already discussed deliberately designed to obscure the existence of this rival Roman see.
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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It doesn't look like the footnotes picked up. Anyway I will correct this between puppy naps. Next chunk:
Gaius of Rome

From the perspective of the Ostian see, Against Heresies was written during the reign of Victor as part of a covert attempt to undermine traditional Roman orthodoxy. Gaius clearly supported Victor’s break with the churches of Asia Minor. He felt it represented ‘orthodoxy’ as reflected in his surviving statement that “the truth of the Gospel was preserved until the times of Victor, who was the thirteenth bishop of Rome from Peter, but that from his successor, Zephyrinus, the truth had been corrupted.” Let us not forget that a similar situation existed in Osroene where Zephyrinus’s ‘new orthodoxy’ was identified as Palutian after the missionary Palut he sent to the region. Here too, as we shall see in our final section ‘orthodoxy’ is Roman. It is identified as the tradition established in the house of senator Marcellus as part of the tradition preserved in the Acts of Peter. In either case Zephyrinus is identified as introducing novelty to an original Roman orthodoxy.

As we have already mentioned, Gaius of Rome’s reference two separate tropaia in Rome – that of Peter at ’Βασικανὸν’ (presumably what is now known as the Vatican) and to that of Paul, buried at the end of the Ostian Way – that is in Ostia. The American equivalent would be to say “take Broadway” the street to get to Broadway the theatre district. Gaius starts with the Vatican and then he notes that nearby was the start of the Ostian road to its conclusion. The Vatican is located 2.8 miles from the start of the Via Ostiense at the Forum Boarium. The road to Ostia mostly follows the left (eastern) bank of the Tiber river – a fact alluded to in the Acts of Peter. At the end of the second millennia German researchers found the basilica devoted to Peter, Paul and John the Baptist built by Constantine in the fourth century directly off the Via Ostiense at the Laurentina Gate. Among their discoveries at the site was that the basilica was built on top of an older structure which we will presume was the original shrine devoted to Paul.

It is possible to read Gaius’s words as reflecting his position of authority in the Roman community – that is as a bishop of Ostia who had jurisdiction over both tropaia owing to the supremacy of the ‘bishop of nations” (ἐθνῶν ἐπίσκοπον). That the title “bishop of the nations” is unmistakably as Paul repeatedly identifies himself – and is identified as - “the apostle of the Gentiles” (ἐθνῶν ἀπόστολος). If Gaius is the author of the Philosophumena he identifies himself as ‘the high priest’ ἀρχιερεύς, quite literally a leader among priests. When he points out two roads that lead to the two chairs associated with Peter and Paul, the reader must have been aware of his position within the Roman community. His authority is implied by Eusebius’s reference too. “I am in a position to show you the monuments of the apostles. If you go to the Vatican, or by the Ostian Way, you will find the monuments set up by which the Roman church is guarded as they stand on either side.”

What was this authority that the Pauline bishop had over the man who sat in the chair of Peter? The superior position of Ostia is still found in the consecration rites of the Roman pontiff to this day with respect to the belief that his very legitimacy depends on the Ostian see. Augustine notes that “it was not the custom at Rome to send for a metropolitan out of another province , to ordain the bishop of Rome, but he was always ordained by the bishop of Ostia, a neighbouring bishop of the same province.” We see this reality manifest itself in the Liber Pontificalis – a book devoted to the Roman episcopal line. On several occasions we see Roman bishops need to have the Ostian bishop present to legitimize their consecration. Since 1150 the Dean of the College of Cardinals (Decanus Collegii Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalium) has been the bishop of Ostia. He presides over the College of Cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church, serving as first among equals (primus inter pares). Lurking beneath this more or less consistent role for the bishop of Ostia is a remembrance of the original Pauline see of Ostia and Victor’s adherence to the same inherited understanding of its superiority.
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Next:
The Acts of Peter

