spin

I'm trying to make sense of the comments about Capernaum.

We know that the Lucan writer moved the hometown rejection passage that his tradition had identified with Nazara from 9:1, where it should appear according to a comparison with Mark, to 4:16ff. We know this because when the passage was rewritten by the tradition it included a reference to Capernaum which was a secondary reference, to things done at Capernaum (where were they mentioned?). However, those things were actually done in the Lucan narrative immediately after the relocated hometown rejection at 4:31ff which introduces Capernaum as "a city in Galilee". This means that the secondary reference to Capernaum was added when the hometown rejection was later in the narrative. It has since been moved forward and we have the narrative error of having the things done at Capernaum referred to before they happened.

If the reconstruction of Marcion's gospel is correct, we find the hometown rejection again moved from the Marcan sequence, but to a more rational location, ie after the things done at Capernaum.


spin

Ben C Smith

I can see an alternative:

1. Proto-Luke lacked these passages; I am undecided on the relationship of proto-Luke to Mark, so I do not know whether these passages would have been added by the latter or subtracted by the former.
2. Marcion used proto-Luke and therefore also lacked these passages.
3. Canonical Luke added these passages based on Mark (that is, canonical Luke used both proto-Luke and Mark, as well as Matthew, IMHO).

(This last item is not ad hoc for me. I have long thought that canonical Luke used Matthew and even longer thought that canonical Luke used Mark; this thread is an attempt to see whether one more source might fit in; see Luke 1.1-4.)

Unless I am misunderstanding your point.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Do we have direct evidence that this is what Marcion called it? N. Godfrey has disputed that Marcion called it this.

Do we have direct evidence of this attitude on his part?

This is related to your other post, IIUC. If there was a proto-Luke, how do we know proto-Luke contained these Mark-Luke overlaps?

Ben.

renassault

That the Nazareth rejection was moved there is not under question. Further proof is the mention of Simon in Luke 4:38, whereas the disciples aren't gathered until chapter 5. But this doesn't shed any light on whether Marcion copied Luke. Why would Marcion move the Nazareth rejection down there and not just leave it where Mark has it? It seems more likely he simply fixed Luke's order.

DCHindley

Ben,

Here's my problem with that. It would mean that epistles of Paul and proto Luke were hanging about, shelved for the time being as if unsuitable for general use, suddenly to be pressed into use by both the Marcionites and Proto-orthodox.

Someone else (I believe) suggested that these texts (original Paul and proto-Luke) simply outlived their usefulness and lost popularity, but there should still be some fragments to be found in passages from early church writers, and as far as I can tell, there are not (except for some early Gospel fragments that seem unrelated to any of the canonical Gospels).

That lack of fragments would, however, suggest that some sort of intellectual activity was at work in early Christian circles, with individuals creating drafts of documents (such as a proto-Luke or a Q) which were held relatively close, to be finished for publication as required, either for the edification of the faithful or for apologetic needs. Early Christianity, it seems, had its equivalents to people such as Marx & Engles, or Jefferson and Adams, etc. I would think that the Communist Manifesto, or the US Constitution, underwent several drafts before final publication.

I personally do not see Paul's original letters, as I see them, in circulation among Christians before they appeared in the mid 2nd century CE as we have them now. David Trobisch makes the point that there really is little manuscript evidence for circulation of Pauline letters outside of their present order, in Paul's Letter Collection and I think even in The First Edition of the New Testament.

The canonical edition of the NT (as Trobisch calls it) seems to have used existing Gospels, a collection of Pauline letters, the general epistles and Acts, and the Apocalypse, which were linked by the addition of small phrases that did not change the original meanings.

However, the fact that the letters of Paul appear in their current form to be composed of sub groupings (we discussed this earlier this year, I think) does suggest they at least had a previous transmission history, just apparently not among Christians. So in this case, those early Christian thinkers adopted and adapted a body of work not its own.

Schweitzer seems to agree that the reconstruction of the Marcionite version of Galatians (I think by von Manen) is not better (I presume this means clearer, less jumbled) but worse, than the canonical version.

"The Marcionite text of Galatians reconstructed by van Manen is not better but worse than the canonical text." (Paul & his Interpreters, pg 135).

A footnote refers us back to page 129, where we find the following:

"A reconstruction of the Marcionite text of Galatians had already been undertaken by Adolf Hilgenfeld, Der Galaterbrief, 1852, 239 pp., pp. 218-234. He holds that it was not the original but a mutilated form." (Pg 129n1)

How would you show it is inferior? I would say it was because it seems to be composite, not fluid.

DCH

Ben C Smith

I think that you, too, are underestimating the caprice of history. You say that we should find elements of lost gospel texts in the church fathers? The Egerton 2 papyrus contains a gospel text that was lost until relatively recently; how many of the church fathers referred to it? How many of the fathers quote from the lost gospel text represented by papyrus Cairenses 10735? Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840? Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224? Papyrus Vindobonensis 2325?

How is it that the epistle to Diognetus, though obviously an ancient text, escapes the notice of the church fathers and indeed everybody else until century XIII or XIV?

