The Marcionite Orthodox War in the Second Century Was Mostly About the "Jewishness" of Christianity

[Secret Alias]

From Tertullian Book Four:

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)

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.

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)"

ibid. It wasn't necessarily Samaritan customs which the Marcionites objected.

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)

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."

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)

"Another Christ" = Chrestos. The author assumes that "Christ" is the correct title of Jesus.

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?

Let's break this one down a little more. Most of us acknowledge that the following order occurred in Christianity.

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.

[Secret Alias]

More.

Publicanum adlectum a domino in argumentum deducit, quasi ab adversario legis adlectum, extraneum legis et Iudaismi profanum. Excidit ei vel de Petro, legis homine, et tamen non tantum adlecto, sed etiam testimonium consecuto agnitionis praestitae a patre. Nusquam legerat lumen et spem et expectationem nationum praedicari Christum.

The publican chosen by our Lord for a disciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the suggestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by the Jews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to the law. It has escaped his notice even concerning Peter, a man under the law, who was for all that not only chosen but received commendation for having knowledge granted him by the Father.a He had nowhere, <it appears>, seen it written that Christ is pro- claimed as the light and hope and expectation of the gentiles.

I see this first of all as an example of later editing by Tertullian, in other words where an argument comes into his mind with Irenaeus's original treatise in front of him. So that:

Publicanum adlectum a domino in argumentum deducit, quasi ab adversario legis adlectum, extraneum legis et Iudaismi profanum. Excidit ei vel de Petro, legis homine, et tamen non tantum adlecto, sed etiam testimonium consecuto agnitionis praestitae a patre. Nusquam legerat lumen et spem et expectationem nationum praedicari Christum.

The publican chosen by our Lord for a disciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the suggestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by the Jews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to the law. It has escaped his notice even concerning Peter, a man under the law, who was for all that not only chosen but received commendation for having knowledge granted him by the Father.a He had nowhere, <it appears>, seen it written that Christ is pro- claimed as the light and hope and expectation of the gentiles.

So that:

The publican chosen by our Lord for a disciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the suggestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by the Jews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to the law. He had nowhere, <it appears>, seen it written that Christ is pro- claimed as the light and hope and expectation of the gentiles.

The Marcionite argument preserved in Irenaeus or whatever source came before Tertullian HAD TO BE interrupted in order not to let us see clearly what the Marcionites were saying. In other words, that the publican COULDN'T HAVE known or expected The Messiah.

At the end of the narrative with Levi/Matthew/Zacchaeus (why the elusiveness) the title Chrestos appears:

And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is Chrestos.’”

Clearly the old is "Christ" and it is being mistaken for the new "Chrestos." The entire discussion of the wine is omitted in Tertullian which is strange because it is usually assumed the Marcionites abstained from wine. Wouldn't it have been useful for Tertullian's case to demonstrate Jesus and wine? Instead he ends the discussion with the parable which precedes the discussion of wine in the gospel:

For just as no one brings a physician to people in health, neither does he bring one to people so alien as man is from Marcion's god, when that man has his own author and protector, and from him for preference that physician who is Christ. This the parable predetermines, that the physician is more likely to be provided by him to whom the sick persons belong.

Of course again Tertullian is using "Christ" in his sense of the nomen sacrum. But clearly the Marcionites saw the nomen sacrum as Chrestos which had a much better and widely known saying attributed to it.

λύπης ιατρός έστιν ο χρηστός φίλος A good friend is a physician for sorrow

[Secret Alias]

Etiam si odio insecutus est sollemnissimum Iudaeorum diem, ut Christus non Iudaeorum, de odio quoque sabbati professus creatorem, ut Christus ipsius, sequebatur exclamantem ore Esaiae, Neomenias et sabbata vestra odit anima mea.

Even if he pursued with hatred the most solemn day of the Jews, as if Christ were not of the Jews, he also professed hatred for the Sabbath's creator, as if Christ were of him, following the exclamation of Isaiah with his mouth, "My soul hates your new moons and Sabbaths."

