Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 08:15 AM

Ptolemy does NOT identify these views as belonging to Marcion or Marciontes specifically

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 12:13 PM

conclusion of Mark DelCogliano's review of his book:

Quote:

While one may hesitate to accept the revolutionary thesis that the evil God and the Old Testament were primary for Marcion and the God of Jesus Christ and the gospel secondary, at the least Moll has provided a helpful corrective in highlighting the importance of the Old Testament for the arch-heretic’s thought over against Harnack’s view of its obsolescence.

maryhelena · 04-07-2013, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

conclusion of Mark DelCogliano's review of his book:

Quote:

While one may hesitate to accept the revolutionary thesis that the evil God and the Old Testament were primary for Marcion and the God of Jesus Christ and the gospel secondary, at the least Moll has provided a helpful corrective in highlighting the importance of the Old Testament for the arch-heretic’s thought over against Harnack’s view of its obsolescence.

From your source:

Quote:

In the third chapter Moll turns to the question of Marcion’s dualism, rejecting Harnack’s view that the arch-heretic distinguished between a just and a good God (47–76). It is argued that Marcion’s original doctrine distinguished between a good and an evil God, which was deformed by later Marcionites into a tripartite system of good God, just God, and evil God (or evil matter).

Has there been any published scholarly rebuttal to this position of Moll's?

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 01:33 PM

I don't know if people really care. First it was published only a few years ago, second it goes against the grain of the consensus in many respects. I think evangelicals like him. But the knock against most German scholarship (= it's written in German and that cuts it off from most English speakers) has been overcome because of the English translation.

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 01:54 PM

Just to get back to the OP. I've contacted Alex Poulos (who often comes around here to look at things) to take a short look at translating section six of what is listed as pseudo-Chrysostom - but which is now attributed to his rival, Severian of Gabala. Apparently most of Severian's homilies have survived under Chrysostom's name. Roger Pearse (who also frequents here) has a story about this at his blog http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2...ian-of-gabala/

Alex told me that the homily I an interested in is described in De Aldama's repertorium of pseudo-chrysostom #415:

"Montfaucon had warned that this homily (which appears variously in different manuscripts) was a pastiche of several homilies, perhaps composed from several authors, and that the second part (sections 8-10) mostly consists of material taken from Chrysostom's lost second homily on the beginning of Acts. Marx, however, in OCPer5 (1939) 283-291 showed that this homily actually belongs to Severian of Gabala, though granting the possibility that two homilies may have indeed been conflated into one. Altendorf admits the attribution to Severian in a letter."

Alex also informs me that in the next few years we should see a publication with English translations of the late antique homilies on pentecost and ascension. At KU Leuven, Johan Leemans is directing a research project on pentecost and ascension homilies, and the aforementioned translation is in the planned "fruit" of the project. That to say that an English translation of this homily will probably appear in the next few years.

He plans on doing as a favor to me I guess a translation of section 6 and a little bit on either side within the next week, and post it on his blog. Can't wait!

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 08:53 PM

Tertullian's use of 'Lord' while discussing Marcionite opinions about religion:

Quote:

But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansed no more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were all those many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christ was in some sense different, as though he were in this respect superior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper, whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse [Adv Marc 4.9]

Concerning the sabbath also I make this preliminary remark, that there could have been no ground for this objection either, except that Christ represented himself as Lord of the sabbath. [ibid 4.6]

He called himself Lord of the sabbath, because he was protecting the sabbath as belonging to himself. Though even if he had broken it, he would have had the right to, because he who has given a thing existence is even more than lord of it. But he did not, as its Lord, wholly destroy it, and so it can now become clear that not even of old at the carrying of the ark at Jericho was the sabbath destroyed. For that too was a work of God, which he himself had commanded, and which he had ordained for the sake of the souls of his own men which were exposed to the hazards of war[ibid 4.12]

This was the intention of that law, but it was in difficulties through lack of understanding, until Christ, as Lord both of the sabbath and of the law and of all his Father's ordinances, both revealed <its purpose> and made it capable <of comprehension> when he commanded the offering even of the other cheek: for by so doing he put an end to those reprisals for injury which the law had intended to check by retaliation, reprisals which beyond doubt the prophecy had manifestly brought under restraint when it forbade the remembrance of injury and referred vengeance back to God. [ibid 4.16]

