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Contributor
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: MT
Posts: 10,656
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dog-on
Quote:
Originally Posted by ApostateAbe
dog-on, I kinda suspect at this point that you have no idea what the evidence really is. Prove me wrong.
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Abe, it's really as clear as day. Read the chapters... |
I read the chapters you wanted me to read. Throughout the writing, the author assumes that Paul wrote Galatians, and there is no allusion to Galatians 1:19. There is one mention of "James" sourced from a different unrelated passage. I will make it very easy for you, dog-on. I will copy and paste all of the text, and you put in bold the specific passages that you think are the relevant evidence. 2. On the Epistle to the Galatians.1 [Gal. 1.] We too claim that
the primary epistle against Judaism is that addressed to the
Galatians. For we receive with open arms all that abolition of the
ancient law. The abolition itself derives from the Creator's
ordinance, and I have already in these books more than once
discussed the renovation foretold by the prophets of the God
who is mine. But if the Creator promised that old things would
pass away, because, he said, new things were to arise, and Christ
has marked the date of that passing—The law and the prophets
were until John?—setting up John as a boundary stone between the
2. 1 See Appendix 2.
V. 2 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 515
one order and the other, of old things thereafter coining to an
end, and new things beginning, the apostle also of necessity, in
Christ revealed after John, invalidates the old things while
validating the new, and thus has for his concern the faith of no
other god than that Creator under whose authority it was even
prophesied that the old things were to pass away. Consequently
both the dismantling of the law, and the establishment of the
gospel, are on my side of the argument when in this actual epistle
they are connected with that assumption by which the Galatians
conceived the possibility of having faith in Christ, the Creator's
Christ, while still keeping the Creator's law: because it still
seemed to them beyond belief that the law should be set aside
by its own Author. Now if they had been taught by the apostle
about an entirely different god, they would at once have known
they must depart from the law of that God whom they had de-
serted when they followed the other. For would any man who had
accepted a new god, have waited any longer to be told that he
must follow a new rule of conduct? Really, the fact that the same
deity was being preached in the gospel who had always been
known in the law, while the rule of conduct was not the same—
here lay the whole ground of the discussion, whether the Creator's
law must needs be put out of court by the gospel, in the Creator's
Christ. Take away that ground, and there is nothing left for
discussion. But if there were nothing left for discussion because
all of them acknowledged they had to depart from the Creator's
order through faith in that other god, the apostle would have
found no reason for so strongly enforcing a duty which faith itself
had naturally enjoined. Therefore the whole intent of this epistle
is to teach that departure from the law results from the Creator's
ordinance, as I shall next proceed to show. Also if he projects no
mention of any new god—a thing he could never have more con-
veniently done than while on this subject, where he could have
found for them a reason for the abeyance of the law in this sole
and all-inclusive proposition of a new divinity—it is evident in
what sense he writes, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him
that called you into grace, unto another gospel—another in manner of
life, not in religion, another in rule of conduct, not in divinity: be-
cause the gospel of Christ must needs be calling them away from the
law, towards grace, not away from the Creator towards another
god. For no one had removed them away from the Creator, so
V. 2 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 517
as to give them the impression that being transferred to another
gospel was as though they were being transferred <back again> to
the Creator. For when he also adds that there is no possible other
gospel, he confirms that that is the Creator's, which he claims is
the gospel. Now the Creator promises a gospel when he speaks
by Isaiah, Get thee up into the high mountain, thou that preachest the
gospel to Sion, lift up the voice in thy strength, thou that preachest the
gospel to Jerusalem:b also, to the person of the apostles, How timely
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, that preach the gospel
of good thingsc—those, he means, who preach the gospel among
the gentiles, because again, In his name shall the gentiles hoped—
Christ's name, that is, to whom he says, I have set thee for a light
of the gentiles.e So that if there is also a gospel of this new god, and
you will have it that this is what the apostle was then upholding,
in that case there are two gospels, belonging to two gods, and
the apostle told a lie when he said there was no possible other
gospel, though there is another, and he could just as well have
upheld his own gospel by proving it the better one, not by laying
it down that it is the only one. But perhaps, to escape from this,
you will say, And that is why he subjoined, Though an angel from
heaven preach the gospel otherwise, let him be anathema, because he
knew the Creator also was going to preach the gospel. So again
you are tying yourself in knots: for this is what you are entangled
with. It is not possible for one to affirm there are two gospels, who
has just denied that there is more than one. Yet his meaning is
clear, as he has put himself down first: But though we, or an angel
from heaven, preach the gospel otherwise. He said it for the sake of
emphasis. And yet, if he himself is not going to preach the gospel
otherwise, certainly an angel is not. So the reason why he referred
to the angel was that as they were not to believe an angel, or an
apostle, even less must they believe men: he had no intention of
connecting the angel with the Creator's gospel. After that, as he
briefly describes the course of his conversion from persecutor to
apostle he confirms what is written in the Acts of the Apostles,f
in which the substance of this epistle is reviewed; namely, that
certain persons intervened who said the men ought to be circum-
cised, and that Moses' law must be kept, and that then the
apostles, when asked for advice on this question, reported on the
authority of the Spirit that they ought not to lay burdens upon
V. 3 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 519
men which not even their fathers had been able to bear. Now
if even to this degree the Acts of the Apostles are in agreement with
Paul, it becomes evident why you reject them: for they preach
no other god than the Creator, nor the Christ of any god but the
Creator, since neither is the promise of the Holy Spirit proved
to have been fulfilled on any other testimony than the documen-
tary evidence of the Acts. And it is by no means reasonable that
that writing should in part agree with the apostle, when it relates
his history in accordance with the evidence he supplies, and in
part disagree, when it proclaims in Christ the godhead of the
Creator, with intent to make out that Paul did not follow the
preaching of the apostles, though in fact he did receive from them
the pattern of teaching how the law need not be kept.