Doesn't require explanation. Neither does what follows:

Item psalmus septuagesimus primus: Iustitia iudicabit mendicos populi et faciet salvos filios pauperum. Et in sequentibus de Christo: Omnes nationes servient ei. David autem uni genti Iudaicae praefuit, ne qui in David putet dictum, quia et ille susceperat humiles et necessitatibus laborantes: Quod liberaverit, inquit, a dynasta mendicum, parcet mendico et pauperi, et animas pauperum salvas faciet, ex usura et iniustitia redimet eorum animas, et honoratum nomen eorum in conspectu ipsius.

Likewise, Psalm 71 says: "He will judge the poor of the people with righteousness, and will save the children of the needy." And in the following verses about Christ: "All nations will serve him." However, David presided over one Jewish nation, lest anyone think that what was said pertains only to David, for he also received the humble and those laboring under necessity: "He will deliver," it says, "the needy when they cry, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He will spare the poor and needy, and will save the souls of the needy. He will redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight."

Tertullian has only shown us a glimpse of the Marcionite understanding. The Christ is for the Jews.

Quae ignominia, quae nullificatio? Quae futura erat propter filium hominis. Quem istum? Qui est secundum creatorem. Unde probabimus? [16] Ex odio in ipsum quoque praedicato; sicut per Esaiam ad auctores odii Iudaeos: Propter vos blasphematur nomen meum in nationibus; et alibi: Sancite eum qui circumscribit animam suam, qui aspernamento habetur a nationibus, famulis et magistratibus.

What disgrace, what nullification? What was to come because of the Son of Man? Which Son of Man? The one who is according to the creator. How will we prove this? From the hatred preached against him as well; just as through Isaiah to the instigators of hatred, the Jews: "For my name is blasphemed among the nations because of you," and elsewhere: "Sanctify him who despises his own soul, who is held in abhorrence by the nations, by servants, and by rulers."

Tertullian's argument develops as a clumsy refutation of the Marcionite understanding that The Christ is exclusively for the Jews.

Secundum haec, inquit, faciebant prophetis patres eorum. O Christum versipellem, nunc destructorem, nunc assertorem prophetarum! destruebat ut aemulus, convertens discipulos eorum; sibi asserebat ut amicus, suggillans insectatores eorum. Porro, in quantum non congruisset Christo Marcionis assertio prophetarum ad quorum venerat destructionem, in tantum congruit Christo creatoris suggillatio in insectatores prophetarum quos in omnibus adimplebat, vel quia magis creatoris est delicta patrum filiis exprobrare quam eius dei qui nec propria cuiusque castigat. [2] Sed non statim, inquis, prophetas tuebatur, si iniquitatem Iudaeoram affirmatam volebat, quod nec cum prophetis suis pie egissent. Atquin nulla hic iniquitas exprobranda erat Iudaeis, laudandis potius et probandis, si eos suggillaverunt ad quorum destructionem post tantum aevi deus optimus motus est. Sed, puto, iam et non optimus, iam aliquid et cum creatore moratus, nec in totum Epicuri deus.

In like manner, he says, did their fathers to the prophets. See this shape-shifting Christ, first the destroyer of the prophets, and next the vindicator of them: as their enemy destroying them, by converting their disciples to himself: as a friend, vindicating them, by casting reproach upon their persecutors. Now, in so far as vindication of the prophets would have been out of character with the Christ of Marcion who had come to destroy them, to that same extent it is in character with the Creator's Christ to cast reproach upon the persecutors of those prophets whom in all points he was fulfilling—at least because to blame the sons for the fathers' sins is more in keeping with the Creator than it is with that god who does not even censure a man for his own sins. But, you say, he was not necessarily acting in defence of the prophets if it was his intention to insist on the iniquity of the Jews in not treating with kindness even their own prophets. Yes, but here there was no excuse for blaming the Jews for wrongdoing: they should rather have been praised and commended, if they took strong action against those to whose destruction after
all these ages your very good god has at last bestirred himself. But, I imagine, he is no longer perfectly good: at length he shares something of the Creator's character, and has ceased to be entirely Epicurus' god. For see, he betakes himself to cursing and shows himself to be one who is capable of offence and anger.

