stephan huller

Yes but we know from ALL our sources that (a) the Marcionites had only ONE gospel and (b) when the Apostolikon has the Apostle saying 'my gospel' he refers to that ONE gospel. When the Philosophumena denies a claim FROM THE MARCIONITES that the Apostikon and the GOSPEL OF MARK support their tradition then it can only mean that at least some Marcionites identified their gospel as the Gospel of Mark and further more that their apostle was the author of that text.

Unless you have another explanation of the passage in the Philosophumena ...

avi

There are two easy explanations for this question of single vowel transposition:

a. vowel substitution between native Greek speakers living in Rome and those living in Constantinople...We have, in English, examples of single vowel change from just one neighborhood of London to another neighborhood, a few blocks away; Vowel pronunciation between native speakers from Manchester or Glasgow, and those born in Dallas or Memphis is sufficiently distinct so as to render their speech mutually incomprehensible. Citizens of Tennessee don't say "oil", they say "earl". The person who transcribed the ancient sources, to produce the Theodosian Code, may have been accustomed to thinking of "a", rather than "o", simply because that is how the neighboring folks spoke.

b. vowel substitution between native Greek speakers living in Constantinople and native Latin speakers assembling the Theodosian code in Latin.

They wrote Marcianistae, the same way anyone transposes a phoneme, in any language. Such transposition is very common, especially in English.

The word is Immokalee, name of a city in Florida, a Seminole Indian word, meaning "home" (the original inhabitants, the Caloosa Indians were exterminated by the Europeans, who then expelled the Seminole from Georgia, and other points north, to the Everglade swamps, hence, the new "home" of the Seminole) yet, it is invariably mispronounced, by the descendants of the Europeans who invaded the land, as Immakalee.

The word is Lahser, (a as in "ah,ha!") name of a street in the suburbs of Detroit, but it is universally mispronounced Lasher, (a as in "bad", "sad")(with both a vowel change, and a consonent alteration ("s" changed to "sh".)

A single vowel change in a Greek proper name, transcribed into Latin in the Codex Theodosian, is not a rationale for postulating, in my opinion, confounding a fictional Mark with a fictional Marcion.

avi

avi

But not Irenaeus? Why isn't he a "boogeyman"? How do we know that Irenaeus' writings are not filled up with editorial changes, redactions, interpolations, overt forgeries, etc, as you claim is the case for the works of Justin Martyr..?

How do you know what Irenaeus' goal was, in citing Justin? How do you know that he did cite Justin? Why couldn't such "citations" represent nothing more than fourth century editorial adjustments to the text? You have indicated that there is but ONE single manuscript available representing Justin's writings, and that this sole surviving manuscript is contaminated, altered, doctored, and theologically mutilated.....

How many authentic copies do we possess of Irenaeus' compositions? Have they been retouched?

And I believe it should be focused on the figure of Irenaeus. We need more than a single vowel transposition in the Codex Theodosianus to justify the hypothesis that Marcion is simply another way of writing Mark.

avi

stephan huller

Avi,

Let's remember how the Theodosian Code was introduced into the discussion. I said that one of the reasons why I thought the Marcionites were fictitious was because they are demonstrated to have been identified in Patristic writings into the sixth century BUT, I said, I had never come across the specific name 'Marcionite' in the legal texts of the Empire.

Then the eminent Andrew Criddle pointed out that in fact the name Marcianistae DOES appear in the Theodosian Code and that THAT MIGHT BE or HE THOUGHT IT WAS a reference to the Marcionites.

I then countered that we still don't have a Marcionite reference in the Theodosian Code. This isn't the crux of the argument of course. The question of whether Marcion is fictitious is not going to be settled in fifth century legal texts. As Criddle noted the pausity (see I learned a new word) of Marcionite references was interesting. I don't think you can dismiss Marcion merely because the later Emperors didn't mention his sect.

In point a fact, I could play devils advocate and say that there is an inscription in Deir Ali, Syria from 318 CE which explicitly states:

The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good -Erected by the forethought of Paul a presbyter, in the year 630 Seleucid era

So in a sense someone could point to that and say 'look they were called Marcionites.'

