neilgodfrey

Replying specifically to Ben here, although I cover things that are also (fwiw) a response to Fathom.

Whatever Tertullian wrote about his intentions at that point, we can see that he did bring in Paul to add weight to his arguments from Marcion's gospel, and that he did not hesitate to castigate Marcion when he had, according to Tertullian, deleted a choice proof-text.

A couple of chapters after his discussion of the "Bartimaeus" episode, Tertullian calls up Paul's writings to buttress the words of Jesus in the gospel (4:39).

It is also significant that the "Bartimaeus" discussion (4:36) was clearly an important one for Tertullian. He goes to great lengths to attempt to refute what was presumably the Marcionite interpretation, that Bartimaeus's claim was false. Jesus at no point makes any comment (contra Fathom's implication) -- the whole passage and strength of the "son of David" claim hangs on how one interprets Jesus' silence, according to Tertullian.

(Tertullian certainly disagrees with Fathom's statement that an argument from silence is worthless! :-)

So it is surely curious that Tertullian has attempted to persuade readers with no weapons stronger than his own rhetoric, without any appeal to a text in Paul that would have settled the matter, as he did just 3 chapters later in relation to another subject. If at the time of writing Contra Marcion he knew what he apparently wrote in Body of Christ, we have a very curious silence. And Fathom is right to the extent that arguments from silence can rarely be conclusive, but if they are problematic, and especially if they come together in relation to other questions and problems and plausible answers, and if we attempt to tackle each of these with some methodical and acceptable criteria, then we can claim to have a bit more than idle speculation for an interpolation.

Neil Godfrey

Ben C Smith

How would it settle the matter, if Marcion himself lacked the passage in question? Marcion lays out his intended procedure in Against Marcion 4.6.2:

Certainly that is why he has expunged all the things that oppose his view, that are in accord with the creator, on the plea that they have been woven in by his partisans, but has retained those that accord with his opinion. It is the latter [haec] that we shall call to account, with the latter [haec] we shall grapple, to see if they will favor my case, not his, to see if they will put a check on his pretensions.

Tertullian does not always follow this rule of his; but what of it? Where he does not mention a text that Marcion either surely or probably lacked, we are not allowed to suppose that he did not know that text, because he has told us explicitly that he is testing Marcion with the Marcionite text, not with the proto-orthodox text.

Ben.

FathomFFI

This is a good argument, Ben. It demonstrates reason, and backs it up with actual evidence.

FathomFFI

Arguments from silence are best validated with abductive reasoning. You begin with an accepted fact, and then you attempt to expand on that fact with other evidences that point directly at that fact.

In your argument however, it simply stated the fact, and then left it alone. You only provided what you perceived as a lack of textual evidence, but offered no other relative textual evidence to support it.

Those kinds of arguments are very weak, and are the easiest to break down. All it takes is one piece of textual evidence to nullify it, and/or one good piece of textual evidence to confute it.

Toto

Earl Doherty asks that I post that he does not claim Romans 1:2-6 as an interpolation.

And that in the 140 years after Paul and before Tertullian comes along there was ample time for an interpolation of "born of woman" to have taken place.

FathomFFI

And that is nullified with a one word question:

Evidence?

Groundless speculation should not be how history should be understood. We must work with what we know.

Doug Shaver

I might never be a good deductive argument. It can be a very cogent inductive argument. And when we're discussing history, induction is all we have.

FathomFFI

I understand, but you've got to provide more than just a singular fact to give it any legs at all. If we didn't have a criteria for validating an argument from silence we could just say any silly old thing and expect it to be believed.

dog-on

Kinda like the Bible...

neilgodfrey

It doesn't settle the matter at all. It leaves the question open.

But a couple of points to toss into the open question:

1.

In the chapter following the one you correctly cite (4.6.2), Tertullian comes across something in Marcion's gospel that he believes is wrong, or is wrongly interpreted. He does not rely simply on what was in Marcion's text, but he refers to other texts that he complains Marcion has expunged:


So Tertullian attacks Marcion by bringing in a passage that he believes Marcion has expunged from his gospel. This is only one paragraph after he said he was going to refute Marcion from his own gospel alone.

But we can forgive Tertullian this apparent lapse, for in the very next sentence after the one you quoted he qualifies his intention:


In other words, Tertullian says, "X will be my rule, but I reserve the right to make up any other rule as needs be."

This is not the only instance of Tertullian referring to passages that he complains Marcion erased from his gospel. A word search on "erase" etc. in this and other chapters of A.M. will bring up other instances.

I should also comment on that passage that Tertullian says was deleted by Marcion, because in our canonical gospels the passage is unique to Matthew. It is not found even in canonical Luke. This fact also reminds us not to be absolutist in our definitions about what was "canonical" at this time when text versions were still obviously in some flux.

So my original point stands, I believe. We have a curious thing when we see Tertullian overlooking the one passage in Romans that would have clinched his case. It is even more curiouser if he even knew that passage at that time. No, I am not and never had said that that alone is enough to declare the passage an interpolation. Interpolations are often questions of probability based on a cumulation of criteria.

And it is not enough to say Marcion preferred to rely on the greater authority of Jesus, because Jesus said nothing in the "Bartimaeus" discussion. Tertullian's argument is entirely about how to interpret the silence of Jesus.

But even more damaging is the fact that Marcion did NOT believe that his gospel was superior to Paul's letters. The gospel was a fluid document, to Marcionites, always subject to revision. And it was always to be interpreted through Paul. The real gospel was only a revealed to and through Paul.

And we have just seen from the passage I quoted above that Tertullian would and did throw at Marcion passages he believed Marcion had erased -- even if he earlier tried to give the impression that he wouldn't.


2 (my second point to throw into the open question)

I think the case for interpolation should be assessed not only in the light of the canonical text of Paul apparently known to Tertullian at the time he wrote the Body of Christ, but also in the light of the other version of Paul which we know existed.

It is easy to assume that the canonical text is all that is and ever was from the beginning, and that any deviations were barbarous corruptions -- at least it's easy to assume this in practice even if we don't necessarily believe it in theory.

But the fact is we have two versions of Paul. One apparently lacked 1:2-6; and another included those verses. We have the testimony of one protagonist that Marcion butchered the original. But we also have reason to think that if Marcion could be heard he would say someone else butchered the original.

So if we look at the surviving text in the light of those criteria and related arguments, can we gain any clue as to who might be correct? I think the arguments from those criteria must point us towards accepting Marcion's presumed claims to have more merit in this case.

It is also worth remembering that our manuscript evidence shows that the more likely way a text was changed was by adding to it, not scrapping bits of it. But it is easy to imagine those who are adding bits to a text to justify that claim on the grounds that someone else originally deleted them.


Neil