After two years absence, Mark returned to Alexandria to find that the Christian community there had flourished, and a church had been built in a place called Boukolou, near the sea. However, the pagans of the city were very angry at Mark for all of his mighty works. That year, Easter celebration occurred on the same day as a festival for the Egyptian god Serapis (April 24). Incited, pagan groups entered the church, seized Mark at the service, put a rope around his neck, and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria, until his flesh was falling.
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Looking for book recommendations for Christian/Jewish/Kabbalah etc mythology
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One of the earliest testimonies relating to themartyriumof Saint Mark in Alexandria, apart from theActs,is found in the poetry of St. Paulinus. St. Paulinus of Nola (c.352-431), south of Rome on Italys west coast, was ordained a priest at Christmas in 395 and became bishop of Nola in 409. As well as being prominent Christian poet, he provides the earliest external witness to the tradition about Marks martyrdom in Alexandria. In one of his poems he mentions Marks conflict with the cult of Serapis in Alexandria, a conflict that led to his imprisonment and death:
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Does a hidden garden hold the encoded secrets of the Kabbalists? Hidden away in a cul-de-sac at the base of the towering medieval walls of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, is a tranquil garden. A statue of a long-haired angel stands guard over the entrance, its hands clasped in prayer.
My position is: the more miracles the less believable.
[The Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola, translated by P.G. Walsh, Newman Press, New York, 1975, p. 134.]The Secrets of the Kabbalists Garden
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He arrived in Alexandria the next day and came to a place called Mendion. As he was entering the gate of the city, the strap of his sandal broke, and Mark looked for a cobbler to fix it. As the cobbler was working on the sandal, he injured his left hand and cried out in pain, God is one. Mark healed the cobblers hand in the name of Jesus. To show his gratitude, the cobbler invited Mark to his home for a meal. There Mark began to preach the gospel of Jesus, telling the man of the prophecies related to Christ. The cobbler said that he did not know of these writings, though he was familiar with theIliadand theOdysseyand other things that Egyptians learned from childhood. The man was eventually converted, and he and his whole household were baptized, and many others besides. The cobblers name was Ananias (the other version has Anianus). Eventually, some pagan men of the city, angered by these conversions, sought to kill Mark. The evangelist decided to leave Alexandria and go back to Pentapolis, in North Africa. However, before leaving he ordained for the church Ananias (Annianus) as bishop, along with three presbyters (Milaius, Sabinus, and Cerdo).
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Featured image: Mark the Evangelist symbol is the winged lion, the Lion of Saint Mark. Canvas painting, circa 1516.Public Domain
The document was originally written in Greek and Coptic, and was rendered into several other languages. The main line of the story in theActs of Markgoes like this: when the apostles were sent out in their missions, Mark received as his lot the country of Egypt and its surrounding territories. He went first to Cyrene, (in Libya) (a second version makes him a native of Cyrene) where he did a lot of work to convert many to the Christian faith. While in Cyrene, Mark received a vision that he should go to Alexandria.
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Detail, painting ofMark the Evangelist.Public Domain
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Meanwhile, the traditional Egyptian account regarding the history of the early Coptic Church agrees with Eusebius on Marks role as the founder of the Alexandrian Church. However, Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa gives a slightly later date to Marks arrival in Alexandria:In the fifteenth year after the Ascension of Christ (c.AD 48), the holy Peter sent Saint Mark, the father and evangelist, to the city of Alexandria, to announce the good tiding (Gospel) there.1TheHistory of the Patriarchsattributed to Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa is actually a multi-generational compendium of Egyptian church history that relies on several early Coptic sources, and was redacted and translated into Arabic in the eleventh century.
This article isnt about Jesus. Its about the Coptic Church. The liturgical texts of which proved useful in translation of ancient Egyptian. Theres very little evidence at the level you demand for William the Conqueror. Show me the bones of Julius Caesar. Everything we know about him is written down. It gets a bit boring when anti-religious people expect forensic levels of evidence because its religion. Confirmation Bias yet again. There would be no point in such articles because unless people with opinions like yours agreed with it, you would ramble on endlessly in the comments about why it was rubbish.
The most important of the early Christian holy places in Alexandria was undoubtedly Boukolou, where, according to theActs of Mark,the earliest Christians had their place of worship and where the saint met his death and was buried. Here was erected themartyriumof Saint Mark, attested from the late fourth century on. Epiphanius refers to is as the church ofBaukalis,which I take to be a corruption, or variant, of Boukolos. there is no doubt that the memorial to Saint Mark was located in the north-eastern part of town (in the eastern district, beside the sea, beneath the cliffs), probably near the site of the present College of St. Mark run by the Christian Brothers. By the fourth century, when our documentation begins, the area in question was outside the city, a place for cow pastures. But in the first century this area was the main Jewish neighborhood, described by Josephus.2
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On you, Alexandria, Mark was conferred, so that Egypt would not stupidly worship cattle under the name of Apis; (the holy animal of Serapis worshipped in Alexandria) Satan has also fled from Egypt, where he had taken countless forms and countless names appropriate to different monsters. Thus he fashioned holy Joseph into Serapis, hiding that revered name beneath a name of death.3
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The goal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.