I would argue however that the Dialogues of Adamantius make absolutely clear that 'Marcionite' was a name applied TO THE SECT by their enemies. The sect never called itself 'Marcionite.' The term they used for themselves was Christianoi (or possible Chrestianoi). And Bauer points to the same thing operating in reverse in Osrhoene (i.e. where the Marcionites appropriated the name 'Christian' for themselves and the Catholics were called Palutians (Aram. refugees).

So it a subtle question really. Where did the name 'Marcionites' come from if the sect didn't originally apply the name to themselves? As I noted the Valentinians denied they ever called themselves by this name or - as I suspect - that there ever was a 'Valentinius.'

Did the Ebionites call themselves 'Evionim'? I strongly doubt it. But then names are tricky thing.

The Arians certainly did not call themselves 'Arians.' Arius was the presbyter of the Martyrium of St. Mark so they probably thought of themselves as the true Christian tradition that went through Dionysius and Origen all the way back to St. Mark. They probably simply called themselves 'Christians.'

We hear that the Meletians originally never so identified themselves after their prominent leader of the beginning of the fourth century. They distinguished themselves as 'the Martyr Church' a name that interestingly also shows up among the Messalians which - I think - I provided strong evidence for associating with the Marcionites.

Now Arius and Meletius were real people and - I would argue - Marcion and Ebion were not. How do you prove who was what in antiquity when everyone thought they had the right to identify themselves as Christian?

Well I think you begin with the general principle that the Church Fathers had a tendency to make up as many groups as they could find references to heretical assemblies. Then we have to ask ourselves 'what independent evidence do we have for Carpocrates or Cerinthus?'

This doesn't mean that these names didn't go back to real historical individuals but doesn't Kerinthos for instance make better sense as a corruption of Korinthos as Petrement suggests? I think so. As such I think you hunt around for the explanation which explains MORE of the available evidence. In the case of Cerinthus we see Epiphanius and others always mention that this heretic lurks in the background of the Epistle to the Corinthians. Petrement's suggestion works for me.

In the case of Marcion, what do we really have in the way of positive identification that he ever existed? Irenaeus's report that Polycarp claims to have 'condemned him to his face' probably at Rome? Sorry folks it sounds to me right off the back that a turning around of the Marcionite interpretation of Galatians 2:11. In other words, it sets the stage for explaining away Marcion's interpretation of scripture based on a familiar motivation in the Patristic writings - 'jealousy.'

'Marcion' got rejected by the Church and condemned to HIS face so he - now filled with such hatred and jealousy that he PROJECTED his own disposition on the holy apostles.

But we all 'know' that Paul was meek and willingly subordinated himself to the authority of Peter. As such Marcion - that heretical boogeyman - was deceiving the world.

Yet I happen to think when start going down that road and see that the Catholics were ATTACKING Marcion's interpretation by attacking Marcion, the more you have to wonder HOW MUCH DISTANCE REALLY WAS THERE BETWEEN 'the Apostle' and Marcion?

I mean the Catholics say that Paul was this and that because of the Acts of the Apostles but the Marcionite rejected that text as deceitful and spurious. How can we simply turn around and that point and say that the Marcionites accepted our inherited paradigm where they can't be demonstrated accepting ANY aspect of our familiar 'Saul becomes Paul' from our inherited canon.

Indeed when you really think about it we always talk about 'Paul' as if it was his real name when even Acts has to admit it was something added to the Aposte after he underwent some experience later in life.

The Catholics say his real name was 'Shaul' (which means grave or underworld as well as being a proper name in Hebrew) but the Marcionites could have agreed with that. Tertullian would have said so in his attack against the Marcionite rejection of Acts.

As such we are left with this giant enigma - what did the Marcionites really hold the name of their Apostle was? There really isn't any good answer here because quite frankly we just don't know.

I have put forward a theory that the Catholics had to invent a scenario where there was some distance between the proclaimer of the Pauline canon (Marcion) and the author of that same canon (Paul). There is evidence from the Patristic writings to suggest that this was originally not so. The Marcionite community might well have been so difficult to define BECAUSE WE ALWAYS TAKE OUR INHERITED ASSUMPTION ABOUT Church History and IMPOSE IT ON OTHER CULTURES.

So to this end, Eznik says that the Marcionites believed that after Jesus confronts the Creator and has engages in some legal jousting with him immediately after the God of the Jews repents he sends 'Paul' on his way to preach his message.

