The Marcionite Church is pleased to present the reconstructed Epistle of Paul to the Alexandrians, a disputed Pauline writing received as Deuterocanonical Scripture within the Antilegicon.
The Muratorian Fragment mentions an Epistle to the Alexandrians together with an Epistle to the Laodiceans in the context of Marcionite controversy. Its hostile author rejects the letters as works forged in the name of Paul for the Marcionite teaching. The notice does not establish the contents of the Alexandrian epistle, but it attests that a Pauline letter bearing this title circulated and was associated with the Marcionite tradition.
The Epistle to the Alexandrians named in the Fragment has otherwise been lost under that title. A distinct line of scholarly interpretation, represented among earlier writers by Moses Stuart and others, has proposed that Alexandrians was an original or alternative title for the work conventionally known as the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Marcionite Church receives this identification in its reconstruction.
The conventional title Hebrews describes the ethnic or religious background of the intended audience rather than identifying a particular congregation. Alexandrians supplies a plausible geographical destination. Alexandria contained one of the largest Jewish communities in the ancient Mediterranean and supported a substantial community of Jewish believers during the early Christian period.
A Jewish temple also stood at Leontopolis in Egypt. The epistle’s sustained discussion of priests, sacrifices, sanctuaries, covenants, and the superiority of the heavenly tabernacle would have been especially relevant to Jewish believers living in and around Alexandria. The Marcionite reconstruction therefore understands the recipients as Israelites from the circumcision who had received the Gospel but remained surrounded by the ceremonies and traditions of the Law.
The reconstructed prologue describes the purpose of the epistle:
“The Alexandrians are Israelites, faithful believers from the circumcision. Having received the word of truth, they continued stedfast in the faith, even when they were persecuted by their own fellow-citizens; and, enduring stripes and well nigh every kind of injury with a noble mind, at the last, as the Apostle saith, they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods.
“Therefore the Apostle doth comfort them by this epistle, exhorting them to put away the ancient figures of the former time, even the ceremonies and the shadows of festival solemnities that pertained to the law of Moses, together with the keeping of days; and he admonisheth them to abide in faith alone, without the which no man shall obtain Christ’s inheritance, even his country, that is, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Clement of Alexandria received the epistle conventionally called Hebrews as a work of the Apostle Paul. According to the account preserved by Eusebius, Clement taught that Paul wrote the epistle in the Hebrew language and that Luke translated and published it for Greek-speaking Christians. Clement also explained the absence of Paul’s name by observing that Jewish hearers were prejudiced against him and might have rejected the letter immediately had he identified himself at its beginning.
This ancient testimony supports several features of the Marcionite reconstruction. It preserves an early Alexandrian tradition of Pauline authorship, explains the epistle’s difference in vocabulary and style from Paul’s congregational letters, and provides a reason why the conventional text lacks an ordinary Pauline salutation.
The Marcionite Church receives the underlying epistle as Pauline while allowing that it was written through an amanuensis and transmitted through translation and editorial development. The reconstructed text identifies Tertius as its scribe and Phoebe as the minister entrusted with its delivery.
The epistle’s absence from Marcion’s original Apostolicon does not necessarily demonstrate that Marcion rejected it. Marcion concentrated his mission principally among Gentile congregations, whereas Alexandrians circulated among Jewish believers. A personal or regional copy preserved within the Jewish-Christian communities of Egypt may not have been available to him when he assembled the Apostolicon.
The conventional Epistle to the Hebrews also circulated unevenly in the ancient churches. Its authorship was accepted more readily in the Greek-speaking East than in the Latin-speaking West, and its placement among the Pauline epistles varied among manuscripts. Its limited and disputed circulation provides a sufficient historical explanation for its absence from Marcion’s original collection.
According to the historical reconstruction received by the Marcionite Church, Apelles continued gathering, transcribing, and preserving Pauline writings after Marcion’s martyrdom in 154 C.E. Apelles did not alter the original Apostolicon or expand the Marcionite Canon. He collected additional writings attributed to Paul for separate reception and use within the Church.
Apelles was particularly suited to preserve the Epistle to the Alexandrians because he lived and taught in Alexandria, the city to which the epistle was originally addressed. The Marcionite Church traditionally dates his transcription of the recovered epistle to 156 C.E.
The reception of Alexandrians under Apelles represents the growth of the broader Marcionite textual tradition, not an evolution of the original Canon. The Evangelicon and the ten epistles of the Apostolicon remained unchanged. Alexandrians was received separately and now belongs to the Antilegicon as Deuterocanonical Scripture.
The opening chapter of Alexandrians has been reconstructed from the greetings conventionally preserved as the sixteenth chapter of Romans. The location and original destination of Romans 16 have long been debated, and some scholars have proposed that all or part of the chapter originally belonged to another Pauline letter.
The conventional placement also creates historical difficulties. The greetings name a large number of persons whom Paul appears to know personally, although the Epistle to the Romans was written before he had visited Rome. The chapter further identifies Tertius as the scribe and includes greetings associated with Paul’s location and companions.
Several ancient manuscript arrangements place Hebrews immediately after Romans. The Marcionite reconstruction proposes that, during the transmission of the Pauline collection, the original opening of Alexandrians became detached and was appended to Romans, while the remaining body of Alexandrians continued to circulate anonymously under the title Hebrews.
The reconstruction therefore restores the greetings as the opening chapter of Alexandrians. Among them is the following:
“Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with them” (Alexandrians 1:15).
Marcionite tradition identifies this Philologus as Philologus of Sinope, the father of Marcion and one of the Seventy Disciples of Jesus Christ. His appearance among the recipients or associates of the epistle provides an additional connection between the recovered letter, the Pauline churches, and the family tradition from which Marcion emerged.