For all that time then even the Jews knew no other god except him besides whom they as yet knew no other, nor called upon any other god than him whom alone they knew. If that is so, whom shall we take to have asked, Why callest thou me Lord, Lord? Shall it be one who had never been so called, because never until now revealed? or shall it be he who was always acknowledged as Lord, as having been known from the beginning—in fact, the God of the Jews? Who else could have added, While ye do not what I say? Can it be one who only at that moment was attempting to teach them, or one who since the beginning had addressed to them the utterances of both law and prophets? [ibid 4.17]

But of which god did the legion testify that Jesus is the son? Surely, of that God whose torments and abyss they already knew and feared. For it does not seem that they can still have been unaware of what the power of that new and unknown god was accomplishing on earth, since it is not at all likely that the Creator was unaware of it. For even if he had at one time been unaware of another god over above himself, now
at least he had become aware of him in action beneath the Creator's own heaven: and what their Lord had become aware of must by now have become known to his whole body of servants in that same world and within that same circuit of heaven in which that extraneous divinity was engaged. In as much then as both the Creator and everything that was his, would have known of that extraneous divinity if it had existed, by so much,
seeing it did not exist, the demons were aware of no other Christ than the Christ of their own God. They do not request of that other god that which they must have remembered they had to request of the Creator, to be excused the Creator's abyss. Thus they obtained their request. And how did they earn it? Was it because they had lied, because they had made him out the son of the cruel God? Yet who can this have been, who granted a boon to liars, and bore with his own traducers? No, it was because they had not h'ed, because they had known him for the God of the abyss, their own God, that in this way he gave assurance that he was he whom the demons had acknowledged him
to be, Jesus the judge, the son of God the avenger. [4.20]

Can any be called upon as Lord of heaven, without being first shown to be the maker of it? For he says, I thank thee, and give praise, O Lord of heaven, because those things which were hidden from the wise and prudent, thou hast revealed unto babes. What things? and whose things? and by whom hidden? and by whom revealed? If by Marcion's god they have been hidden and revealed—since he had never provided anything in which things could have been hidden, neither prophecies nor parables nor visions, nor any evidences of events or words or names adumbrated in allegories or figures of speech or the clouds of enigma, but had hidden even his own greatness, and was only then in process of revealing it through Christ, this is unfair enough. [4.25]

Quote:

Epiphanius Panarion Scholion 22. 'I thank thee, Lord of heaven.' But he did not have 'and earth' or 'Father.' He is shown up, however; for further on he had, 'Even so, Father.'

(a) Elenchus 22. He gives thanks to the 'Lord of heaven,' Marcion, even if you take away 'and earth'—and even if you remove 'Father' so as not to show that Christ is calling the demiurge his father. For the limbs of the truth remain alive.
(b) Just as you forgetfully retained 'Even so, Father,' Marcion, as a leftover, so the heaven whose Lord you admit the Father is, is the heaven of the created world around us. Hence it is proven by every means that Christ is giving thanks to his own Father and calling him 'Lord of heaven.' And your madness is severe, since it does not see where the truth is going.

Consequently, seeing he had made no provision of materials in which he could have hidden something, nor had been dealing with offenders from whom he ought to have hidden it, nor had the right to hide things even if he had been dealing with such offenders, it follows that he can never be the revealer of things, because he has never been the hider of them, and in that case is neither the lord of heaven nor the father of Christ: but rather he is, who satisfies all these conditions. [ibid]

In the gospel of truth a doctor of the law approaches Christ with the question, What shall I do to obtain eternal life? In the heretic's gospel is written only 'life', without mention of 'eternal', so that the doctor may have the appearance of asking for advice about that life, that long life, which is promised by the Creator in the law, and the Lord may then seem to have given him an answer in terms of the law, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, because the question asked was about the law of life. [ibid]

And so our Lord, being himself no other than he always was, introduces no other new commandment, but only that which above all else pertains to the whole of salvation, both to this life and the other, and sets before him the actual content of the law, that of loving the Lord his God in all possible ways. [ibid]

