Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 01:48 PM

von Harnack, a liberal Protestant theologian, had a very complex understanding of Marcion, in no small part shaped by his unparalleled knowledge of the references to the tradition in the Patristic writings. These statements are out of character with what is generally regarded to be von Harnack's position on Marcion as we read in Wikipedia:

Quote:

Adolf von Harnack argued that Marcion viewed the church at this time as largely an Old Testament church (one that "follows the Testament of the Creator-God") without a firmly established New Testament canon, and that the church gradually formulated its New Testament canon in response to the challenge posed by Marcion [source].

It is now widely acknowledged that the Marcionites possessed the first New Testament canon in Christianity.

Iskander · 09-16-2011, 02:09 PM

From Harnack’s

The gospels were used alongside the Hebrew Bible before the arrival of Marcion; only the word of god alone was used --without the commentary of men or women.

Marcion’s weird ravings destroyed the intellectual freedom of Christianity.

Quote:

On the other hand, about the year 150 the main body of Christendom had still no collection of Gospels and Epistles possessing equal authority with the Old Testament, and, apart from Apocalypses, no new writings at all, which as such, that is,as sacred texts, were regarded as inspired and authoritative.[72]...

The memoirs of the Apostles ([Greek: apomnêmoneumata ton apostolôn] = [Greek: ta euangelia]) owed their significance solely to the fact that they recorded the words and history of the Lord and bore witness to the fulfilment of Old Testament predictions. There is no mention whatever of apostolic epistles as holy writings of standard authority.[74] But we learn further from Justin that the Gospels as well as the Old Testament were read in public worship (Apol. I. 67) and that our first three Gospels were already in use.

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 02:24 PM

Yes but it has already been argued that Harnack, the liberal Protestant theologian never managed to fully shake his inherited presuppositions

Iskander · 09-16-2011, 02:40 PM

The Church was forced to compile an authorized cannon and did that with intelligence and honesty

From your favourite author, Dr Harnack.

Quote:

The Church had to collect everything apostolic and declare herself to be its only legal possessor. She was obliged, moreover, to amalgamate the apostolic with the canon of the Old Testament in such a way as to fix the exposition from the very first.

But what writings were apostolic? From the middle of the second century great numbers of writings named after the Apostles had already been in circulation, and there were often different recensions of one and the same writing.[91] Versions which contained docetic elements and exhortations to the most pronounced asceticism had even made their way into the public worship of the Church.

Above all, therefore, it was necessary to determine (1) what writings were really apostolic, (2) what form or recension should be regarded as apostolic. The selection was made by the Church, that is, primarily, by the churches of Rome and Asia Minor, which had still an unbroken history up to the days of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus.

In making this choice, the Church limited herself to the writings that were used in public worship, and only admitted what the tradition of the elders justified her in regarding as genuinely apostolic

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 03:03 PM

I am not saying I agree with all of von Harnack's conclusions but he has an incredible grasp of the Patristic references and makes it fit within his inherited presuppositions - like most people who become specialists in a field. As my grandmother said, you take things with a grain of salt

Iskander · 09-16-2011, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Why should it be surprising that a new reading should be described as 'very awkward' when I just rediscovered something that lay dormant for almost two thousand years? Yes of course it sounds unusual but familiarity should not be an argument in favor of authenticity.

I don't know what the meaning of the passage is yet. I haven't sorted out the correct terminology. Once that is done we can establish the original meaning.

The reality is that the usual meaning is senseless. Bread and water or bread and wine shouldn't be said to actually be taken to be Jesus or Christ or any person. They're inanimate objects. If I call someone 'meathead' or 'rotten cabbage' or the like no one would really believe that someone literally has a head made of beef or is literally a rotten cabbage. It's only habit and ignorance that allowed for this to be taken for granted.

The question is what did the editors of Luke mean when they said Jesus would be a σημεῖον? How could bread and water be taken as simanim? What did Cyril mean when he took bread as an ἀντίτυπος? Sarapion as a ομοίωμα? Tertullian as a figura? This is how we will ultimately get to the right answer.

This is what Harnack says about the passage in question:

Quote:

This ever changing conception, as it seems to us, of the effects of partaking of the Lord's Supper had also a parallel in the notions as to the relation between the visible elements and the body of Christ. So far as we are able to judge no one felt that there was a _problem_ here, no one enquired whether this relation was realistic or symbolical.

The symbol is the mystery and the mystery was not conceivable without a symbol. What we now-a-days understand by "symbol" is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time "symbol" denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies; but, on the other hand, according to the ideas of that period, the really heavenly element lay either in or behind the visible form without being identical with it.