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[History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, p. 140.] [The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, Editors Birger A. Pearson & James E. Goehring, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1986. Birger A. Pearson, Early Christianity in Egypt, p. 153.]Ten amazing inventions from ancient times
The tradition of Marks martyrdom at Alexandria spread all over the Roman Empire, especially in Italy, and many Christians travelled to Egypt in order to visit the evangelists tomb in Eastern Alexandria.
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The death of Saint Mark. c. 1412 and 1416.Public Domain
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Heres an interesting lecture: Richard Carrier: Why Jesus Never Existed
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Most people who have the Rh blood type are Rh-positive. There are also instances, however, where people are Rh-Negative. Health problems may occur for the unborn child of a mother with Rh-Negative blood when the baby is Rh-Positive.
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Eventually, in the ninth century, according to a legend, two or three ambitious merchants from the Italian city of Venice were able to smuggle Marks remains from his tomb in Alexandria. In 828, Mark replaced St. Teodora, the first patron saint of Venice, where a new basilica was built for him.
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Ahmed Osmanis an Egyptian-born author who has been trying to find the link between the stories of the Bible and ancient Egyptian history. Born in Cairo in 1934, he studied law in the university before working as a journalist….Read More
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Maybe its interesting for Ancient Origins to start a series on wether Jesus really ever existed. What is the evidence. And I mean REAL HARD EVIDENCE. And if he did exist once what kind of a man was he really.
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Around AD 55 saints Thaddeus and Bartolommeo travelled to Armenia to spread Christianity. Saint Thomas was in India for the same purpose. In AD 301 Kingdom of Armenia declared Christianity as state religion, seventeen years before Roman Empire did so.
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That evening they threw him into a prison. During the night Mark was said to have been visited first by an angel and then by Jesus himself, receiving words of encouragement. The next morning (April 25), the pagans took Mark from prison and dragged him again through the city until he died. They then built a fire in the place called Angeloi and tried to burn Marks body on it, but according to legend a great storm arose, and the pagans fled in terror. Finally, the faithful took Marks body and brought it back to be buried in the church, in the eastern outskirts of Alexandria.
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The Coptic Church of Egypt is the earliest Christian church in the world, going back to around 42 AD. According to Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, as well as Coptic traditions, Saint Mark the evangelist, who wrote the earliest of the four New Testament gospels, was the founder and first bishop of the Church of Alexandria, even before the Church of Rome was established. In his landmarkHistory of the Church, written in Greek about the year 310, Eusebius writes:Now,they saythat this Mark was the first to have set out to Egypt to preach the gospel, which he had already written down, and the first to have organized churches in Alexandria itself(Eusebius,HE2.16.1). This information is supplemented by EusebiussChronicle,where he places Marks arrival in Alexandria in the third year of Claudius reign, which would be AD 41-42 or 43-44. This is no more than ten years after the date fixed for the death of Jesus, traditionally held to be in AD 33.
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Nice work, Mr Osman. I love those early church martyrdom accounts. They have that underlying format that shows how those first Christians needed specific assurance that heaven was still assisting the church even though things looked bleak during persecution. Saying that, it is often surprising when bones are analysed, how often the core of the tale could be true.
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The problem is that the period of time when the mythical jesus is supposed to have lived is extremely well documented by hundreds of scribes who recorded the existence of all the thinkers and doers of the time throughout the entire region…and not one line about this jesus from any of them. Very strange, considering how well this character was supposedly known. Contemporary historical analysis at the highest levels of academia cannot find this character.
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More information on Marks life in Egypt is found in the Coptic account recorded by Sawirus, which is believed to have come from an earlier source. This source, known as theActs of Mark,gives more details about Marks activities in Egypt, including the account of the evangelists martyrdom in Alexandria. TheActs of Markhas collected some early oral traditions and set them within a larger narrative, describing the details of Marks mission and martyrdom in Alexandria. While the exact date of composition for theActs of Markis uncertain, these traditions are traceable at least to the late fourth or early fifth century. TheActsincorporates two streams of tradition within a single narrative. The first stream concerns Marks founding of the church in Alexandria. The second stream concerns Marks martyrdom, and provides an explanation for the establishment of his martyr church on the outskirts of Alexandria.
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