stephan huller

I hate all the debates about the question of a historical Jesus because they take so many things for granted which aren't necessarily true. For me at least the question of whether or not there was a historical Jesus cannot be answered by means of the Catholic canon. It all comes down to traditions and piecing together what traditions outside of the Catholic tradition believed and especially the Marcionite tradition.

I think we can piece together just about enough to make sense of what the Marcionites believed about the relationship between Jesus (= God) and their apostle (= 'Paul'). I am not sure that the Marcionites identified their apostle as 'Paul.' I see much evidence to suggest something else. But that isn't the point of this post. The question of all questions to me is whether the Marcionites accepted the Catholic idea that the guy we call 'Paul' (itself not the birth name of the apostle even in our corrupt tradition) never actually met Jesus.

Here are the basic facts:

I think that if we can accept that the Catholic tradition went out of its way to 'correct' the Marcionite belief that the apostle of the Apostolikon wrote the original gospel it is possible to also hold that they added the belief that he never met Jesus.

The closest parallel of course is the idea that Mark never met Jesus. Mark is now generally acknowledged to have written the original gospel. Catholic tradition says that he never met Jesus although Zahn and others interpret the opening words of the Muratorian canon as meaning that he was a direct eyewitness to the words and deeds of Jesus. Making Mark appear as only a hearer of Peter subordinates his apostolic authority - a point recognized by the Coptic tradition who claim that later Roman authorities 'invented' these claims about Mark in order to subordinate the Alexandrian Church.

Is there parallel evidence to suggest that the Marcionite church originally understood 'Paul' or 'their apostle' saw and recorded the words and deeds of Jesus in his gospel? Yes, I think there is evidence to this effect. It is only natural to assume that the author of the gospel (which is ultimately the story of Jesus ANGELIC ministry at least according to the Marcionites) would have been there to witness the words and deeds first hand.

Indeed the credibility of the story of a supernatural divinity would be greatly diminished if the author wasn't there to witness his supernatural words and deeds first hand, don't you think?

The best example I can come up with is the Marcionite version of Galatians 1:1 cited by Jerome:

I think that the 'him' who was raised from the dead was Paul not Jesus (the Catholic version of the material adds the words 'and God the Father' to make the 'him' Jesus and God the Father responsible for the resurrection:

The other way of reading the Marcionite material is to assume that Jesus raised himself from the dead (the modern evangelical interpretation). The reality is that Tertullian and others deny that the Marcionites ever held this understanding. 'Christ' was raised by 'God.' There was no self-resurrection in the Marcionite tradition.

There is very little discussion about what the beliefs of the Marcionites were especially with respect to the original Marcionite paradigm regarding Paul and Jesus. The Marcionites seemed to have held that Jesus announced the coming of the Paraclete who was 'Paul.' It seems odd again to me at least that Paul would have been held to have written this in his gospel without actually having heard Jesus say these things. Who would believe them? The case of Mani and Mohammed is of course different because they would have argued that they were the ones announced by Jesus and that Paul wrote down the words of Jesus accurately and only applied the words incorrectly to himself or perhaps better yet that these words were incorrectly applied to Paul by later Christians (cf. Acts of Archelaus).

In any event, this discussion is the only way to figure out the shape of an early historical tradition (= the Marcionites) which did not believe Jesus was a historical person. The debates which go on here with respect to Earl Doherty's interpretation of the Catholic scriptures are an interesting sidebar but are ultimately inconclusive.

Can anyone else come up for evidence within what we know of the Marcionite tradition which would suggest that 'Paul' actually met Jesus?

stephan huller

Another curiosity noted by Kremer Paul never explicitly refers to his own baptism as the decisive moment of his past which constitutes him a believer, but rather to his apostolic call. This call, he states most emphatically, came through no human agency (Gal. 1.1, 11 - 12). It pleased God to reveal his Son in him (Gal. 1.16). He appeared to him (1 Cor 15.8). He saw the Lord (9.1). He appeared before his eyes crucified. Many have argued that Catholic collection is arranged in such a way that Paul is only called by a supernatural voice or vision and that the question of his baptism is left an open to speculation. I suspect that Paul was raised and baptized by Jesus.