When he had been praying in a certain place, to that higher-class father, looking up with eyes above measure presumptuous and audacious towards the heaven of that Creator by whose sternness and savagery he could easily have been struck down by lightning and hail—even as at Jerusalem he can have been crucified by him—one of his disciples approached him and said, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples, because, as you will have it, he thought a different god must needs be prayed to in different terms. [ibid 4.26]

For the sum of his remonstrance was this, that they were taking care about trivial things, and were doing so for him for whom they were doing no service of greater things, though he said, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength, the God that called thee out from Egypt.b But for this, the time would not have permitted that Christ should demand of them so immature, nay rather so unripe, an affection for a new god lately arrived—not to say, not yet openly revealed. [4.27]

Servants we are, for we have God for our Lord. We are to gird up our loins, which means, be freed from the entanglements of this over-dressed and complicated life. Also we must have our lamps burning, that is, our minds alight with faith and resplendent with works of truth, and so be waiting for the Lord, that is, for Christ. When he returns, where from? If from the wedding, he must be the Creator's Christ, for the Creator approves of marriage: if he is not the Creator's, not even would Marcion when invited have gone to the wedding, out of regard for his own god who disapproves of marriage. So the parable has broken down in that lord and whom he stands for—or would do, if he had not been one to whom marriage is no offence. Again in the parable which follows one is badly astray who identifies with the person of the Creator that thief by whom, if the householder had known the hour of his coming, he would not have suffered his house to be broken through. How can the Creator be taken for a thief, when he is the Lord of every man? No one becomes a thief, or a breaker-up, of his own property: the one who does that, is he who has come down into another's property and is taking man away from his Lord. But he means that the thief, in our case, is the devil, and that if at the beginning the man had known the hour of his coming he would never have been broken in on by him: and therefore he tells us to be prepared, because at an hour we think not the Son of man will come—not that he is himself the thief, but the judge, certainly, of those who will not have prepared themselves nor have taken precautions against the thief. So then if he himself is the Son of man, I take him to be a judge, and in the judge I lay claim to the Creator. If however it is the Creator's Christ he refers to here under the name of Son of man, so as to suggest that he is that thief the time of whose coming we know not, you have the rule I recently laid down, that no one becomes a thief of his own property—saving always this, that in so far as he represents the Creator as one to be feared, to that extent he acts as his representative and belongs to the Creator. [4.29]

It is your supremely good one, that lord who has no hell, he who shortly before had restrained his disciples from calling down fire upon an inhospitable village, whereas my <God> burned up Sodom and Gomorra with a cloud of fire [ibid]

So then let heaven and earth pass away, as have the law and the prophets, more quickly than one tittle of the words of the Lord [4.33] Marcion seems to have combined Luke 16: 17 with 21: 33

For Christ, who is the Word and Spirit of the Creator, had in Isaiah so long before prophesied of John as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord,f and as one who was to come for this end, that the sequence of law and prophets should from that time cease—by being fulfilled, not by being destroyed—and that the kingdom of God should be proclaimed by Christ: which is why he appended the statement that it would be easier for the heavenly bodies than for his words to pass away, so affirming that this too which he had spoken of John had not passed into abeyance. [ibid]

And so the scribes comment, Master, thou hast well said. For he had agreed with them about the resurrection, explaining the manner of it, as against the heresy of the sadducees. And here too he did not refuse the commendation of those who took it that that was what his answer meant. If now the scribes regarded Christ as the son of David, and David himself calls him Lord, what does this mean to Christ? It was not that David was correcting a mistake of the scribes, but that David was paying respect to Christ, when David affirmed that Christ was his Lord even more than his son— and this would not be in character with a destroyer of the Creator. But on my side how very apposite an interpretation. He had recently been called upon by that blind man as son of David: what he then refrained from saying, as he had no scribes present, he now in their presence brings forward without suggestion from them, so as to indicate that he whom the blind man, following the scribes' doctrine, had called merely David's son, was also David's Lord. So he rewards that blind man's faith, by which he had believed him the son of David, but criticizes the tradition of the scribes, by which they failed to know him also as Lord. [4.38]

maryhelena · 04-07-2013, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

I don't know if people really care. First it was published only a few years ago, second it goes against the grain of the consensus in many respects. I think evangelicals like him. But the knock against most German scholarship (= it's written in German and that cuts it off from most English speakers) has been overcome because of the English translation.

