dog-on

Agreed.

Is it your view that the name "Paul" is not original to the Marcionite epistles?

angelo

Which is a complete fabrication and makes me think he may have been schizophrenic if true. The dead don't appear to the living to appoint them an Apostle.

angelo

[QUOTE=aa5874;5154797] I am more inclined to think that it is the information coming from Marcion's enemies that are in error. If his foes can accept what appears to be a wholly fictitious history of "Paul", they may have had the propensity to circulate and write text "full of mistakes" about Marcion.

Based on Justin Martyr, the Jesus of the apostles was not the Jesus of Marcion, in effect, "Paul's Jesus was not Marcion's Jesus, so I find it difficult to understand why Marcion would need to mutilate epistles that were already assigned an author who worshipped a God and his Son that Marcion rejected.

And further, if the so-called Pauline epistles were actually written at about 50 CE, bearing "Paul's at that time, and were really circulated among the Churches, then Marcion would have been immediately found to be a liar and be discredited.

But all the gospels are written by fictius characters. The names were added later to these anonymous writings.
The writing attributed to Paul would be no different.
As always, I stand to be corrected.

aa5874

In the first five books of the NT, the authors are not mentioned or identified in the text, so they are technically still anonymous, however the "Pauline Epistles" are different, an author who is called "Paul" is in the text and claims to be the author.

But my point is that if the "Pauline Epistles" were written as early as 50 CE and were always in posession of the Churches already bearing the name Paul, and these Churches also knew Paul, then it would be madness for Marcion, 100 years later, to make any claim to "Paul" or the already named "Pauline Epistles".

That is why I think that, using Justin Martyr's words, "memoirs of the apostles" were all anonymous writings and that these included writings that were later called or assigned to authors like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul.

spin

And what exactly makes you think that they are in fact "post-Marcionite antimarcionite forgeries"?


spin

schilling.klaus

Because the content of the epistles is antimarcionite in amny positions but can be explained as a perversion of Marcionite statements that still shine through the surface.
All this has already been shown by Couchoud many decades ago.

Klaus Schilling

schilling.klaus

no, that's nor the case, as all the mentioned gospels are forgeries by or after Justin Martyr.

Klaus Schilling

schilling.klaus

It might be original to some, but not all Marcionite epistles. Galatians depends on the story told in the Apostolic Acts, but then again it isn't obvious whether the name Paul was used originally in them.

Klaus Schilling

angelo

Getting back to the topic. Mark or any other gospel including ''Acts'' or any other N/T fable, are just that; fables. The writings of Paul included.
There is very little historical facts in any of the N/T writings. Yes there did exist some persons or places mentioned, but that doesn't mean the story is fact. It only means the story was built around the mentioned people and places. No different to a Holywood film told in say, New York. The city is fact, the story is fiction.

Ben C Smith

About the gospel (the evangelion), yes, agreed; it was anonymous (according to Tertullian); I have had this passage about the gospel on my website for a while now. But about the epistles (the apostolikon)?? Come now.

From the fifth book of Tertullian, Against Marcion:

I desire to hear from Marcion the origin of Paul the apostle.

....

So then, shipmaster out of Pontus, supposing you have never accepted into your craft any smuggled or illicit merchandise, have never appropriated or adulterated any cargo, and in the things of God are even more careful and trustworthy, will you please tell us under what bill of lading you accepted Paul as an apostle, who had stamped him with that mark of distinction, who commended him to you, and who put him in your charge?

....

Let Christ, let the apostle, belong to your other god: yet you have no proof of it except from the archives of the creator. Even Genesis long ago promised Paul to me.

....

I... have no fear of you [Marcion] when you ask: And do you then deny that Paul is an apostle?

....

But, you object, he [that is, Paul] censures Peter for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. Yes, he does censure him, yet not for anything more than inconsistency in his taking of food.

Tertullian also takes explicit note the introductions to the epistles, specifically referring to that in the Galatian epistle and noting that what we call the epistle to the Ephesians was addressed to the Laodiceans in the Marcionite version.

Tertullian affirms that the following words were found in the Marcionite 1 Corinthians: All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come.

From book 3 of the same work:

But, if you refuse acknowledgement of John, you have Paul, a teacher you share with us.

From Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.13.1:

With regard to those who allege that Paul alone knew the truth, and that to him the mystery was manifested by revelation, let Paul himself convict them, when he says, that one and the same God wrought in Peter for the apostolate of the circumcision, and in himself for the Gentiles. Peter, therefore, was an apostle of that very God whose was also Paul.

It is as certain as anything else we know in ancient history that Marcion published or promulgated Pauline epistles under the name of Paul. Tertullian had both the evangelion and the apostolikon open before him, and absolutely no motive in the world for suppressing a Marcionite omission of the very name of Paul in the latter (as you yourself point out, he does tell us that the former was anonymous).

And the memoirs of the apostles have nothing to do with it; they are clearly gospel materials of some kind, unless you can point to where Justin applies them to epistolary materials somewhere. (I have all references in Justin to the apostolic memoirs posted on my site; refer to the appendix at the bottom of the page. Which of these applies to the epistles?)

All of this gives the lie to your repeated statement that Paul appears to postdate Justin. No, you are quite mistaken. Paul appears to predate Marcion. At least until you can mount an argument as to why Tertullian was under the distinct impression that the Marcionite epistles were published as Pauline, when he is not under any such impression that the Marcionite gospel was published as Lucan.

I have what is left of it in Tertullian (and in Epiphanius). So do you.

Ben.