Yet one subtle distinction should be noted between our inherited understanding of Paul's connection with Jesus. Because the Catholics stress that Jesus was originally a human being and then a glorified 'presence' after his resurrection any reference to Paul encountering a Jesus appearing in glory necessarily gets lost in this 'before' and 'after' with respect to the Passion. For the Marcionites it would have been very different. If their apostle would ever have been understood to encounter a Jesus appearing in glory it could well have occurred during his ministry (i.e. before the Passion). For the Marcionite Jesus was wholly supernatural.

avi

a. You may be absolutely correct, Stephan, but, wouldn't it be informative, useful, and instructive for those of us less well educated than you, to provide a link to either:

1. someplace where you have already developed the argument explaining WHY this is the only question that matters..., ELSE,

2. someone else's blog, where this point may have been elaborated.

My point here is simple:

There is no intuitive, a priori reason, in my opinion, why your contention should be accepted. Your hypothesis strikes me as fanciful, far fetched, and frankly, foolish, for, (to the best of my knowledge) we possess nothing written by Marcion. Further, we depend upon Tertullian, of all people, for most of our understanding of Marcion's ideas.... That's not depending upon Churchill to explain Lord Nelson. That's depending on David Koresh to define, describe, and analyze Napolean.

b. But, even if we did possess an accurate account of Marcion's texts, including his sources, with dates of composition, why should we accept Marcion's opinion about whether or not Paul met a fictional character, whether JC or anyone else?

c. Interpreting Galatians 1:1
Jerome? Really?

You will cite an ARCH Fanatical supporter of Catholicism, to challenge Catholicism?

The Marcionist version, which you have cited:

differs from the Alexandrian text by omitting three words:

pauloV apostoloV ouk ap anqrwpwn oude di anqrwpou alla dia ihsou cristou kai qeou patroV tou egeirantoV auton ek nekrwn

The sentence remains ambiguous, with or without kai qeou patroV

We still DON'T know what the author of Galatians 1:1 intended: Was it Paul, or JC, or both, who was/were raised up from the dead?

Neither one makes any sense. Accordingly, why is it so crucial to arrive at a definitive declaration as to what the ORIGINAL text of Galatians contained? How does knowledge, if we possessed it, of the actual text flowing from Paul's quill, change any perspective on the evolution of Christianity, its fruitful dispersal throughout the Roman Empire, SO QUICKLY, accompanied by the equally rapid disappearance of so many other sects and entire religions?

The question which I believe is FAR MORE SIGNIFICANT, is how and why JC became "cristou", (annointed) in Paul's letters, but not, ubiquitously, in the synoptic gospels. In my opinion, Paul's repetition of the notion of "cristou", ad nauseum, suggests, to me at least, if to no one else, that Paul's epistles post date the synoptic gospels. How else to account for the paucity of references to "cristou" in the synoptic gospels.....

How could the Jews agree to join any religious movement touting JC, knowing full well, that JC had NOT been annointed. The Jews knew very well that JC had been executed, as a criminal, not annointed as a king. The Romans MOCKED JC, calling him "king" as he was dying on the stavros.

I can understand why the pagans may have been unaware of the significance of "cristou", but not the Jews.

avi

stephan huller

Another interesting paradox which is just too good to be true for skeptics. Although Jesus allegedly promised to build his Church on his apostles' preaching, the church's foundations were largely laid by Paul who allegedly never met Jesus. Where was Paul's authority? The world he supposedly persecuted recognized 'the Holy Spirit was with him.' Really? This is believable?

Surely the Marcionites couldn't have suffered from the same idiocy as the Catholics - i.e. that their church ends up having Marcion as its first 'bishop' and yet his authority is entirely established on the definitive (some would say literal) interpretation of a guy who just thought that he saw Jesus in a vision. Wouldn't it be more natural to expect the definitive interpretation of another visionary would be someone who was himself a visionary like Montanus? It seems utterly incredible to me that Marcion would appear as the furthest thing from a 'spiritual' teacher indeed that the Marcionite tradition which was so precise to set boundaries developing around a man who supposedly never met Jesus and rejecting the word of those who claimed to have actually met Jesus. This is a ludicrous paradox which is difficult to reconcile.

