stephan huller

I am definitely in the minority in many respects with my interpretation of the Marcionite dogma. Nevertheless, I have allowed Eznik of Kolb's rather comprehensive explanation of the 'Marcionite myth' to sink into my head for many years and I have come to exactly this conclusion - i.e. that yes, the Marcionites believed in an 'unknown Father' but that they actually agreed with the early Catholics that Jesus was the Creator. I think many of the reports of the Church Fathers are deceptive. They are seeking to ridicule and make the Marcionite message seem 'incomprehensible' and contradictory. Nevertheless, beneath it all was a doctrine of the Creator 'martyring' or witnessing his repentance (i.e. 'saying sorry' for his failed creation and his failed Law).

There are many reasons I think this but here's just one example - the variant text of Romans 7.2, 3 in Tertullian's On Monogamy:

Just think about what the text of Romans is saying here. Origen already identifies the passage as referencing the marriage between Israel and the Creator through the Torah. Who then is the 'husband that died?' Clearly it is the Creator. Who's relationship with a bride could be described as a 'law'? How then did he die? Clearly it was on the Cross. On some level Jesus is the Creator for Catholics. He is understood to have 'died' in 'reality' by these people (not merely symbolically). Eusebius and the Alexandrian tradition would certainly have understood 'Jesus the Logos' to have been in the burning bush and guiding the ancient Israelites out of Egypt. Clearly the Creator 'died' on the Cross.

Yet here the dead leads to emancipation from the Law. This is rarely if ever explicitly declared by any Catholic source. It does seem to be implicit in the Marcionite myth of Eznik. So if Jesus dies on the Cross - i.e. the old Creator and old husband - who is the new husband - the answer must be the previously 'unknown Father' who lives in a higher realm of heaven. This is the Marcionite myth of redemption (apparently wrongly explained by the Patristic sources as involving a marriage with Jesus).

Jesus the Son dies in order to 'clear the way' for a marriage of Israel with the Father. All of Romans 7.2, 3 is put in this context. I also want to note how much Jesus begins to look like the second and third century martyr. Clearly there were 'fathers' of the Church (i.e. the presbyters of the Christian community). But the martyrs were typically made up of catechumen and from the lower ranks of the Church. The 'fathers' of the Church were hidden (at least theoretically) like the Father in heaven. The martyrs were the 'Jesus type' - sons of the Father (fathers) - who witnessed the truth of their Superior/superiors but who likely remained secret.

I think Basilides also implies that the death of the martyrs (like Jesus?) was seen in terms of the same repentance myth. The point is that Jesus dying on the Cross is only one paradigm in the gospel as Irenaeus infers. 'Christ' stood by impassably watching the crucifixion and was 'unmoved.' This is the Father in heaven. Jesus was the repentant Creator, the Logos, the Son. This is why mixing up the Father and the Son was considered to be such a dangerous heresy.

The Arians emphasized Jesus status as a 'creature' (= the Son). I wonder if there is evidence they hinted at any of this ...

mountainman

Constantine's Letter to Arius c.333 CE discloses the following words of Arius to Constantine .....

Arius seems to be reacting to the NT story and the Roman crucifixion of god, questioning it as a proper and fitting tale for his times.

Other Gnostic and NHL accounts present Jesus laughing at the crucifixion / suicide event

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephan,

You are right. The theory the Marcionites believed that Jesus was the Creator is a tough sell. It receives scant support from the myth recorded by Eznik of Kolb in "Refutation of the Sects" (441-449 CE),


Roger Pearse has scanned this into his web site at http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/sc...refutation.htm

Although it is a late work, and we must allow for some development, Eznik's myth is very consistent with what we know of Marcion's doctrine and the Marionite recension of the Pauline epistles.

Here are a few passages from that work that indicate that Jesus and the Lord of creation are two very distinctly different characters.


Best regards,
Jake Jones IV

stephan huller

I am not sure that Roger Pearse has translated the original edition of Eznik of Kolb's De Deo (which I have as a Patrologia Orientalis Tome xxviii fascule 3) or a summary of the original . But that isn't the point. IMO too much emphasis is given to what the enemies of the Marcionite tradition said about the sect. Of course it's important. But logic should have the last word.