So - as of now, with no published scholarly rebuttal - the position of Sebastian Moll on Marcion, that Marcion upheld ideas related to two gods and two sons; plus the idea of a good god and an evil god - stands. It stands as a possible interpretation of the sources.

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 09:32 PM

The words that follow will confirm this, when he asks, Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? and when here again he adds the reason: Because in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom understood not God, God thought it good by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. But I must first come to a decision about 'world', inasmuch as here in particular these very acute heretics interpret 'world' by 'lord of the world', whereas we understand by it the man who is in the world, by that ordinary manner of human speech by which we frequently put that which contains for that which is contained in it—the circus shouted out, the hustings have spoken, the lawcourt was excited—meaning, the people who did things in those places. [5.5]

As far as I know, the whole Old Testament is a matter of scorn to every heretic: for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may confound its wisdom—Marcion's god has nothing such, for his opposition does not involve the confutation of opposites by opposites—that no flesh should glory, but that, as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Which Lord? Evidently him who gave this instruction—unless indeed the Creator gave instruction to glory in the god of Marcion. [ibid]

But when, in reference to our glory, he adds that none of the princes of this world knew it, because if they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, the heretic argues that the princes of this world crucified the Lord, the Christ of his other god, so that this too may fall to the discredit of the Creator. [5.6]

But according to Marcion not even the apostle in this passage permits of ignorance against the Lord of glory being ascribed to the powers of the Creator, because in effect he will not have it that they are referred to as the princes of this world. And so, as it appears that he was not speaking of spiritual princes, then it was secular princes he meant, the princely people—which was not reckoned among the nations—and its rulers, the king Herod, and even Pilate, and him in whom sat in authority the major principality of this world, the majesty of Rome. In such a way, while the argumentations of the opposite faction are pulled down, my own expositions are built up. But you still claim that our glory belongs to your god and has been kept secret with him. Why then does your god, like the apostle, still rest his case upon the same document? What has he, here and everywhere, to do with the statements of the prophets? For who hath known the mind of the Lord, and who hath been his counsellor? Isaiah said it. What has he to do with my God's evidences? [ibid]

Pass over also what he means by, For the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, provided you admit that by destruction of the flesh and saving of the spirit he has spoken as a judge, and that when he orders the wicked person to be put away from among them, he has in mind one of the Creator's most regular expressions. Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new baking, even as ye are unleavened: so that unleavened bread was to the Creator a figure of ourselves, and in this sense too Christ our Passover was sacrificed. Yet how can Christ be the Passover except that the passover is a figure of Christ because of the similitude between the saving blood of the <paschal> lamb and of Christ? How can he have applied to us and to Christ the likenesses of the Creator's solemnities, if they were not ours already? In telling us to flee fornication he gives evidence of the resurrection of the flesh: The body, he says, is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, as the temple is for God and God for the temple. Shall the temple then perish for God, and God for the temple? But you see it written, He that hath raised up the Lord will also raise us up: in the body also he will raise us up, because the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. [ibid]

A petty sort of god you say yours is, Marcion, a god in some sort of constraint to the Creator's tune. Certainly when he rules that a woman may marry only in the Lord, so that no believer may contract matrimony with a heathen, he upholds the Creator's law, who always and everywhere forbids marriage with foreigners. But, though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth -- it is evident how he means this: not that there really are, but because there are those that are called so, when they are not. He begins with idols his intended discussion of things offered to idols: We know that an idol is nothing. But even Marcion does not deny that the Creator is a God: so that we cannot suppose the apostle includes the Creator among those which are called gods and yet are not, because even if they had been, yet to us there would be one God, the Father. [ibid]

