Marcionites thought Jesus wasn't 'Christos'?

[GakuseiDon]

I thought I'd start a new thread on an interesting claim made by several people on this board, just to highlight the evidence for this claim. Examples:

Evidence occurs around the Marcionite area where we find a bunch that uses the same texts and doesn't think XS is the Messiah
...
While the Romans told us that XC meant Christ and this was Jesus' proper title, the Alexandrians and Marcionites and various other heretics were equally steadfast that XC really meant Chrestos was Jesus' true title.
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The Marcionites are plainly reported to have denied that Jesus was the Christ.

I can understand that the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the Jewish "Christos". But the claim seems to go beyond that.

What is the clearest evidence that the Marcionites plainly denied that Jesus was "Christos", if in fact that is the claim being made?

[Peter Kirby]

It's not plainly reported.

But that doesn't mean it is not the best explanation of the evidence.

[Giuseppe]

It is reported by a lot of apologists, Tertullian in primis, that the marcionites believed in the existence of two Messiahs. I wonder that Peter thinks that this is not clearly reported. Or that we shouldn't believe the apologists at least on this point.

Dulcis in fundo: the Barabbas episode is there to witness in saecula saeculorum that there was the radical opposition between a Jesus called Christ/"king of the Jews" and a Jesus with the only sin of not being the Christ/"king of the Jews".

[Peter Kirby]

I can understand that the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the Jewish "Christos". But the claim seems to go beyond that.

The conventional wisdom is that the Marcionites thought Jesus was "Christos"/"Christus" but not the Jewish "Christos." That is, for example, what Tertullian says.

My guess about the OP is that you consider that most likely to be correct (am I guessing right?).

My other guess about the OP is that you notice the "plainly reported" thing to be incorrect (surely?).

What's not clear to me is whether you "can understand" the non-conventional view here. While the above can be read that way (that you can't understand a "claim" that goes "beyond that"), I'm unwilling to assume that you don't understand the "claim." I am assuming that this means, between:

(a) Marcionites believed Jesus was not the Christ.
(b) Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christ."

You think you know that (b) is true, but you're not sure whether (a) is true. Which is understandable.

Of course, (a) implies (b).

On that note, there is (c), which is the conventional view:

(c) Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christ," but they believed Jesus was the Christ.

Now you can see a kind of symmetry here, between these two claims:

(a) Marcionites believed Jesus was not the Christ.
(c) Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christ," but they believed Jesus was the Christ.

Both of these claims are less certain than this claim (b), which we may call closer to being certain (except to the extent that it suggests a distinction between "the Jewish Christ" and "the Christ," for Marcionites, which is not a known for sure about the Marcionites... so in modified form):

(b) Marcionites believed Jesus was not the Christ, or Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christ."

And of course (a) is not a very complete explanation of the evidence in any sense because it doesn't help explain the language that arises around the Marcionites ('arises around' because of a lack of first hand Marcionite accounts). There's only one plausible explanation for their understanding of Jesus and his names that fits, other than the "Christ." So that leaves us with the alternatives:

(c) Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christos," but they believed Jesus was the Christos.
(d) Marcionites believed Jesus was not the Christos, but they believed Jesus was the "Chreestos."

Which, for various reasons, can sound like pretty similar claims!

This is common ground here:

(b) Marcionites believed Jesus was not the Christ, or Marcionites believed Jesus was not "the Jewish Christ."

It would be a mistake to privilege either (c) or (d). They are not neutral, minimalist statements of the facts of the matter. They are both interpretations of the evidence, and they both deserve a hearing.

That of course means that either one would have to be argued. Neither are "plainly" evident. To the extent that this was your point, I agree.

[Peter Kirby]

It is reported by a lot of apologists, Tertullian in primis, that the marcionites believed in the existence of two Messiahs. I wonder that Peter thinks that this is not clearly reported. Or that we shouldn't believe the apologists at least on this point.

What I think is that I don't know which apologist passages you're talking about right now.

I also think Tertullian is often confused, especially on the matter of the term Christ.

[Secret Alias]

I don't get this fucking statement:

I can understand that the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the Jewish "Christos".

