aa5874

Your statement is extremely CURIOUS. If the sources that PREDATE Ephrem by about 200 years are ALL wrong then how did EPHREM manage to secure a CREDIBLE source for Marcion's Phantom 200 years later?

What CREDIBLE source did EPHREM use?

You should KNOW that Tertullian IMPLIED that he did ACTUALLY have Marcion's Gospel in his possession and gave the impression he was actually quoting from Marcion's Gospel in the 5 books of "Against Marcion".

You MUST now realize that ALL the sources that have been mentioned DO NOT even CORROBORATE where MARCION'S PHANTOM came to EARTH after about 200 years.

It would appear that each author has his "OWN" uncorroborated version of the PHANTOM'S landing on EARTH.

And even more DISTURBING is that Justin Martyr who wrote when Marcion was ALIVE claimed MARCION preached ANOTHER GOD and ANOTHER SON, not Jesus Christ, which is SUPPORTED by Hippolytus who claimed MARCION'S doctrine was from EMPEDOCLES.

This is Justin Martyr on Marcion.

"First Apology" And this is Hippolytus on Marcion.

"Refutation Against All heresies" 7 Incredibly, it would appear that each author from Justin Martyr to Ephrem, from a contemporary source to a writer 200 years later, have very little in common about Marcion and YET you chose to BELIEVE the writer who wrote 200 years after Marcion was dead WITHOUT any credible historical corroborative sources.

What makes Ephrem from the 4th century credible?

avi

Please correct me, if I have erred.

I understand that our oldest extant copy of Ephraem's Syriac commentary (originally crafted approximately 350 CE) on the Diatessaron, (itself created two centuries earlier, by Tatian, written perhaps in Greek, or perhaps in Aramaic,) is contained within the Chester Beatty Syriac manuscript 709, which dates from early sixth century CE.

I would argue that the credibility issue arises from an early sixth century origin. Point is, there had been 150 years for folks to mull over the writings of Ephraem, and make whichever changes to his manuscript, seemed most appropriate. We don't know the revision history, do we? Was the original text, apparently in Syriac, then translated into Greek (or perhaps Latin), then, back into Syriac, a century later? How many changes were introduced during that century of upheaval?

One hundred years later, early seventh century, folks were so fed up with the bickering and arguing, that they turned en masse to Islam. How confident can we be in the supposed veracity of this Syriac version we possess (709)? Is it significant that Ephraem's entire Syriac text (on a different subject) was washed away by subsequent authors early in the fifth century, (i.e. one century BEFORE creating/copying of Ephraem's Syriac commentary on the Diatessaron), keen to copy the four gospels--> codex rescriptus? Did Ephraem's text on a work, Diatessaron, (text deemed heretical, by the fifth century,) doom his commentary to intensive scrutiny, modification, and change?

In particular, how would fourth, fifth and sixth century Trinitarian bishops respond to text claiming something contradicting the four gospels--especially something written before Nicea?

Would not failure to "correct" the 'mistakes' found in Ephraem's commentary on Diatessaron serve as litmus test for the presence of current day heretics among the fourth, fifth and sixth century faithful leaders of the church? Is there any historical evidence supporting such change in manuscript text, to preserve one's life? hint: Galileo/Copernicus......

Is there any evidence that heretics were dealt with harshly, and definitively, by Christian Bishops for more than 1300 years, following Nicea? hint: Dr. Michael Servetus, sought for execution by burning at the stake, by the Papists, but executed first, in the same gruesome fashion by Calvin and Luther.

avi

Chili

Nazareth is TOL (soul) and Capurnaum is TOK (lymbic system).
Bethsaida is the [evangelistic] rally tent where the action takes place and so is where Nazoreans are reborn from above (fishing) . . . and Egyptians from below (hunting)

versus


And so not a true Nazorean but an imposter (Matthew 27:64).

. . . and [rightfully] they decided to "burn the tent" to avoid another "exodus" where parting the water to [forcefully] enter the promised land was the wrong thing to do.

stephan huller

avi,

I don't understand this obsession that you and Pete have about having the originals of manuscripts. I never have and I never will. Yes it would be nice to have the originals and there are some arguments which favor interpolation in our surviving copies of the Syriac of Ephrem's Commentary (from memory). But having a sixth century copy of a fourth century text is pretty decent. Most of our earliest evidence about Jesus emerges about a hundred and fifty years after his crucifixion. That doesn't mean the information is perfect but there is information.

