Malachi151

When reading the various "Against Heresies" works, once notices that its claimed that many of the docetic heretics seemed to be using Luke, or an altered version of it. Why Luke?

Based on content Luke seems like the least likely gospel to use for docetists. Does this have something to do with proximity and where Luke was used?

It seems like Mark would have been the best Gospel to use by these people, or perhaps John.

Also, did any of these so-called heretics use the letters of Paul as we have them today? Probably no way to know that I guess.

hatsoff

Marcion seems to have had a great influence on the population, commanding a large following through to Irenaeus time--or at least, that is my impression from what I've read. And since Marcion used Luke, it seems natural that so much time would be devoted to refuting heretical interpretations thereof.

In other words, are you sure it was used any more than other heretical Gospels outside of Marcion's sect?

EDIT: Marcion seems to have chosen it because he liked Paul, and Luke was closest-linked written Gospel to him.

jakejonesiv

Luke seems an unlikely candidate for us today precisely because it was so useful to the doceticists. This brought forth anti-docetic interpolations by the proto-orthodox to make Luke less useful to the docetisits.

This is illustrated by the disciples meeting a ghostly Jesus on the road to Emmaus, who could not be recognized (24:16) and vanished away from their sight (24:31).

Then Jesus pops in on them like a spirit (Luke 24:36), and according to the tale, the disciples believe him to be a spirit (24:37).

But then come the interpolators. Jesus incongruosly claims to be flesh and bone, shows his hands and feet (presumably still bearing stigmata) and chows down on some fish. (yummy).

But again, they give themselves away. the disciples don't believe anything until it is revealed to them in the scriptures (Luke 24:35; cf 24-27), which in a way is true since the stories of Gospel Jesus were derived from an allegorical reading of the Septuagint; they didn't really happen.

Luke, even as it reads now, has quite a few passages that belie a docetic origin, even during his alleged ministry. For example, Luke 4:29-30, Jesus merely moves through the mob like a phantom and goes his way.

Luke 9:58 "the Son of man hath not where to lay his head" is sensible to the doceticist in that Jesus had no substantial head.

The parable of not pouring old wine into new wine skins (Luke 5:35-38) in compatible with the Marcionite doctrine that Christianity was a new religion not based on Judaism. And, as Dr. Detering has argued, verse 39, "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." is contradictory and nonsensical in this context. It is an anti-Marcioite interpolation.

Malachi151

Thanks Jake, this was the only thing I could think of too. I wonder what support there is for this, or who else has written about the subject.

Casper

I wonder if it is because proto-luke was Marcion's creation and the only actual gospel that was universally familiar.

It would go something like his:

Proto-Luke is created by Marcion and spread along with the epistles (Marco-Paul).

One camp attempts to judaize this work and does a very poor job of it and creates Mark, possibly subtly endorsing it as marcion's.

One camp does a better job and creates Luke, and Acts is the follow-up to it against Marco-Pauline epistles. This person might have had Mark available along with a Q (maybe). Possibly subtly endorsing it as Lucian's, subtly as in the case with Mark/Marcion.

A third camp judaizes either Mark or Proto-Luke better, creating matthew. Q is also available (maybe).

All super silly speculation on my part, but not too far out there if you tweak it. And it would explain why Luke, or a proto-look would be not only available for the heretics but also for the catholics. It might also explain some of the confusion over whether marcion wrote a "version" of Mark or Luke.

Go ahead, flail the flesh from this pathetic body of a post, but please point me to lay secular criticisms that I can review on my own, if possible. I might even consider apologetics in limited context. Until then that's my thoughts and I'll use them to form my non-profit synagogue of marcion until then

spin

If Irenaeus is judging Marcion's gospel as a bowdlerized gospel of Luke, based on the Luke of his time, then Irenaeus is doing nothing more than showing that Marcion's gospel is related to the Luke of Irenaeus's time, ie there can be no priority given to the Lucan gospel over the Marcionite gospel. (This would seem to be Casper's starting point.)

Are we to believe that Marcion hacked up a Lucan source to form his gospel or that Luke is a development on either the same source as Marcion's gospel or Marcion's gospel itself? Given the involved birth narratives supplied in Luke, would Marcion have opted on removing them and having his Jesus first appear in Capernaum (according to Tertullian), ie would Marcion have ignored a birth of Jesus and formulated his god Jesus popping down as an adult?


spin

Amaleq13

That has always been my understanding but I'm not sure how that works with his inclusion of Luke 8:20 in The Gospel of the Lord:

And it was told him by certain which said, "Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee"

spin

That makes things even more complicated, I guess. This verse is also found in Mark, such that if the Marcionite gospel was based on Mark, we would certainly have explaining to do, eg he must have deliberately left it out, or somesuch. One could try the idea that Mark is derived from Markion , but I haven't looked closely enough at what can be said of the whole work as preserved for us in Tertullian and the other source I've forgotten.


spin

jakejonesiv

The gospel attributed to Marcion by the heresiologists is not the one produced by him. There are far too many passages, including the one in Luke 8:20, that are contradictory to Marcionite dogma. At best, Tertullian knew of a text of the Evangelion that had already been somewhat catholicized.

There is also evidence to suggest that Tertullian didn't even have a copy of Luke and was working from memory. Several times he accused Marcion of hacking something out of Luke that actually never was in Luke, but in Matthew.

Some of these issues are discussed at the end of this thread.

Ben C Smith

I think there is a much better explanation of this particular passage:

1. Luke 8.20 was in the Marcionite gospel.
2. But so was Luke 8.21.
3. Marcion interpreted 8.21 as cleanly negating 8.20.

This is indeed what Tertullian says various heretics claimed (in Against Marcion 4.19):

They say that he himself testifies to his not having been born when he asks: Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?

Epiphanius (Panarion 42) explicitly says that the raw statement in Luke 8.19 that his mother and brothers arrived was missing from the Marcionite version. This leaves talk of mother and brothers only on the lips of others in the Marcionite version, with Jesus himself contradicting them.

Ben.