Freethought & Rationalism Archive

TedM · 02-08-2008, 08:24 AM

Klaus Schilling of Germany recently provided me here on infidels.org the following link, which is an interesting article by Paul-Louis Couchoud in 1928.

http://www.radikalkritik.de/Couch_engl.pdf

I have decided to look at some of Mr. Couchoud's arguments in favor of Marcion priority. Mr. Couchoud's states the question and the traditional view here:

Quote:

A question of utmost importance arises. Did Marcion cut off text parts in the long edition or did the long addition add on to the Apostolicon? In other words: which was the first edition of the Paulina? For the authors of the Church there was no problem. They used the long edition, which had been declared to be the only canonical one. Of course they considered it to be the original version. When they got their hands on the alternate, they already knew it had been stamped heretical. They found three epistles and a lot of passages missing and they couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that the heretical Marcion had cut them out.

He rejects this view on many grounds. I have started this thread in order to attempt to analyze and learn more about his various arguments.

The first issue he addresses is the Pastorals:

Quote:

I. THE PRIORITY OF THE APOSTOLICON.
An initial, strong argument concentrates on the three additional epistles of long edition. It’s easy to see they come from elsewhere and are written by another hand. Their style is
different: it’s “slow, monotone, clumsy, diffuse, unravelling, in some parts dull and colourless”2 in complete contrast to the Pauline style. They deviate substantially from the others, particularly in matters of language and, above all, in the vocabulary they employ. When for example in the other 10 epistles, there are 3 to 6 words a page that are not found elsewhere in the New Testament and 7 to 12 words a page that are not found elsewhere in the collection of these ten epistles itself, then there are here 13 to 16 of the former and 24 to 30 of the latter. By contrast, they do show affinity [10] with the apologetic texts of the 2nd century CE. When the other ten epistles contain 4 to 6 particular words which are found in the apologists of the 2nd century, the three
additional epistles have 14 to 16, that is to say three times as many3. Moreover those three additional epistles presuppose a more developed organization of the church and one of them (1 Tim. 6 : 20) actually promulgates the condemnation of
Marcion’s Antitheses, which was declared in the year 144.

Being posterior to Marcion, they constitute a manifest addition to the original Corpus Paulinum. So the least that can be said is that the long edition has been enlarged by
these three texts.

Yes. This is a strong argument in favor of the Catholic including material written after Marcion's Pauline material. We cannot conclude that Catholics invented the Pastorals, only that they included them. I question whether he appropriately identifies 6:20 as a condemnation of Marion, as I don't see that it is clearly doing so. Any comments here on that? If it isn't, then we can further question the idea that the Pastorals were written after Marcion, which leaves the possibility that Marcion himself was aware of the Pastoral material but decided to reject it when forming his Aposolikan. There is no evidence that he knew of them however.

The above is NOT a strong argument for Marcion priority with regard to Marcion's material. In order to argue that the Catholic church modified Marcion's material, one must examine the material that is alleged to have been added in comparison to Marcion's and apply the same kind of linguistic, word, and theological analysis to those two groups of material. Although Mr. Couchard does examine some passages (which I intend to address in some future posts here), he did not do statistical analysis such as we see above. It would be interesting to know whether the alleged added material contains 1st or 2nd century words and ideas or not..Does anyone know whether Deterring or anyone else did do that, and what conclusions may have been reached?

Comments on this first argument?

I might point out that the analysis above suggests that the works included by Marcion were originally from the 1st century, which would argue against those that say Marcion himself invented Paul and wrote the works in the mid-2nd century. However, I digress.

ted

Toto · 02-08-2008, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Moreover those three additional epistles presuppose a more developed organization of the church and one of them (1 Tim. 6 : 20) actually promulgates the condemnation of Marcion’s Antitheses, which was declared in the year 144.

1 Tim 6:20-21 in the NIV

Quote:

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.

The word translated as "knowledge" (in some translations "science") is gnosis. There is a note about its translation here

Quote:

The KJV translation seems to go back to Tyndale, who also translates gnoseos "knowledge" everywhere but in 1 Tim 6:20. This translation passed on to the Cranmer's and Geneva Bibles, and presumably to the KJV although no one knows for sure why they translated it that way. Tyndale seems to have had in mind Roman Catholic scholastic theology when he used the word "science" as this is the meaning he gives to 1 Tim 6:20 elsewhere (Supper of the Lord, 3:284).