Does that really mean that Marcionites used the name 'Paul'? or was 'Paul' just a convenient way for the Church Fathers to describe the 'guy who wrote the letters of our canon.'

The Clementine writings seem to indicate that there was a tradition which identified Simon Magus with the Apostle. The Basilideans apparently thought that Simon was crucified in Jesus's place.

It is terribly difficult for cultures to communicate with one another AND BE PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD if they don't have some common terminology.

My guess is that 'Paul' was one such commonly held mnemonic marker for Patristic writers when dealing with or trying to explain the Marcionites. But notice of course that there are clear clues that they like most early writers simply referenced him as 'the Apostle' (the collection of letters for instance is called the 'Apostolikon' rather than the Pauline writings.' The Marcionites seem to identify their gospel as being written 'according to God' or 'according to Mark' but never 'according to Paul.'

Perhaps one of the most powerful (and overlooked) statements about the Marcionite relation to its apostle appears at the beginning of Book Four of Against Marcion where Tertullian writes:

It matters not that the arrangement of their narratives varies, so long as there is agreement on the essentials of the faith—and on these they show no agreement with Marcion. Marcion [cmp Philosophumena 7.18], on the other
hand, attaches to his gospel no author's name, [cmp. Adamantius Dialogue i. 5] —as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name ... so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors (but they don't even claim that) [Tert. AM iv.3]

There is a nexus of material which suggests that the title of the Marcionite gospel was derived from Mark 1:1 (i.e. 'the Gospel of Jesus Christ' or some such variant). This explains why the author of the Philosophumena could report Marcionites connected with a gospel of Mark [Phil.vii.18] and moreover the Marcionite in Dialogues of Adamantius is forced to attack the claim that Peter 'really' wrote the gospel (of the Marcionites) with the argument that the text was ascribed to God.

Again, as I mentioned in my post to AA the core Marcionite understanding was that of only ONE APOSTLE who was responsible for the entire New Testament canon (i.e. Evangelium and Apostolikon ). There are one of two possibilities based on the available evidence - either (a) there was a gospel of Paul followed by letters of Paul or (b) as the Philosophumena hints a gospel of Mark and a collection of epistles penned by St. Mark called 'Paulos' perhaps as some sort of title (but even that is too speculative really right now).

Why should we believe that the Marcionites attributed the Epistles to St. Mark? Well, let's leave aside the issue of how Paul the invented Catholic persona of Acts ended up having authority over Marks' literary composition (remember the Church Fathers would attribute that 'miracle' to the power of the Holy Spirit). The Muratorian canon's mention of a Letter to the Alexandrian in the Marcionite canon is the tipping point for me, personally because not only do we not have a reference to an evangelical mission of 'Paul' to Alexandria, there is no mention of any other apostle going to Alexandria or Egypt AT ALL in Catholic circles beside St. Mark.

Alexandria is the See of St. Mark. The Marcionite argument in the Dialgogues of Adamantius against Petrine authorship of the Evangelium is typical Alexandrian propaganda witnessed today in the Coptic Church:

http://tasbeha.org/content/hh_books/Stmark/index.html (read chapter three which begins "How much injustice did St. Mark receive from the followers
of St. Peter ? They tried to rob him his apostolic dignity, and credit all his efforts to somebody else? I mean St. Peter." The Marcionites are making the exact same point in essence in the Dialogues of Adamantius albeit 'riffing' off the title of the Gospel of Mark.

Now if Marcion was just a diminutive of Mark the various statements which still remain in Tertullian's reworking of original material from earlier sources STILL repeatedly reflects the gospel of the Marcionites as ultimately deriving from Marcion himself. Just look at the evidence carefully. We are so used to saying that the Marcionite gospel is 'Luke' that we don't even realize that it is clearly identified as 'the Gospel of Marcion' which as Hilgenfeld would have to note is just another way of saying 'the Gospel of Mark':

Marcion, on the other hand, attaches to his gospel no author's name [AM iv.2]

if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul [ibid]

we should demand the production of that gospel also which Paul found (in his writings), that to which he gave his assent (rather than the gospel of Marcion) [ibid]

