stephan huller

Thanks to my anonymous but welcomed friend spin, I think I cracked this puzzle this time. I've been thinking about this all night but unfortunately - for those who might care - I have to coach a soccer team. But here's the beginning of the solution. Let's start with the greatest authority on Marcion, Harnack citing a particularly significant passage in Tertullian Against Marcion:

“So then, having affirmed that with desire he had desired to eat the passover, his own Passover, it would not have been right for God to desire anything not his own—the bread which he took, and divided among his disciples, he made into his body, saying This is my body, that is [Marcion said] the figure of my body [i.e. his person].” [ibid 4:40]

Harnack, (Marcion, p. 144, note 2) “attributes this explanation to Marcion, and credits him with a figurative interpretation of the dominical words.”

Indeed when we look at the material from this section we will see that Marcion is so intimately associated with this 'spiritual body' which is bread that we identify Marcion himself - via a specific Aramaic term - with the sacramental food.

Go to run. More to follow

outhouse

keep going with this, ill listen.

so far so good

stephan huller

Ok thanks. You know how the Roman Catholic church has wafers and the rest of the Orthodox world has cakes? Well the Orthodox reject the use of wafers. Clabeaux (Lost Edition) has extensively argued that the early Roman tradition was Marcionite (or related). But what if the name Marcion = wafer. It's not that crazy especially if you look at Jewish Aramaic.



But before we get there, consider the wafer for a moment. It is unleavened. This is Marcionite and fits in with what the Church Fathers say about the Marcionite position. The Marcionites clearly only used an unleavened host in their services like the Romans. The Orthodox use leavened bread and boast that it is much more suitable etc.

A sample of the Marcionite use of unleavened bread:

Also Epiphanius mentions that the Eucharist of the Ebionites iis celebrated in the same way as in the orthodox church, which means every year, but with unleavened bread and with water (30 16 1). The use of water is common among the Marcionites, Tatian, the Encratites, and the Apostolici. It stands to reason that the other part of the equation was also there too.

The most powerful argument connecting the Roman and Marcionite rite however comes from the Marcionite Apostle himself (= Paul). While our text read "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole dough? Purge out the old leaven that you may become a new dough just as you are unleavened. For Christ our Pascha is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of evil and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:6-8). With the Latins and the Marcionites, this text seemed seemed even more decisive, since the Latin text reads: "Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole dough?" On the importance of symbolism in the dispute of the azyma, see John Erickson, "Leavened and Unleavened: Some Theological Implications of the Schism of 1054," in idem, The Challenge of Our Past, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1991, pp. 88. This dispute over bread led to the schism of 1054. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azymes

Later Romans like Jerome could turn around the reading against Marcion "Remember the leaven about which even the apostle speaks when he writes, "A little leaven spoils the whole dough." The sort of leaven of which he speaks is something like the kind that Marcion and Valentinus and all heretics exhibited."

But what I am suggesting is that it wasn't just that the Romans and the Marcionites shared the same practices. They were united together against the Christian East because they were one and the same tradition and Marcion derives from the Aramaic term for wafer. This connection was ultimately lost. But I think it can be retrieved.

Sheshbazzar

Oh the irony of it. Holding up 'Marcion', and blessing and eating him.

stephan huller

The next step is to see that raqiyq is the Hebrew word for wafers consecrated for God. (Lev. 2:4 & Ex. 29:2). God commanded Moses to take "one wafer out of the basket of the unleavened bread" (Ex. 29:23), he took "one wafer" (Lev. 8:26).

stephan huller

Here is an interesting article which identifies this bread as the common bread eaten in the ancient Near East. http://books.google.com/books?id=p34...0rakik&f=false

stephan huller

The term rakik (Hebrew) (wafer) referred to a very slim loaf that was perhaps similar in appearance to modern Iraqi bread, as a tenth-century Iraqi manuscript mentioned a large rolling pin to produce the thin rikak (Arabic) bread. Whereas the crisp, wafer bread was made in a griddle, a soft, moist bread was prepared in a pan. http://books.google.com/books?id=ld7...ead%22&f=false

So before we end the day, we have already determined that the word for 'wafer' comes from rqyq. The name Marcion mrqywn and Mark mrqs, mrqa, mrqh was understood to come from the root mrq. The word for wafer comes from a root rqya which means 'thin' and was also the root behind the word 'heaven' or 'firmament.' Eventually we will make the connection that the wafer was a 'piece of heaven' (= spirit). But for the moment let us ask is there a Jewish Aramaic word for wafer which resembles mrqywn? Yes.

stephan huller

This reference in Isidore has always puzzled scholars:

If I am right mrqa is again being demonstrated to derive from rqya (= firmament, sky, heaven). More to follow. But in case anyone would like to go on and anticipate the connection between Mark, Marcion, the Catholic host and the high firmament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament

stephan huller

I am too tired to copy this out, but here are two pages from Jastrow with the terms rqya and rqwa:

http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pagefeed/..._38237_813.pdf
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pagefeed/..._38237_814.pdf

we're are slowly making our way to mrqywn. the next step is mrqwan = wafers elsewhere in Jastrow. mrqwa (wafer) is feminine. In Aramaic around the Common Era the final nun became the sign of plurality and was transferred from the abs. masc. plural to the abs. fem. plural (it used to be at). The form, therefore, of good (= tab) in the plural form for instance became taban and replaced the older tabat. Explaining the final nun of mrqywn was always a problem in relation to Mark. mrqwn not mrqywn was the diminutive form of Mark.

Iskander

40. 1 Harnack (Marcion, p. 144, note 2) mistakenly attributes this explanation to Marcion

http://www.tertullian.org/articles/e...0book4_eng.htm