The Acts of the Apostles has Paul land at Puteoli (Acts 28:13) and stay in Rome for “two whole years.” These are widely viewed as ‘historical facts’ even though the Marcionites – a prominent second century Roman tradition - took Acts to be spurious. As most of us are quite literally baptized into a faith in the sanctity of Acts, we should be careful not allow inherited prejudice to determine the order of ranking of historical information. The Acts of Peter on the other hand begins with an account of Paul’s ‘stopover’ in Rome. The first words of the text are - Pauli tempus demorantis Romae et multos confirmantis in fide. Tertullian uses demorantis to describe the ‘delay’ of rising of the evening star to end the Yom Kippur fast in a twenty-four period. There can be no doubt that the first three chapters of the Acts of describe Paul’s activities in Ostia. Meinhardus notes “the third chapter in the apocryphal Acts of Peter describes in a vivid manner the departure of the apostle Paul from Ostia Harbor.” He also notes that “if Paul realized his plans to visit Spain, he would have considered his stay in Rome as a mere stopover for his mission to the West.”

One can find at least a thousand references on the internet to people who testify to the same experience – that is, arriving at Leonardo DaVinci (FCO) in Ostia and say there are in Rome. If Chapter Three describes Paul residing at Ostia the previous two chapters give no indication that he has moved from another place. The only time Paul is mentioned as being in Rome specifically is the opening ‘stopover’ statement. Chapter One makes a cryptic allusion to Paul’s visit to a prison which could be anywhere – we shall suggest it was in Ostia. This is followed by Paul receiving a vision from the Lord commanding him to depart for Spain. The natural setting for this vision is Ostia. The same thing applies when the narrative says that the apostle “prepared himself to set forth from the city. But when Paul was about to depart, there was great weeping throughout all the brotherhood, because they thought that they should see Paul no more, so that they even rent their clothes.”

There is no indication that Paul is anywhere other than Ostia in the first three chapters, no mention of a long journey along the Tiber which is given later in chapter 3 for those who come to see him from the Roman metropolis. We read there that “the report was spread abroad, some on beasts, and some on foot, and others by way of the Tiber came down to the harbour, and were confirmed in the faith for three days.” Why would the journey along the Tiber be mentioned for rich Romans travelling to Ostia but not for Paul? The answer has to be that Paul is only described as being in Ostia for the entire narrative. As such when a heavenly voice declares the following to the gathered congregation in Ostia – “Paul the servant of God is chosen to minister all the days of his life: by the hands of Nero the ungodly and wicked man shall he be perfected before your eyes. And a very great fear fell upon the brethren because of the voice which came from heaven: and they were confirmed yet more in the faith” – this has special significance when we try to interpret Gaius’s declaration to take the Via Ostiense from Rome to find Paul’s martyrion. It confirms that his ‘tropaion’ was at the end of the Ostian road.

While we continue to discuss Roman roads, it is important to note that when Peter comes to Puetoli two months later in the Acts of Peter to journey to the Christian community established by Paul in chapters 1- 3 he clearly does not take the Via Appia – that is, the direct route from Puteoli to ‘downtown Rome.’ After disembarking from the ship, Peter’s companion wonders whether he should rest because the journey to Rome will be upon a “rough road” (via asperrima) on a “pavement of pebbles (silica strato)” which will cause Peter “to be hurt by the shaking.” The Via Appia “was one of the best roads in the Empire.” Peter must have taken some other way to the community Paul established on his ‘Roman stopover’ – that is a coastal road to Ostia. And was Peter originally working with Paul or against Paul? We already know of the Clementine Literature’s blurring of distinction between Simon Magus and Paul. In the end we are left with one question at the conclusion of the narrative - was Peter really opposing Simon Magus or Paulism when he came to Ostia?
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Next:
Marcion