Marcion has got hold of Paul's epistle to the Galatians, in which he rebukes even the apostles themselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,a and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ: and on this ground Marcion strives hard to overthrow the credit of those gospels which are the apostles (Paul)'s own and are published under their names, or even the names of apostolic men, with the intention no doubt of conferring on his own gospel the repute which he takes away from those others. [AM iv.3]

So then meanwhile, as concerns the gospel of Luke, seeing that the use of it shared between us and Marcion becomes an arbiter of the truth, our version of it is to such an extent older than Marcion that Marcion himself once believed it.[AM iv.4]

If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see whether it is [by] Marcion [ibid]

As corrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberius to those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes to light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time, repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without Marcion to protect them. And yet heresy, which is always in this manner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is the effect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even if Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Marcion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so we preach: and if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of the prophets have to be subject to the prophets, for they are not of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were an angel, he is more likely to be called anathema than gospel-maker, seeing he has preached a different gospel. And so, by making these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and that that other came later which he has put together out of his corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own. [ibid]

Now I can't keep citing every example in the Five Books Against Marcion that says that the Marcionite gospel was 'the Gospel of Marcion.' We are only up to chapter four. But I want to remind the readers that the Philosophumena already says that people were (mis)identifying it as 'the Gospel of Mark' (which Marcion being a diminutive form of Mark would naturally encourage.

What is intriguing now that we discovered Alexandrian references to a 'secret' Gospel of Mark which I would argue resembles features of the Diatessaron (which also beings with Mark 1:1 and in at least two versions is secretly ascribed to 'Mark' by means of an acrostic in its introduction) it is interesting to note that Tertullian not only here but repeatedly throughout his Five Book emphasizes that 'Marcion' came LATE (i.e. after the apostolic age) to establish his false gospel. The same idea emerges in Clement's identification of Mark coming to Alexandria AFTER Peter's martyrdom which effectively closes the apostolic age (Clement also says in effect that Marcion was established as a Christian DURING the apostolic age interesting).

I want to close this post (I have to something else) with the next reference which immediately follows this last statement which notes that Marcion's gospel was also 'secret':

that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is known is also by the same reason condemned. Admittedly that gospel too has its churches; but they are its own, of late arrival and spurious: if you search out their ancestry you are more likely to find it apostatic than apostolic, having for founder either Marcion or someone from Marcion's hive. Even wasps make combs, and Marcionites make churches. [AM iv.5]

I would like to emphasize that when we can also note that according to Clement's time line Mark's establishment of the gospel must have been paralleled by a similar (late) church building effort (i.e. after the martyrdom of Peter).

aa5874

Please, I do not accept the corrupted writings of Tertullian as you do. Your flawed theory has FORCED you to accept the corruption or fiction in "Against Heresies".

It should be obvious that the Church could have corrupted the writings of Marcion as they corrupted their OWN writings like Justin (as you assume) and the very Tertullian.

Once you suppose that Marcion and Simon did NOT exist then it rather easy for me to suppose that your Mark did not exist.

ONCE you suppose there were no persons called Ebionites, or any other cult names then one can use your same flawed logic and claim there was no cult called "those of Mark" and that they were probably called Christians.

YOUR MARK was a boogeyman.

stephan huller

AA

At least give me credit that I try to understand where people are coming from. I also take a lot of time answering their questions. So here's a question I know I am going to regret asking you - what do you mean by:

Surely that even if it is corrupt (which I believe that the opening words of the Five Books Against Marcion clearly acknowledge in a backhanded way) IT IS A CHRISTIAN TEXT from some period in antiquity. It's 'pretty old.' If Tertullian came from the third century and the editors might have been active a generation or two after he wrote ISN'T THAT WORTH SOMETHING? I mean it's not a Christian text from yesterday morning in Cleveland.

I don't understand what you mean by it's corrupt THEREFORE it's not worth anything. It surely is an authentic expression of SOMETHING or SOMEONE that was a Christian closer to the time of Jesus than we are.

Just asking.

avi

Nor, are you likely too, friend.

xxxite is pejorative.

Look again, please, learned colleague, at the original Latin of the Codex Theodosianus, derived from Greek sources.

Forget about the English, with our rude mannerisms.

