stephan huller

I wanted to start a thread identifying shared readings of the Apostolikon in Marcion and Clement by Schmid (Marcion und Sein Apostolos), Clabeaux (Lost Edition of the Letters of Paul) and my own observations. I want to do this to show how much preferable my assumptions about 1 Corinthians and Galatians forming one unit is to their assumptions. First the passages identified in Schmid in no particular order:

1. Rom 13,9 - (in a discussion of common readings with the Dialogues of Adamantius)

Strom 4.10.2 ὡς ὁ ἀπόστολός φησιν ὅτι ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν πλησίον κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται· τὸ γὰρ οὐ φονεύσεις, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, οὐ κλέψεις, καὶ εἴ τις ἑτέρα ἐντολή, ἐν τούτῳ μόνῳ ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται τῷ λόγῳ, τῷ·

For those who can't read German Schmid has noticed that Clement, Origen and Adamantius have the same reading for Romans 13:9 where the appropriate order of the Decalogue commandments five and six, (i.e. still the sequence οὐ μοιχεύσεις, οὐ φονεύσεις) only having only three of the list and leave out the words οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις "those shalt not lust" is 'taken out' from our received text.

Let me stop here and demonstrate why I on the one hand respect Schmid's methodology (he's German you almost expect precision) but see it as limiting his insight. In order to be so focused and precise, you almost have to limit the possibilities. Schmid thinks in terms of Marcion 'taking out' readings rather than the orthodox corrupting a shared canon so strike one right there. Yet his knowledge of Clement is so limited that he doesn't immediately see the significance of this 'omission' in terms of the gospel (see the very un-German switching of tracks).

You see it is impossible not to see this discussion in terms of Mark 10:17 - 31 where the list given by Jesus in our received text also lacks the the 'do not lust' - i.e. ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ A different list appears in Clement's citation in Quis Dives Salvetur "Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and thy mother." Notice that it is very close to Aphraates citation of the Diatessaron which has only three of the commandments (like the shared reading of Romans 13.9 in terms of number of citations)

The only point we shall stick to for the moment is that 'thou shalt not lust' is not present in any of these readings. Why is that? Here is where the significance of Secret Mark might come into play.

You see I just discovered that both Clement in the citation of his gospel and Ephrem in the citation of his Diatessaron have an additional narrative that is 'cut' out of received text and seems to go back to the shared Marcionite-Alexandrian variant for Romans 13:9. First Ephrem in p. 115 of McCarthy's translation which begins with a citation of what is in Ephrem's text a saying of Jesus:

McCarthy has a footnote at the beginning of the section which is worth citing:

It is undeniable that Ephrem has in mind some Marcionite claim that Jesus command 'do not lust' means that Christianity's focus is different from Judaism (which accepts fornication on some level). The same point is made by Clement (but my son is driving me crazy so I am going to just have to copy and paste a likely outdated analysis from my blog from this point on).

So we read in the course of his rejection of the Carpocratians interpretation of this saying (i.e. that Jesus introduced something hostile the Law):

Once again, let us note that the Carpocratians hold that this new commandment is out of character with the commandments of the Law, Clement argues the other way - i.e. the ideas here are already a part of the Law given to Moses.

The same idea is reworked in two subsequent references to this same saying (indeed the whole of Book Three of the Stromateis develops from the dispute between Clement and the Carpocratian interpretation of the passage from the 'secret' or unknown gospel. We read in what follows that Clement asks:

And then a fuller citation of the same passage a little later again:

Clement's point is clearly that (a) the Law tolerates 'lust' as a means to material fruitfulness but not in terms of sensual pleasure and (b) Jesus's 'new commandment' was in keeping with the old which he - as the Logos - helped introduce to Moses.

I happen to think that Clement designated the Carpocratians as the 'lusty heretics' as a means of distancing its members from the Alexandrian Church. The gospel in question is clearly the Marcionite gospel. There are several signs that point to it, none more so that the Marcionite paradigm of the Apostle already having the gospel in his possession when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans:

I have long argued that the Alexandrian Church of the late second/early third century was really only a 'reformed Marcionite tradition' - i.e. a church desparately trying to hide its associations with 'heresy' and figuring out some way to be reconciled with the Roman establishment.