Against Heresies does not cite from the Acts of Peter. But the author clearly is pushing an agenda against a popular understanding of how long Paul sojourned at Rome. Against Heresies implores its contemporary Roman readership to embrace Luke’s ‘first person’ eyewitness of how Paul “was sent to Rome in bonds; the name of the centurion who took him in charge; and the signs of the ships, and how they made shipwreck; and the island upon which they escaped, and how they received kindness there, Paul healing the chief man of that island; and how they sailed from thence to Puteoli, and from that arrived at Rome; and for what period they sojourned at Rome [emphasis mine].” Why the emphasis on the sojourn if it was not to deny his Ostian stopover? Against Heresies is not alone in this regard. The Muratorian Canon wrestles with the Acts of the Apostles discrepancies with the Acts of Paul - “Luke compiled the individual events that took place in his presence — as he plainly shows by omitting the martyrdom of Peter as well as the departure of Paul from the city when he journeyed to Spain.”

The Acts of the Apostles glosses over Paul’s ‘condemning of Peter to his face’ in Galatians. We will never likely know what the original narrative from which the Acts of Peter is drawn but it isn’t hard to see something of the Clementine Literature’s portrait of Simon Magus as Paul. As Peter comes to Puteoli lurking in the background of the narrative is something like the scenario developed in the Kerygma Petrou where Peter declares “he who was among those born of woman came first; then he who was among the sons of men came second. It were possible, following this order, to perceive to what series Simon belongs, who came before me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who have come after him, and have come in upon him as light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as healing upon disease.” There can be no mistaking that Against Heresies goes out of its way to promote the sacredness of a single Roman episcopal line ‘from Peter and Paul’ developed from the Memoirs of Hegesippus. But was this Hegesippus’s understanding?

The Letter to Victor uses the list of bishops of Rome to implore the bishop of Rome not to cut off the churches of Asia Minor, because he’s acting in a manner completely at odds with his predecessors. This is why ‘Hegesippus’ is replaced by ‘Polycarp’ – he needed to refashion the original historical encounter into something like a ecclesiastical synod. Indeed, as I shall demonstrate in a follow up paper, Irenaeus not only attributes the list to Polycarp but also changes the name of the original person mentioned in the material as Chapman notes from ‘Marcellina’ to ‘Marcion.’ Hegesippus himself reports that when he visited Rome under Anicetus he encountered a female heretic name Marcellina whom he opposed. By the time Irenaeus takes over this material in the Third Book of his Against Heresies, the material is alleged to have come from ‘Polycarp’ and the person he opposed is now named ‘Marcion.’ Jerome seems to recognize some underlying connection when he reports that Marcellina was in effect a Marcionite missionary.

The only way we can make sense of all the confusion is to recognize that Marcion and Marcellus have the same meaning – ‘little Mark.’ The name Marcellina means "of or pertaining to Marcellus” in a similar way masculum is "male” but masculinus is the adjective meaning "of or pertaining to a male." We are left with the sense that somehow that the name ‘Marcion’ goes back to Marcellus not merely the substitution of Hegesippus’s ‘Marcellina’ for Marcion. There was real scandal that the Roman tradition – perhaps even the Pauline community of Ostia – had female presbyters. Marcellina isn’t just hated because of her message or teachings – she is despised because of her sex. There is an obvious concern with the ‘appropriateness’ of female teachers and ministers which extends to texts like Tertullian’s On Baptism which clearly also developed from something written by Irenaeus. On Baptism singles out ‘the Gaians’ i.e. ‘those of Gaius’ who used ‘the Acts of Paul’ to bolster the case for female presbyters. The relationship between the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Peter is widely acknowledged.

The point here is that behind ‘Marcellina’ lurks a ‘little’ or ‘lesser Mark’ who gave women ecclesiastic authority which challenged the tradition associated with Peter. The Acts of Peter has as one of its most significant characters the senator Marcus Granius Marcellus whose house is the first Roman Christian church. Marcellina must have originally simply been identified as a ‘female member of the tradition of Marcellus.’ Her devotion to portraits might echo contemporary controversies which plagued Marcellus. Just as Tacitus reports that Marcellus showed disrespect to the Emperor’s image, the Acts of Peter adds an episode where Peter resurrects a youth captivated by Simon only to break one of the Emperor’s statues in Marcellus’s house. Marcellus’s trepidation over Caesar hearing the incident is an echo of this known historical incident. Yet Snyder draws our attention to Marcellina's use of images connecting her tradition to gatherings in an urban domus or suburban villa. The tradition seems to be associated with a gathering in a wealthy home where portraits would be found.

