Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 09-06-2011, 09:29 AM

My argument is not with him. Everything points him to being someone who buys into the picture of early Christianity presented to us by the western Patristic witnesses. At least that's logically consistent. People like Moll can't accept that the Patristic witnesses were so biased against the people and traditions they were examining that we can seriously question the accuracy of their reporting.

I do think that Moll's study is foolish and that he was a fool for wasting so much time developing a study which takes seriously any of the idiotic things said about Marcion in the western Patristic sources. Nevertheless I respect him a great deal more than someone who is logically inconsistent - i.e. who goes along with what is written in a book without examining the primary sources especially when the person being attacked as 'the first heretic' is someone who actually supports many of the beliefs espoused by that person in the forum (i.e. a supernatural Jesus).

I will say it again, it is shameful to ignore examining evidence and traditions of evidence merely because it gets in the way of one's imaginative reconstruction of history. If you want to claim that Jesus was supernatural you, mary helena, will have to come to terms with Marcion.

DCHindley · 09-06-2011, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

As of now - that’s about how I’m seeing things....

If you have the option to check out Moll's book, I understand that chapter two contains a review of all available sources about Marcion, and I presume, translations of the relevant passages from "Irenaeus, Clement [of Alexandria], Tertullian, the Philosophumena [of Hippolytus], Adamantius, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Ephrem, Eznik etc."

The process of locating the relevant passages in the works of these authors, reading them (I print them out where possible), and then comparing and contrasting the accounts (you can use any spreadsheet program to make simple database tables which can be sorted and expanded as need arises), can be very rewarding, although fairly time consuming at the same time. However (I love that word), once you do that you are amazed by how much you learned in the process.

DCH (Yes boss, lunch is over, back to work...)

maryhelena · 09-06-2011, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

As of now - that’s about how I’m seeing things....

If you have the option to check out Moll's book, I understand that chapter two contains a review of all available sources about Marcion, and I presume, translations of the relevant passages from "Irenaeus, Clement [of Alexandria], Tertullian, the Philosophumena [of Hippolytus], Adamantius, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Ephrem, Eznik etc."

The process of locating the relevant passages in the works of these authors, reading them (I print them out where possible), and then comparing and contrasting the accounts (you can use any spreadsheet program to make simple database tables which can be sorted and expanded as need arises), can be very rewarding, although fairly time consuming at the same time. However (I love that word), once you do that you are amazed by how much you learned in the process.

DCH (Yes boss, lunch is over, back to work...)

A gentleman as ever.....

No, I don't have the book - just what is available on Google Books. Obviously, Moll could be wrong - but his book is a development/revision from his doctoral dissertation - which, I would assume, as gone through peer review. I fail to see how Moll's work can be dismissed in the manner that Stephan Huller has attempted to do - by calling Moll a 'fool' and remarks about used car salesman and children impersonating adults. This dismissive approach to the most recent scholarship on Marcion is indeed very suspect.

maryhelena · 09-06-2011, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

My argument is not with him. Everything points him to being someone who buys into the picture of early Christianity presented to us by the western Patristic witnesses. At least that's logically consistent. People like Moll can't accept that the Patristic witnesses were so biased against the people and traditions they were examining that we can seriously question the accuracy of their reporting.

I do think that Moll's study is foolish and that he was a fool for wasting so much time developing a study which takes seriously any of the idiotic things said about Marcion in the western Patristic sources. Nevertheless I respect him a great deal more than someone who is logically inconsistent - i.e. who goes along with what is written in a book without examining the primary sources especially when the person being attacked as 'the first heretic' is someone who actually supports many of the beliefs espoused by that person in the forum (i.e. a supernatural Jesus).

I will say it again, it is shameful to ignore examining evidence and traditions of evidence merely because it gets in the way of one's imaginative reconstruction of history. If you want to claim that Jesus was supernatural you, mary helena, will have to come to terms with Marcion.

:banghead:

stephan huller · 09-06-2011, 09:49 AM

Quote:

his book is a development/revision from his doctoral dissertation

Moll is a theology major. He has no interest in history. His most recent paper:

Quote:

Sebastian Moll - Marcion's Christ

“If Christ was not the one sent by the God of Israel, why did he come to exactly this people and to this sacred land, and did not go to other people or other kingdoms?” This question, posed in the 3rd century work “Carmen adversus Marcionitas”, is without a doubt legitimate [!!!!]. The answer comes to light once we rid ourselves of the idea – established by the Harnack legacy - that Marcion’s good God is completely unrelated to the Old Testament, for nothing would be farer from the truth.

