Layman

He was not a ghost. He had form and substance, he just could not be flesh and blood because of the Greek hostility to that form.

The JM per Doherty rejects any notion of any Jesus, spiritual or otherwise, appearing on earth. There was no figure known as Jesus, whatever his origin and constitution. Jesus only existed in the spiritual world. That is the key difference. If you told Marcion that Jesus never existed he would have thought you an idiot, because of course Jesue existed. Of course Jesus did most of the things the gospels say he did. The gospels were simply wrong to weight him down with that pesky Judaism and flesh and blood body. His body was much better than that.

Layman

Until he became a heretic, yes. That is the nature of heresies. They tend to arise in established churches. Once Marcion's heresy arose, he had to leave the Roman church and they even returned his large gift of money to them.

Perhaps? What is your evidence for this? Why would the Roman church have tolerated Tatian's later heresy any more than they tolerated Marcion's when it arose?

What is your evidence for this?

Why didn't any of these guys stay IN the Roman Church once they started teaching their heresies?

I think you are grasping at straws by implying that the Roman Church itself were propogating and approving these heresies.

Layman

As Goguel explains, it counts strongly against the JM.

In any event, the point is that docetism is NOT the JM. They believed in a historical Jesus. Doherty and his disciples do not.

Attonitus

Also it is interesting the statement of van den Bergh van Eysinga:

The question as it is asked today, whether Jesus is a historical person or not, is not in the spirit of antiquity. Ancient Christians did not know the modern notion of historicity. Neither ancient Catholic nor Gnostic theologians talked about a Historical Jesus. Marcion denied the fleshliness of Jesus, but Tertullian did not charge him with denial of the reality of the Christ. Catholics and Gnostics diverged in the role of redemption. For Marcion it's a spiritual resurrection, for Tertullian one in the flesh. The concrete carnal reality of Christ is a doctrinal postulate of the church, as much as his metaphysical efficiency is a soteriological postulate of the Gnostics. This is reflected in the divergent understanding of the resurrection: Gnostic 'resurrection' means knowledge of a higher form of existence, while Catholic 'resurrection' means revival in the flesh. The Gnostic-Marcionite understanding of a 'resurrected' one is that of someone who achieved divine knowledge (gnosis), and the term 'death', in the Gnostic sense, means the lack of this gnosis. In contrast, Tertullian ties the apocalyptic resurrection in the flesh, as derived from the Tanakh, directly to the unique fleshly existence of the pre-and post-resurrection Jesus. John's gospel contains many remnants of the Gnostic perspective. part from the sarcasm and polemics that Tertullian throws against Marcion, it's easily sensed that the relation between the Catholic and Gnostic view is that between a realist and an idealist. Gnostic docetism is consequently based on the idea that matter is the evil principle: Christ, as the extremely Good One, cannot participate in matter. His birth and death can be but phantasmic events. Marcion lets Jesus descend straight from the heavens, without being born. Cerinthus made the angel-like Christ enter a particularly sage human at the moment of his baptism down by the riverside of the Jordan, and leave him at the crucifixion. The epistle of John, a Catholic forgery, in 1 John 4 violently denigrates the docetic view as the tool of the devil, and in the Apocalypse of John, as the Antichrist. The metaphysical Christ of the Gnostics predates the biological Christ of the churches. As Huikstra showed around 1870, Gnostic topics prevail in Mark's gospel, where the human character of Jesus is minimal. And even if, as Hilgenfeld showed first, Matthew's gospel preceeded Mark's, Mark's gospel demonstrates the most original core. Van Manen showed the Gnostic character of the supposable common ancestor of all canonical gospels. Goguel noted that many details in the gospels appear in order to specifically imply the fleshliness of Jesus. This shows that at the time when the gospels were written, doubts abounded about Jesus' carnality. Goguel wants to put this forward as a proof of Jesus' historicity. But, just as the post-resurrection hints of carnality are added polemically against the docetic school, also the pre-crucifixion part is painted anti-docetically. And this does not make Jesus a historical person. According to Goguel, docetism was not an assertion about Jesus' historicity, but was merely a theological position, so docetism does not entail a denial of the Historical Jesus. But one would have to admit the same for early anti-docetism as well. Doctrine just stands against doctrine, and neither of them centers on asserting historical facts. The ancient type of historification of the Christ mystery does not turn Jesus into a historical fact.

Layman

Thanks to Tertullian, we have Marcion's work:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/marcion.html

We also have the Gospel of Light, either written by Valentinius or one of his followers:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/got.html

No consensus about what? If you are imagning that there were Docetists who were JMeres, it will not due to just imagine they could have existed. You must produce evidence that they existed. All the evidence we have shows that they believed in a HJ, but one who was not fully human and was not really flesh and blood. Which is exactly the kind of heresy we would expect to arise as Christianity became more and more a religion of the Greeks.

Given that Christian writers continuously attacked all forms of heresies that had any following, the fact that they never attacked anyone expressing the JM is a quite convincing proof that there was no one around who advocated the JM.

Layman

Why do you think this helps your case? It appears you found something at google that said something about Goguel so you plastered it here.

Since Marcion believed Jesus walked around, turned water into wine, did miracles, was condemned by Jewish authorities, taught his disciples, etc., etc., how can you argue he is an example of a theory that says Jesus never existed on earth in any form? That's just ridiculous.

Of the much straw grasping and desparate reconstructions I've seen JMers engage in, trying to claim Marcion and the docetists as their own is the most bizarre.

Layman

The evidence is unassailable as far as I can tell.

I know my tract on this thread has been different, even if related. But what you have shown in the first instance is impressive. Tatian believed in a HJ when he wrote what Doherty claims is a MJ creed. Obviously, HJ Christians could write apologies without packing in all of the references to a HJ that Doherty imagines they should have.

Well done.

Attonitus

Ridiculous is to sustain that Jesus, a ghost in the docetism, it is a historical man.

Layman

Here is your problem. You are not even trying to get into the minds of those we are writing about. Which is a fatal flaw because the entire issue is their state of mind, not how feasible you think the docetists Christ is. In the mind of Marcion, Jesus--though not flesh and blood (and not a ghost, which would have had to be flesh and blood at one point)--was a historical figure.

spin

Ummm, you mean he woke up one morning and decided to be a heretic. Grat thinking.

Because perhaps it was not the bastion of orthodoxy that you are trying to paint it to be, housing Valentinus and Marcion for several years. Marcion apparently had no trouble at all under Anecitus the same pope who had a cordial meeting with Polycarp. Rome seems to have been very accommodating. The onus is on those who paint it differently to demonstrate it given the prima facie evidence of the friendly treatment of those who would later be labelled heretics.

Sorry, for what? Can you name a great church father who hailed from Rome?


They did stay for quite a while, or do you maintain the dream that Marcion for example suddenly changed his tune, his theology coming to him overnight.

You can think whatever you like, but your thoughts, as usual, have no evidence behind them. Deal with the fact that the church community had no problems with several people later branded as heretics. Valentinus was even a candidate for bishop of Rome. My, my, he must have changed dramatically.

You'll need to face the fact that Rome was much more flexible in those early days. If I remember correctly it was Justin who first using the term "heretic" in a negative manner.


spin