The Marcionite connection helps explain the scriptural reference which Clement claims a group called 'the Carpocratians' misinterprets. For if we look at the saying once again:

It is obvious that most of the scholars who try to pass this off as a variant reading of Matthew 5:28 are ignoring the fact that Clement cites the familiar version of Matthew as a compliment to this otherwise unknown saying:

The former (i.e. the Law) says, "You shall not commit adultery," the latter (i.e. the gospel), "Everyone who looks with lust has already committed adultery." The words found in the Law, "You shall not lust," show that it is one single God who makes his proclamations through the Law, prophets and Gospels. He says, "You shall not lust for your neighbor’s wife." [Stromata 3.8.4 - 6]
The saying clearly belongs as part of the heretical narrative of the Question of the Rich Youth and a number of clues in the writings of Clement will actually help us reconstruct the Marcionite narrative.

Let's start with something that anyone who has studied the Marcionite tradition must have noticed a number of times - the Marcionite text seems to have integrated Luke 10:24 - 37 (the Question about the Greatest Commandment) with Luke 18:18 - 29 (the Question of the Rich Youth). In the Marcionite gospel the first question is 'what must I do to inherit life?' and the second question 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' The two seem to naturally follow one another and then we see in Clement that in fact the two questions were connected with the same individual:

It is utterly amazing that no scholars before me has ever noticed this parallel. Matthew certainly cites Lev 19:18:

But it is only in the non-canonical gospel traditions that Jesus actually demonstrates that the youth 'had not fulfilled' this commandment. The Gospel According to the Hebrews cited by Origen says again:

So here in the Gospel According to the Hebrews we have both the confirmation of the original question by the rich man (i.e. how do I inherit life? as in the Marcionite gospel) and Clement's witness that the person who is asking the questions is reproved for not fulfilling the commandment about love thy neighbor.

The point then is that we have what appears to be three non-canonical gospels at first glance (a) an Alexandrian text shared by the Carpocratians and the Alexandrian Church (b) the Marcionite gospel and (c) the Gospel According to the Hebrews. All these texts are related to one another. I happen to think that (a) and (b) are one and the same and that they in turn are related to (c). Yet let's look at another manner in which they are all related.

Indeed before we return to the new commandment that Jesus introduced - viz. 'thou shalt not lust' - let's look at another agreement between all of the texts - the specific phrasing of Jesus to sell everything that the youth owns. Aphrahat's citation of the earliest Diatessaron is particularly useful. We read:

The Lord said unto him : Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, and honour thy father and thy mother and love thy neighbour as thyself : The young man said unto him : Thus have I done, since I was a boy. But what lack I? Then Jesus looked upon him lovingly and said, One other thing is lacking to thee: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and take up thy cross and follow me. And that man, when he heard, became very sorrowful and went away gloomy to his house, because he was very rich in possessions. And Jesus said : See how hard it is for those who trust in their possessions to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

All of these early non-canonical texts drop the 'treasure in heaven' phrase in the highlighted sentence. While Aphrahat's gospel has 'go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and take up your cross and follow me.' Clement twice cites the passage as:

While the Latin translation of Origen's Commentary on Matthew has the text as vade, vende omnia quae possides et divide pauperibus, et veni, sequere me.

The contents of the Marcionite gospel are a little more difficult to piece together as our only source for this section is Tertullian's polemical attack against the Marcionite text. Most scholars mistake Tertullian's initial citation of his own 'gospel of truth' (i.e. the canonical gospel of the Catholic Church) against the Marcionite text for the contents of the Marcionite gospel which immediately follow. We read:

It is sometimes difficult to tell whether Tertullian is actually citing the Marcionite text or his own text against them. We can be very confident that the second citation of the material - the one without 'you will have a treasure in heaven' - is the original Marcionite reading which is in agreement with the citations from (a) Clement of Alexandria's 'secret gospel' (b) the Diatessaron and the Gospel According to the Hebrews.

