stephan huller

I have always noticed that Gregory Nazianzen has a lot of interesting and new information about the Marcionites that is generally unrecognized. Here is another:

But if you would be silly enough to say, with the old myths and fables, that God begat the Son by a marriage with His own Will, we should be introduced to the Hermaphrodite god of Marcion and Valentinus who imagined these newfangled Æons [The Fifth Theological Oration 7]

mountainman

Isn't this extract from Gregory Nazianzen (329-390 CE) seen as characteristic of his invectives against Arianism? Do you happen to know how many times Gregory Nazianzen mentions "Marcion" (085-160 CE) and/or "Marcionites" in his extant works? Frequently or rarely?

stephan huller

More than you'd think. I would say a dozen times. I might be wrong but that's what memory tells me

aeebee50

I think you should do more thinking about Marcion. Marcion was declared a heretic for his thinking about the Trinity. He did not say that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirt were one, but attacked God and said Jesus was second to God. I do not know where you God your facts. More heresy came with Arius and his followers.

stephan huller

Really? I have spent twenty five years thinking about Marcion. I think that's sufficient to earn the right to have an observation or two.

I don't know where you get your facts from but if your argument is that Marcionitism is related to early Arianism we're basically in agreement. Of course I would argue that this represents the true Christian religion. I have a suspicion you might disagree with that.

aeebee50

I do, but that what makes it great, to be able to disgree.

Juststeve

Stephen:

When you claim that Marcion represents the "true" Christian religion you men true in what sense?

Steve

stephan huller

Well at its simplest I guess 'true' means 'original.'

The Marcionites didn't accept Acts or the deutero-Pauline canon which is a point in their favor. They couldn't have believed in the idea of a 'primitive Church' (no Acts). They had a completely different paradigm centered around (a) the revelation of something better than Moses to 'the apostle,' (b) this 'unspeakable' revelation leading to the composition of the original gospel narrative and (c) this gospel superficially resembling the general form of our existing narratives save for the fact that (i) Jesus is wholly divine (ii) that he came to announce someone else - presumably the apostle who wrote the gospel - as the messiah and (iii) that this announcement was tied to a Jubilee (hence the name 'gospel').

In short I think the Marcionite tradition makes more sense, is likely quite a rational argument, and is more closely aligned to traditional Jewish messianism.

Sheshbazzar

Wow, something that we agree on finally. Guess this is proof that miracles do happen!

Chili

. . . and I know of this Shakespeare critic who spend 40 years studying him and upon retirement concluded that she really did not understand him. Yes it could very well represent the true Christian religon which still is an abomination today in that Christian-ity as the condition of being wherein we have the mind of Christ and so are Christian is the end of religion.