3. [Gal. 2 and 3.] So he writes that after fourteen years he went
up to Jerusalem, to seek the support of Peter and the rest of the
apostles, to confer with them concerning the content of his gospel,
for fear lest for all those years he had run, or was still running,
in vain—meaning, if he was preaching the gospel in any form
inconsistent with theirs. So great as this was his desire to be
approved of and confirmed by those very people who, if you
please, you suggest should be understood to be of too close
kindred with Judaism. But when he says that not even was Titus
circumcised, he now begins to make it plain that it was solely
the question of circumcision which had suffered disturbance, be-
cause of their continued maintenance of the law, from those whom
for that reason he calls false brethren unawares brought in: for
their policy was none other than to safeguard the continuance
of the law, dependent no doubt on unimpaired faith in the
Creator; so that they were perverting the gospel, not by any such
interpolation of scripture as to suggest that Christ belonged to the
Creator, but by such a retention of the old rule of conduct as
not to repudiate the Creator's law. So he says, On account of false
brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty
which we have in Christ, that they might reduce us to bondage, we gave
place by subjection not even for an hour. For let us pay attention to
the meaning of his words, and the purpose of them, and <your>
falsification of scripture will become evident. When he says first,
But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled
to be circumcised, and then proceeds, On account of false brethren
V. 3 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 521
unawares brought in, and what follows, he begins at once to render
a reason for a contrary action, indicating for what purpose he did
a thing he would neither have done nor have let it be known he
had done, except for the previous occurrence of that on account
of which he did do it. So then I would have you tell me, if those
false brethren had not come in unawares to spy out their liberty,
would they have given place to subjection? I think not. Then
they did give place because there were people on whose account
concession was advisable. For this was in keeping with faith un-
ripe and still in doubt regarding the observance of the law, when
even the apostle himself suspected he might have run, or might
still be running, in vain. So there was cause to discountenance
those false brethren who were spying upon Christian liberty, to
prevent them from leading it astray into the bondage of Judaism
before Paul learned that he had not run in vain, before those who
were apostles before him gave him their right hands, before with
their agreement he undertook the task of preaching among the
gentiles. Of necessity therefore he gave place, for a time, and so
also had sound reason for circumcising Timothy,a and bringing
nazirites into the temple,b facts narrated in the Acts, and to this
extent true, that they are in character with an apostle who pro-
fesses that to the Jews he became a Jew that he might gain the
Jews, and one living under the law for the sake of those who were
living under the lawc—and so even for the sake of those brought
in unawares—and lastly that he had become all things to all men,
that he might gain them all. If these facts too require to be under-
stood in this sense, neither can any man deny that Paul was a
preacher of that God and that Christ, whose law, although he
rejects it, yet he did now and again for circumstances' sake act
on, but would have needed without hesitation to thrust out of his
way if it had been a new god he had brought to light. Well it is
therefore that Peter and James and John gave Paul their right
hands, and made a compact about distribution of office, that
Paul should go to the gentiles, and they to the circumcision: only
that they should remember the poor—this too according to the
law of that Creator who cherishes the poor and needy, as I have
proved in my discussion of your gospel.1 Thus it is beyond doubt
that it was a question solely of the law, until decision was reached
as to how much out of the law it was convenient should be
3. 1 i.e. IV. 14.