The Acts of Peter goes out of its way to deny a connection between Marcellus and Paul – even though we know this must have originally existed. The text substitutes the name Marcellus with Demetrius even though the manipulation makes no sense. Peter has explicitly come to Ostia to rescue those originally baptized by Paul but have fallen under the sway of Simon Magus. He arrives at Marcellus’s house for this very purpose even though the text now names the senator Paul visited with as “Demetrius.” It is worth noting that one of the women who gather in Marcellus’s Ostian villa is Chryse – the name of the most beloved saint to the Ostian community. In the official lore of the fourth century Ostian community, their St Chryse was martyred in the third century. But the profiles of the two women very closely align. Moreover Marcellus was known to have passed on property to his nephew Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Younger owned villas in Ostia.

Another thing that was passed on from Marcellus to Pliny the Younger was governorship of Bithynia and Pontus. Marcellus didn’t just share a name that meant ‘little Mark’ with ‘Marcion’ - both men were connected with Pontus. We shall leave aside the fact that Pliny the Elder just so happens to have made one of the earliest – and ultimately sympathetic – reports about the early Christian cultus. Both are identified with the start of Pauline Christianity in Rome. Marcion of course was a naucleros. We don’t have any historical anecdotes about Marcus Granius Marcellus other than the brief anecdote in Tacitus. Nevertheless we can certainly imagine that Marcion was only a naucleros because of his association with Ostia. Lampe points to guilds of naucleri in the city writing “[a]lready at Marcion's time, the arcade behind the theater in Ostia housed the offices of corporations, which had beautiful mosaics of ships in the floors.” Epiphanius introduces him as follows - “Arriving at Rome he asked for penance from the elders of the time. Since he could not get it he grew angry and taught doctrines contrary to the faith.” Eisler synthesizes the material as follows – that Marcion “lifted his anchor and set sail for the port of Ostia to conquer the Church by invading the capital of the world — this time with a gospel which he had patiently carved out of the Evangel of Luke.”
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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Hegesippus

We can begin to see that everything to do with Marcion hinges on what Hegesippus wrote in 147 CE. Irenaeus’s falsifications of Hegesippus moved this date back twelve years. In other words, Hegesippus a travelled from Corinth originally testifies to a certain ‘Marcellina’ in Rome under Anicetus is ‘Stage One.’ That Marcellina could be ‘Marcion’ is ‘Stage Two’ of the corruption where Marcion still arrives in Rome when another ‘eyewitness’ – Justin Martyr – still testifies to 147 CE. Then in ‘Stage Three’ we arrive at Against Heresies full blown corruption of a twelve-year delayed arrival of Marcion in Rome eyewitnessed by ‘Polycarp’ a bishop of the Asia Minor community ‘cut off’ by Victor to set up an ‘ecumenical precedent.’ I think there is a lot of naivete when it comes to the study of Patristic material. This is especially true with the case of Irenaeus’s writings where we have literally half a dozen versions of his original prostamata against the heresies and we continue to act as if Against Heresies is a verbatim historical record.

In order to untangle the development of ‘Marcion’ we have to go back to the original testimony of Hegesippus as preserved in Epiphanius. Hegesippus gives the order of Roman bishops in the following citation:
In any case, the succession of the bishops at Rome runs in this order: Peter and Paul, Linus and Cletus (Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος, Λίνος καὶ Κλῆτος), Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus, whom I mentioned above, on the list.
We should pay special attention to the first four names on the list where the first and second and third and fourth individuals are separated with the conjunction ‘and.’ The καὶ disappears in Irenaeus and Irenaeus takes the ten names that appear after ‘Peter and Paul’ to a consecutive list:
the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul … [who] having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate … To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric … To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Sorer having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate.

