Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 10-13-2012, 10:54 PM

The second meaning is also interesting

מךקוע II,מרקע c.<ךקע pa.) piece ofcuth, patch. Y, Snh. IV, 22b top מייקועןז ?איתקלן thy patch is peeling off, i. e. thy ignorance is laid bare. B. Bath. 20a הוי למי דלבושא Ms. H. a. Ar. (ed. לקריעה) can be used for a patch on a garment.—Pl מרקועין־, מי־קעין,מרקען. Lam. B.,(מרקע׳.some ed) עשרים וארבע מרקועין( יתד כותי) רבתי to 1,1 v. מרדעא; Y. Maas. Sh. IV, 55b bot. מרקען ed. Amst. (ed. , Krot (מקךען. v. א י ם ט ו ו א II )

A lot of variation in the plural form מרקועין־, מי־קעין,מרקען, very interesting. Notice that there are very few examples of this term meaning wafer and it was very specific as far as I could see. But the same basic idea - something flat.

stephan huller · 10-14-2012, 12:45 AM

Unless my eyes are deceiving me this book http://books.google.com/books?id=O6o...ed=0CDkQ6AEwAg attests to the variant מךקיע whose plural would be מךקיען (= mrqian). But Ms. H. a. Ar. (ed. לקריעה) also seems to attest to it.

stephan huller · 10-14-2012, 12:49 AM

מרקע is the modern Hebrew word for (flat) screen (= television screen).

stephan huller · 10-14-2012, 12:51 AM

It is also curious that Lamentations Rabba uses the same word to mean both wafer and patch. I don't know how that is explained when there are so few references to the first meaning.

stephan huller · 10-14-2012, 12:53 AM

The same word in Syriac is used to mean 'patch' in Luke 5:36

Quote:

http://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta/ana...essa&size=150%

Luke 5:36 - ܘܶܐܡܰܪ ܠܗܽܘܢ ܡܰܬ݂ܠܳܐ ܕ݁ܠܳܐ ܐ݈ܢܳܫ ܩܳܐܶܕ݂ ܐܽܘܪܩܰܥܬ݂ܳܐ ܡܶܢ ܡܳܐܢܳܐ ܚܰܕ݂݈ܬ݂ܳܐ ܘܪܳܡܶܐ ܥܰܠ ܡܳܐܢܳܐ ܒ݁ܠܳܝܳܐ ܕ݁ܠܳܐ ܠܚܰܕ݂݈ܬ݂ܳܐ ܩܳܐܶܕ݂ ܘܠܰܒ݂ܠܳܝܳܐ ܠܳܐ ܫܳܠܡܳܐ ܐܽܘܪܩܰܥܬ݂ܳܐ ܕ݁ܡܶܢ ܚܰܕ݂݈ܬ݂ܳܐ

And he told them a parable, No man cuts a patch (warqiyta) from a new garment (mana) and puts it on a worn out garment (mana)

I hope the reader can at least see the saying is pregnant with mystical possibilities if applied to the Eucharist.

Clivedurdle · 10-14-2012, 03:25 AM

Quote:

"some say because of prostitution and some say because they used to play ball."

Both.

Many many years ago the Observer, probably at April Fool, ran a story that cricket is actually a corruption of Christ's Wicca! Well that red leather ball, everyone in white....

I have never been able to trace down the original article, if anyone has better skills than me.

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 09:29 AM

So let's take a survey of things said about Marcion's interest in 'leaven' being added to his (heretical) faith in Tertullian. The idea here is that Marcion and the heretics clearly used unleavened wafers and that Tertullian argued that if the 'true faith' is added to the body of their belief (= the host) they will at last come over to the orthodox understanding of truth.