Whether one spells it Marcionistae or Marcianistae is irrelevant. What counts is that it is NOT spelled Marcionite, as you have penned, repeatedly on this thread, thereby betraying your emotional bias, an attribute unattractive in such an erudite scholar, as you certainly are. The proper English is Marcionist(s). Yes, a mouthful. Look at the original Greek. That's the key.

umm, I suspect you were fatigued, when you put quill to papyrus here, friend. The word is paucity. But, yes, it is pronounced as you have written.

avi

avi

1. Christian? Are you sure? I thought Tertullian's expulsion from Christianity was perceived as advantageous by both parties in the divorce proceedings? By what right do we simply disregard Tertullian's later expositions as a Montanist? He lived what ? fifty years, forty years maybe, on terra firma. He was a practicing Christian for only ten years. Would you assign a particular dogma to someone's entire corpus by such a relatively brief encounter with a doctrine? Do you think of Aristotle as simply a Platonist?
2. Did he write those opening words against Marcion? Umm, if not, then, how shall we judge the remainder of his text?
3. Worth? How do we assign worthiness? How do we compute it? How do we establish which component of Tertullian's surviving text originates by his own hand?
4. How about this hypothesis: There was no Tertullian. He is a fabrication of Eusebius. Have you some papyrus tucked away somewhere, authored by Tertullian, which predates Eusebius?

avi

stephan huller

Let's start at the beginning. It MIGHT be a vowel substitution but then again it might not be. The reading is the reading and then we have to argue against what appears on the page, we can't start with our assumptions or else we end up like Rabbi Akiva (my favorite quote from the rabbinic literature). As such the Marcianistae of the Theodosian Code MIGHT be a misreading of Marcionistae (Eusebius HE iv.22) but it also might be a separate sect related to a figure named Marcian (cf Wace Dictionary p. 403). At best it is an example of how the names get confused over time.

But then again so what? How does this prove that there really was a Marcion. The Marcionites did not identify themselves as Marcionites. Nor did the Valentinians and they explicitly denied their origins from someone named Valentinius. Please tell me why any of this matters.

Regarding my identification of the group as 'Marcionite' rather than Marcionists I have rarely run across this name in scholarly literature. There are only 3,770 results in Google compared to 164,240 results for 'Marcionite.' In Google Books its 1,942 for 'Marcionists' (most from an archaic period) and 60,000 for 'Marcionite'

Thanks for the nit picking but the term is generally used.

As an aside if you had told me when I entered this forum that I would end of defending the EXISTENCE of Tertullian and the rest of the Church Fathers I'd have thought you were joking.

There really are people walking around that think that Irenaeus and Tertullian were non-existent. I can see maybe that they had another name BUT ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS? Where did the texts come from then? Aliens?

avi

Wow. "Entirely fictitious". What an amazing idea. That's so unorthodox it is almost scary.

Good thing the good folks who run the USA have their heads screwed on straight, not like some of those weirdos at freeratio, who consider the entire Jesus affair to be a myth.

I bet some of those same skeptics at FRDB don't believe in our favorite pet ox, whom we lovingly refer to as "Babe, the blue ox." Oh, yeah, he's real. So's his Tonto, we call him Paul, no, not Saul of Tarsus, this is Paul Bunyan. A real live he-man, not one of those pussies with four eyes who sit glued to a computer all day long. No, our Paul, he's out there rain or shine, bringing home the lumber....

What a manly guy he was. Why just last week I ran into the fella who helped to clean the statue of "Saginaw" Paul in Bay City. That's real important work, cleaning Paul's statue, to help the younger generation remain mindful of Paul's enormous contributions. Of course, when I lived up in Oscoda in the 60's, we always thought Saginaw Joe (Paul's nom de plume) grew up in our little hamlet, not Bay City.

Well, as time goes by, tall tales begin to emerge about him. However, we know the truth....He and Babe were just a fantastic team together.

Of course, it is always a bit discouraging to encounter folks who remain unconvinced about the authenticity of Paul's real accomplishments. I am never sure whether to laugh or cry when I read such foolishness. Of course Paul and Babe lived and worked together.

There are many, many authoritative newspaper articles, verifying Paul and Babe's genuine accomplishments working side by side. How can anyone, even remotely intelligent, possibly doubt Paul's greatness? Next thing you know, some foolish person will suggest that Paul and Babe reached earth after many years of travel through outer space....

avi