tanya

And how does one know that Irenaeus' texts have not been similarly filtered?

stephan huller

They may well have been but the question is what reality is there behind the claim of the existence of 'Marcionites.' Surely there is something true here otherwise why invent a sect with a whole peculiar set of beliefs and practices? There were no internet forums to waste hours on idle theories and claims back in the second and third centuries.

Kapyong

Gday,

Appears not.

But some of Frank Williams translation can be found on Google Books.


K.

stephan huller

The reference in Against Celsus with the cockfight:

Few people will recognize it of course but the latter statement "Since a divine Spirit inhabited the body (of Jesus), it must certainly have been different From that of other beings, in respect of grandeur, or beauty, or strength, or voice, or impressiveness, or persuasiveness. For it is impossible that He, to whom was imparted some divine quality beyond other beings, should not differ from others; whereas this person did not differ in any respect from another, but was, as they report, little, and ill-favoured, and ignoble" is clearly not just an opportunity to say that Jesus was ugly but that the Marcionite belief that he had better or more perfect flesh (cf. Ephrem Against Marcion Bk. 1) is ridiculous. Yet notice also that the argument is hardly 'serious' in the traditional sense of what we are used to in the writings of the Church Fathers. Its more like the kind of stuff we'd find on an atheist board (i.e. to make fun of Christianity = 'buffoonery" according to Origen).:dancy::dancy:

mountainman

Epiphanius may be a source of both positive and negative evidence for M, and you do well to stress and analyse the negative evidence above. You appear to have developed a system to interpret it. Epi as an heresiologist, almost certainly freely indulged in literary calumny (they all did), against what he perceived in the later 4th century as the "Other".


MTM (rural)

DCHindley

I'm thinking more like comparing the various church fathers who mention the beliefs and holy books of the "Marcionites" to try and tease out where they got their information from, and what it seemed to have actually said. This file I created is a first step to that, as well as a resource that any interested persons who happen to read a critic stating that "Epiphanius/Adamantius/Origen/Tertullian says ...". Does that author really say or imply what the critic says he does? I learned long ago, when I looked into Crossan's version of "cross-cultural anthropology," that even top notch critics can misrepresent sources, or let their own ideological dispositions influence their interpretations.

As for Celsus, whoever he was, he was not a true student of philosophy (despite what the title "True Logos" suggests, Logos being a Platonic technical term) as what Christians seem to have responded to were the taunts of a controversialist. I'd suggest Celsus was a "sophist" (private tutor who accepted fees, unlike professional = "rich" = philosophers, who did not) who catered to the middle or lower classes.

He clearly had access to the canonical Gospels as well as Jewish polemical traditions about Jesus, and if I interpret what you have posted correctly, some information about Marcion as well. However, the jesting nature of the discourse suggests that he was the pagan analogue to a Jew-baiter of the middle ages or Christian "apologist" of today. By writing his book, which appealed to common opinions about "Christians," Celsus likely succeeded in filling his available schedule with paying lectures.

DCH

mountainman

False. Such "Mockumentaries" are known to have been dedicated (among others) to Constantine. Have a read through the well researched article at livius.org on the "Historia Augusta". We do have evidence for the invention of sources (with hundreds of forged documents) and invented counter-sources in a 4th century manuscript.

Analogously the internet forums in the 4th century were based in imperially controlled scriptoria in the major cities, or alternatively, the illegal ones were hiding out hundreds of miles from the cities (e.g. Nag Hammadi) and running different operating systems (Coptic not Greek)

stephan huller

I have a really good book on pagan reports about the New Testament where the author surveys the evidence about Celsus and says that he is truly unknowable. There is a reason why 160 CE was given as a likely possible date. I was originally inclined toward a date at the beginning of the reign of the Antonines but I have changed my mind back and forth.

Let me at least say this. Because the monotheism of Christianity is streamlined people assume that Marcion just thought Jesus was the unknown God and that's that. Celsus's point is more in keeping with the understanding of the godhead in the second century where Father and Son were distinct entities. As such I just want to stress that there really are three possibilities for Marcionitism:

1. that Jesus was a Son unknown to the Jews and his Father was the Creator (this is kind of like the point you bring forward from Epiphanius)

2. that Jesus was the unknown Son and he had an unknown Father (this is Celsus's parody)

3. that Jesus was the known (and repentant) Son and Creator whose Father was only recently revealed to Him and his mission on earth was to make manifest this unknown Father (my interpretation of Marcionite - this week at least)

4. Jesus was the Creator and Son and he had a Father and both were known to the Jews (the position it would seem of Irenaeus and the Catholics which succeeds in 'combating heresy' but is so senseless it took the force of Imperial decrees in the fourth century to make everyone forget that it was senseless).