My point here is that the god who was crucified on the cross can't be the Father. This is said repeated by the early Fathers under the guise of attacking the so-called Patripassians (not a real sect but rather an invented typology). The god on the cross has to be Creator. According to the logic of Rom 7.2,3 'the old husband' is understood to have 'died' in order to allow Israel to remarry to the 'new husband' who is clearly 'the unknown Father.' But the only death of a God that we know of is the death on the Cross.

Consider also what is said in Ephesians about that 'death of a God':

I am not saying that Eznik (or any other Father) actually says that the Marcionites thought that the Creator's death on the Cross was the beginning of Christianity but logic dictates it. Indeed I have always thought that the whole idea of Jesus coming down as a magician 'deliberately dying' in order to put on a magic show (i.e. to resurrect himself as a 'trick') wasn't the original ending either. Not only does Irenaeus tell us that in one version of Mark known to him 'Christ' stood by impassably while Jesus simply suffered and died on the Cross (no resurrection is inferred) but Secret Mark puts the resurrection before the Passion.

I can't help think that the Church Fathers were so petrified of the power of logic that they never told anyone the truth about the heretical belief. One more thing, consider also the heretical version of the Trinity in Irenaeus Against Heresies 3, Jesus sometimes speaks as different gods. Could the 'name of God' (= Jesus) have descended upon the Creator 'before the beginning' of the gospel narrative? See the Basilidean myth in Philosophumena 7?

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephan,

Let's stick to your assertions on Eznik of Kolb's myth.

"Not being sure" that R.Pearse has the "right" text is no refutation. If you have an alternate version from the one on R.Pearse's site then by all means bring it forth. It will not say anything substantial to support your theory that the Marcionites believed that Jesus was the Creator. In fact, the text portrays just the opposite, that Jesus descended incognito and fooled the Creator into executing him, thereby shedding Jesus' innocent blood, and causing the Creator to violate his own Law. To save his own life, the Creator was forced to strike a "plea bargin" with Jesus, whereby Jesus was allowed to whisk away all those souls who believed in him. Jesus then descended a second time and reveled the truth exclusively to Paul.

Whatever you are looking for in your quest to Judaize Marcion, it "ain't" there in Eznik.

Jake

stephan huller

But what you are saying here is not logical. If Irenaeus disagrees with Tertullian in terms of Marcion being a dualist, and Eznik disagrees with Irenaeus in terms of the Marcionite gospel being a Diatessaron (see Casey's article) or the Gospel of Luke, and the Philosophumena disagrees with Irenaeus and Tertullian with respect to the gospel being Mark versus Luke, and various Fathers (Ephrem, Tertullian Book 3, Irenaeus Book 4) make it clear that the Marcionites were very close to Judaism while others imply they hated Judaism, Jews and the God of the Jews, an attempt has to be made to reconcile all that contradictory information.

The starting point in my mind is to find the 'line of best fit.' For example the Diatessaron argument implicit in the report of Eznik makes the most sense because it explains the Philosophumena's 'Mark' reference no less than 'Luke' reference of Irenaeus and more importantly the strange arguments in Tertullian Book 4 and 5. Thus I conclude as a starting point that the 'Marcionite Diatessaron' argument has the most going for it in terms of all the conflicting statements in the Church Fathers.

In the case of who or what the god of Marcion was, the place to start is the clear idea of a 'Marcionite Trinity' in almost all of the early reports from the Fathers save for Tertullian. Irenaeus presents the Marcionites as having a Jewish 'mercy' and 'justice' conception (undoubtedly borrowed from Philo) in Book 4. Eznik presents the 'good' god, 'just' god and the 'devil' which is just a variation of what is found in all the Fathers including Irenaeus only with the Devil added to the mix. Yet the specific 'Jewishness' of the Marcionite tradition would allow for 'Satan' to be part of the divine household. In other words, one god (Marcionitism was clearly a monistic tradition) may well have had three (or four) principles all in one being especially if the unknown god 'came down' upon the Creator.