The important part to remember in order to avoiding being dismissed as a wacky conspiracy theorist, is why would someone have added information about the Marcionite reading of Luke 4:17 - 30 (i.e. Bethsaida for Nazareth)? Who are these editors and what was their purpose in the sixth century to add details about the readings of sections of text in the possession of a certain sectarian group which happened to be the orthodoxy at the time Ephrem was writing his commentary in Edessa but not at the time of (alleged) editors?

Why should we believe that a reference to Marcion would be added at a date long after anyone would have cared about the sect?

stephan huller

A couple of things to add here. The first is that I found an important argument for the primacy of Luke and Matthew's placement of the announcing of the 'year of favor' (Luke 4:14 - 30) over the way the material is treated in Mark by means of parallels with 11QMelchizedek http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...nd-shadow.html. I think the argument can be turned around to support the idea that the original location was Jerusalem (= Zion).

Moreover the Arabic Diatessaron strangely places John 2:13 - 25 (the cleansing of the temple) in the second year of Jesus's ministry which clearly contradicts the original sense of John. Why does it do this? I think the editors found it impossible to reconcile the account of John with the parallel account of the synagogue of Nazareth which now appears in the place of John 2:13 - 25 (i.e. immediately following the miracle at Cana).

When you really think about it, the Alogoi vehemently denied the authenticity of the miracle at Cana. This would imply that the first 'act' of Jesus was either the cleansing of the temple (John 2:13 - 25) or some version of the Nazareth synagogue incident (Luke 4:14 - 30). The point is that there are obvious parallels again between the two accounts especially when the Marcionite understanding of 'beth shidah' is delved into.

The order of the gospel in the Epistle of the Apostles (2nd century work) begins with Cana and then the next miracle mentioned after that is the 'raising of the dead.' The reason the Nazareth incident isn't mentioned is that it isn't a healing narrative.

stephan huller

I forgot to mention this also - how do we reconcile John's identification of the 'cleansing of the temple' at the beginning of Jesus' ministry with Matthew's placement of the incident at the end of his year long ministry? The Diatessaron fuses the two accounts together and puts them not during the first Passover (= John) nor the last Passover (= Matthew) but in the second to last Passover that comes after the Question of the Rich Youth.

We can laugh at the arbitrary attempt to reconcile two traditions that can't be reconciled but I wonder how Irenaeus managed this feat. For in AH 4.2 he quotes Matthew's account of the incident quite clearly:

This sounds remarkably similar to me to the order which emerges earlier in the same treatise when Irenaeus attempts to reconcile the four year ministry recorded in the Gospel of John with the one year ministry of the gospel of the heretics:

The point of course is to ask how could Irenaeus have held that Jesus cleansed the temple twice? Did he harmonize the two accounts as the Diatessaron exhibits and the Matthean narrative eliminated? This is very puzzling indeed.

avi

Thank you Stephan, for this comment. I will attempt to respond to your question.

You began this thread with acknowledgement of having puzzled over certain aspects of the OP, for a couple of decades.....

Some questions, and perhaps an answer or two:

Were the Marcionists (and Docetists in general) viewed as a threat, at the time of Nicea, i.e. early fourth century? A list of Marcion's critics reads like a who's who, among the "patristic" authors. At least two of those famous critics wrote in the fourth century: Eusebius and Epiphanius.

All of our currently extant manuscript evidence dates from after Nicea. We possess no data from Marcion himself. Why is that, do you suppose, Stephan? I think it is because all of his writings were deliberately confiscated and destroyed. Yes, in other words, Marcion, and Marcionism were viewed, post Nicea, as threats to Trinitarianism. Those who followed Marcion's teachings, the Marcionists, continued competing for hearts, minds, souls, and money !!, with the many other Christian sects, right up to the middle of the fourth century, when the movement waned, and then disappeared, almost as if exterminated.

So, back to your question, why would anyone "doctor" Marcion's text? What advantage accrues, and to whom?

I am not arguing that the changes necessarily took place in the sixth century. There could well have been manuscript changes in the preceding four centuries, assuming a second century origin for Marcion's text itself. As for why anyone would change a single word, here and there, that seems easy to answer:

The best way to refute an heretical source, is to demonstrate conflict, or rather, discrepancy, with the authoritative text, i.e. the four gospels. Change one word, here and there, and voila: an obviously heretical text emerges, one which should be destroyed, as soon as possible--> now there is a rationale for the authorities to grab every copy, and burn them.