Since there is no contextual reason in 1 Tim 6:20 to change from "knowledge" to "science" as a translation of gnoseos (nominative gnosis, long o); and, in fact, proto-Gnostics, may well have been in view, "Knowledge" would have been a better translation. At the same time we should recognize that "science" in 1611 was a synonym for "knowledge."

I think that this writer uses the term "proto-Gnostics" because he operates from the standard academic assumption that this letter was written in the first century, and Gnosticism was a second century phenomenon. But it certainly looks like an attack on Gnosticism, which might require redating either the letter or the Gnostics.

TedM · 02-08-2008, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I think that this writer uses the term "proto-Gnostics" because he operates from the standard academic assumption that this letter was written in the first century, and Gnosticism was a second century phenomenon. But it certainly looks like an attack on Gnosticism, which might require redating either the letter or the Gnostics.

Thanks Toto. From what I read at wikipedia about Gnostics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism , the religion pre-dated Christianity in some places. While the writer of 1 Timothy could have had Marcion in mind since he shared some gnostic ideas about the Creator-God, there is reason to be doubtful. From wikipedia:

Quote:

Above all, the central idea of Gnosticism (a knowledge superior to and independent of faith) made it welcome to many who were half-converted from paganism to Christianity. According to gnostics, faith was for the multitude, knowledge for the few.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this quote--Marcion's Paul did write about the mystery of his gospel, but since faith was the cornerstone of his message it seems to me that Marcion's views were not quite in sinc with Gnosticism, so the 1 Timothy reference cannot be tied to Marcion with any certainty.

I just found this regarding Marcion and Gnosticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism:

Quote:

In various popular sources, Marcion is often reckoned among the Gnostics, but as the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.) puts it, "it is clear that he would have had little sympathy with their mythological speculations" (p. 1034). In 1911 Henry Wace stated: "A modern divine would turn away from the dreams of Valentinianism in silent contempt; but he could not refuse to discuss the question raised by Marcion, whether there is such opposition between different parts of what he regards as the word of God, that all cannot come from the same author." A primary difference between Marcionites and Gnostics was that the Gnostics based their theology on secret wisdom (as, for example, Valentinius found in the Letters of Paul) of which they claimed to be in possession, whereas Marcion based his theology on the contents of the Letters of Paul and the recorded sayings of Jesus — in other words, an argument from scripture, with Marcion defining what was and was not scripture. The Christology of the Marcionites was primarily Docetic, denying the human nature of Christ. Scholars of early Christianity disagree on whether to classify Marcion as a Gnostic: Adolf Von Harnack does not classify Marcion as a Gnostic, whereas G. R. S. Mead does.[11] Von Harnack argued that Marcion was not a Gnostic in the strict sense because Marcion rejected elaborate creation myths, and did not claim to have special revelation or secret knowledge. Mead claimed Marcionism makes certain points of contact with Gnosticism in its view that the creator of the material world is not the true deity, rejection of materialism and affirmation of a transcedent, purely good spiritual realm in opposition to the evil physical realm, the belief Jesus was sent by the "True" God to save humanity, the central role of Jesus in revealing the requirements of salvation, the belief Paul had a special place in the transmission of this "wisdom", and its docetism. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Marcion: "It was no mere school for the learned, disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to lay the foundation of the Christian community on the pure gospel, the authentic institutes of Christ. The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles of his time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into a reformation of Christendom. This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel, Paul being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In Marcion's own view, therefore, the founding of his church—to which he was first driven by opposition—amounts to a reformation of Christendom through a return to the gospel of Christ and to Paul; nothing was to be accepted beyond that. This of itself shows that it is a mistake to reckon Marcion among the Gnostics. A dualist he certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic."

Of course, even if he wasn't a strict gnostic we don't know that the writer of 1 Timothy wasn't still referencing his movement of Valentinus, or someone else of the time..which goes back to my original comments about the inability to know for whether that verse was written as a reaction to Marcion.

thanks again,

ted

neilgodfrey · 02-09-2008, 01:38 AM

Most of the discussion about Marcion I run across is still based on von Harnack with little obvious awareness of the more recent publication by Hoffmann, and even more recently, Tyson. These last two argue that von Harnack's dating of Marcion was over reliant on the ideological claims of Tertullian. They use evidence from Justin, claiming to be a contemporary, to date Marcion much further back towards the turn of the century.