This I affirm: the fact that he has brought the unity of our body, in its many diverse members, into comparison with the compact structure of the various spiritual gifts, shows that there is one and the same Lord both of the human body and of the Holy Spirit, that Lord who was unwilling that there should be in a body of spirit any deserving of such spiritual gifts as he has not located also in the human body: that Lord who by that first and great commandment on which Christ also set his approval, Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and all thy strength and all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself,i taught the apostle that charity must be more highly regarded than all spiritual gifts. [5.8]

In short, since it is not soul, but flesh, that is sown in corruption when dissolved into the earth, then that animate body cannot be soul, but is that flesh which has been an animate body, so that out of animate the body is made spiritual: as also he says, a little later, Not first that which is spiritual. In preparation for this, he has just now observed of Christ himself, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit—although this heretic in his folly has refused to let it be so, for instead of 'last Adam' he has written 'last Lord', fearing that if he treated the Lord as the last Adam we might claim that as the last Adam Christ belongs to the same God as the first Adam. But the falsification is evident. For why 'first Adam', if not because there is also a last Adam? The only things that admit of numerical order are those of equal rank or of the same name or substance or author; for even if in things opposed to one another there can be one first and the other last, they do belong to the same author. If however the author too is a different one, even he can be referred to as 'the last': yet that which he has become the author of is a first thing, but a last thing if it is on an equality with the first. But it is not on an equality with the first, because it does not belong to the same author. In the same manner he will be confuted by the designation 'man'. The fast man, he says, is of the earth, earthy: the second is the Lord from heaven. Why 'the second', if he is not a man, as the first was? Or perhaps also the first is 'the Lord', if the second is. But it is enough that if in the gospel he presents Christ as the Son of man, he cannot deny that as man, and in this manhood, he is Adam. [5.10]

If through the fault of men led astray the word 'god' has become a common noun, in that in the world both speech and belief are of gods in the plural, yet Blessed be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ will be understood to refer to none other than the Creator, who has both blessed all things—you have it in Genesis—and is blessed by all things—you have it in Daniel. [5.11]

So he says that we now with open face, the face of the heart which in the Jews has a veil upon it, looking steadfastly upon Christ are by the same image being transfigured from glory, the glory by which Moses also was transfigured by the glory of the Lord, into glory. Thus he first sets down Moses' corporal enlightenment on meeting with the Lord, and the corporal veil because of the feebleness of that people, and then sets over against them the spiritual revelation and the spiritual glory in Christ—as though, he says, by the Lord of spirits—thus bearing witness that the whole history of Moses was a figure of that Christ who is unknown among the Jews, but well known among ourselves. [ibid]

So then as he has said the gentiles are without God, and the god they have is the devil, not the Creator, it is clear that the lord of this age must be understood to be he whom the gentiles have accepted instead of God, not the Creator of whom they know nothing. [ibid]

Consequently, because he has shown that this is the better thing, so that we may not be saddened, as perhaps we may, by the anticipation of death, he says that we have from God the earnest of the Spirit, as it were holding the pledge of that hope of being clothed upon; and that so long as we are in the flesh we are absent from the Lord, and therefore ought to think it better the rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord: so that we may even welcome death with gladness. [5.12]

I shall marvel even more if that lord supremely good, so averse from smiting and raging, should have applied not his own but the Creator's messenger of Satan to buffet his own apostle, and though thrice besought by him have refused to yield. So then Marcion's god administers correction after the manner of the Creator who is hostile to those exalted, who in fact puts down the mighty from their throne. And is it he also who gave Satan power even over Job's body, that strength might obtain approval in weakness? And how is it that this severe critic of the Galatians retains the rule of the law by premising that in three witnesses every word shall be established? How is it that he threatens that he will not spare the sinners, this preacher of your kind and gentle god? Indeed he claims that his power to act more sternly when present has been given him by the Lord. Profess now, heretic, that your god is not an object of fear: his apostle was. [ibid]

He says that those who remain until the coming of Christ, will, along with those who are dead in Christ and are to be the first to rise again, be caught up in the clouds into the air to meet the Lord. I tell myself it was even so long ago with all this in prospect that the celestial existences held in admiration that Jerusalem which is above, and cried in the words of Isaiah, Who are they that fly hither as the clouds, and as doves with their nestlings towards me? [5.15]