Once this is out of the way we can finally address the reference in the text to the Marcionites thinking that Jesus introduced a new commandment in the passage:

Yet the Marcionites could not have held that "sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow Me" is the 'new commandment' of Jesus. It doesn't sound at all like a general rule and indeed we see Clement see it as an application of the new commandment - 'thou shalt not lust.' (Οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις) This certainly sounds like a Marcionite precept and we should remember in fact that ἐπιθυμήσεις applies as much to the desire for material things as it does for sexual relations.

The point then is that Clement's lost gospel passage - "You have heard the injunction of the Law. ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ I say, ‘You shall not lust.’" - perfectly fits the rest of what we know about the Marcionite gospel with the rich youth declaring:

Indeed the fact that Matthew 5:28 so resembles the passage cited by Clement actually helps confirm that the passage originally formed a part of the Marcionite gospel.

Irenaeus interestingly reports that something resembling Matthew 5:28 appeared in the Marcionite gospel in Book Four of Against Heresies:

I strongly suspect that the antitheses in Matthew chapter 5 actually appeared in the Question of the Rich Youth section. The manner in which the various statements 'line up' with the commandments that the youth claims he 'knows' is simply uncanny.

All of this again would argue for the authenticity of 'secret Mark' because the initiation ultimately follows a long section which confirmed - without question - that Jesus replaced his one commandment 'thou shalt not lust' with all the old commandments of the Law. The redemption baptism of LGM 1 is clearly a 'purchasing from the Law,' and an end to the enslavement to the old system of righteousness.

stephan huller

2. Romans 10,3 (Schmid Marcion p. 140)

Schmid notes that what appears in a long citation of Romans 10:2 - 4 is a unique reading which is likely to be the original Marcionite text:

This reading is very different from the received text:

But the Marcionite reading appears also at least once in Clement and Ambrose. In Clement it appears in Quis Dives Salvetur 11.4 he dismisses the Clementine citation of the Marcionite text:

Yet because the received reading appears elsewhere in Clement (Strom. 4.24.4) Schmid ignores the parallel in QDS. Here's the reference which caused Schmid to rethink the discovery:

Yet I say - this material is likely to be a later editorial addition. For what are the odds that you'd have the Marcionite parallel in QDS? But what decides the matter IMO is that both Marcion and Clement skip over most of chapter 9. Tertullian tells us after citing Romans 8:11:

I overleap here an immense chasm left by scripture carved away: though I take note of the apostle giving evidence for Israel that they have a zeal of God, their own God of course, though not by means of knowledge. For they, he says, being ignorant of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God: for Christ is the end of the law in righteousness to every one that believeth.

Yet even with this said we know from other sources that Marcion's text included later portions of chapter 8. It is only chapter 9 which is generally thought to be excised. Yet Clement only cites one line from chapter 9 anywhere in his writings:

As such at the very least it has to be acknowledged that the Clementine text and the Marcionite were related. I happen to think that this citation fits perfectly with what we know followed from the other citations of Romans 10:

stephan huller

It seems like everyone has struggled to make sense of omissions in early Church Fathers. Here is Schmid's discussion of that (or at least part of it):

Clabeaux selbst hat die Zitier gewohnheit Tertullians anhand von einigen Zitaten aus seinen anderen Schriften untersucht und dabei festgestellt, daß dieser Kirchenvater recht frei mit der Wortstellung umgeht und auch eine "tendency to delete words or phrases" zeigt. Dennoch akzeptiert er beispielsweise die nur durch den Zeugen Tertullian belegten Lesarten ... (1.Kor 3,19: Wortstellungsvariante) ... (Gal 4,23) und ... (Eph 5,32) als "secure pre-marcionite readings", ohne diese Fälle näher zu diskutieren

Angesichts dieser Situation ist es, im Blick auf die Vergleichbarkeit von Kirchenvatertext und HSS-Text, unumgänglich, Lesarten zu gewichten und ihre genealogische Signifikanz primär von dem her zu bestimmen, was der Kirchenvater selbst an Material und an Einsichten in seine "Zitier gewohnheit" bietet

And the footnote here makes reference to Clement too:

Diesen Gesichtspunkt hat M. Mees in seiner Arbeit, Die Zitate aus dem Neuen Testament bei Clemens von Alexandrien, Rom 1970, in besonderer Weise hervorgehoben. Es gelingt ihm dabei, die These, der ntl. Text des Clemens zeige starke Übereinstimmung mit dem "westlichen" Text, an einer Fülle von Einzelstellen zu entkräften, indem er durch Analysen von Argumentations zusammen hängen und Erörterungen zu stilistischen Fragen den Einfluß der "Zitationsweise" (aaO, S. 19-31 u.ö.) auf die als "westlich" geltende Zitatform bei Clemens wahrscheinlich machen kann.