In this presentation – in the context of the Marcion workshop – I intend to demonstrate that Marcion imagined ‘his’ Christ above all as a warrior engaged in an adamant battle with the Old Testament God.

I have never seen anyone take this silly Latin poem as reflective of the true historical Marcionite movement before. Moll seems to accept anything written about Marcion by someone claiming to be Tertullian at face value - save for those things recorded by eastern Fathers who contradict the things present in the writings of Tertullian. The rule seems to be, Tertullian is our best source for information about Marcion. Yet many, including myself, have questioned if Tertullian actually ever met a Marcionite. His works abound with rhetorical addresses to 'Marcion' as if he were still alive in the third century. It is all very frustrating.

Whatever problems many of us having with Harnack's work, Moll's revision is clearly motivated by blind adherence to the Patristic sources. My guess is that this has something to do with his theology background.

maryhelena · 09-06-2011, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Quote:

his book is a development/revision from his doctoral dissertation

Moll is a theology major. He has no interest in history. His most recent paper:

Nonsense - Sebastian Moll has written a book on Marcion: The Arch-Heretic Marcion - and that, by any standard, is a book of historical research.

Quote:

Sebastian Moll - Marcion's Christ

“If Christ was not the one sent by the God of Israel, why did he come to exactly this people and to this sacred land, and did not go to other people or other kingdoms?” This question, posed in the 3rd century work “Carmen adversus Marcionitas”, is without a doubt legitimate [!!!!]. The answer comes to light once we rid ourselves of the idea – established by the Harnack legacy - that Marcion’s good God is completely unrelated to the Old Testament, for nothing would be farer from the truth.

In this presentation – in the context of the Marcion workshop – I intend to demonstrate that Marcion imagined ‘his’ Christ above all as a warrior engaged in an adamant battle with the Old Testament God.

I have never seen anyone take this silly Latin poem as reflective of the true historical Marcionite movement before. Moll seems to accept anything written about Marcion by someone claiming to be Tertullian at face value - save for those things recorded by eastern Fathers who contradict the things present in the writings of Tertullian. The rule seems to be, Tertullian is our best source for information about Marcion. Yet many, including myself, have questioned if Tertullian actually ever met a Marcionite. His works abound with rhetorical addresses to 'Marcion' as if he were still alive in the third century. It is all very frustrating.

stephan huller · 09-06-2011, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Sebastian Moll has written a book on Marcion: The Arch-Heretic Marcion - and that, by any standard, is a book of historical research.

Really? You of all people taking this idiotic position. How many books have there been written about 'the Jesus of history' and you can brush them aside but now a teenager from Germany devotes a paper to the 'certain' historical accuracy of a corrupt Latin poem about Marcion ignored by all the greats in the field and we should just go along with it.

This is so utterly incredible. Do you have any idea what goes into this 'historical portrait' of Marcion. A poem and a few scattered apocryphal 'legends' with only one consistent ingredient - intense hatred. As I said, only a theology professor could attempt to write a historical work based on these sources.

PhilosopherJay · 09-06-2011, 11:41 AM

As far as I understand the argument, maryhelena has introduced a book by Moll in which he claims that Marcion had originally a dualist position of a good and evil God before Marcionists developed a dualist position of a good and just God. Stephan Huller has dismissed this as absurd Catholic anti-Marcion slander.

Thus the two positions are
1. Marcion started out with the dualistic concepts of a Higher Good God and a Lower Just God and some Catholic writers later misrepresented him as having a Good God - Bad God position.

2. Marcion started out with the dualist concepts of a Higher Good God and Evil Lower God and he or his followers modified this to a Good and just God position.

I see either development as historically possible. What we have to remember is that Marcion wrote probably in the mid-Second Century, before the Catholic anti-Marcion consensus developed. He did not have the pleasure of reading the edited anti-Marcion gospels or epistles or other text that developed in opposition to his ideas whatever they were. The text that he was working from was far different than this latter text. His interpretations was probably based on Jesus materials that did not make it clear that Jesus was related to Judaism in any positive fashion. It may have been a reasonable position in his time to see Jesus in a much more adversarial position to his Jewish roots and much more of a Roman type Son of God than a Son of David. The creation of Jesus as a son of David/Abraham might have been part of a response to Marcionism.

Both the themes of dual good and evil Gods and dual Good and Just Gods could have even developed from a quite ultra conservative Jewish sect. The second Jewish defeat in the Bar Kochbar War of 132-135 would have set in motion a radical development that could even have seen the God of this world as an evil one even among orthodox Jews.

