Lesson: The Marcionites objected to the "Jewishness" of the (proto) Gospel of Matthew or some early gospel which invoked the specifically "Jewish" i.e. "Jesus Christ" concepts.Transeo nunc ad evangelii, sane non Iudaici sed Pontici, interim adulterati demonstrationem, praestructuram ordinem quem aggredimur.
I now move on to the Gospel, indeed not Jewish but Pontic, albeit adulterated in its demonstration, the prearranged order which we undertake. (4.2)
ibid. It wasn't necessarily Samaritan customs which the Marcionites objected.Proinde si et pseudapostoli irrepserant, horum quoque qualitas edita est, circumcisionem vindicantium et Iudaicos fastos.
"Therefore, if pseudo-apostles had also infiltrated, their nature has been revealed, claiming circumcision and Jewish customs. (4.3)"
Self-evident. Marcionites objected to the use of the Jewish term (the Samaritans didn't use it) The Messiah which was applied to Jesus in a "Jewish-Christian gospel."Si enim id evangelium quod Lucae refertur penes nos (viderimus an et penes Marcionem) ipsum est quod Marcion per Antitheses suas arguit ut interpolatum a protectoribus Iudaismi ad concorporationem legis et prophetarum, qua etiam Christum inde confingerent, utique non potuisset arguere nisi quod invenerat.
For if that gospel which is attributed to Luke (whether we see it with us or with Marcion) is indeed the one which Marcion argues through his Antitheses as interpolated by the defenders of Judaism to the concordance of the law and the prophets, by which they even fashioned Christ from there, certainly he could not argue unless for what he had found. (4.4)
"Another Christ" = Chrestos. The author assumes that "Christ" is the correct title of Jesus.Sic habebit intentio et forma opusculi nostri, sub illa utique condicione quae ex utraque parte condicta sit. Constituit Marcion alium esse Christum qui Tiberianis temporibus a deo quondam ignoto revelatus sit in salutem omnium gentium, alium qui a deo creatore in restitutionem Iudaici status sit destinatus quandoque venturus. Inter hos magnam et omnem differentiam scindit, quantam inter iustum et bonum, quantam inter legem et evangelium, quantam inter Iudaismum et Christianismum.
So will have the intention and form of our work, under that condition which has been agreed upon by both parties. Marcion establishes that there is another Christ who was revealed in the time of Tiberius by a once-unknown God for the salvation of all nations, another who is destined by the creator God for the restoration of the Jewish state, to come at some point. Between these he makes a great and complete distinction, as much as between the just and the good, as much as between the law and the gospel, as much as between Judaism and Christianity. (4.6)
Let's break this one down a little more. Most of us acknowledge that the following order occurred in Christianity.Nec alius erit capacior utriusque quam qui prior et nomen sortitus est Christi et appellationem filii hominis, Iesus scilicet creatoris. [12] Hic erat visus Babylonio regi in fornace cum martyribus suis quartus, tanquam filius hominis. Idem ipsi Danieli revelatus directo filius hominis veniens cum caeli nubibus iudex, sicut et scriptura demonstrat. [13] Hoc dixi sufficere potuisse de nominatione prophetica circa filium hominis. Sed plus mihi scriptura confert, ipsius scilicet domini interpretatione. Nam cum Iudaei solummodo hominem eius intuentes, necdum et deum certi, qua dei quoque filium, merito retractarent non posse hominem delicta dimittere, sed deum solum, cur non secundum intentionem eorum de homine eis respondit habere eum potestatem dimittendi delicta, quando et filium hominis nominans hominem nominaret?
And there will be no one more capable of both than the one who first received the name Christ and the appellation Son of Man, namely Jesus the creator. This was the one seen by the Babylonian king in the furnace with his martyrs, as the fourth, like a son of man. The same, coming directly as the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven, was revealed to Daniel as the judge, as the scripture also demonstrates. I said that this could have been sufficient concerning the prophetic naming regarding the Son of Man. But the scripture offers me more, namely the interpretation of the Lord himself. For when the Jews, only considering him as a man, not yet certain about him also being God, and therefore not retracting that a man could not forgive sins, but only God, why did he not respond to them according to their intention about the man, stating that he had the power to forgive sins, when he also named himself the Son of Man by naming himself a man?
1. Paul and his writings (the gospel, the letters)
2. the Jewish Christians (understood by the Marcionites to have stolen a copy of Paul's gospel and "Judaized it")
3. orthodox Christians like Irenaeus who in the late second century corrupted both the Marcionite and Ebionite tradition to make them compatible with another.
Now here we get a glimpse of the Marcionite view of the Ebionites which gets obscured by the fact that we BELIEVE in Irenaeus's claim that our tradition preserved the "true tradition" of the apostles. The Marcionites say the Jews believe the Christ is fully human (check) rather than a God (check). But also implicitly the Judaizers who corrupted Paul's gospel "corrupted it" (check) to make it appear (by implication) that Jesus was a Christ (check) who was merely human (check). Irenaeus clearly tells us this as the truth because his source must have been Marcionite. In other words, the Marcionite critique of the gospel isn't commenting on our gospels (in spite of what Tertullian makes his text say). The idea that the Judaizers came into the Pauline community and Judaized the gospel was meant to say that they made a fully human Christ by means of their Judaizing to conform to the prophesies regarding the messiah in the Jewish scriptures.