Why is no Q theorist disturbed by the notion that Q may have been popular enough to see use in Matthew and Luke, and then vanish from history without any mention by the fathers?

I regard 1 Clement as genuine (late century I) and probably Ignatius, too.

All of this is information to be evaluated, and I can add to it. H. Gamble has made the case that the Marcionite epistle to the Romans, lacking as it does chapters 14-15, is secondary to the original epistle to the Romans, which contained these chapters (Gamble does not assume this; he argues it, and argues it well).

Ben.

DCHindley

A few Gospel-like works did manage to get quoted by early Christian authors:

Epistle of Barnabas 6:13 Again I will shew thee how the Lord speaketh concerning us. He made a second creation at the last; and the Lord saith; Behold I make the last things as the first.

Epistle of Barnabas 7:11 Thus, He saith, they that desire to see Me, and to attain unto My kingdom, must lay hold on Me through tribulation and affliction.

Epistle of Barnabas 12:1 In like manner again He defineth concerning the cross in another prophet, who saith; And when shall these things be accomplished? saith the Lord. Whenever a tree shall be bended and stand upright, and whensoever blood shall drop from a tree.

Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans (both shorter and longer Greek recension) 3:2 and when He came to Peter and his company, He said to them, Lay hold and handle me, and see that I am not a demon without a body.

Ignatius to the Ephesians (longer Greek recension) 5:? The Lord also says to the priests, "He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that heareth Me, heareth the Father that sent Me. He that despithest you, dispithest Me; and he that despithest Me, despithest Him that sent Me."

Dialogue of Justin with Trypho a Jew 35:1 'Beware of false prophets, who shall come to you clothed outwardly in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.'

Dialogue of Justin with Trypho a Jew 47:4 [Justin says] "Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ said, 'In whatsoever things I shall take you, in these I shall judge you.' "

Dialogue of Justin with Trypho a Jew 76:1 [Justin says] "And again, in other words, He said, 'I give unto you power to tread on serpents, and on scorpions, and on scolopendras, and on all the might of the enemy.' "

The Apology of Justin 1:38 For when He was crucified, they did shoot out the lip, and wagged their heads, saying, "Let Him who raised the dead save Himself."

Like you I accept the Ignatian epistles (shorter Greek recension) and 1 Clement as likely genuine (although I suspect they may have undergone a process similar to what I think happened to the Paulines).

I have long been fascinated by the texts you cite, but aside from Egerton 2 papyrus, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840, and maybe Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224, I have to wonder whether they are really that early (IOW, I think they betray signs of being typical 3rd century sensational apocryphal gospels or gospel harmonies). Also, what is supposed to be to "obviously ... ancient" about the Epistle to Diognetus? It sounds to me like a sermon from around 200 CE or later.

"Q" is supposed to be evidenced by the commonalities of Mt & Lk when Mk is eliminated, so in a way it does survive. This is a kind of trace such as I speak. I would also accept an allusion to such a text, even if citations from the text no longer survives: "Hebrew Matthew," "Gospel of the Egyptians," etc.

DCH

aa5874

The reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel is completely in error. Tertullian did not ever claimed that the passages from Luke as found in "Against Marcion" were part of Marcion's Gospel.

The author of Tertullian merely used passages from gLuke and passages from all over the OT and NT to counter the arguments of Marcion.

For example, the reconstructed Marcion's Gospel have passages of the crucufixion of Jesus when Marcion's Jesus was not crucified.

In Against Marcion, the author used many passages from the OT and NT, including Isaiah, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Micah, Jonah, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, Ezekiel, Daniel, Songs of Solomon, Joshua, Amos, Joel, Exodus, Nahum, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Zechariah, Hosea, Habakuk, Leviticus, Genesis, Malachi, Luke, Matthew, Corinthians, Galations and other passages.

It should have been obvious that these books are not part of Marcion's Gospel, in fact Tertullian gave very very little information about the contents of Marcion's Gospel.

The reconstructed version of Marcion's Gospel appears to be full of errors.

Ben C Smith

I agree. And there are many agrapha, too. But that is not really the point, is it? The point is that there are texts which existed and left barely one trace (a text had to leave at least one trace, of course, or else we would not be talking about it; but some left exactly one trace, or only two or three).

Therefore,

I agree. But they went apparently unquoted for centuries after that. I am saying that it is possible for a text to exist without having left any impact in the patristic record.

How is 200 not ancient? It is not medieval, not prehistoric, not modern, not postmodern.

I am looking for this same kind of trace for a proto-Luke. I am not trying to assert the existence of a text for which there is precisely zero evidence. If the evidence makes it unlikely that Marcion copied directly from canonical Luke, and equally unlikely that canonical Luke copied directly from Marcion, then this implies that both copied from another text; hence proto-Luke.

This thread is about that possibility, exploring a small argument for that third option, about which I am far from decided, though certainly I am leaning in that direction.

Ben.

aa5874

There are "the memoirs of the apostles" mentioned by Justin Martyr which contains some parts of gLuke, and there is also the Diatessaron from Tatian which contains almost the entire gLuke without the genealogy and the Theophilus introduction.

Tertullian may have gotten his information from any of those text.