Can We At Least Agree that the Marcionites Did Not Call Jesus "Christ"?

[Secret Alias]

Maybe it's just me but I see the Marcionites existing in the period leading up to the end of the Bar Kochba revolt and saying "the Jews invented this thing call THE Messiah and he's supposed to conquer the world for the Jews" and then "this Christ is not Jesus." We moderns essentially being baptized into an understanding that Jews and Christians have "DIFFERRENT" conceptions of the messiah (the Jews some army general, the Christians Jesus Christ). This understanding emerged from the New Testament canon and the teaching that grew up around it. But clearly there was an EITHER/OR with respect to the Christ among the Marcionites i.e. the Jews believe in Christ, the Christians in someone else. The attack against the Marcionites from works like Adversus Marcionem is to develop this parody of the Marcionite WHATEVERHEWASCALLED (= Chrestos). The put forward this (joke?) that the Marcionite WHATEVERHEWASCALLED had no prophecies predict him.

Let's stop for a moment. We have to unpackage this.

The Jews believed that all the prophesies pointed to THE Messiah. Christians who believed that Jesus knew that all the prophesies really pointed to him, necessarily also had to believe that all prophesies pointed to ONE Messiah. It was inescapable. But we often forget that the Samaritans continue to perpetuate a centuries old tradition that only some of the prophesies which we identify as "the Old TESTAMENT" (the Jewish Writings) applied to the one who was to come. The Samaritans didn't call their ONE WHO IS TO COME The Messiah. They only held that the Pentateuch and maybe the Book of Joshua foretold the coming of the ONE WHO IS TO COME. So it is possible if not likely that Samaritan Christians would have imagined that ONLY SOME of the prophesies of the Jewish Writings foretold of the ONEWHOISTOCOME.

Certainly Samaritans believed that Jews used their Writings to predict the coming of THEIR Messiah-figure. But the Samaritans rejected the heavenly authority of this figure. This was a purely nationalistic invention that had nothing to do with the true religion.

This has to be the source for the Marcionite rejection of THE Messiah. The Marcionites were necessarily an offshoot of Samaritanism and their rejection of Judaism must have a similar origin. The Church Fathers developed a lot of hyperbole about the Marcionites, how they "hated" the Creator and wanted the "destruction" of Judaism, even mentioned the Jerusalem Church infecting Christianity with "Judaism" (or "Judaizing" the religion). But in my mind there can be no doubt that the Marcionites developed from Samaritanism or a sect within Samaritanism (Dositheanism).

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

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Sounds to me like the Marcionites should have been according to some people's understanding, but actually weren't. I recently saw this again when Giuseppe rejected the fact that the Marcionites called their place of worship a "synagogue". This is the same when Klinghardt and Vinzent act as if GMarcion and GLuke were two completely different texts, even though half of the text is simply identical.

You can see how hard it gets into people's minds.

I suspect that the first Marcionites quite naturally thought of their Jesus as “Christos”. Of course, I don't want to rule out the possibility that later followers preferred to call him Chrestos.

[Secret Alias]

Based on what evidence? Like most people want everyone else to share the same opinions with them. But the evidence from the actual sources makes clear the term "Christos" was alien to the Marcionites starting with the archaeological evidence from Deir Ali, Syria. Surely the Samaritans exist and existed at the time of earliest Christians. What an amazing stroke of luck for orthodoxy that Simon, Dositheus, Justin and various other Samaritan Christians existed but had no lasting impact on Christianity. The truth emerged victorious and was unscathed by heresy.

[StephenGoranson]

To answer the OP title question: no, don't agree.

And of course early Christians used the word "synagogue." Epiphanius reported that Ebionites in his time still did call their places "synagogues."

[Secret Alias]

Is this based on any study of Marcionism or just a typical knee jerk reaction to a position you don't like?

[Secret Alias]

And be honest, is any amount of cited evidence going to change your position? My guess is you believe in Jesus Christ and so see the danger of acknowledging that an early tradition did not call Jesus Christ. Hence no amount of evidence is going to change your beliefs. There is a mountain of evidence. My question is whether it is worth taking the effort to change an unchangeable mind.

[davidmartin]

The Marcionites were necessarily an offshoot of Samaritanism and their rejection of Judaism must have a similar origin.

the marcionites seem like extreme Hellenists and rejected Judaism because they were elitist
a bit like how i've seen evangelical american christians reject eastern orthodox christians because they are not western in their thinking

[Secret Alias]

How were they like "extreme Hellenists"? Geez.

[StephenGoranson]

SA, as far as I know, Marcion revered gLuke and Paul, who used "Christ," so he accepted that.
Later came spelling variants, some to the more commonly-known word, as discussed in this forum.

[Secret Alias]

The same Church Fathers imply the Marcionites did not use the title Christ.