Let's look at what Irenaeus says about all the heresies including the Marcionites in book 3:

The Marcionites are clearly included among the traditions that believe this. In this case the Devil is not included in the monism and perhaps he never was. Nevertheless I think that scholarship in general spends too much time taking seriously reports which were clearly hostile, contradictory (especially when taken in the context of all the reports given about the Marcionites) and ultimately uninformed.

The closest example I can come up with is the example of what people on the far Right say about Barack Obama. If historians stumbled upon a time capsule which contained all the nonsense that is said about the President by these idiots, they would have to reconcile how he could at once have been (a) a socialist, (b) a corrupt capitalist in the pocket of big business, (c) a Muslim, (d) a follower of a radical black Christian preacher named 'Rev. Wright' (e) a liberal (f) a misogynist (g) someone who compromised too much (h) someone who was too radical the list goes on and on. The reality is that the truth lies somewhere between these exaggerations. In some cases the reports are completely false, in others a small scrap of truth is blown out of proportion, in some cases there is some truth in others a true weakness has been exposed.

Yet in the case of Marcionitism we have to back to the central question of God on the Cross. Did the Marcionites subscribe to this doctrine? If so which God was shown crucified and what did it mean for the tradition? I say that if the Marcionites believed that God died on the cross and Jesus was that God he must have 'been in the character' of the Creator. It just makes too much sense to take this as the starting point of the redemption from the Law. If this death was voluntary then the Creator - i.e. Jesus 'taking on the person' of the Creator - effectively crucified himself as an outward sign of his metanoia. The example must have served as a symbol for the Marcionite interest in martyrdom (i.e. the various martyrs crucifying their 'old man' as a sign of their repentance).

stephan huller

The next mistake that I see scholars making is taking the various reports about the heresies in the Church Fathers as the 'limit' to which each individual heretic (or heretical movement) 'disagreed' with the Church. In other words, what they do is implicitly follow the idea that what is being reported is how each heretic 'was different' from the Church. So Marcion = what is reported in the Church Fathers + 'regular' Church doctrine. Basilides = what is reported in the Church Fathers + 'regular' Church doctrine. In this way everyone leaves open the blind spot that Marcion and Basilides actually agreed on most of the same things its just that Irenaeus or Tertullian has picked up on a report where a second century writer was horrified about this or that associated with Marcion, Tatian, Valentinus etc. and then incorporated it into a larger schema which - when assembled side by side with similar encapsulations of things associated with other heretics makes it seem as if 'the Basilideans believed this' BUT 'the Marcionites believed that.' This is unlikely to be true.

As such when Irenaeus at the very beginning of the Catholic tradition says 'here is what the heretics do' - i.e. they argue Jesus spoke as the Creator once and then for this being and that being - he is saying this is something which was shared by all the heretics. However our way of assuming that 'this' is Marcionitism and 'that' is Basilideanism was established utterly artificially. It misguides our research because Irenaeus never walked around with a clipboard in a laboratory somewhere with 'Marcionites' in a cage over here and 'Basilideans' in a cage over there studying their beliefs or habits.

What happened was that older reports were edited and assembled into a compendium which has the effect of drawing distinctions which were never there. Clement for instance never says certain things about the Marcionites or the Basilideans that is reported elsewhere. This doesn't mean they weren't there. It just wasn't important for Clement's argument at the time he was making it.

As such I want the reader to consider that the oft quoted Marcionite emphasis that Jesus was a phantom comes from a SHARED BELIEF with the Basilideans that the name of God (= Jesus) floated down from heaven on to (or into) the Creator to start off the gospel. The god crucified on the Cross was still 'enmity' (= the Creator) only Jesus 'flew' off him and onto his beloved disciple before the Passion:

Another example of the limitation of Eznik's encapsulation of the Marcionite myth is that language demands that we assign 'identity' to mythological and fantastic narratives. To this end, the Creator repented but 'Jesus' is somehow 'in' him. So they have a dialogue. But Catholics deliberately avoid speculating about the interaction between the hypostases in their Trinity. The Samaritans ended up doing the same thing. Nevertheless it is clear that such narratives must have existed in their writings (no less than Judaism). It is just that the enemies of the tradition want to exploit the idea of Jesus talking with the Father or the Creator in order to make it seem the heresies were espousing polytheism. The reality was that they were monotheists no less than Catholics are polytheists. Notice how Protestants similarly turn Marianism into 'proof' of polytheism. The point is that Catholics can conceive of themselves as monotheists by avoiding having their various hypostases interact. The Marcionites undoubtedly never constructed a narrative like Eznik (i.e. with Jesus 'talking' with the Creator). Each were one part of the Godhead and explicit discussion of how they interacted was avoided no less than it was among Catholics and for the same reason - to retain the monotheistic underpinning of the system.