The Catholic tradition again is even stranger. Paul who never met Jesus defines Christianity but is ultimately subordinated to someone who did - i.e. Peter - who strangely was given the 'keys' but never contributed anything to the tradition of substance.

stephan huller

avi,

Tertullian makes clear that the Marcionites thought Christ was raised by an outside divine power. There are hints in Eznik that after Christ is crucified Paul appears and the Jewish god and Jesus engage in a legal debate where the Jewish god ultimately gives in and comes over to accept the better God and repents of his sins.

The evidence seems to suggest that to me at least that the Marcionites did not accept Jesus as the Christ BECAUSE they were connected to the knowledge of what Jews expected by that term. They consistently interpret gospel passages as suggesting that Jesus knew that Simon (Peter) would say that he was the Christ and mislead the Jewish people into a war with the Romans which would lead to the destruction of the temple. The purpose of the Marcionite gospel was to leave 'clues' in the parables which if properly understood revealed that Jesus came to establish another person as the messiah/Paraclete (like the paradigm of Manichaeanism, Islam etc)

Example - the Marcionite interpretation of 'are you the one to come or should be look for someone else' in both Tertullian and Ephrem.

Example #2 - the blind man of Jericho who calls Jesus 'son of David' and then went healed calls him Lord

Example #3 - the sick who call Jesus Son of God whom Jesus heals and then silences.

Example #4 - the silencing and rebuking of Peter for calling Jesus the Christ (taken over by the Islamic gospel of Barnabas as an argument for Jesus's recognition of the coming of Mohammed).

There are many more all from the anti-Marcionite writings of the Church Fathers. Mani takes over these arguments and actually attacks the Marcionites in Osroene for putting forward Paul as the Christ predicted by Jesus. Interestingly Mani and Archelaus get into a serious battle not about whether Jesus came to herald someone else as the one to come (that is agreed by both parties!). The debate is actually whether the 'orthodox' in Osroene were correct in applying that prediction and expectation to Paul or whether Jesus was really talking about Mani and that Paul - as the Marcionites claimed with respect to the Jewish scriptures - either didn't know what he was saying when he said the things he said or that he too knew that Mani was coming.

The most heated part in the debate comes with Paul's confession that he prophesied 'in part' which implies for Mani that he was opening the door for someone who understood 'perfectly' - viz. Mani himself. The same arguments can be argued to have been taken over by Islam in a general sense ultimately obscuring Marcionitism.

Solo

How about Mark creating them as Pauline gospel's allegory ? The original verse first verse of Mark probably started 'ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου' lifted from Philippians 4:15. Mark would have not called his own writing 'gospel' out of respect for Paul. The first verse was probably meant to point also to Paul's 1 Cor 3:10: According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Now isn't it just interesting that Jesus was said to be a carpenter (τεκτων), in view of Paul calling himself αρχιτεκτων ? And if you take it a step further, the reference to the prophet 'Isaiah' which everyone takes to point to Isa's 40:3 voice crying in the wilderness, likely was only to fool the infidel in Mark making his own signature on the writing from Isa 44:13: The carpenter (τεκτων) stretches a line, he marks it out with a pencil; he fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. So right at the start, Mark tells you he is not writing history but a gnostic allegory, projecting his (and his community) visionary experiences as a story of the gospel. Maybe.

That Mark originated from stories told by Peter, seems to me a sad joke, given how Mark treated Peter in his gospel.


The problem with this theory is that Paul would have nothing with Jesus alive - he preached Christ crucified, outrage to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.


Would you not entertain the possibility that the Jesus words and deeds were meant allegorically (and in Mark only that way) ? They were just metaphors to describe the works of the pneuma. Paul would have nothing to do with knowing Christ 'according to flesh'. Mark also knew him only through spirit.