The first reference appears in Book One of Against Marcion:

Quote:

Discovering then in Christ as it were a different dispensation of sole and unadulterated benevolence, an opposite character to the Creator's, he (Marcion) found it easy to argue for a new and hitherto unknown divinity revealed in its own Christ, and thus with a little leaven has embittered with heretical acidity the whole mass of the faith. He was acquainted also with a certain Cerdo, who gave shape to this outrage. And so the blind were easily led to think they had a clear prospect of two gods, in that they had no accurate view of the one God. To the blear-eyed a single lamp looks double. So then the one God, whose existence he was forced to admit, Marcion has overthrown by slandering him as responsible for evil: the other, whom he constrained himself to invent, he has set up on a scaffolding of goodness. My own answers will make it clear in what specific terms he has portioned out these two sets of attributes. [Against Marcion 1.2]

The point here - one made right at the beginning of the work Against Marcion so it is quite fundamental - is that the Marcionite host was understood to be a supercelestial being who was not the Creator of the world. This would fit my connection between 'wafer' and 'firmament' in Aramaic.

See also:

Quote:

Finally, display yourself to yourself: look at man, within and without. At least this work of our God will obtain your approval, a work upon which your lord, your superior god, has set his affection, man for whose benefit he took the trouble himself to come down from the third heaven into these beggarly elements, man for whose sake in this the Creator's prison-house he was even crucified. He certainly has not even yet rejected the Creator's water, for in it he washes his own: nor the oil with which he anoints them, nor the compound of milk and honey on which he weans them, nor the Creator's bread by which he makes manifest his own body. Even in his own rites and ceremonies he cannot do without things begged and borrowed from the Creator. Yet you, a disciple above your master, a servant above your lord, have higher thoughts than he, casting aside things which he feels the need of. I am disposed to inquire whether you are perhaps sincere in this, or if you do not yourself hanker after the things you reject. [Against Marcion 1:15]

No better is Marcion's god, breaking his way into a world not his own, stealing man from God, son from father, foster-son from nursing-father, servant from master, so as to make him undutiful to God, disrespectful to his Father, ungrateful to his foster-Father, worthless to his Master. I ask you: if rational goodness has this effect on him, what effect would irrational goodness have? I should reckon no man more presumptuous than the one who in one God's water is baptized for another god, who towards one God's sky spreads out his hands to a different god, bows down upon one God's soil to a god whose soil it is not, over one God's bread celebrates thanksgivings to another, of one God's possessions does for another god's credit works which claim the name of almsgiving and charily. Who is this god, so good that by him a man is made bad, so kindly disposed to that man that he causes another God, the man's own Master, to be incensed against him? [ibid 1:23]

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 09:39 AM

Quote:

You have a hint of this tree also in Jeremiah, who prophesies to the Jews that they will say, Come and let us cast a tree into his bread,c meaning, his body. For so God has revealed it, even in the gospel which you accept, when he says that bread is his body:d so that even from this you can understand that he who gave bread the figure of his body is the same as he whose body the prophet had of old figuratively described as bread, as our Lord himself was afterwards to expound this mystery. [Against Marcion 3:19]

Book Three of Against Marcion and Tertullian's Against the Jews derive from the same source - a lost treatise by Justin Martyr on the destruction of the temple and the gospel. The translator to this section notes that the reference here is to "Ps. 22: 16 sqq. is discussed and interpreted by Justin, dial. 97-106 and apol. i. 38."

Indeed, as always, the original material in Against Marcion is more faithfully preserved in Tertullian's other treatise Against the Jews (which in itself is worthy of an academic paper, why on earth would someone adapt a text originally devoted to the Jews to the supposedly anti-Jewish Marcionite sect?). It is there we read:

Quote:

What king in the world wears the ensign of his power on his shoulder, and does not bear either diadem on his head, or else sceptre in his hand, or else some mark of distinctive vesture? But the novel "King of ages," Christ Jesus, alone reared "on His shoulder" His own novel glory, and power, and sublimity,--the cross, to wit; that, according to the former prophecy, the Lord thenceforth "might reign from the tree." For of this tree likewise it is that God hints, through Jeremiah, that you would say, "Come, let us put wood into his bread, and let us wear him away out of the land of the living; and his name shall no more be remembered." Of course on His body that "wood" was put; for so Christ has revealed, calling His body "bread," whose body the prophet in bygone days announced under the term "bread." If you shall still seek for predictions of the Lord's cross, the twenty-first Psalm will at length be able to satisfy you, containing as it does the whole passion of Christ; singing, as He does, even at so early a date, His own glory. "They dug," He says, "my hands and feet"--which is the peculiar atrocity of the cross; and again when He implores the aid of the Father, "Save me," He says, out of the mouth of the lion"--of course, of death--"and from the horn of the unicorns my humility," --from the ends, to wit, of the cross, as we have above shown; which cross neither David himself suffered, nor any of the kings of the Jews: that you may not think the passion of some other particular man is here prophesied than His who alone was so signally crucified by the People. [Against the Jews 10]

