back to the drawing board? the missing sondergut Marcion

[Secret Alias]

We just have to stop addressing this idiotic point of view. Like trying to plug into a plug. It doesn't work. It can't work. No more discussions of Luke alongside Marcion. There is no point.

[Secret Alias]

Examples of Origen's cryptic referencing of Secret Mark. There are dozens more like this. It's always Romans 2:19 or 16:25 + Mark 1:1 over and over again:

Now, certainly the introduction to Christianity is through the Mosaic worship and the prophetic writings; and after the introduction, it is in the interpretation and explanation of these that progress takes place, while those who are introduced prosecute their investigations into the mystery according to revelation, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest in the Scriptures of the prophets, and by the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. (= Romans 16:25) But they who advance in the knowledge of Christianity do not, as you allege, treat the things written in the law with disrespect. On the contrary, they bestow upon them greater honour, showing what a depth of wise and mysterious reasons is contained in these writings, which are not fully comprehended by the Jews, who treat them superficially, and as if they were in some degree even fabulous. And what absurdity should there be in our system — that is, the Gospel— having the law for its foundation, when even the Lord Jesus Himself said to those who would not believe upon Him: If you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how shall you believe My words? Nay, even one of the evangelists— Mark — says: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who shall prepare Your way before You, which shows that the beginning of the Gospel is connected with the Jewish writings.

[Secret Alias]

I could post all of them but I don't want to distract from Peter's point. Bye.

[Peter Kirby]

What is the point of discussing Luke in relation to Marcion? What is the value in this? They didn't think Luke wrote the gospel. They attributed that to Paul THE apostle.

Can we say anything about what was in the gospel attributed to Paul that can shed more light on the subject?

[Peter Kirby]

I could post all of them but I don't want to distract from Peter's point. Bye.

I have a point? I'm looking for a better answer, not to prove a point.

[Peter Kirby]

I'm willing to grant your hidden gospel hypothesis.

[Peter Kirby]

I would like it if the Beginning of the Gospel of Christ Jesus text had al kinds of material that was omitted from the other gospel texts. 'The spirit is willing, but the evidence is weak.' Help my unbelief here. Does the idea that there was this kind of material in it have anything going for it?

[RandyHelzerman]

So my question is: Does the evidence best support (1)/(3), or is there some good reason to suggest (2)/(4) here?

TL;DR: If there were any Marcionite sondergut, it's hard to imagine that the Father's wouldn't have jumped all over it. Feel free to skip the wall-of-text that follows.

It's always tricky when you are relying on an opponent's description to figure out what's what. Alas, we are in that position with Marcion. How much can we trust them? Let's quote from everybody's favorite whipping boy, Irenaeus: A.H. Book IV, Preface:

""The man, however, who would undertake their conversion, must possess an accurate knowledge of their systems or schemes of doctrine. For it is impossible for any one to heal the sick, if he has no knowledge of the disease of the patients. This was the reason that my predecessors — much superior men to myself, too — were unable, notwithstanding, to refute the Valentinians satisfactorily, because they were ignorant of these men's system; which I have with all care delivered to you ..."

Yeah, how seriously can we take that? Well, when the Nag Hammadi Books were found, and we could finally read the Valentineans, everybody was really amazed at how well Irenaus actually did.

I realize, that this might be disputed by members of this forum which I hold in the highest regard So I'd like to defend the fathers for a bit.

You gotta remember what the fathers were facing back then: Irenaeus got his job because his predecessor was martyred---these guys had no secular power over their rivals, and they probably were in the minority even among the Chrisitans. *Especially* with the Marcionites, who were well financed, had the new technology of a codex--which contained a cannon of some the most amazing literature ever written, had access to the best communication networks available in the day, and by all accounts were growing like weeds.

If the fathers were going to prevail, it would have to be through the force of better arguments. That's all they had. And they didn't write their books to rock the people in the pews to sleep--they wrote them to engage with the ideas of their opponents.

I am an brazen fanboy of Tertullian, so discount my remarks accordingly, but if you can bracket the over-the-top rhetoric, you'll find his text-critical arguments are amazingly good. I hate to write walls-of-text, but if ya'll will indulge me, I'd like to examine one of Tertullian's arguments to illustrate. He writes:

I say that my Gospel is the true one; Marcion, that his is. I
affirm that Marcion's Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine
is. Now what is to settle the point for us...

Notice the remarkable, well, charity! with which he engages his opponent. For all his florid rhetoric, he recognizes that mutual recrimination is not a valid objection, and will convince nobody. He needs an *argument*. And boy do we get one:

...except it be that principle of time, which rules that the
authority lies with that which shall be found to be more
ancient...

...a principle which certainly the questers of the historical Jesus endorsed...

...and assumes as an elemental truth, that corruption (of
doctrine) belongs to the side which shall be convicted of
comparative lateness in its origin.....A thing must exist
prior to its suffering any change; and an object must
precede all rivalry to itself.

How can anybody disagree with the observation that a revised text must follow the original text in time? It commands instant consensus. Here we have--expressed in different terms, to be sure, but what is nevertheless recognizable as--the principle that tracing the textual *history* and redactional *layers* of a composition gives us a powerful way to adjudicate these sort of disputes. It's a principle we still use today.

.....

All of which is a very long way of saying that we should give the fathers a bit more benefit of the doubt than we do, and since they universally complain about Marcion cutting down, rather than vice versa, its really hard to believe there was much if any sondergut in the Evangelilon. Or the Apostolicon, for that matter. In all likelihood, Marcion confined his "value added" to the Antithesis.

[Secret Alias]

I would like it if the Beginning of the Gospel of Christ Jesus text had al kinds of material that was omitted from the other gospel texts. 'The spirit is willing, but the evidence is weak.' Help my unbelief here. Does the idea that there was this kind of material in it have anything going for it?

Marcion attaches to his gospel no author's name,—as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name. But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmentioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. For out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate. Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors. For we should demand the production of that gospel also which Paul found , that to which he gave his assent, that with which shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: for his intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the apostles, was lest perchance he had run in vain a—that is, lest perchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preaching the gospel in their manner. [Tertullian Against Marcion 4.2]

= Mark 1:1. The only possibility. Clement reacts to the same reality. He can somehow deny that it is a Gospel by Mark but it is recognizably, a Gospel of Mark. A Markan gospel with no ascription to Mark.

[Secret Alias]

According to early church writers Marcion thought that the expression “τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου” in Romans (16:25) was a straightforward reference to a literary work: that is to say, Paul refers here to Luke's gospel. Beginning with Harnack, scholars have pointed out that for Marcion's purpose, the Gospel of Mark would have been better suited. https://www.google.com/books/edition/In ... frontcover

And then the usual bullshit begins. Why Luke? Why do they do this. Just a bunch of brainless robots.