This is of course an oversimplification and I am sure that someone will (rightly) point out flaws in its simplicity. Nevertheless I don't want to take up too much space in your thread. The one thing that is clear that we can't continue to just act like the Marcionites simply put forward that Jesus was 'the unknown god' or 'god beside the Creator.' It is necessarily much more complicated than this.

DCHindley

Well,

Let's take a look at what Epiphanius says Marcion falsified and adultered in the book of Galatians, which has been discussed to death here, and Mahar/Detering's version of which I summarized in another thread:

From the Letter to the Galatians, first <in his list> but fourth in ours	Ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς Γαλάτας, παρ' αὐτῷ ˉα, παρ' ἡμῖν δὲ ˉδ.
i. [Gal. 3:11, 10, 12] "Learn that the just one will live by faith. For those under the law are under a curse. But the one who keeps them will live by them."	ˉα. [Gl. 3:11, 10, 12] «Μάθετε ὅτι ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. ὅσοι γὰρ ὑπὸ νόμον, ὑπὸ κατάραν εἰσίν· ὁ δὲ ποιήσας αὐτὰ ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς».
ii. [3:13; 4:23] "Cursed is everyone hung on a tree." "But the one born from the promise came from the free woman."	ˉβ. [3:13; 4:23] «Ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὁ κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου». «ὁ δὲ ἐκ τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, διὰ τῆς ἐλευθέρας».
iii. [5:3] "I testify again that a man circumcised is obliged to fulfill the entire law."	ˉγ. [5:3] «Μαρτύρομαι δὲ πάλιν ὅτι ἄνθρωπος περιτετμημένος ὀφειλέτης ἐστὶν ὅλον τὸν νόμον πληρῶσαι».
<iv.> [5:9] Instead of "a little yeast leavens all the dough," he puts "adulterates." [I.e. δολοι instead of ζυμοι]	ˉδ. [5:9] Ἀντὶ τοῦ «μικρὰ ζύμη ὅλον τὸ φύραμα ζυμοῖ» ἐποίησε «δολοῖ».
<v.> [5:14] "For the whole law has been summed up for you: you will love your neighbor as yourself."	ˉε. [5:14] «Ὁ γὰρ πᾶς νόμος ὑμῖν πεπλήρωται· ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν».
<vi.> [5:19-21] "The works of the flesh are evident: they are fornication, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, envy, loss of temper, contentiousness, dissensions, factions, jealousy, drunkenness, and orgies, about which I tell you now, as I told you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."	ˉϛ. [5:19-21] «Φανερὰ δέ ἐστι τὰ ἔργα τῆς σαρκός, ἅτινά ἐστι πορνεία ἀκαθαρσία ἀσέλγεια εἰδωλολατρεία φαρμακεία ἔχθραι ἔρεις ζῆλοι θυμοὶ ἐριθεῖαι διχοστασίαι αἱρέσεις φθόνοι μέθαι κῶμοι, ἃ προλέγω ὑμῖν, καθὼς καὶ προεῖπον, ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν».
[H/D2.121] vii. [5:24] "But those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."	[2.121] ˉζ. [5:24] «Οἱ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὴν σάρκα ἐσταύρωσαν σὺν τοῖς παθήμασι καὶ ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις».
viii. [6:13] "For not even the circumcised keep the law."	ˉη. [6:13] «Οὐδὲ γὰρ οἱ περιτεμνόμενοι αὐτοὶ νόμον φυλάσσουσιν».

Perhaps the best way is to treat each of these various sources as relational database tables. Each text fragment would represent a row. Columns would represent location in the source, text in original language, English translation, context notes, etc. A synthetic, keyed table will link them with one another (with a system to account for variances between sources) so one can sort and compare to our heart's desire.

Fun, fun ...

DCH

mountainman

Relational being the operative word.


This is a far more sophisticated schema for the textual contents of manuscripts which in the diagram below is designated only by the rows W1, W2, W3,...,Wn (representing the words or verses within a text). With a relational database extant texts can be linked to their authors, and any other attribute of the author. Perhaps the best way in general is to treat all of the various sources of evidence as parts of relational database tables.

N/A