I don't think that will work at all: first, even Detering who is the entusiastic proponent of Van Mannen's 'reconstruction' of Marcion's Galatians, would not accept the nixing of 'God the Father' in Gal 1:1, the immediate problem being Gal 1:16. See here . Second, there are of course other verses where Paul even in the Marcionite recension maintains - consistently - that Jesus was raised, not raising himself. As for Paul believing he was resurrected himself, that of course does not work for the simple reason that the very object of his faith and a cornerstone of his theology was the hope of attaining resurrection he believed Jesus attained (1 Cr 15:12-19, Rom 6:5, Phl 3:11).

I don't have anything and can only wish you good luck on that merry goose chase !

Best,
Jiri

stephan huller

Jiri

A lot of what you say has a great deal of merit. I'm standing outside my car with a soccer ball and my son refusing to come out (wants to go to the toy store). With respect to Jerome's citation it is quite explicit and comes in the middle of a discussion of the Marcionites and Ebionites representing the two poles of Christology (Jesus as only God and only man respectfully). To answer avi's question Jerome's source throughout his Commentary on Galatians is a similarly titled work by Origen now lost. In other words it is impossible to simply ignore Jerome merely because it is convenient for us to do so.

stephan huller

Another argument. Half of the mysteries of the world are standing because no one bothers to even realize there is a question. Yet if the Marcionites knew that Jesus was a supernatural being and if we assume that they thought the letters betray knowledge of his having already written his gospel “according to my gospel” how could be anything but assumed that he was an eyewitness to the events in question? On the one hand he denies other human authorities (Peter etc) and at once it is very much his eyes, his experience that is ultimately reflected in his gospel.

A supernatural encounter with a divine hypostasis could happen anytime. How did such a revelation lead to a narrative about a historical event whichsupposedly took place without him being involved in the narrative? Usually the heavenly ascent is so noteworthy it becomes the framework for the new religion. According to unimaginative scholarship Paul has this incredible experience but his gospel doesn't mention any of this and instead focuses instead on a prophet, some sailors, tax gatherers and prostitutes walking around ancient Palestine healing and eating dinner

Makes no sense. Has a book like this ever been written?

stephan huller

Another point - given the fact that the Marcionite gospel had no reference to Jesus's baptism by John (von Harnack, Tyson p. 43) we must consider the fact that Jesus was never baptized in the Marcionite gospel. We know of no other places where Jesus might have been said to have been baptized other than at the beginning of the gospel. Since Jesus was a supernatural being according to the Marcionites and the evidence supports a Marcionite denial of Jesus as the messiah (only idiots can argue for the existence of a messiah who was not at once a 'Jewish messiah' - it's like saying someone was a recent National League baseball player but never held a bat), when the Marcionite apostle speaks of 'Christ' dying, resurrecting and being baptized he is clearly speaking about a figure who is not Jesus. My guess - based on Galatians 1.1 is that he is talking about himself undergoing an experience similar to what is described in Secret Mark (i.e. Jesus's chosen disciple being initiated into a 'mystery of divine kingship' which makes him the messiah after resurrecting). Yet at the very least it should be obvious that the Marcionite Jesus was NOT baptized, only APPEARED crucified, his body WAS NOT resurrected. These things all applied to a secondary figure called 'Christ' who was more than likely the Apostle himself.

The most logical place for 'Christ' to have underwent burial, resurrection and baptism is of course in the gospel narrative. Given the fact that we have other examples (Acts of Archelaus) where things said in the gospel about the one who is to come applied to Paul, the likelihood that the Marcionite was understood to have met Jesus in said narrative is very high indeed.

stephan huller

Some more curious citations from Adamantius's Dialogue Chapter III:

Petty translates the last line as "it is impossible that these men ever saw Paul."

The question of course is why does the Marcionite (Megethius) dismiss out of hand that these men could have seen Paul. The context is clearly a debate about people who lived after the apostolic era. Is the Marcionite point that Paul wrote the gospel in the apostolic period? I think so.

This exchange from chapter 8 is also interesting:

The last bracketed section does not appear in Rufinus.