It is easy for us to view the behaviour of folks living 1600 years ago, in terms or our own perspective, but it is more useful to imagine their point of view: survival depended, in those days, on following, not challenging, nor avoiding, the party line.

Survival post Nicea dictated a willingness to condemn all heretics. An important component of that condemnation would have been rewriting ancient texts, with destruction of the former tomes. What seems so terribly difficult to implement from our point of view, was clearly not that gigantic a task, as we know from the complete absence of extant writings of Marcion. None of his writings survived the government's determination to eliminate all competition to the Roman Empire official dogma: trinitarianism.

That there are discrepancies between different accounts of what Marcion is supposed to have written, simply reflects a multi century approach to revision of all extant manuscripts. Each generation of Bishops, sought to ensure that texts deemed heretical, referenced place names or concepts, sufficient in quantity, to persuade even the most skeptical true believer. Over the decades following the initial interpolation, multiple versions arose....

Thus, we see an issue, not of conspiracy, but rather of survival. In all evolutionary schemas, the organism that survives, reproduces. It is difficult to reproduce, once dead.

avi

stephan huller

First I want to say that I misrepresented what the Diatessaron tradition says about the cleansing of the temple (I tried to correct my post last night but it was too late; the system was updating). Yes the accounts of John and Matthew are merged but it is place at the exact dating of Matthew (= the last days of Jesus).

While the pious attempt to make the docetic Jesus (= a magical Jesus) the real source of the problem for the orthodox this is a superficial reading of the text. I think mythicists are often guilty of the same superficiality. Having a supernatural Jesus doesn't mean that the tradition had no 'real people.' If you look carefully dating from the second or third book of Irenaeus's Against Heresies, the docetic Jesus is always accompanied by a 'seperate' Christ figure (who doesn't die on the cross but stands 'impassably' next to or with Jesus). This is the real source of the controversy.

The heretics didn't just say that Jesus was some magical cartoon character but that he was a kind of distraction to allow the real Christ to escape from the clutches of the Jews. Irenaeus says quite specifically that the heretics based their assumptions on a faulty text of the gospel of Mark. I find it incredible coincidental that the Letter to Theodore discover in the Mar Saba monastery mentions a scene where just before this 'Jesus crucified and Christ impassable' narrative would have started we see Jesus initiating a chosen disciple.

Even evangelical scholars like F F Bruce have connected the two reports. The point would be that the Gospel of Mark was originally a docetic narrative which resembled other reports (starting as early as those associated with R Meir in the rabbinic literature and continuing into the Islamic apocrypha) where Jesus and a chosen disciple somehow engage in some magical or supernatural rite to 'change bodies' or cause a transformation in the body of the disciple where Jesus's soul survives the crucifixion by being implanted in someone else.

Yes, the Gospel of Barnabas (a sixteenth century curiosity) has Judas die on the cross in Jesus's place (after being refashioned to look like Jesus) which isn't exactly the same thing but close enough. This story is reported in some form as early as the earliest Hadiths. The Manichaeans seem to be also associated with a form of it. It is very old and was deemed heretical and very dangerous especially by those forms of Christianity close to the Imperial government. There is also the story in the Clementine literature about the father of Clement who falls under the influence of Simon Magus and ends up having his appearance transformed into the countenance of Simon and then panics when he realizes that the authorities are looking for 'Simon' and will kill him if they capture him. He prays to Peter to get rid of this magical 'trick' which Simon performed on him and then through repentance he gains his own appearance. I have always wondered what lies behind this name 'Simon' and if it means 'image' or something like that but with no convincing etymology yet.

Where did this bizarre notion come from? I think it has something to do with the justification for martyrdom in the early period. You hear Origen mention this wierd idea of a Christian metempsychosis doctrine which differed in substance from the traditional Pythagorean/Buddhist variety. Souls didn't get transferred at the physical death of a person but while two people were still living it would seem or at least one person was living (= the impassable one) and the crucified one or martyred one.

It must have been rooted in the idea that the martyr's soul (which now is one and the same as Jesus through ritual initiation) doesn't die but gets passed on to the next generation and thus continuing the 'victory' of Jesus over his enemies which first took place under Pilate.

Strangely the Palestinian intafadah with its 'martyrs' had a similar concept to this notion (though not explicitly 'docetic'). The logic is used to justify martyrdom in all ages in all times it would seem.