The Church recognizes that the reassignment of Romans 16 to Alexandrians is reconstructive rather than directly established by a manuscript preserving the complete letter under that title. It is based upon the disputed textual position of Romans 16, the absence of an opening salutation from conventional Hebrews, the early placement of Hebrews after Romans, the identification of Tertius within the greetings, and the Marcionite tradition concerning Philologus.
The prologue to Alexandrians was reconstructed by adapting an ancient Latin prologue transmitted with the Epistle to the Hebrews. This reflects the Church’s identification of Alexandrians with the earlier form of Hebrews and preserves the most substantial surviving prologue material associated with the letter.
The reconstruction of the body of the epistle follows a deliberately conservative method. Because the Pauline authorship, original form, destination, and textual history of Hebrews have long been disputed, the Marcionite Church has not simply adopted the complete conventional text.
The reconstructed edition principally includes verses directly quoted, clearly alluded to, or otherwise attested by Clement of Alexandria around the beginning of the third century. Clement is especially important because he lived and taught in Alexandria, received the epistle as Pauline, and preserves an early textual witness from the region associated with its destination.
Additional evidence was gathered from Christian writers and textual witnesses dating before the First Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. Material preserved within biblical catenae, or ancient chains of exegetical commentary, was also considered because such collections sometimes preserve early readings otherwise absent from complete surviving manuscripts.
Limited exceptions were made where a passage is reflected in the reconstructed prologue or where a verse is required for grammatical, literary, or narrative continuity. The inclusion of such material does not imply that every unattested verse is necessarily false, but it allows the reconstruction to remain readable without abandoning its conservative evidentiary basis.
The resulting Alexandrians is therefore shorter than the conventional Epistle to the Hebrews. It seeks to approximate an earlier Pauline form without claiming that every stage of the letter’s textual history can be recovered with certainty.
The principal modern resources used in the reconstruction include Maegan C. M. Gilliland’s The Text of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews in Clement of Alexandria and Philip Schaff’s edition of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. These works provide access to the early quotations, allusions, and patristic evidence upon which the reconstruction substantially depends.
The reconstruction proceeds from the judgment that the conventional form of Hebrews underwent expansion and editorial revision during its transmission. Passages preserved by early witnesses were therefore given priority over material first securely attested at later stages.
This method does not permit the reconstructed Alexandrians to be treated as identical in every respect with either the lost letter mentioned by the Muratorian Fragment or the original form of Hebrews. Rather, it presents the most coherent form presently recoverable from the Church’s identification of the two traditions and the available early evidence.
The Epistle to the Alexandrians belongs to the Antilegicon. The name Antilegicon is derived from the Greek antilegomena, meaning “things spoken against” or “disputed writings,” joined to the book-title ending -ikon and Latinized as -icon. It therefore signifies “the book of disputed writings.”
The Antilegicon is the separate and subordinate collection of Deuterocanonical Scripture received by the Marcionite Church. It contains Titus, I Timothy, II Timothy, and Alexandrians. These writings are received as Pauline and as useful for doctrine, theology, liturgy, pastoral instruction, and historical study, but their authorship, textual history, or ancient reception has been disputed.
The Deuterocanonical status of Alexandrians does not enlarge or modify the original Apostolicon. The Canonical Scriptures remain the Evangelicon and the ten Pauline epistles gathered by Marcion in the Apostolicon. Their contents and authority are unchanged.
Alexandrians is nevertheless Scripture. It is Deuterocanonical rather than Canonical Scripture and consequently possesses a real but subordinate scriptural authority. It must be interpreted in conformity with the Evangelicon and Apostolicon and cannot be used to correct, replace, or expand the original Canon.
The Antilegicon is included within the Testamentum, the complete codex of Marcionite books. The Testamentum gathers the Canonical, Deuterocanonical, and ecclesiastical books of the Church while preserving the distinctions among their classifications and degrees of authority.
The inclusion of Alexandrians within the Testamentum therefore does not place it inside the Apostolicon. Its physical location within the complete codex reflects its reception by the Marcionite Church, while its placement within the Antilegicon preserves the historical fact that it was not contained in Marcion’s original collection.
No future textual discovery concerning Alexandrians would retroactively alter the contents of the Apostolicon. Even should its Pauline authorship be established beyond dispute or a more complete early text be recovered, it would remain a later-received writing preserved through the work attributed to Apelles rather than an epistle originally included by Marcion.
Its text may be revised if earlier readings or stronger evidence become available, but its recovery cannot cause the historical Canon to evolve. The settled Apostolicon remains the particular collection transmitted by Marcion of Sinope.
The Epistle to the Alexandrians may be used for theological study, pastoral instruction, and appropriate liturgical readings. Its teaching concerning Christ’s superiority to the angels, the insufficiency of the Law, salvation through faith, the heavenly sanctuary, the new covenant, perseverance, and the heavenly Jerusalem contributes to Marcionite doctrine when read beneath the supreme authority of the Evangelicon and Apostolicon.
Through the Antilegicon, the Marcionite Church preserves the disputed Pauline writings received by Apelles and later Marcionite Christians without confusing them with the original Apostolicon. This allows the Church to honor its broader Pauline inheritance while maintaining the unaltered form and unique authority of the Canon transmitted by Marcion.
The reconstruction of Alexandrians therefore represents neither an expansion of the Marcionite Canon nor an evolution of the Apostolicon. It is the recovery of a disputed Pauline epistle associated with Marcionite Christianity by the Muratorian Fragment, identified by the Church with the earlier form of Hebrews, and received through the work of Apelles as Deuterocanonical Scripture within the Antilegicon.