Hoffmann further thinks we can see a host of anti-Marcionite references throughout the Pastorals.

Klinghardt last month published in Novum Testamentum an article arguing for the priority of a Marcionite gospel as a "solution" to the Synoptic Problem.

Tyson published last year a work dissecting afresh Knox's statistical analysis of Marcion's content vis a vis canonical Luke and concluded that Luke's gospel was a derivative of an earlier Marcionite gospel.

His argument went well beyond statistics however, embracing a "controlled" study of themes and literary patterns, historical ambience and characterization etc in Acts. He decided canonical Luke-Acts was a reaction against Marcionism.

That's what I've been able to catch up with. There are more studies on Marcion than those, but I mention those because they represent what I see as some of the more stimulating dialogue with von Harnack.

I have written stacks of notes and posts on Marcion from the perspectives of the above authors on my blog. Till you can catch up with the originals you can check out my posts under my Marcion category at http://vridar.wordpress.com

N

andrewcriddle · 02-09-2008, 08:12 AM

I started a thread here http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=152775 arguing that on textual grounds Marcion's Paul is not the archtype.

IF one assumes Marcan priority then it is a difficuly with the originality of Marcion's version of Luke that some of the Marcan type material in canonical Luke is missing in Marcion's Luke.

In order for Marcion's Luke to be primary one would have to have the author of Luke using Mark but leaving out material which is then added from Mark/Matthew by later orthodox revisers. IMO this is implausible.

Andrew Criddle

TedM · 02-09-2008, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilgodfrey

Most of the discussion about Marcion I run across is still based on von Harnack with little obvious awareness of the more recent publication by Hoffmann, and even more recently, Tyson. These last two argue that von Harnack's dating of Marcion was over reliant on the ideological claims of Tertullian. They use evidence from Justin, claiming to be a contemporary, to date Marcion much further back towards the turn of the century.

Hoffmann further thinks we can see a host of anti-Marcionite references throughout the Pastorals.

If there are any examples that are CLEARLY against Marcion specifically then we can conclude that the Pastorals were written after Marcion. If they are subjective or about gnosticism in general or ideas that preceded Marcion, no conclusion can be reached.

Quote:

Klinghardt last month published in Novum Testamentum an article arguing for the priority of a Marcionite gospel as a "solution" to the Synoptic Problem.

Tyson published last year a work dissecting afresh Knox's statistical analysis of Marcion's content vis a vis canonical Luke and concluded that Luke's gospel was a derivative of an earlier Marcionite gospel.

His argument went well beyond statistics however, embracing a "controlled" study of themes and literary patterns, historical ambience and characterization etc in Acts. He decided canonical Luke-Acts was a reaction against Marcionism.

That's what I've been able to catch up with. There are more studies on Marcion than those, but I mention those because they represent what I see as some of the more stimulating dialogue with von Harnack.

I have written stacks of notes and posts on Marcion from the perspectives of the above authors on my blog. Till you can catch up with the originals you can check out my posts under my Marcion category at http://vridar.wordpress.com

N

While this is on topic in general and I appreciate the sources, I want to try to avoid what happens on almost all threads, and stick to the specific topics. So far the first issue I have addressed is Couchard's arguments regarding the Pastorals as support for Marcion priority. If anything in your sources or on your blog address that issue, please feel free to share them here.

ted

DCHindley · 02-09-2008, 10:14 AM

Friberg's lexicon defines GNWSIS as

"basically, as the possession of information what is known, knowledge; (1) as a characteristic of God and man knowledge (RO 11.33; 1C 8.1); (2) as the result of divine enlightenment knowledge, understanding, insight (LU 1.77); (3) of heretical claims to higher forms of knowledge available only to a select few gnosis, (esoteric) knowledge (1T 6.20)"

It is difficult to know whether the phrase from 1 Tim 6:20 is an echo of the title of Irenaeus' tome against heretics of his day, or if Irenaeus made use of this phrase which he found in his edition of the Pauline corpus, simply because he liked it.

Are not the Jewish prayers believed to have been modified to condemn "min" (heretics) in the late 1st century? While Christians are believed to have been included under the designation "Min" it is generally attributed to Jewish heretics, Jewish gnostics (small "g") usually being proposed.

I wonder then, assuming 1 Tim is authentic, whether Paul was not warning Timothy away from esoteric understandings of the Jewish god. Gershom Scholem would not see these early "min" as Gnostics (big "G") or even proto-Gnostics, but as more akin to Merkabah mystics or those who followed esoteric interpretations of the creation accounts in Genesis. I'd even suggest followers of Philo's interpretation of Jewish scripture in light of Greek philosophy, or secular Jews like Philo's nephew, Tiberius Julius Alexander, could be the referents here.

Philo flourished circa 20 BC - 50 AD or so, and Paul may well have heard about him and his ideas. Paul may have wanted to draw faithful gentiles closer to Jews, but I don't think he cared to Hellenize Judaism in order to do achieve that goal.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Moreover those three additional epistles presuppose a more developed organization of the church and one of them (1 Tim. 6 : 20) actually promulgates the condemnation of Marcion’s Antitheses, which was declared in the year 144.

1 Tim 6:20-21 in the NIV

The word translated as "knowledge" (in some translations "science") is gnosis. There is a note about its translation here

Quote:

The KJV translation seems to go back to Tyndale, who also translates gnoseos "knowledge" everywhere but in 1 Tim 6:20. This translation passed on to the Cranmer's and Geneva Bibles, and presumably to the KJV although no one knows for sure why they translated it that way. Tyndale seems to have had in mind Roman Catholic scholastic theology when he used the word "science" as this is the meaning he gives to 1 Tim 6:20 elsewhere (Supper of the Lord, 3:284).

Since there is no contextual reason in 1 Tim 6:20 to change from "knowledge" to "science" as a translation of gnoseos (nominative gnosis, long o); and, in fact, proto-Gnostics, may well have been in view, "Knowledge" would have been a better translation. At the same time we should recognize that "science" in 1611 was a synonym for "knowledge."

I think that this writer uses the term "proto-Gnostics" because he operates from the standard academic assumption that this letter was written in the first century, and Gnosticism was a second century phenomenon. But it certainly looks like an attack on Gnosticism, which might require redating either the letter or the Gnostics.

TedM · 02-09-2008, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I started a thread here http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=152775 arguing that on textual grounds Marcion's Paul is not the archtype.

IF one assumes Marcan priority then it is a difficuly with the originality of Marcion's version of Luke that some of the Marcan type material in canonical Luke is missing in Marcion's Luke.

In order for Marcion's Luke to be primary one would have to have the author of Luke using Mark but leaving out material which is then added from Mark/Matthew by later orthodox revisers. IMO this is implausible.

Andrew Criddle

Hi Andrew. Thanks for the information. I remember your thread from a while back and am hoping you might keep an eye here on the issues as you (and Neil) probably can help flesh out some of the specific issues as they come up.

ted

Clivedurdle · 02-09-2008, 10:19 AM

This does feel like trying to put together an unknown animal from odd bits of fossil - as happened with megalosaurus, its thumb ended up on it's nose!

We have Eusebius telling us what it really is - but is he trustworthy?

We have centuries of orthodoxy telling us what the "true" picture is.

We must be able to say about "x" document - it is such and such an age and there is such and such variation in its dating and such and such probability of such dating.

Or maybe not, if we are not even clear about dualism and gnosticism - I assume we are agreed Dualism goes back to Zarathustra, whenever he lived, and why is gnosticism alleged to be separate to Platonism - glass darkly, the cave - is not gnosticism a way to get to the true knowledge via ritual and mystery, something the Egyptians and other have done for millenia?

It feels to me as if someone has asserted gnosticism is such and such a date probably for apologetic reasons.

TedM · 02-09-2008, 10:33 AM

Recap so far:

Couchard sees the Pastorals as a strong argument for Marcion priority because the Pastorals appear to have been written in the 2nd century and after or during Marcion's mission, based on word analysis and anti-Marcion content.

My comments:

1. It isn't clear that the differences in philosphy with Maricon reflect knowledge of Marcion himself. Therefore we can't say that they were written after Marcion. It remains that they may have been written prior to Marcion, and Marcion either didn't know about them, or rejected them due to content. Without knowing Marcion's relationship to the Pastorals we must remain agnostic on the issue of whether his exclusion of them implies anything regarding the authenticity of the material he did include.