The difficulty of going through Tertullian's account is that (a) he is aware of a lot of things about the Marcionites which he is not telling us but instead (b) as a good lawyer is instead repeating key messages about the sect to get us to hate them. In this section I see that the Marcionites did not hate the prophets, may well have used at least some of the prophesies, but specifically denied that Jesus was The Christ which the Jews said "all the prophets" prophesied. Note also the juxtaposition between the Marcionite Christ's "kindness" and the severity of the Jewish Christ. Note for future reference the shape-shifting character of Chrestos.

By implication the Chrestos figure of the Marcionites was understood by the Marcionites to be incompatible with Yahweh.

Ita creator et secundum naturae ordinem primum in proximos docuit benignitatem, emissurus eam postea in extraneos, et secundum rationem dispositionis suae primo in Iudaeos, postea et in omne hominum genus.

Thus the Creator, according to the order of nature, first taught kindness to those nearest, intending to send it later to strangers, and according to the plan of his arrangement, first to the Jews, and later to all mankind.

That benignitas is the Latin equivalent of Chrestos Titus 3:4. χρηστότης καὶ φιλανθρωπία: (benignitas … humanitas)

[Secret Alias]

That Tertullian says the Marcionites used the rejection of John the Baptist as proof that Jesus was not the Christ of the Jews was known already to Celsus (who likely had before him Irenaeus's original edition of Adversus Marcionem).

Itaque Ioannes communis iam homo, et unus iam de turba, scandalizabatur quidem qua homo, sed non qua alium Christum sperans vel intellegens, qui neque <haberet> unde5 speraret, ut nihil novi docentem vel operantem. Nemo haesitabit de aliquo quem dum scit non esse nec sperat nec intellegit; Ioannes autem certus erat neminem deum praeter creatorem, vel qua Iudaeus, etiam prophetes. Plane facilius quasi haesitavit de eo quem cum sciat esse an ipse sit nesciat.

Therefore, John, being already an ordinary man, and now one from the crowd, was indeed stumbled as a man, but not as one hoping or understanding another Christ, who neither had a source from which to hope, nor taught or performed anything new. No one will hesitate about someone whom they know not to exist, nor hope for, nor understand; however, John was certain that there was no God other than the Creator, or as a Jew, even a prophet. Clearly, he hesitated more as if about someone whom, while knowing he exists, he did not know whether he himself is that one.

This account is deliberately jumbled in all the synoptics and considerable difference exists between what Tertullian (or Irenaeus) and Marcion had in their gospels and what we now have. John the Baptist isn't there. But one of his disciples seems to have originally emphasized that John was an ordinary man but Jesus claimed to be an angel or a god. In other words, something of the Ebionite heresy was already ascribed to the followers of John and so John is understood to have "lost his spirit" (how I don't understand if he wasn't there). The only way which makes sense is if John's followers had the typical Jewish understanding of The Christ being fully human and so lacked "the spirit" in his understanding of The Christ. Let's cite the whole section to see that the Marcionites understood John the Baptist to be a "Jew" who was the precursor of the Ebionites for his fully human understanding of The Christ:

And so John, being now an ordinary man, one of the multitude, was offended, as indeed a man might be: not because he was hoping for, or thinking of, a different Christ—for he had no ground for such a hope—since he was teaching and doing nothing new. No man can have doubts about one who he knows does not exist, and of whom therefore he entertains neither hopes nor understanding. John however, both as Jew and as prophet, was quite sure that no one is God except the Creator. Evidently it is easier to think that his doubts were concerned with one whose existence he was convinced of, but was not sure whether this was he. So it is in this fear that John asks, Is it thou who earnest, or do we look for another?—a simple inquiry whether he whom he was looking for had come. Is it thou who contest—that is, who art to come: or do we look for another—that is, is there another whom we are expecting, if thou art not he whose coming we expect? For he had hopes—and all were thinking on those lines—arising out of the similarity of the evidences, that possibly for the meanwhile a prophet had been sent, and that it was a different one from him, a greater one, the Lord himself, whose coming was expected. And in fact that John's being offended consisted in this, that he was not sure whether that same one had come whom they were expecting, that one whom they ought to have recognized by the works prophesied of him, appears from the fact that the Lord returned answer to John that it was by those same works that he ought to be recognized. And since it is agreed that these were prophesied with respect to the Creator's Christ—as I have proved in regard to each of them—it is worse than ridiculous that he should have sent back the answer that a Christ not the Creator's was the interpretation of those signs by which he was the rather urging his recognition as the Christ of the Creator. It is even more ridiculous if a Christ who is not John's bears witness to John, giving assurance that he is a prophet, yea even more, a sort of angel, affirming that it is even written of him, Behold I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way:a for in kindly fashion he recalls the prophecy to the former mind of John who is now offended, so that by thus assuring John his precursor that he has really come he may extinguish the doubt involved in that question, Is it thou who earnest, or do we look for another? For as the precursor had now completed his task, and the Lord's way was prepared, he himself must be understood to be the one for whom the precursor had done service. Greater indeed is he than all that are born of women: but the reason why he is less than the least in the kingdom of God is not that there is a kingdom of one of the gods in which every least person is greater than John, and a John of another god who is greater than all born of women. For whether it is that he speaks of some particular least person because of humility, or that he speaks of himself because he was taken to be less than John, in that all men were pouring out into the wilderness to John rather than to Christ—What went ye out into the wilderness to see?—in either case it has reference to the Creator, first that it is his John who is greater than men born of women, and again that it is either Christ or every least person who is to be greater than John in that kingdom which no less is the Creator's, and is even now greater than that great prophet because he has not been offended at Christ—for this it was that made John little.

It might be interesting (while my wife is still sleeping) to look at Celsus's Jew's inferences from this situation. Contra Celsum 1, 47 (translation from Chadwick)

I would like to have told Celsus, when he represented the Jew as in some way accepting John as a baptist in baptizing Jesus, that a man who lived not long after John and Jesus recorded that John was a baptist who baptized for the remission of sins. For Josephus in eighteenth book of the Jewish antiquities bears witness that John was a Baptist and promised purification to people who were baptized.

In Contra Celsum 1,40:

After this he takes the story form the gospel according to Matthew and perhaps also from the other gospels, about the descent of the dove upon the Saviour when he was baptized beside John, and wants to attack the story as a fiction. […] Celsus, who professed to know everything, goes on to criticize our story about the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at the Baptism.

Then again in Contra Celsum 1,41:

Let us, then, see what he says when attacking the story of the physical appearance, as it were, of the Holy Spirit seen by the Saviour in the form of a dove. His Jew continues by saying this to him whom we confess to be our Lord Jesus: When, he says, you were bathing near John, you say that you saw what appeared to be a bird fly towards you out of the air. His Jew then asks: What trustworthy witness saw this apparition, or who heard a voice from heaven adopting you as a son of God? There is no proof except for your word and the evidence which you may produce of one of the men who were punished with you.

In both cases Jesus is strangely represented as being baptized beside John (παρὰ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ) and not by John.

Furthermore, I will add to my discussion the point made by Celsus when he thinks that Jesus himself spoke about the opening of the heavens and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove by the Jordan (παρὰ τῷ Ἰορδάνῃ).

in Contra Celsum I, 48 in order to defend his position Origen:

Similarly, “John bore witness saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1-32-4). It was to Jesus that the heavens were opened; and at that time no one but John is recorded to have seen the heavens opened. […] Furthermore, I will add to my discussion the point made by Celsus when he thinks that Jesus himself spoke about the opening of the heavens and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove by the Jordan. The Bible does not actually show that he said he saw this. And this most worthy fellow did not perceive that it is not consistent with the character of him who said to his disciples at the vision on the mountain,“Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man rise from the dead”, that he should have told his disciples of what was seen and heard by John at the Jordan. As, however, it is a Jew in Celsus' attack who speaks to Jesus about the Holy Spirit's coming in the form of a dove, saying: There is no proof except for your word and the evidence which you may produce of one of the men who were punished with you, we have to inform him that these words also which he has put into the Jew's mouth are inappropriate to his character. For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that of Jesus. Therefore here too, he who boasted that he knew everything is convicted of not having known what words to attribute to the Jew in his address to Jesus.