One might consider the radical ideological shift of Mussolini during World War I. At the beginning of the war, he endorsed the position of the Italian International Socialist movement and was against the war. As the war split the workingclass, he lost the faith that the workingclass could unite and make a revolution. This led him to support the war and endorse a brand of nationalist socialism where the interests of the capitalists and the workers were seen as identical. Ultimately, in his fascist revolution, the interests of the Italian Capitalists became dominant and the interests of the workers subservient. The interests of the international working class was seen as inherently disruptive, false and evil.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

stephan huller · 09-06-2011, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Stephan Huller has dismissed this as absurd Catholic anti-Marcion slander

No Stephan Huller says that only Tertullian emphasizes this understanding and he was uninformed. Tertullian never even met a Marcionite and is just copying out material he doesn't understand. Lazy scholars, more familiar with Latin than Syriac, start with Tertullian and then project his beliefs on to the other sources - indeed prefer his simple dualism to the complexity of actual Marcionitism. Indeed I took a quick second look at the most famous account of Irenaeus and actually see that the material does not present Marcion as a strict dualist:

Quote:

Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent.

2. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judaea in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Caesar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judaea, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.

3. Salvation will be the attainment only of those souls which had learned his doctrine; while the body, as having been taken from the earth, is incapable of sharing in salvation. In addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this also, truly speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in direct opposition to the truth,--that Cain, and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all the nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His descending into Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed Him into their kingdom. But the serpent(3) which was in Marcion declared that Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those other righteous men who sprang(4) from the patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did not partake in salvation. For since these men, he says, knew that their God was constantly tempting them, so now they suspected that He was tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or believe His announcement: and for this reason he declared that their souls remained in Hades.

4. But since this man is the only one who has dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, and unblushingly above all others to inveigh against God, I purpose specially to refute him, convicting him out of his own writings; and, with the help of God, I shall overthrow him out of those(1) discourses of the Lord and the apostles, which are of authority with him, and of which he makes use. At present, however, I have simply been led to mention him, that thou mightest know that all those who in any way corrupt the truth, and injuriously affect the preaching of the Church, are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria. Although they do not confess the name of their master, in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy?

It would seem that even this description of Irenaeus, Marcion is the son of the Devil (= serpent), who separates the Jewish god from the Christian god but where the Jewish god is not the Devil. Hence there are three gods even here (i.e. the Good god, the Just god and the Devil). No one has noticed this before (not even me) and the fact that I am furiously typing this on my laptop while I have to get back to work makes me suspect that I might even be wrong (owing to the superficiality of my analysis). Nevertheless I will post this and hope that someone can prove me wrong.

stephan huller · 09-06-2011, 12:48 PM

More from Irenaeus which confirms that only Tertullian developed the idea that Marcion was a dualist:

Quote:

God does, however, exercise a providence over all things, and therefore He also gives counsel; and when giving counsel, He is present with those who attend to moral discipline. It follows then of course, that the things which are watched over and governed should be acquainted with their ruler; which things are not irrational or vain, but they have understanding derived from the providence of God. And, for this reason certain of the Gentiles, who were less addicted to [sensual] allurements and voluptuousness, and were not led away to such a degree of superstition with regard to idols, being moved, though but slightly, by His providence, were nevertheless convinced that they should call the Maker of this universe the Father, who exercises a providence over all things, and arranges the affairs of our world.

Again, that they might remove the rebuking and judicial power from the Father, reckoning that as unworthy of God, and thinking that they had found out a God both without anger and [merely] good, they have alleged that one [God] judges, but that another saves, unconsciously taking away the intelligence and justice of both deities. For if the judicial one is not also good, to bestow favours upon the deserving, and to direct reproofs against those requiring them, he will appear neither a just nor a wise judge. On the other hand, the good God, if he is merely good, and not one who tests those upon whom he shall send his goodness, will be out of the range of justice and goodness; and his goodness will seem imperfect, as not saving all; [for it should do so,] if it be not accompanied with judgment.

Marcion, therefore, himself, by dividing God into two, maintaining one to be good and the other judicial, does in fact, on both sides, put an end to deity. For he that is the judicial one, if he be not good, is not God, because he from whom goodness is absent is no God at all; and again, he who is good, if he has no judicial power, suffers the same [loss] as the former, by being deprived of his character of deity. And how can they call the Father of all wise, if they do not assign to Him a judicial faculty? For if He is wise, He is also one who tests [others]; but the judicial power belongs to him who tests, and justice follows the judicial faculty, that it may reach a just conclusion; justice calls forth judgment, and judgment, when it is executed with justice, will pass on to wisdom. Therefore the Father will excel in wisdom all human and angelic wisdom, because He is Lord, and Judge, and the Just One, and Ruler over all. For He is good, and merciful, and patient, and saves whom He ought: nor does goodness desert Him in the exercise of justice, nor is His wisdom lessened; for He saves those whom He should save, and judges those worthy of judgment. Neither does He show Himself unmercifully just; for His goodness, no doubt, goes on before, and takes precedency.