Accordingly the distinction of a symbolic and realistic conception of the Supper is altogether to be rejected; we could more rightly distinguish between materialistic, dyophysite, and docetic conceptions which, however, are not to be regarded as severally exclusive in the strict sense.

Good night

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 04:50 PM

Thank you. He is an erudite man and we are all engaging in conjecture and reconstructing history comes down to a question of probability. His understanding deserves attention but it is by no means the last word on matters. His book on Marcion in its original German is a necessary resource for anyone interested in Marcion.

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 06:23 PM

It is interesting to examine the use of the term 'symbol' of the Eucharist in the writing of Clement of Alexandria. I will need to bring forward McGowan's work on milk and honey in the sacraments of the Marcionites, Montanists and other sectarians. This will challenge our traditional notion of what was used in the Christian mysteries. I think these mysteries were known to Clement too. Let's start by examining what Clement says about the 'symbol' of flesh and blood in the Christian Eucharist:

Quote:

As nurses nourish new-born children on milk, so do I also by the Word, the milk of Christ, instilling into you spiritual nutriment. Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end; Revelation 1:8 the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed (γαλακτοφάγοι). So also may we take the Scripture: And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ; 1 Corinthians 3:1 so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal; whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the heathen the things of the flesh: For whereas there is among you envy and strife, are you not carnal, and walk as men? 1 Corinthians 3:3 Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink, he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression, I have given you to drink is the symbol of perfect appropriation (τὸ ἐπότισα ῥῆμα τελείας μεταλήψεως σύμβολόν ἐστιν). For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. For my blood, says the Lord, is true drink. John 6:55 In saying, therefore, I have given you milk to drink, has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next, not meat, for you were not able, may indicate the clear revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. (Paed 1.6)

Quote:

And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind. Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols (διὰ συμβόλων φάγεσθέ), when He said: Eat my flesh, and drink my blood; describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle. (ibid)

Quote:

Wherefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says mystically, I have given you milk to drink. (1 Corinthians 3:2) For if we have been regenerated unto Christ, He who has regenerated us nourishes us with His own milk, the Word; for it is proper that what has procreated should immediately supply nourishment to that which has been procreated. And as the regeneration was conformably spiritual, so also was the nutriment of man spiritual. In all respects, therefore, and in all things, we are brought into union with Christ, into relationship through His blood, by which we are redeemed; and into sympathy, in consequence of the nourishment which flows from the Word; and into immortality, through His guidance: "Among men the bringing up of children, often produces stronger impulses to love than the procreating of them." The same blood and milk of the Lord is therefore the symbol of the Lord's passion and teaching (τοῦ κυρίου πάθους καὶ διδασκαλίας σύμβολον). Wherefore each of us babes is permitted to make our boast in the Lord, while we proclaim: "Yet of a noble sire and noble blood I boast me sprung." (ibid)

stephan huller · 09-16-2011, 08:44 PM

It is very hard to argue that Clement of Alexandria did not have a gospel which had 'this is the sign of my blood' when you read this:

Quote:

The Scripture, accordingly, has named wine the symbol of the sacred blood (Μυστικὸν ἄρα σύμβολον ἡ γραφὴ αἵματος ἁγίου οἶνον ὠνόμασεν) [2.2]

We should also consider this explanation by Clement just before:

Quote:

The Word desired that the 'blood of the grape' be mixed with water as a symbol that his own blood is an integral element in salvation. Now the blood of the Lord is twofold; one is corporeal, redeeming us from corruption, the other is spiritual and it is with what we are anointed. Yet the spirit is the strength of the Word in the same way the blood is of the body. Similarly wine is mixed with water and the Spirit is joined to man. The first, the mixture, provides feasting that faith may be increased, the other, the Spirit, leads us to incorruption.

stephan huller · 09-17-2011, 03:02 PM

Erasmus responds to Luther's criticism (above) in the following link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mhn...ody%22&f=false

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09-16-2011, 02:24 PM	#33
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Yes but it has already been argued that Harnack, the liberal Protestant theologian never managed to fully shake his inherited presuppositions

09-16-2011, 03:03 PM	#35
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I am not saying I agree with all of von Harnack's conclusions but he has an incredible grasp of the Patristic references and makes it fit within his inherited presuppositions - like most people who become specialists in a field. As my grandmother said, you take things with a grain of salt

09-16-2011, 04:50 PM	#37
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Thank you. He is an erudite man and we are all engaging in conjecture and reconstructing history comes down to a question of probability. His understanding deserves attention but it is by no means the last word on matters. His book on Marcion in its original German is a necessary resource for anyone interested in Marcion.

09-17-2011, 03:02 PM	#40
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Erasmus responds to Luther's criticism (above) in the following link: http://books.google.com/books?id=mhn...ody%22&f=false

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