His parenthesis about the sins in which we too have all been conversant gives no reason for thinking that the lord of sins and the prince of this air means the Creator: but it was because in Judaism he had been one of the sons of disbelief, having the devil at work in him when he was persecuting the church and the Creator's Christ, and that is why he says, We were the sons of wrath—by nature, however: otherwise, because the Creator called the Jews his sons, the heretic might have argued that the Creator is the lord of wrath. [5.17]

So then it was not hidden from God, but hidden in God the Creator of all things, hidden however from his principalities and powers. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?a Convicted here, perhaps the heretic will change position and say that it was his own god who wished to make known to his own powers and principalities that dispensation of his own mystery which God the Creator of all things was ignorant of. But what point was there in asserting the ignorance of a Creator who was a stranger separated by far distances, when even those of the household of your superior god remained ignorant? [5.18]

And yet he says, With them we shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord.e If with them we are to be lifted up, with them we shall also have been transformed. [5.20]

mountainman · 04-07-2013, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Justin Martyr is the ultimate source for that view and he misread this statue as being devoted to Simon Magus:

If he was wrong about something as basic as whether a statue was devoted to Simon Magus why should we trust him to report about Marcion? (whom he links with this Simon Magus)

Obviously such a misrepresentation violates our sense of trust.

But who is the ultimate source for Justin Martyr (and this fraudulent claim) if not Eusebius?

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 10:00 PM

A story from Epiphanius about Marcionites:

Quote:

Indeed, I was arguing once with some of his disciples, some Marcionite or other, and remarking how it says in the Gospel that the Spirit took Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he asked me, 'How could Satan tempt the true God (τὸν ὄντα θεὸν), who is both greater than he and, as you say, his Lord (καὶ κύριον αὐτοῦ ὡς ὑμεῖς λέγετε πειράσαι), Jesus his Master (τὸν Ἰησοῦν τὸν αὐτοῦ δεσπότην)?'

I think this is very significant.

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

04-07-2013, 08:15 AM	#91
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Ptolemy does NOT identify these views as belonging to Marcion or Marciontes specifically

04-07-2013, 01:33 PM	#94
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I don't know if people really care. First it was published only a few years ago, second it goes against the grain of the consensus in many respects. I think evangelicals like him. But the knock against most German scholarship (= it's written in German and that cuts it off from most English speakers) has been overcome because of the English translation.

04-07-2013, 01:54 PM	#95
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Just to get back to the OP. I've contacted Alex Poulos (who often comes around here to look at things) to take a short look at translating section six of what is listed as pseudo-Chrysostom - but which is now attributed to his rival, Severian of Gabala. Apparently most of Severian's homilies have survived under Chrysostom's name. Roger Pearse (who also frequents here) has a story about this at his blog http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2...ian-of-gabala/ Alex told me that the homily I an interested in is described in De Aldama's repertorium of pseudo-chrysostom #415: "Montfaucon had warned that this homily (which appears variously in different manuscripts) was a pastiche of several homilies, perhaps composed from several authors, and that the second part (sections 8-10) mostly consists of material taken from Chrysostom's lost second homily on the beginning of Acts. Marx, however, in OCPer5 (1939) 283-291 showed that this homily actually belongs to Severian of Gabala, though granting the possibility that two homilies may have indeed been conflated into one. Altendorf admits the attribution to Severian in a letter." Alex also informs me that in the next few years we should see a publication with English translations of the late antique homilies on pentecost and ascension. At KU Leuven, Johan Leemans is directing a research project on pentecost and ascension homilies, and the aforementioned translation is in the planned "fruit" of the project. That to say that an English translation of this homily will probably appear in the next few years. He plans on doing as a favor to me I guess a translation of section 6 and a little bit on either side within the next week, and post it on his blog. Can't wait!