While Against Heresies interprets the passage from Hegesippus to represent a single line of Roman bishops established in one locale by the twin apostles, Peter and Paul we will argue against such an interpretation. The falsifying of the author’s identity from Hegesippus to Polycarp and the use of the material to support ecumenism is a clear giveaway. Nevertheless we should also take note of Gaius’s testimony regarding two separate tropaia for Peter and Paul to represent another important counterpoint. Why would there be two separate shrines associated with each apostle but only one line of bishops especially given the identification of Gaius himself as a specifically Pauline bishop? Moreover Roman tradition such as the Acts of Peter and the Kerygma Petrou hint or confirm this original separation. There are also hints that bishops of Rome after Paul might also have been buried in Ostia which we shall bring up shortly – the same line of bishops which seem to continue Gaius’s original claim of authority over the election of the bishop of the see of Peter. There is from the earliest commentators on Hegesippus a clear hesitation – a sense that the first names on the list contradict an understanding from some other source that every commentator that Clement was really the first bishop after Peter. Both Rufinus and Epiphanius wrestle with the problem of the additional references of Λίνος καὶ Κλῆτος and fail to come up with no satisfactory answer for the discrepancy.

Our solution to the dilemma was that the καὶ in succession list of Hegesippus – i.e. ‘Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος, Λίνος καὶ Κλῆτος’ – which discontinues after the first four names was used to designate separate lines of episcopal transmission – one for the churches of Peter and one for the churches of Paul. In other words, it is only through Against Heresies’s reinterpretation of Hegesippus’s material (as by Polycarp no less) that we arrive at the single line of transmission. Hegesippus was originally attesting to the same situation as Gaius – viz. two apostolic churches in Rome and the ‘kai’ that only appears in the first two groupings designates separate lines of transmission. The first clue to this situation is that Anicetus is - under the single succession list interpretation - the eleventh bishop from Peter (and Paul) in Irenaeus. When Against Heresies adds Soter and Eleutheros to the list Victor becomes the fourteenth. However all parties concerned recognize Victor as the thirteenth bishop from Peter. The only way Victor can have been the thirteenth and Eleutherius the twelfth and Anicetus the tenth successors to Peter is if the ‘kai’ distinguishes Paul from Peter and Cletus from Linus – taking not only one predecessor to Victor but also twelve years from the chronology of Marcion .

This is not the place to get into the dates given for Polycarp’s martyrdom and his visit to Rome, but it should be clear that the idea that there were only ten bishops of Rome between Claudius’s rule and Marcus Aurelius is problematic. There were by contrast thirteen Emperors in the same period. Perhaps more significantly the understanding of Peter and Paul sharing the governing of Rome only fits the period 161 – 180 when Marcus Aurelius ruled the Empire first with his adoptive brother and then with his son. Before this time – and perhaps down through the end of Commodus’s reign in 192 - there was no precedent for such a bizarre understanding for the appropriateness of this arrangement. As such we can circumstantially contextualize the falsification of Hegesippus to this period in the late second century. Originally there were two bishops of Rome who stood on top of two churches where Paul had supremacy over Peter.

That our surviving Roman episcopal lists might have inverted ‘Peter and Paul’ from an original ‘Paul and Peter’ is suggested by the survival of the specific reading Παῦλος καὶ Πέτρος in the long epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians as well as the explicit identification of Linus as belonging with Paul and ‘Cletus’ with Peter:
And what are the deacons but imitators of the angelic powers, fulfilling a pure and blameless ministry unto him, as the holy Stephen did to the blessed James, Timothy and Linus to Paul, Anencletus and Clement to Peter
Whoever developed the longer edition of the Ignatian letters clearly had access to a document which knew of separate episcopal lines of Paul and Peter and the understanding that Linus belonged to the Pauline line of bishops.