I just don't get it. Who fucking invited Christians to the table? It's like saying "my father-in-law hates Big Macs" and Don would reply "oh but he hasn't had my aunt Smiley's Big Mac." What the fuck is an "aunt Smiley Big Mac?" Big Macs are an invention of a corporation called McDonalds Restaurant. I don't care about aunt Smiley. In the same way the Jews invented the concept of messiah. Christians shut the fuck up. What your parents taught you about THE messiah, our messiah doesn't count. This is what Nachmanides would have said to the Catholic Church if they had met on neutral territory and the authorities couldn't have killed Nachmanides for speaking his mind.

And I am not necessarily insulting Jesus by saying this. If I go to a masquerade party dressed in my regular day clothes I can't accuse all the partygoers of heresy. The Japanese invented Sumo wrestling. The French invented boeuf bourguignon. You can't say "boeuf bourguignon goes great with ketchup!" What kind of nonsense is this? The Christian definition of "the messiah." Who cares.

I can remember going to Japan for the first time with among other people this annoying liberal Canadian couple. We had to give presentations on the stage and these retards came onto the stage with the man saying "in Japan the woman walks behind the man but my wife is going to walk beside me." I was like WTF is wrong with you. You're in Japan. You just go along with ever they like and then you leave and you go back to doing things the stupid way you know instead of the stupid way they do things here. There is this white privilege thing. It's like who cares what you think about things that don't pertain to your culture. Every culture is stupid. But they determine their own identity and have some sort of "authority" over things they invented.

[Secret Alias]

And its not just that the Marcionites didn't regard Jesus as "the Christ" but more importantly he had some outer-worldly/extra-terrestial quality. Indeed let's not forget, the Marcionite XC CAN'T be anointed. It's likely physically impossible. Using the most frequent example that keeps coming up in the Marcionite sources. Could the angels that accompany God to the dinner with Abraham have been anointed?

[GakuseiDon]

It is reported by a lot of apologists, Tertullian in primis, that the marcionites believed in the existence of two Messiahs. I wonder that Peter thinks that this is not clearly reported. Or that we shouldn't believe the apologists at least on this point.

Yes, Tertullian mentions this a few times. Marcionites apparently believed that there is the Christ predicted by the Creator (Jewish) god's scriptures, and then there is the Christ of Marcion's Good God. From what I understand, they believed that the first hadn't yet come.

From Tertullian's "Against Marcion", Book 3:
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ... an123.html

So you cannot get out of this notion of yours a basis for your difference between the two Christs, as if the Jewish Christ were ordained by the Creator for the restoration of the people alone from its dispersion, whilst yours was appointed by the supremely good God for the liberation of the whole human race.

From Book 4:
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ... an124.html

And therefore, if Marcion's Christ be also said to be born of man, then he too would receive an identical appellation, and there would be two Sons of man, as also two Christs and two Jesuses. Therefore, since the appellation is the sole right of Him in whom it has a suitable reason, if it be claimed for another in whom there is an identity of name, but not of appellation, then the identity of name even looks suspicious in him for whom is claimed without reason the identity of appellation...

For the evils which precede, and the blessings which immediately follow, the coming of the Son of man, are both alike indissolubly connected with that event. Consider, therefore, which of the two Christs you choose to place in the person of the Son of man, to whom you may refer the execution of the two dispensations. You make either the Creator a most beneficent God, or else your own god terrible in his nature!

[GakuseiDon]

I don't get this fucking statement:

I can understand that the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the Jewish "Christos".

I just don't get it. Who fucking invited Christians to the table?

I'm not a Christian, if that's what you mean. To explain my statement: according to Tertullian (see above) Marcionites believed that the Jewish Scriptures predicted an anointed Jewish Christ who would restore the Jewish kingdom, but that the Christ that came was from the Good God.

I don't think Marcionites believed in a Jewish "Chrestos" that was predicted in Jewish Scriptures, if that means anything. If the Jewish Scriptures predicted a "Christos", and the Marcionites believed in a "Chrestos", their claim would be irrelevant to the Jewish Scriptures.

[Secret Alias]

No I am saying WHAT OTHER OPINION MATTERS OTHER THAN THE CULTURE THAT INVENTED SOMETHING.

Who needs anyone but a French opinion on how to make haute cuisine? I am not getting HOW A BOOK WRITTEN IN HEBREW HAS "OTHER VALID OPINIONS" other than the culture which speaks Hebrew, is part of the same milieu as the author(s) and has many of the same concerns? What other valid expression of "THE Messiah" other than the Jewish expression of THE Messiah, and why does it matter? The Chinese opinion of who THE Messiah would be?