So I would rather like to say (like the Dutch philologist SA Naber) that all Pauline letters ‘ortas esse in Cerdonis vel Marcionitarum scholis’, that means: they had been written in Marcionite/Kerdo’s school and firstly collected by ‘schoolmaster’ Marcion.
(The Gospel and the Greek Mysteries, Rev. Augustine S. Carman)In commenting on Eph. 5:19, Dr. (Woolsey) Bacon says: "In place of the bacchanalian orgies in which the gilded youth of Ephesus had their delight, he recommends the joyous choruses, not only of psalms and hymns, but also of those graceful and exhilarating Grecian melodies that may be joined in Christian wedlock with spiritual words and thoughts." This interpretation seems a fair one, especially if, as seems probable, the entire fifth chapter of the epistle is replete with allusions to the alluring and debasing observance of the Mysteries so prevalent in Ephesus and other parts of Asia Minor. This conclusion is
the more ineludible from the fact that the comparison of the Bacchic orgies with the worship of the true God was a familiar one at the time through the writing of Philo.' Perhaps a free paraphrase of the chapter, designed to bring out the allusions in question, may best present the argument.
Marcion is dubious as a historical figure to me, because I can't believe there was a Roman patriarchate in the mid-second-century. Cerdo is all the more dubious.
Cerdo is, in effect, the nickname for Demeter in her prophetic role with the Eleusinian mysteries. The Epistle to the Ephesians, per Rev. Carman, seems the most well correlated to Eleusinian motifs.
I will continue to assert my current theory that Tiberius Claudius Balbilus - Imperial Court Astrologer, war brother of Vespasian in Britain, Egyptian, and very likely candidate for the "Basilides" who anoints Vespasian as emperor at Mt. Carmel AND at the Serapeum of Alexandria, is the principal author of Paul.
The authentic epistles were written at Corinth, in 65, during Vespasian's exile there. It was in preparation of Vespasian's victory in the Jewish Revolt, in which the Jewish messianic star prophecy would be applied to him so that the East would recognize his legitimacy as emperor. There are obvious Jewish politics involved as well.
Balbilus retired as, effectively, the master of Ephesus. I would speculate that he picks up his pen as Paul there in a second phase, in which his purpose isn't political but rather more in service of his personal beliefs.
I would also speculate that the Basilidean school of Alexandria converts Judeo-Egyptian proto-Gnosticism into Gnosticism and is named in honor of the Basilides who anointed Vespasian.
Therefore, Cerdo is named as the forebear of Marcion in order to denigrate the movement as Gnostic and gentile. Recognizing in Paul even Eleusinian tropes, and so forth. It is purely polemic.