This situation is confirmed with specific reference to the existence of a tomb of Linus in Ostia that was known to various fifteenth century eyewitnesses:
Accensis autem subito cereis, fornicem c subterraneum ingredientes, quinqué ibi túmulos marmóreos ordine dispositos intuentur , quorum quilibet , apposita plumbea lamina , qnid contineret indicabat . Primus quidem corpus S . Lini papae , secundus S . Austerii martyris , tertius S . Constantiae , quartus S . Aurae virginis , quintus vero S . Monicae matris Augustini
The presence of Linus’s tomb in Ostia in a tradition is also confirmed by other contemporary writers including Plautina who says it was “solemnly placed it in the Church of St. Lawrence.” The connection with St Lawrence is interesting because the German archaeologists who discovered the basilica of Constantine in Ostia make clear that one of the clues they used to confirm the site is found in the Acta Sanctorum:
The holy deacon Laurence appeared to him in a dream, urging him to arrange to have a church built in his name at the gate which up to the present time is called Laurentia.
The authors note the passage provides “a topographical statement: the building is at the gate which is called 'Laurentia' thus in the neighbourhood of a city gate through which led the road to Laurentum.” Already Fevrier sees a connection between “St Lawrence” and “this church … built near the Laurentia gate: we can understand the pun that gave birth to the idea of the apparition. This door is to be identified with the Laurentina porta, which opens to the south-east of the Ostia enclosure and through which passes the road that leads to Laurente.” The result is that while we do not find confirmation that Paul was buried here, a next generation pontiff was and the existence of an Ostian papacy seems assured.
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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The Acts of Hegemonius

The ordinal placement of names is extremely significant in antiquity. Peter is usually “the first of the apostles” and this arrangement is used to argue for the primacy of the Roman see. Yet there is clear evidence for a rival tradition that saw itself in some sense as ‘Roman’ because of the community’s association with Marcus Granius Marcellus. If the text came from Rome or even Italy, we might be able to explain its devotion to Marcellus more easily. But this is the Acts of Hegemonius detailing the experiences of a Christian community from Osroene near the modern border between Turkey and Syria. How did a community from the Middle East see itself as ‘participating’ with a legendary figure who lived three thousand kilometers away and over two and a half centuries earlier? Indeed, Mani the founder of Manichaeanism – in a narrative which blends allegory and history seamlessly - comes from Persia to gain Marcellus’s acknowledgement that he, rather than Paul, is the awaited Paraclete.

The orthodoxy of the Osroene community of Marcellus reflects statements in Origen and Tertullian that Marcionites understood Paul to be the awaited Paraclete of the gospel of John. Marcellus, like Marcion, is at once recognized as the ‘head’ of a network of Christian communities all over the world. Marcellus’s wealth is renowned across the Christian world because he established a network of hostels for pilgrims. Marcion’s ‘stranger god’ can be etymology connected with this concept of hospitality. If Walter Bauer’s theories about Christianity in the East have any relevance we should expect that the orthodoxy of this community in Osroene to be Marcionite. So we hear confessions of orthodoxy like "Paul was the chief of the apostles,” was the one in whom Holy Spirit was bestowed with “greater fullness,” that it was “the Paraclete Himself who was in Paul,” that the Paraclete did “abundantly impart Himself to Paul” and that when Jesus spoke of “another Paraclete” he heralded the coming of Paul. The head of the rival Roman community in Ostia has similarly been identified as ‘the bishop of the nations’ thus confirming – it would appear – the existence of this worldwide Pauline church.

