No One Feels Uncomfortable With the Idea that Irenaeus Associated a Particular Gospel with a Particular Sect?

[Secret Alias]

Mark doesn't count because Irenaeus was writing to a Roman audience and already identifies the Gospel of Mark as "their" gospel. But it doesn't strike everyone as strange that "the Gospel" is supposed to be of four gospels and each one of the gospels unknown or "othered" to the Roman community is associated with a particular heresy? So when the Romans would ask what's this "gospel of John" Irenaeus would say "oh this gospel of John comes from John, a trustworthy source, but the reason you heard bad things about it is because it's associated with the Valentinians" or "oh this gospel of Matthew comes from Matthew a reliable witness but the reason you heard bad things about it is because it was associated with the Ebionites." In the case of Luke, it's "never heard of the Gospel of Luke? Well the Marcionites have a corrupt version of it." In each case the "bad guys" contextualize the existence of these faux gospels.

[GakuseiDon]

It's intriguing, not uncomfortable.

You can't have heresy without orthodoxy, and you can't have orthodoxy without power. Before the proto-orthodox gained power, different Christian groups split out and modified a central story about Jesus, creating their own Gospel story. Why would a group decide to create and adopt two contradictory stories? They wouldn't. They'd only need to create one.

The proto-orthodox seems to have been the odd one out with four official stories, which suggests that they were an amalgamation of different groups coming together. But even there, Justin Martyr's harmony and Tatian's Diatessaron suggests a movement to try to get to one official Gospel, before they were eventually locked into having four by the time of Irenaeus.

So, if my thought experiment is correct, what were the four groups that made up proto-orthodoxy? Marcion-like views would have been one of them, i.e. the Creator God of the Jews was not the true God. THAT'S intriguing.

[Secret Alias]

But could such an arrangement where four gospels correspond to the four types of heresies be descriptive. Could there have been a situation out there were God arranged for there to be four gospels ... and ... it just so happens that four heresies "sprung up" around these four gospels? The ancients thought so because they were numbskulls. But surely it has to be the other way around. The four gospels somehow imitate something that Irenaeus or John saw in nature and so the four gospels represent a version of that reality. It can't be that (a) the four gospels were somehow "written" by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in nature and (b) that four heresies stole these gospels to accord somehow with the divinity of "foursomeness." The foursomeness is a snapshot as it were of a predisposition for foursomeness and then Irenaeus or whomever else held this predisposition for foursomeness created a fourfold gospel. That's my problem with the Marcion stole Luke idea. It's not just a description of what happened. It's a prescription of how we should see the Marcionites.

[Peter Kirby]

Origen (Commentary on John 5.7-8):

If it is capable of proof that the sacred works are one book, but the non-sacred many...

In addition, I will add an apostolic saying to this demonstration which has not been understood by Marcion's followers. As a consequence, they reject the Gospels. For when the Apostle says, "According to my gospel in Christ Jesus," and does not say "gospels," they fix their attention on this point and say that the Apostle said "gospel" in the singular because there were not any more gospels. They do not understand that as he is one whom the many preach, so the gospel recorded by the many is one in power, and there is truly one gospel through the four.

(8) If these things, then, can persuade us about what the one book is [cf. Jn 20:30] and the many [cf. Jn 21:25]...

These guys need to explain their (through four) concept as being about "truly one gospel," not the other way around.

[Secret Alias]

That's a Marcionite argument Origen is making. People don't see it. Whenever they read these Alexandrian guys they pretend "oh they are orthodox." They're just sneaky. Origen's patron was a Marcionite. He's making a sneaky Marcionite argument. We all have this habit of only hearing people when they agree with us. Origen isn't agreeing with us. He's only superficially agreeing with our prejudices. The gospel in four was IMPOSED on the world. It didn't come naturally.

[Peter Kirby]

That's a Marcionite argument Origen is making.

Origen must know both Paul's "my gospel" and Mark's "gospel of Christ Jesus" as Marcionite arguments. And this has to be another attestation that Mark has something to do with "the Gospel" accepted by Marcion.

Origen, Commentary on John 1.79-82

(79) In addition to what has been said, we must know this too about the gospel. First of all, it is the gospel of Christ Jesus, the head of the whole body of the saved, as Mark says: "The beginning of the gospel of Christ Jesus." But further, it is also the gospel of the apostles, on account of which Paul says, "According to my gospel." ...
(81) For the same Mark says, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As it is written in Isaias the prophet, Behold I send my angel before your face, who shall prepare your way. A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."
(82) This passage causes me to wonder how the heterodox attribute the two testaments to two gods, when they are refuted no less even by this word. For how could John, the man of the demiurge, and ignorant of the new deity, as they suppose, be the beginning of the gospel, as they themselves think, when he belongs to a different God?

So both Origen and the Philosophoumena score points on Marcionites by saying how even "Mark" doesn't support them.

[GakuseiDon]

But could such an arrangement where four gospels correspond to the four types of heresies be descriptive. Could there have been a situation out there were God arranged for there to be four gospels ... and ... it just so happens that four heresies "sprung up" around these four gospels?

There were no heresies when the gospels were written. There was no orthodoxy therefore no heresy. There were various Christian groups (according to my thinking) that modified their Jesus stories based on their own needs. Some of them grouped together to create the proto-orthodox group. Those that didn't conform to the new power were sidelined as heretics.

The foursomeness is a snapshot as it were of a predisposition for foursomeness and then Irenaeus or whomever else held this predisposition for foursomeness created a fourfold gospel.

I'd see it as the other way around. There were four official Gospels so Irenaeus had to justify that. His reasons seem weak:
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ... book3.html

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit. As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, "Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth." For the cherubim, too, were four-faced...

Is there any doubt that if there were three or five official Gospels, that Irenaeus would have found ways to justify that?

That's my problem with the Marcion stole Luke idea. It's not just a description of what happened. It's a prescription of how we should see the Marcionites.

Since various Christian groups were obviously co-opting material from each other to write their own Gospel stories, I'd say that it is not unreasonable to see Marcion do the same. Like many others today and throughout history, Marcion formed his beliefs and then decided what had to have been in the original story based on those beliefs, and so modified Luke or proto-Luke to create his version. That's my 2 cents anyway.

[RandyHelzerman]

Origen's patron was a Marcionite.

For real??

[Peter Kirby]

Origen's patron was a Marcionite.

For real??

Origen said Ambrose was ex-heretical, Eusebius said ex-Valentinian, and Jerome said ex-Marcionite.

Origen wrote a few things at the insistence of Ambrose, such as the Commentary on John, which mentions his patron frequently.