V. 3 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 523
retained. But, you object, he censures Peter for not walking up-
rightly according to the truth of the gospel. Yes, he does censure
him, yet not for anything more than inconsistency in his taking
of food: for this he varied according to various kinds of company,
through fear of those who were of the circumcision, not because
of any perverse view of deity: on that matter he would have with-
stood any others to their face, when for the smaller matter of incon-
sistent converse he did not spare even Peter. But what do the
Marcionites expect us to believe? For the rest, let the apostle
proceed, with his statement that by the works of the law a man
is not justified, but only by faith. The faith however of that same
God whose is the law. For he would not have taken so much
trouble to distinguish faith from law—a distinction which differ-
ence of deity would have made without his insistence, if there had
been any such difference. Quite naturally, he was not rebuilding
the things he had pulled down. But the law was due to be pulled
down since the time when John's voice cried in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the ways of the Lord,d so that river valleys and hills and
mountains should be filled up or laid low, and crooked and rough
places should be brought into straightness and into level plains—
that is, the difficulties of the law into the facilities of the gospel.
He has now remembered that the time of the psalm is come:
Let us break their bonds off from us, and cast away from us their yoke,e
now that the heathen have raged and the peoples imagined vain
things: the kings of the earth have stood up, and the rulers have
gathered together into one, against the Lord and against his
Christ: so that now a man is justified by the freedom of faith and
not by the bondage of the law: because the just liveth by faith:f
and as the prophet Habakkuk said this first, you have also the
apostle expressing agreement with the prophets, as Christ himself
did. Consequently the faith in which the just man shall live,
must be of that God whose also is that law by which the man
who labours in it is not justified. Moreover if in the law there is
a curse, but in faith a blessing, you have both of these set before
you by the Creator: Behold, he says, I have set before thee cursing and
blessing.g You cannot claim there is opposition: although there is
opposition of effects, there is none of authorities, for both effects
are set before them by the one authority. But as the apostle him-
self explains how it is that Christ was made a curse for us, it is
V. 3 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 525
evident how well this supports my case, is in fact in accordance
with faith in the Creator. Because the Creator has given judge-
ment, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree,h it will not follow from
that that Christ belongs to another god and for that reason was
already in the law made accursed by the Creator. How can the
Creator have put a curse beforehand upon him he does not know
exists? Yet is it not more reasonable for the Creator to have sur-
rendered his own Son to his own malediction, than to have sub-
jected him for malediction to that god of yours, and that for the
benefit of man who belonged to another? Again if in the Creator
this seems a dreadful act in respect of his Son, no less is it so in
your god: while if it has a reasonable explanation in your god,
no less has it in mine, or even more in mine. For it would be
easier to believe that to have provided a blessing for man by
putting Christ under a curse was the act of him who had in
former time set before man both cursing and blessing, than of
him who according to you had never made profession of either.
So we have received, he says, a spiritual blessing by faith; the
faith, he means, by which, as the Creator puts it, the just man
lives. This then is my contention, that the faith belongs to that
God to whom belongs the original pattern of the grace of faith.
And again when he adds, For ye are all the sons of faith, it becomes
evident how much before this the heretic's diligence has erased,
the reference, I mean, to Abraham, in which the apostle affirms
that we are by faith the sons of Abraham, and in accordance
with that reference he here also has marked us off as sons of faith.
Yet how sons of faith? and of whose faith if not Abraham's? For
if Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned for righteousness,
and thenceforth he had the right to be called the father of many
<gentile> nations: and if we by believing God are the more thereby
justified, as Abraham was, and the more obtain life, as the
just man lives by faith: so it comes about that up above he pro-
nounced us sons of Abraham, as the father of faith, and here
sons of faith, that by which Abraham had received the promise
of being the father of the gentiles. In this very fact of dissociating
faith from circumcision, was not his purpose to constitute us sons
of Abraham, of him who had believed while his body was still
unmutilated? So then the faith of one god cannot obtain ad-
mittance to the rule laid down by another God, so as to credit
V. 4 ADVERSUS MARCIONEM 527
believers with righteousness, cause the just to have life, and call
the gentiles sons of faith. The whole of this belongs to that God
in whose revelation it has already for a long time been known. I think I wasted enough time on this already. I read the chapters, found nothing relevant, and, if you can't put in a little trouble yourself, then I take that as an offense. As punishment, I will keep linking to this post and pestering you about this every time you argue with me from now on about anything, unless you fulfill your part--point out the specific evidence or admit you were just blowing smoke.
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05-21-2011, 10:23 AM