The God, therefore, who does benevolently cause His sun to rise upon all, and sends rain upon the just and unjust, shall judge those who, enjoying His equally distributed kindness, have led lives not corresponding to the dignity of His bounty; but who have spent their days in wantonness and luxury, in opposition to His benevolence, and have, moreover, even blasphemed Him who has conferred so great benefits upon them.

Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and Himself executing judgment, expressing himself thus, "And God indeed, as He is also the ancient Word, possessing the beginning, the end, and the mean of all existing things, does everything rightly, moving round about them according to their nature; but retributive justice always follows Him against those who depart from the divine law." Then, again, he points out that the Maker and Framer of the universe is good. "And to the good," he says, "no envy ever springs up with regard to anything;" thus establishing the goodness of God, as the beginning and the cause of the creation of the world, but not ignorance, nor an erring Aeon, nor the consequence of a defect, nor the Mother weeping and lamenting, nor another God or Father. [AH 3.25.1 - 5]

Notice also the reference to Plato. It is clearly arranged in such a way that it supports Clement's identification of the Marcionites as Platonists or at least developing some of their ideas from Plato.

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09-06-2011, 09:29 AM	#31
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	My argument is not with him. Everything points him to being someone who buys into the picture of early Christianity presented to us by the western Patristic witnesses. At least that's logically consistent. People like Moll can't accept that the Patristic witnesses were so biased against the people and traditions they were examining that we can seriously question the accuracy of their reporting. I do think that Moll's study is foolish and that he was a fool for wasting so much time developing a study which takes seriously any of the idiotic things said about Marcion in the western Patristic sources. Nevertheless I respect him a great deal more than someone who is logically inconsistent - i.e. who goes along with what is written in a book without examining the primary sources especially when the person being attacked as 'the first heretic' is someone who actually supports many of the beliefs espoused by that person in the forum (i.e. a supernatural Jesus). I will say it again, it is shameful to ignore examining evidence and traditions of evidence merely because it gets in the way of one's imaginative reconstruction of history. If you want to claim that Jesus was supernatural you, mary helena, will have to come to terms with Marcion.

09-06-2011, 11:41 AM	#38
PhilosopherJay Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Orlando Posts: 2,014	As far as I understand the argument, maryhelena has introduced a book by Moll in which he claims that Marcion had originally a dualist position of a good and evil God before Marcionists developed a dualist position of a good and just God. Stephan Huller has dismissed this as absurd Catholic anti-Marcion slander. Thus the two positions are 1. Marcion started out with the dualistic concepts of a Higher Good God and a Lower Just God and some Catholic writers later misrepresented him as having a Good God - Bad God position. 2. Marcion started out with the dualist concepts of a Higher Good God and Evil Lower God and he or his followers modified this to a Good and just God position. I see either development as historically possible. What we have to remember is that Marcion wrote probably in the mid-Second Century, before the Catholic anti-Marcion consensus developed. He did not have the pleasure of reading the edited anti-Marcion gospels or epistles or other text that developed in opposition to his ideas whatever they were. The text that he was working from was far different than this latter text. His interpretations was probably based on Jesus materials that did not make it clear that Jesus was related to Judaism in any positive fashion. It may have been a reasonable position in his time to see Jesus in a much more adversarial position to his Jewish roots and much more of a Roman type Son of God than a Son of David. The creation of Jesus as a son of David/Abraham might have been part of a response to Marcionism. Both the themes of dual good and evil Gods and dual Good and Just Gods could have even developed from a quite ultra conservative Jewish sect. The second Jewish defeat in the Bar Kochbar War of 132-135 would have set in motion a radical development that could even have seen the God of this world as an evil one even among orthodox Jews. One might consider the radical ideological shift of Mussolini during World War I. At the beginning of the war, he endorsed the position of the Italian International Socialist movement and was against the war. As the war split the workingclass, he lost the faith that the workingclass could unite and make a revolution. This led him to support the war and endorse a brand of nationalist socialism where the interests of the capitalists and the workers were seen as identical. Ultimately, in his fascist revolution, the interests of the Italian Capitalists became dominant and the interests of the workers subservient. The interests of the international working class was seen as inherently disruptive, false and evil. Warmly, Jay Raskin

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