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for the reply.

I am not going to divert into the plethora of other texts when I can't get past the Marcionite myth collected by Eznik.

[emphasis added]

No amount of filibustering is going to make Jesus the Creator in this text.

But I will keep on reading your messages. You are a smart guy, and for some reason you are intent on Judaizing Marcion (like the proto-orthodox Judaized Paul) and I am interested to see what the motivation is.

Jake

maryhelena

Judaizing Marcion?

Methinks the motivation is more to do with Marcus Julius Agrippa (II) being Jewish - so, therefore, the Marcionite doctrine needs to be Judaized - as it's really Marcus Julius Agrippa (II) who is the real 'Marcion' - or something like that - I'm sure Stephan will correct me if I'm wrong.....

stephan huller

On the question of the 'intent' with respect to 'Judaizing' Marcion I think the effort to see Marcion as 'anti-Jewish' or somehow against Judaism comes instead from a Catholic effort to redefine what Judaism was in the second century. Indeed one might even argue that the Catholic effort went hand in hand with an Imperial effort to redefine Judaism and Samaritanism - and the messianic tradition now identified as 'Christianity' - in the late second century.

On that question in particular I have always been struck by the observation (confirmed in many ways by McGowan) that there are parallels between the rabbinic reports of Jews who refused to eat food associated with the temple rituals (meat, wine etc) and the various ascetic Christian sects including Marcionitism. I have also noticed that the argument against sex (or conversely for the sanctity of celibacy) is also found in Judaism and the oft quoted example of Moses swearing off of sex before his encounter at Sinai (the argument is confirmed by Ephrem).

This list could certainly be expanded (fasting, prayers etc.) but the basic point is that Marcionitism is certainly 'Jewish.' It is fully compatible with Judaism and so we see Tertullian and others accuse the Marcionites of 'borrowing' from the religion to make their arguments. In other words its doctrines weren't just invented by someone out of hostility to Judaism.

Judaism was something before the Jewish revolt of 66 CE that it ceased to be after the revolt. Marcionitism was a reaction against THAT Judaism not the rabbinic tradition (which is what one would expect if it was born in 144 CE as many Patristic sources tell us). I can't believe that in modern America you'd find a popular movement developed from an anti-Whig platform. To this end, it seems reasonable to suppose that Marcionitism developed c. 70 CE. This means that Marcion himself (or at least 'the founder of Marcionitism' whoever that was) must have been active then too. It would stand to reason that that individual was Jewish or at least a Jewish proselyte.

With respect to the question of Eznik's report, let me ask you one question. I find it strange that a tradition as emphatic about the exactness of scripture like the Marcionites would have developed such an amazing Midrashic account of Jesus and the Creator engaging in what is essentially a legal debate. My question to you is - is Eznik citing an actual Marcionite dialogue used by members of the tradition in their faith or is this an explanative tool developed by either Marcionites or non-Marcionites to simplify the faith for outsiders?

I find it impossible to believe that the Marcionites could have developed such a narrative for themselves. My guess is that it developed somewhere in the East, perhaps Osroene where Marcionitism was likely the official Christian denomination. I don't find the account hostile but it certainly seems rather simplistic. But how do explain the idea that "even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge" (Irenaeus AH 3.2.1) to people? My explanation is that this is an account of what went on in the Creator's head when Jesus descended upon him. There was no actual historical debate. The best of example of this is contained in the Philosophumena's account of Jesus descending as a wing to the Creator and then he realizes he is not the only god and his realm is not the only realm (i.e. the familiar narrative in gnostic literature).