I am going to have to get this book on Clement even if it means using inter-library loan

stephan huller

Quick Google translations of the three sections above:

Clabeaux itself has the citation of Tertullian habitually using some quotations from his other writings examined and found that this church father quite freely with the word order and avoids shows a "tendency to delete words or phrases". Nevertheless, he accepted, for example, occupied only by the witness, Tertullian readings cati napa TÖ> 9cü (1 Corinthians 3:19, word order variation), ucv-(Gal 4:23), and egg; 2 (Eph 5:32) as "secure pre-Marcionite readings "without discussing these cases in more detail

Given this situation it is, in view of the comparability of church father text and HSS text, essential to weight readings and their genealogical significance primarily determined by the basis of what the church father does not offer material and insights into his "citation habit"

M. Mees this point in his work, The quotations from the New Testament in Clement of Alexandria, Rome 1970, highlighted in a special way. He succeeds in this, the thesis that the New Testament. Text of Clemens show strong agreement with the "Western" text, to refute a number of separate bodies, by hanging together with analysis of argumentation and discussion and questions about the stylistic influence of the "citation style" (ibid., p. 19-31 ö can do) on the likely considered "Western" current quote form at Clemens.

stephan huller

In a discussion of Clabeaux's methodology Schmid makes reference again to shared variant readings between Clement and others:

stephan huller

3. Gal 3, 26 - Schmid p 115 (commenting on the reading in Tertullian Against Marcion 5,3,1 1: sed et cum adicit: omnes enim filii estis fidei...nos...hic quoque filios fidei)

Schmid's reconstruction of the original Greek Marcionite text:

Clement's variant here again reads:

Received text is:

stephan huller

And its late but I think I can prove Tertullian is just playing with Clement's reading. For when you think about it Clement's text is saying the first baptized are children of the faith of God. Tertullian is attempting to say “the apostle must have had Abraham in mind” and then only cites part of the sentence. But Clement's text can't mean Abraham's faith IN God. Something more mystical is at work here

Got to sleep

stephan huller

I am very busy at work but I wanted to write this down before I forget. There is a down side to German thoroughness here. Schmid is interested in obtaining all the readings he can from the hostile Fathers to assemble what he thinks will be the Marcionite Apostolikon. YEt in this case (Gal 3.26) we have a perfect example of why that doesn't work.

Schmid notices that Clement's read is basically the same as the Latin of Tertullian except Tertullian stops at 'we are all children of faith' and Clement goes on to cite more material. But if you look at the context of Tertullian's argument, he is trying to show that Marcion 'cut out' a previous reference to Abraham so he has a very specific polemic interest in 'proving' that Marcion was an editor. As such his citation is clearly a clever attempt to discredit Marcion. There's just as much likelihood that he's not giving us the full citation.

As such if the Marcionites had the rest of the sentence of Gal 3.26 (see above) it would make sense for Tertullian (or his source) to stop at πίστεως because at that point it sort of sounds like a reference to Abraham (i.e. Gen 15.6). But the Marcionites clearly weren't interested in connecting Gal 3.26 to Abraham because - like Clement - they thought that it was a reference to the initiate undergoing the divine mysteries WHICH START with faith and end with knowledge of the perfect truth. In other words, Tertullian (or perhaps Irenaeus as the original source of the material) wants to make the 'faith' reference about something other than Clement's interpretation of the text (read Paed. 1.6 you'll see what I mean).

The bottom line is that you don't have to be a radical dualist (as most claim Marcion was) to see Galatians 3 as a rejection of the righteousness of the Law. Clement thought so too.