2. If the material is inauthentic then we can conclude that Marcion's Apostolikan is more authentic by not including it--for whatever reason--as far as that is concerned only. We don't know however if he "lucked" into that or it was by choice. We can conclude nothing however with regard to the authenticity of the Marcion Pauline epistle material which differs from that in the later canon. The way to determine authenticity/priority of the Marcion Pauline material is to compare it with the canon Pauline material in the same epistles.

NEXT COUCHARD ARGUMENT: The first of four "decisive" examples of interpolation within the canonical Pauline epistles--Romans 1:18-2:1

ted

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02-09-2008, 01:38 AM	#4
neilgodfrey Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Darwin, Australia Posts: 874	Most of the discussion about Marcion I run across is still based on von Harnack with little obvious awareness of the more recent publication by Hoffmann, and even more recently, Tyson. These last two argue that von Harnack's dating of Marcion was over reliant on the ideological claims of Tertullian. They use evidence from Justin, claiming to be a contemporary, to date Marcion much further back towards the turn of the century. Hoffmann further thinks we can see a host of anti-Marcionite references throughout the Pastorals. Klinghardt last month published in Novum Testamentum an article arguing for the priority of a Marcionite gospel as a "solution" to the Synoptic Problem. Tyson published last year a work dissecting afresh Knox's statistical analysis of Marcion's content vis a vis canonical Luke and concluded that Luke's gospel was a derivative of an earlier Marcionite gospel. His argument went well beyond statistics however, embracing a "controlled" study of themes and literary patterns, historical ambience and characterization etc in Acts. He decided canonical Luke-Acts was a reaction against Marcionism. That's what I've been able to catch up with. There are more studies on Marcion than those, but I mention those because they represent what I see as some of the more stimulating dialogue with von Harnack. I have written stacks of notes and posts on Marcion from the perspectives of the above authors on my blog. Till you can catch up with the originals you can check out my posts under my Marcion category at http://vridar.wordpress.com N

02-09-2008, 08:12 AM	#5
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	I started a thread here http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=152775 arguing that on textual grounds Marcion's Paul is not the archtype. IF one assumes Marcan priority then it is a difficuly with the originality of Marcion's version of Luke that some of the Marcan type material in canonical Luke is missing in Marcion's Luke. In order for Marcion's Luke to be primary one would have to have the author of Luke using Mark but leaving out material which is then added from Mark/Matthew by later orthodox revisers. IMO this is implausible. Andrew Criddle

02-09-2008, 10:19 AM	#9
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	This does feel like trying to put together an unknown animal from odd bits of fossil - as happened with megalosaurus, its thumb ended up on it's nose! We have Eusebius telling us what it really is - but is he trustworthy? We have centuries of orthodoxy telling us what the "true" picture is. We must be able to say about "x" document - it is such and such an age and there is such and such variation in its dating and such and such probability of such dating. Or maybe not, if we are not even clear about dualism and gnosticism - I assume we are agreed Dualism goes back to Zarathustra, whenever he lived, and why is gnosticism alleged to be separate to Platonism - glass darkly, the cave - is not gnosticism a way to get to the true knowledge via ritual and mystery, something the Egyptians and other have done for millenia? It feels to me as if someone has asserted gnosticism is such and such a date probably for apologetic reasons.

02-09-2008, 10:33 AM	#10
TedM Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: USA, Missouri Posts: 3,070	Recap so far: Couchard sees the Pastorals as a strong argument for Marcion priority because the Pastorals appear to have been written in the 2nd century and after or during Marcion's mission, based on word analysis and anti-Marcion content. My comments: 1. It isn't clear that the differences in philosphy with Maricon reflect knowledge of Marcion himself. Therefore we can't say that they were written after Marcion. It remains that they may have been written prior to Marcion, and Marcion either didn't know about them, or rejected them due to content. Without knowing Marcion's relationship to the Pastorals we must remain agnostic on the issue of whether his exclusion of them implies anything regarding the authenticity of the material he did include. 2. If the material is inauthentic then we can conclude that Marcion's Apostolikan is more authentic by not including it--for whatever reason--as far as that is concerned only. We don't know however if he "lucked" into that or it was by choice. We can conclude nothing however with regard to the authenticity of the Marcion Pauline epistle material which differs from that in the later canon. The way to determine authenticity/priority of the Marcion Pauline material is to compare it with the canon Pauline material in the same epistles. NEXT COUCHARD ARGUMENT: The first of four "decisive" examples of interpolation within the canonical Pauline epistles--Romans 1:18-2:1 ted

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