04-07-2013, 09:32 PM	#98
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	The words that follow will confirm this, when he asks, Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? and when here again he adds the reason: Because in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom understood not God, God thought it good by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. But I must first come to a decision about 'world', inasmuch as here in particular these very acute heretics interpret 'world' by 'lord of the world', whereas we understand by it the man who is in the world, by that ordinary manner of human speech by which we frequently put that which contains for that which is contained in it—the circus shouted out, the hustings have spoken, the lawcourt was excited—meaning, the people who did things in those places. [5.5] As far as I know, the whole Old Testament is a matter of scorn to every heretic: for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may confound its wisdom—Marcion's god has nothing such, for his opposition does not involve the confutation of opposites by opposites—that no flesh should glory, but that, as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Which Lord? Evidently him who gave this instruction—unless indeed the Creator gave instruction to glory in the god of Marcion. [ibid] But when, in reference to our glory, he adds that none of the princes of this world knew it, because if they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, the heretic argues that the princes of this world crucified the Lord, the Christ of his other god, so that this too may fall to the discredit of the Creator. [5.6] But according to Marcion not even the apostle in this passage permits of ignorance against the Lord of glory being ascribed to the powers of the Creator, because in effect he will not have it that they are referred to as the princes of this world. And so, as it appears that he was not speaking of spiritual princes, then it was secular princes he meant, the princely people—which was not reckoned among the nations—and its rulers, the king Herod, and even Pilate, and him in whom sat in authority the major principality of this world, the majesty of Rome. In such a way, while the argumentations of the opposite faction are pulled down, my own expositions are built up. But you still claim that our glory belongs to your god and has been kept secret with him. Why then does your god, like the apostle, still rest his case upon the same document? What has he, here and everywhere, to do with the statements of the prophets? For who hath known the mind of the Lord, and who hath been his counsellor? Isaiah said it. What has he to do with my God's evidences? [ibid] Pass over also what he means by, For the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, provided you admit that by destruction of the flesh and saving of the spirit he has spoken as a judge, and that when he orders the wicked person to be put away from among them, he has in mind one of the Creator's most regular expressions. Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new baking, even as ye are unleavened: so that unleavened bread was to the Creator a figure of ourselves, and in this sense too Christ our Passover was sacrificed. Yet how can Christ be the Passover except that the passover is a figure of Christ because of the similitude between the saving blood of the <paschal> lamb and of Christ? How can he have applied to us and to Christ the likenesses of the Creator's solemnities, if they were not ours already? In telling us to flee fornication he gives evidence of the resurrection of the flesh: The body, he says, is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, as the temple is for God and God for the temple. Shall the temple then perish for God, and God for the temple? But you see it written, He that hath raised up the Lord will also raise us up: in the body also he will raise us up, because the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. [ibid] A petty sort of god you say yours is, Marcion, a god in some sort of constraint to the Creator's tune. Certainly when he rules that a woman may marry only in the Lord, so that no believer may contract matrimony with a heathen, he upholds the Creator's law, who always and everywhere forbids marriage with foreigners. But, though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth -- it is evident how he means this: not that there really are, but because there are those that are called so, when they are not. He begins with idols his intended discussion of things offered to idols: We know that an idol is nothing. But even Marcion does not deny that the Creator is a God: so that we cannot suppose the apostle includes the Creator among those which are called gods and yet are not, because even if they had been, yet to us there would be one God, the Father. [ibid] This I affirm: the fact that he has brought the unity of our body, in its many diverse members, into comparison with the compact structure of the various spiritual gifts, shows that there is one and the same Lord both of the human body and of the Holy Spirit, that Lord who was unwilling that there should be in a body of spirit any deserving of such spiritual gifts as he has not located also in the human body: that Lord who by that first and great commandment on which Christ also set his approval, Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and all thy strength and all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself,i taught the apostle that charity must be more highly regarded than all spiritual gifts. [5.8] In short, since it is not soul, but flesh, that is sown in corruption when dissolved into the earth, then that animate body cannot be soul, but is that flesh which has been an animate body, so that out of animate the body is made spiritual: as also he says, a little later, Not first that which is spiritual. In preparation for this, he has just now observed of Christ himself, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit—although this heretic in his folly has refused to let it be so, for instead of 'last Adam' he has written 'last Lord', fearing that if he treated the Lord as the last Adam we might claim that as the last Adam Christ belongs to the same God as the first Adam. But the falsification is evident. For why 'first Adam', if not because there is also a last Adam? The only things that admit of numerical order are those of equal rank or of the same name or substance or author; for even if in things opposed to one another there can be one first and the other last, they do belong to the same author. If however the author too is a different one, even he can be referred to as 'the last': yet that which he has become the author of is a first thing, but a last thing if it is on an equality with the first. But it is not on an equality with the first, because it does not belong to the same author. In the same manner he will be confuted by the designation 'man'. The fast man, he says, is of the earth, earthy: the second is the Lord from heaven. Why 'the second', if he is not a man, as the first was? Or perhaps also the first is 'the Lord', if the second is. But it is enough that if in the gospel he presents Christ as the Son of man, he cannot deny that as man, and in this manhood, he is Adam. [5.10] If through the fault of men led astray the word 'god' has become a common noun, in that in the world both speech and belief are of gods in the plural, yet Blessed be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ will be understood to refer to none other than the Creator, who has both blessed all things—you have it in Genesis—and is blessed by all things—you have it in Daniel. [5.11] So he says that we now with open face, the face of the heart which in the Jews has a veil upon it, looking steadfastly upon Christ are by the same image being transfigured from glory, the glory by which Moses also was transfigured by the glory of the Lord, into glory. Thus he first sets down Moses' corporal enlightenment on meeting with the Lord, and the corporal veil because of the feebleness of that people, and then sets over against them the spiritual revelation and the spiritual glory in Christ—as though, he says, by the Lord of spirits—thus bearing witness that the whole history of Moses was a figure of that Christ who is unknown among the Jews, but well known among ourselves. [ibid] So then as he has said the gentiles are without God, and the god they have is the devil, not the Creator, it is clear that the lord of this age must be understood to be he whom the gentiles have accepted instead of God, not the Creator of whom they know nothing. [ibid] Consequently, because he has shown that this is the better thing, so that we may not be saddened, as perhaps we may, by the anticipation of death, he says that we have from God the earnest of the Spirit, as it were holding the pledge of that hope of being clothed upon; and that so long as we are in the flesh we are absent from the Lord, and therefore ought to think it better the rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord: so that we may even welcome death with gladness. [5.12] I shall marvel even more if that lord supremely good, so averse from smiting and raging, should have applied not his own but the Creator's messenger of Satan to buffet his own apostle, and though thrice besought by him have refused to yield. So then Marcion's god administers correction after the manner of the Creator who is hostile to those exalted, who in fact puts down the mighty from their throne. And is it he also who gave Satan power even over Job's body, that strength might obtain approval in weakness? And how is it that this severe critic of the Galatians retains the rule of the law by premising that in three witnesses every word shall be established? How is it that he threatens that he will not spare the sinners, this preacher of your kind and gentle god? Indeed he claims that his power to act more sternly when present has been given him by the Lord. Profess now, heretic, that your god is not an object of fear: his apostle was. [ibid] He says that those who remain until the coming of Christ, will, along with those who are dead in Christ and are to be the first to rise again, be caught up in the clouds into the air to meet the Lord. I tell myself it was even so long ago with all this in prospect that the celestial existences held in admiration that Jerusalem which is above, and cried in the words of Isaiah, Who are they that fly hither as the clouds, and as doves with their nestlings towards me? [5.15] His parenthesis about the sins in which we too have all been conversant gives no reason for thinking that the lord of sins and the prince of this air means the Creator: but it was because in Judaism he had been one of the sons of disbelief, having the devil at work in him when he was persecuting the church and the Creator's Christ, and that is why he says, We were the sons of wrath—by nature, however: otherwise, because the Creator called the Jews his sons, the heretic might have argued that the Creator is the lord of wrath. [5.17] So then it was not hidden from God, but hidden in God the Creator of all things, hidden however from his principalities and powers. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?a Convicted here, perhaps the heretic will change position and say that it was his own god who wished to make known to his own powers and principalities that dispensation of his own mystery which God the Creator of all things was ignorant of. But what point was there in asserting the ignorance of a Creator who was a stranger separated by far distances, when even those of the household of your superior god remained ignorant? [5.18] And yet he says, With them we shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord.e If with them we are to be lifted up, with them we shall also have been transformed. [5.20]

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.