aa5874

The Marcosians are not the Marcionites. The Marcosians did not need Marcion.

maryhelena

Yep, the 99 dollar question...

Basically - heresy, a big heresy, that caused something big to happen to the developing christian movement. The Marcionities moved towards Gnosticism and the orthodox dug their heels in with their assumed JC historicity.

Perhaps, if the 'Marcionite' phenomenon is ever going to be understood - it will be as a result of a better understanding of the NT story. Working from the Marcion story is working backwards - when the movement should be from the NT story to the Marcion heresy. First get the basic in order - and then maybe the Marcion story might not look so difficult.

stephan huller

Another possibility I just thought of. In Plato (Pl.Tht.179e) it is Ὁμηρείων ('of or pertaining to Homer') and find Ἡρακλειτείων (= of or pertaining to Heraclitus).

Ὁμήρειος Homeric,
(Show lexicon entry in LSJ Middle Liddell) (search)
ὁμηρείων adj pl neut gen
ὁμηρείων adj pl masc gen
ὁμηρείων adj pl fem gen
Word frequency statistics

Indeed in the specific text Stud. Pal. 20 85 (Wessely, Carl) which dates to the early fourth century Egypt we see a consistent dropping of the epsilon http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm=18727

So we hear of the 'Homeric festival' (= ἑορτῇ Ὁμηρίων) and the 'Asclepian festival' (= ἑορτῇ Ἀσκληπίων).

On Ἀσκληπίων http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscrip...%26bookid%3D10

maryhelena

Stephan, you know I don't know any Greek................................

I know you want to get to Marcus Julius Agrippa from 'Marcion' - but, methinks, your going to have to do a whole lot better than resorting to linguistics...

stephan huller

No actually what I am getting to is the idea that the collection of writings - i.e. gospel and epistles of Mark - might have been called a Μαρκίων. In other words, 'Marcion' curtailing the gospels and the writings of Paul might not have been a statement attributed to a man with this name but the collection of letters themselves. This would explain the frequent reference to Marcion 'castrating himself' especially in Tertullian - i.e. Μαρκίων the writings were 'self-cut' or 'self-castrated'.

stephan huller

Maybe some more familiar examples. Ephesis = Ἔφεσος - Great is Artemis of the Ephesians (Ἐφεσίων) (Acts 19:28) how that the city of the Ephesians (τὴν Ἐφεσίων πόλιν ) is (ibid 19:35). The same applies for most geographic locations (= Rome, ὁ Ῥωμαίων βασιλεὺς Acts 7:4 etc.)

maryhelena

But your still referencing the Marcion story via the early church writers - as though the story about the charge against Marcion of mutilating a gospel of gLuke was actual fact!!

The gospel of Luke developed in stages. Marcion, if historical, simply had an early version - without the birth narratives. Tertullian has the final edition - and lays a charge against Marcion of mutilating gLuke....Or, the Marcionites originally had the whole of gLuke - and later, as they went the Gnostic route - removed the birth narratives - long after the death of Marcion (if historical).

If the Marcionites are associated with Marcus Julius Agrippa - then it could well be around 100 years later that Tertullian tells his mutilating story. Plenty of time for the Marcionites to be on Gnostic track and removing gLuke's birth narrative.

stephan huller

Similarly γραμματείων (= writings) is often preserved as γραμματίων

for a time Diogeiton concealed from his daughter the death of her husband, and took possession of the deeds which he had left under seal, alleging that these documents (γραμματείων) were needed for recovering the sums lent on bottomry. (Lysias, Against Diogeiton 32.7)

compare Plut. De Pyth. 407c:

Most, however, of the discredit which attached so copiously to poetry came from the gang of soothsayers and scamps who strolled around the ceremonies of the Great Mother and of Serapis, with their mummeries and tricks, turning verses out of their own heads, or taking them at random from handbooks (γραμματίων), for servant boys and silly girls, and such as are best attracted by metre and a poetic cast of words; from all which causes poetry seemed to put herself at the service of cheats and jugglers and lying prophets, and was lost to truth and to the tripod.

stephan huller

Please, I am not saying this. It is an annoying trait that you have. Please stop or I will report this as abuse.

stephan huller

Another example Σιβυλλα becomes Σιβυλλείων (= 'Sybilline' or 'of or pertaining to the Sybil') but is often written as Σιβυλλίων (= cf. John of Damascus http://books.google.com/books?id=4Rx...%CE%BD&f=false) This is particularly apt because we are dealing with a body of writings being designated with a 'iwn' suffix.