So clearly we are inching towards some proper context for the original statement. Justin (the source of these statements) thought not only that Jesus was contained in the form of bread but specifically unleavened bread as we see in what appears throughout the text:

Quote:

For that which happened at His passion, that mid-day grew dark, the prophet Amos announces, saying, "And it shall be," he says, "in that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall set at mid-day, and the day of light shall grow dark over the land: and I will convert your festive days into grief, and all your canticles into lamentation; and I will lay upon your loins sackcloth, and upon every head baldness; and I will make the grief like that for a beloved (son), and them that are with him like a day of mourning." [cf Amos viii. 9. 10 but not the received text] For that you would do thus at the beginning of the first month of your new (years) even Moses prophesied, when he was foretelling that all the community of the sons of lsrael was to immolate at eventide a lamb, and were to eat this solemn sacrifice of this day (that is, of the passover of unleavened bread) with bitterness; "and added that "it was the passover of the Lord," that is, the passion of Christ. Which prediction was thus also fulfilled, that "on the first day of unleavened bread" you slew Christ; and (that the prophecies might be fulfilled) the day hasted to make an "eventide,"--that is, to cause darkness, which was made at mid-day; and thus "your festive days God converted into grief, and your canticles into lamentation." For after the passion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit. [ibid]

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 10:10 AM

All of which leads us back to the original reference we cited from Book Four which again is clearly derived from Justin. There are many signs that an original treatise by Justin Martyr is behind the material in Books Four and Five (which are properly identified as one composition). Yet the use of the variant text of Jeremiah is the icing on the cake:

Quote:

So then, having affirmed that with desire he had desired to eat the passover, his own passover - it would not have been right for God to desire anything not his own—the bread which he took, and divided among his disciples, he made into his body, saying This is my body, that is, the figure of my body.1 Now there could have been no figure, unless it had been a veritable body; for an empty thing, which a phantasm is, would have been incapable of figure. Or else, if you suppose he formed bread into a body for himself because he felt the lack of a veritable body, then it was bread he ought to have delivered up for us. It would well suit Marcion's vacuity, that bread should be crucified. Yet why does he call his body bread, and not rather a pumpkin, which Marcion had instead of a heart? For he did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who himself speaks by Jeremiah, They have devised a device against me, saying, Come and let us cast wood upon his bread,g meaning, the cross upon his body. So Christ, who throws light upon ancient things, has made it quite clear what on that earlier occasion he meant by bread, when here he calls bread his own body. So also at the reference to the cup, when establishing the covenant sealed with his own blood, he affirmed the reality of his body: for there can be no blood except from a body which is flesh. For even if our adversaries suggest some sort of body which is not of flesh, certainly it can have no blood in it if it is not of flesh. So the proof that there is a body will stand firm by the evidence of flesh, as the proof that there is flesh stands by the evidence of blood. And so that you may recognize in wine an ancient figure for blood, Isaiah will help: Who is this that cometh out of Edom, the redness of his garments out of Bozrah, so glorious in apparel which is violent with strength? Wherefore the redness of thy garments, and thy vestments as from the outlet of the winepress, full and trodden down? For the prophetic Spirit, as one having already in full view our Lord coming to his passion, clothed of course in flesh, since in it he suffered, indicates by that redness of apparel the blood-stained garment of his flesh that was trodden down and strained out by the violence of the passion, as in the outfall of a winepress— because it is from a winepress that men come down as if stained with blood from the redness of wine. Much more evidently did Genesis in the blessing of Judah, of whose tribe the origin of Christ's flesh was to proceed, as early as that depict Christ in Judah: He shall wash his garment in wine and his vesture in the blood of the grape:i by garment and vesture indicating his flesh, and by wine his blood. So now also he consecrated his blood in wine, as he had of old used wine as a figure for blood. [Against Marcion 4:40]