While there is a great deal of continuity between the portrait of Marcellus in both the Acts of Peter and the Acts of Hegemonius this understanding of Paul as superior to Peter distinguishes the latter from the former. The connection of the Acts of Hegemonius with Marcionism coupled with the underlying structure of the Acts of Peter – where it appears to reflect hostility between Petrine and Pauline communities – makes a strong case for the assigning of Marcellus to the Pauline tradition. If we could some how connect Marcellus to Ostia our case for a Pauline church of Ostia would be proved. There is no mention of ships or shipping with respect to the historical Marcellus. Nevertheless the Acts of Hegemonius seems to interpret a critical gospel parable in terms of the ‘house of Marcellus’ - the first Christian Church in Rome – as being near the crashing waves of the sea. Given that the Roman metropolis is actually nowhere near the sea, the Acts of Hegemonius must be seen as preserving an understanding of ‘the house of Marcellus’ as being located in Ostia.

Archelaus, the head of the Christian community in Osroene, references this not once but twice in association with the head of their community:
a Marcellus of old, furnished aid most indulgently, so that they all declared that there was no one of more illustrious piety than this man. Yea, all the widows, too, who were believers in the Lord had recourse to him, while the imbecile also could reckon on obtaining at his hand most certain help to meet their circumstances; and the orphaned, in like manner, were all supported by him, so that his house was declared to be the hospice for the stranger and the indigent. And above all this, he retained in a remarkable and singular measure his devotion to the faith, building up his own heart upon the rock that shall not be moved.


The reference to the “rock that shall not be moved” is to a house that was a wise man which was unmoved by the “rise of the sea” (πλημμύρης) and the winds. The metaphor is repeated a second time in another document appended to the main treatise:
the favour of Marcellus, that man of illustrious name, whom he (Mani) endeavoured to turn aside from our doctrine and faith, with the object, to wit, of making him an effective supporter of this impious teaching. Nevertheless, in spite of all his plausible addresses, he failed to move him or turn him aside from the faith in any one particular. For this most devout Marcellus was only found to be like 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.
This symbolism here is usually associated with the Church. In other words, Marcellus is remembered as building the church as a house set on a rock near the sea.

This is the only scriptural application repeated twice in the entire Acts of Hegemonius. It should also be noted that in the first of the two citations from the Acts of Hegemonius this saying is referenced in the course of specific concrete actions attributed to Marcellus. It is quite specifically widows, imbeciles, orphans are taken care of and then “his house was declared to be the hospice for the stranger and the indigent” followed by a reference to a house “built … upon the rock that shall not be moved.” As such, the act of “building a house” was developed taken literally i.e. that Marcellus really had established a house which symbolically at least stood near crashing waves and high winds. While there is a great deal of variation about how this gospel passage is interpreted the specific application of this passage for Roman episcopal primacy is referenced in the Twelfth Book of Origen’s Commentary on Matthew. There brings up the passage in an extended section where he rebuffs those who claim a special authority for the see of Peter. While there is no hint in this material that the ‘house built on a rock’ is in Ostia specifically the passage is nevertheless brought up in a context very close to what is suggested in the Acts of Hegemonius.

As such the understanding that Marcellus founded a church near rough waters and high winds was a cornerstone of the faith of the community at Osroene. While this “house of Marcellus” could have at least theoretically have been found in any coastal city in the Empire, we can never lose sight of the fact that Marcellus is always identified as a Roman. It is similarly worth noting that something of a negative application of this parable seems to creep into Tertullian’s discussion of Marcion. Not only does he say “[t]his man of Pontus who presents us with two gods, as it were the two Clashing Rocks on which he suffers shipwreck” but also “[y]ou are stuck, Marcion, in the midst of the swell of your own Pontus: the floods of the truth keep you in on one side and the other” (1.8) and “[w]hether Christ said or did not say, I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it, to no purpose has Pontus raged and stormed to discount that saying.” As such it is worth noting that Matthew 7:24 – 27/Luke 6:46 – 48 was being used against the Marcionite Church in a strange parallel to the manner it was cited in favor of Marcellus by the community at Osroene.
Now wife mad. Bye.
Secret Alias
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Re: Is Paul Described as Having a 'Stopover' in Rome?

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I won't include the next section because I am not sure it is finished.
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