bacht

...and as a heretic, the proto-Catholics would have felt free to distort Marcion's teachings in the interest of discrediting him, is this a fair assumption?

Ben C Smith

Apparently? How is this apparent? If you answer that their slim preservation makes it apparent, then in order to be consistent you would have to agree that the slim preservation (some might prefer to say nonpreservation ) of proto-Luke makes it apparent that it, too, was not very widespread. And I would have no problem with that.

I do not agree. First of all, who are the Orthodox (capital O!) in this sentence? The only potentially direct evidence I have adduced for proto-Luke is Marcion and canonical Luke. Potentially indirect evidence I have adduced for proto-Luke

Think of it this way. Marcion had two gospels in hand, according to Tertullian. One was canonical Luke, and the other was an abridged version of canonical Luke.

Marcion, in his Antitheses, accused the proto-orthodox author of canonical Luke of altering the gospel text, according to Tertullian, and Tertullian himself (and Irenaeus, and others) accused Marcion of altering the gospel text. What if both sides are right? What if both Marcion and Luke took a proto-gospel and altered it?

I am not sure what this means. Did literacy rates skyrocket in antiquity between circa 50 and circa 140?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

You are right; thanks.

Ben.

aa5874

Now, who really were the heretics? Were there actually proto-Catholics in the time of Marcion, in the time of Justin Martyr?

Justin Martyr appears not to know about any proto-Catholics. It would appear that Justin is not aware of bishops, of Paul, of Acts of the Apostles, of the seven Churches, the letters to the churches.

Was there really any thing such as proto-Catholics before the 4th century?

Now, read the opening paragraphs of Tertullian "Against Marcion" and you would notice a massive problem. "Against Marcion" by Tertullian may actually be a fraudulent account.

It is not known who wrote "Against Marcion".

the_cave

Hi Yuri--these look very interesting, and I will be reading through them, though my initial reaction is that there is another explanation. I can believe that a proto-Lk predated Mt. However, I explain the other problems (the Great Omission for example) by assuming a proto-Mk as well, shorter than the version we have. This is not to say that canonical Mk is necessarily the very same Mk that Matthew used; as spin has noted, the versions we have were constantly being reworked over time. But Matthew used a Mk that was closer to the one we have, whereas proto-Lk would have used a Mk that was shorter than the one we have.

As for Lukan material, maybe he did make much of it up. Or maybe they were stories he heard. Or maybe he got them from other sources. I imagine it was some of each. I don't think we need a Lukan Priority hypothesis to explain the L material. It's much harder to explain why Mark would have edited out all the Q material, for example.

renassault

But my original argumentation was that there was no proto-Luke because there would be something surviving if it was as widespread that both Marcion and Luke would use it.

Tertullian has a lot of hearsay. Even disregarding that, the evidence doesn't really support a proto-Luke, as the first 2 chapters of Luke have a similar style as the rest of the Gospel. For example, "eis erimon topon" in 1:35 and 6:32. The fact that both groups would use this same gospel, proto-Luke, means it would have been widespread. The fact that there is nothing to support it except references by Tertullian, makes it very unlikely it wasn't just Luke Marcion was editing, which Tertullian claims anyway. An abridged version of Luke may very well have been just that, by previous Gnostics. (by the way, where does Tertullian say this specifically?)

Amongst Christians, as there were significantly more in the 2nd century.

the_cave

Why? It's not as though it would have had "Proto-Luke" stamped on it. We do know that Justin Martyr is aware of Lukan material, and yet doesn't call it by name. This suggests the existence of a text that was not yet called "Kata Loukan", but that resembled Lk. Proto-Lk probably wasn't remarkably different than the Lk we have; it only differed in the details.

I think the idea is that a proto-Lk would still have contained at least some of the nativity material.

Again, I don't see why. I've suggested that Marcion used proto-Lk because it was used locally in Asia Minor. It's also possible that it was popular in Rome--explaining why Justin Martyr was familiar with it as well. We don't know who wrote canonical Lk--there's no reason to suspect they lived in some far-flung corner of the Empire.

aa5874

Justin Martyr claimed the "memoirs of the apostles" which contained passages similar to the gospels were read in the churches in the cities and in the country on Sundays. "The memoirs" were very popular, however there was no mention of any gospel called Luke by Martyr, yet he mentioned that some John wrote a "revelation".

aa5874

There are serious inherent problems when one assumes that the writing called "Against Marcion" by an author called Tertullian can be used to help in resolving the contents of Marcion's gospel.

It has been brought to my attention that the author called Tertullian is not credible.

Tertullian did not appear to know that the Pauline epistles had more than one author.
Tertullian did not appear to know when gospel called Luke was written or who wrote the gospel. He did not appear to realise that it was written after the death of Nero and was not written by a disciple of Paul.

Tertullian appear not to know when Acts of the Apostles was written or who wrote them. He did not appear to realise that Acts was written after the death of Nero.

Tertullian wrote that Clement was ordained by Peter, other writers claimed Clement was not ordained immediately after Peter.

Tertullian claimed Marcion mutilated Luke, yet quote passages that are found in Matthew.

The author of "Against Marcion" appear to have written this work in the 15th year of Severus or around 209 CE, perhaps about 50 years after the death of Marcion.

And to augment the problem, the author claimed Marcion's gospel has no author. Now, if Tertullian claims that his own work has been forged even by a close associate what are we to make of this situation?

Marcion is dead for half a century and an anonymous gospel is deemed to be from Marcion. Why was it not forged just like Tertullian's.

But look at Tertullian "Against Marcion", he claimed that the first work was done hurriedly, his second work "Against Marcion" has been forged, full of mistakes, so he had to do a third work.

Now, which work has been preserved? The first, second or third? How can it be ascertained that the work preserved is not the second work? Only Tertullian can say, but Tertullian is dead.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I really don't see what possible motivation could Irenaeus have to lie about a thing like this.

I'm not really interested in discussing Marcion's theology here, since it's not directly relevant to the subject at hand... BTW did you read the article by Hill that I've referenced above?

Regards,

Yuri.
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