Professus itaque se concupiscentia concupisse edere pascha ut suum (indignum enim ut quid alienum concupisceret deus), acceptum panem et distributum discipulis corpus suum illum fecit, Hoc est corpus meum dicendo, id est figura corporis mei. Figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus: ceterum vacua res, quod est phantasma, figuram capere non posset. Aut si propterea panem corpus sibi finxit quia corporis carebat veritate, ergo panem debuit tradere pro nobis. Faciebat ad vanitatem Marcionis, ut panis crucifigeretur. Cur autem panem corpus suum appellat, et non magis peponem, quem Marcion cordis loco habuit? Non intellegens veterem fuisse istam figuram corporis Christi, dicentis per Hieremiam, Adversus me cogitaverunt cogitatum, dicentes, Venite coniciamus lignum in panem eius, scilicet crucem2 in corpus eius. [4] Itaque illuminator antiquitatum quid tunc voluerit significasse panem satis declaravit corpus suum vocans panem. Sic et in calicis mentione testamentum constituens sanguine suo obsignatum, substantiam corporis confirmavit. Nullius enim corporis sanguis potest esse nisi carnis. Nam et si qua corporis qualitas non carnea opponetur nobis, certe sanguinem nisi carnea non habebit. [5] Ita consistet3 probatio corporis de testimonio carnis, probatio carnis de testimonio sanguinis. Ut autem et sanguinis veterem figuram in vino recognoscas, aderit Esaias: Quis, inquit, qui advenit ex Edom, rubor vestimentorum eius ex Bosor, sic decorus in stola violenta cum fortitudine? Quare rubra vestimenta tua, et indumenta sicut de foro torcularis pleno conculcato? [6] Spiritus enim propheticus velut iam contemplabundus dominum ad passionem venientem, carne scilicet vestitum, ut in ea passum, cruentum habitum carnis in vestimentorum rubore designat, conculcatae et expressae vi passionis tanquam in foro torcularis; quia exinde quasi cruentati homines de vini rubore descendunt.4 Multo manifestius Genesis in benedictione Iudae, ex cuius tribu carnis census Christi processurus, iam tunc Christum in Iuda delineabat: Lavabit, inquit, in vino stolam suam et in sanguine uvae amictum suum, stolam et amictum carnem demonstrans et vinum sanguinem. Ita et nunc sanguinem suum in vino consecravit, qui tunc vinum in sanguine figuravit.

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 10:18 AM

Let's now focus on the critical section noted by Harnack:

Quote:

This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. Hoc est corpus meum dicendo, id est figura corporis mei.

Now there could have been no figure, unless it had been a veritable body Figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus

for an empty thing, which a phantasm is, would have been incapable of figure. ceterum vacua res, quod est phantasma, figuram capere non posset

Or else, if you suppose he formed bread into a body for himself because he felt the lack of a veritable body, then it was bread he ought to have delivered up for us. Aut si propterea panem corpus sibi finxit quia corporis carebat veritate, ergo panem debuit tradere pro nobis.

It would well suit Marcion's vacuity (or deception, untruth, 'vanity'), that bread should be crucified. Faciebat ad vanitatem Marcionis, ut panis crucifigeretur.

Yet why does he call his body bread, and not rather a pumpkin/melon, which Marcion had instead of a heart? Cur autem panem corpus suum appellat, et non magis peponem, quem Marcion cordis loco habuit?

The material clearly comes from a Greek original written by Justin. I find the reference to 'pumpkin' or 'watermelon' unfortunate. It misses the original meaning in the Greek (as is consistent with similar misreadings throughout the text). The Latin peponem goes back to the Greek term πέπων which also has the sense of 'kind or gentle':

Quote:

πέπων , ον, gen. ονος : Comp. and Sup. πεπαίτερος, -τατος :—prop. of fruit,

A. cooked by the sun, ripe, B.Fr.34, Hdt.4.23, S.Fr.181 ; “ἄπιος” Alex.33.5 (Sup.); opp. ὠμός, Ar.Eq.260, X.Oec.19.19 ; of wine, mellow, Ar.Fr.579, etc.; πέπονα ποιεῖν τινα, by beating him, Com.Adesp.125.
b. of abscesses, ripe, ready to suppurate, Hermipp. 30.
2. σίκυος π. a kind of gourd or melon, not eaten till quite ripe (whereas the σίκυος was eaten unripe), Hp.Morb.3.17, Vict.2.55, Pl. Com.64.4, Anaxil.36, Arist.Pr.926b4, Diocl.Fr.120; πέπων alone distd. from “σίκυος, τοὺς σικύους καὶ τοὺς πέπονας” LXXNu.11.5, cf. Speus. ap. Ath.2.68e, Phan.Hist.34, Dsc.2.135, etc.: prov., “μαλθακώτερος πέπονος σικύου” Theopomp.Com.72 ; “ἀνὴρ ἐκεῖνος ἦν πεπαίτερος μόρων” A.Fr.264 ; “π. ἀπίοιο” Theoc.7.120.
II. metaph., as always in Hom. (more freq. in Il. than in Od.), and in Hes., in addressing a person, mostly as a term of endearment or familiarity, kind, gentle, “πέπον Καπανηϊάδη” Il.5.109 ; “Κύκνε πέπον” Hes.Sc.350 ; ὦ πέπον good brother!, gentle sir!, Il.6.55, 9.252, Hes.Th.544, 560, etc.; κριὲ πέπον my pet ram (says Polyphemus), Od.9.447 : Comp., of a ἑταίρα, Xenarch.4.9 : in bad sense, “ὦ πέπονες” ye weaklings! Il.2.235.
2. mild, less acrid, “ῥεύματα” Hp.VM19（Comp.) : hence metaph., mild, gentle, “πεπαιτέρα γὰρ μοῖρα τῆς τυραννίδος” A.Ag.1365 ; μόχθος πέπων softened pain, S.OC437, etc.: c. dat., ἐχθροῖσι π. gentle to thy foes, A.Eu.66. (Cf. πέπειρος, πέσσω.)

The next line "quem Marcion cordis loco habuit" really should be translated "which Marcion had instead of a soul." The Latin cor is always used figuratively in this sense.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

10-13-2012, 10:54 PM	#21
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	The second meaning is also interesting מךקוע II,מרקע c.<ךקע pa.) piece ofcuth, patch. Y, Snh. IV, 22b top מייקועןז ?איתקלן thy patch is peeling off, i. e. thy ignorance is laid bare. B. Bath. 20a הוי למי דלבושא Ms. H. a. Ar. (ed. לקריעה) can be used for a patch on a garment.—Pl מרקועין־, מי־קעין,מרקען. Lam. B.,(מרקע׳.some ed) עשרים וארבע מרקועין( יתד כותי) רבתי to 1,1 v. מרדעא; Y. Maas. Sh. IV, 55b bot. מרקען ed. Amst. (ed. , Krot (מקךען. v. א י ם ט ו ו א II ) A lot of variation in the plural form מרקועין־, מי־קעין,מרקען, very interesting. Notice that there are very few examples of this term meaning wafer and it was very specific as far as I could see. But the same basic idea - something flat.

10-14-2012, 12:45 AM	#22
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Unless my eyes are deceiving me this book http://books.google.com/books?id=O6o...ed=0CDkQ6AEwAg attests to the variant מךקיע whose plural would be מךקיען (= mrqian). But Ms. H. a. Ar. (ed. לקריעה) also seems to attest to it.

10-14-2012, 12:49 AM	#23
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	מרקע is the modern Hebrew word for (flat) screen (= television screen).

10-14-2012, 12:51 AM	#24
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	It is also curious that Lamentations Rabba uses the same word to mean both wafer and patch. I don't know how that is explained when there are so few references to the first meaning.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.