The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Giuseppe »

According to Matthias Klinghardt, in Mcn there were the names of the two Lesthai crucified with Jesus:


Luke 23:32-34 = Mcn :
32 There were also two criminals, Ioathàs and Maggàthras, led out with Jesus to be put to death. 33 When they came to a place called the Skull, the soldiers crucified Jesus and the criminals—one on his right and the other on his left.

I wonder about the reason of the presence of these names. Surely someone can know more than me.

But beyond the possibly allegorical meaning of these names, I wonder about the fact itself of their presence.


My preferred hypothesis is that the names are there to mark even more strongly the contrast between who is perfectly known by the people (the two criminals and the reason of their arrest and crucifixion) and who is perfectly alien for the people, even if the latter called him as ''the Christ'', ''the Son of David'' and ''the King of the Jews''.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
andrewcriddle
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by andrewcriddle »

This seems to be the reading of Codex Rehdigeranus textual criticism

I don't know why it is thought to be a Marcionite reading.

Andrew Criddle
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
Posts: 2110
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:19 pm
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Contact:

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

andrewcriddle wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 12:06 pmI don't know why it is thought to be a Marcionite reading.
Klinghardt has enormous trust that some Latin minor variants preserved the Marcionite tradition.

btw in another Latin Codex there are also similar names of the robbers in Matthew and Mark

EDIT: sorry for not checking your link, there it is mentioned
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:55 pm
andrewcriddle wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 12:06 pmI don't know why it is thought to be a Marcionite reading.
Klinghardt has enormous trust that some Latin minor variants preserved the Marcionite tradition.
How does he tell which variants preserve the Marcionite tradition?
btw in another Latin Codex there are also similar names of the robbers in Matthew and Mark

EDIT: sorry for not checking your link, there it is mentioned
Wikipedia actually has a halfway decent article called List of names for the biblical nameless, which is short on ancient references but which gives a good idea of how very widespread the tendency to name unnamed characters was.

Andrew's link references Metzger's famous entry in the Oxford Companion to the Bible. Fortunately, this is available online.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 5:00 pm but which gives a good idea of how very widespread the tendency to name unnamed characters was.
if this trend was so strong, I wonder if even Simon of Cyrene was not named in the Earliest Gospel.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:24 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Stuart »

Giuseppe,

I would tend to accept that Simon of Cyre'ne was in the base document used by Mark and Matthew. There is no mention of Simon in John, and the passage (23:26-32) is not attested in Marcion. Tertullian says much of 23:33-43 was "cut/erased" and Epiphanius reports from his sources that Marcion read
'And when they were come unto a place called Place of a Skull they crucified him and parted his garments, and the sun was darkened.'
Καὶ ἐλθόντες εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον Κρανίου τόπος ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτὸν καὶ διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος
Not even the two criminals were mentioned. So much for Klinghardt's Marcionite names.

Further, Matthew 27:38 (Mark 15:27) and 27:44 (Mark 15:32 b) look like a stand alone verses that do not interact with the story. The same can be said, even more so with John 19:18 b, where they are not even called robbers. Luke 23:39-43 is clearly a secondary development filling out questions asked about what the criminals said -- typical apocrypha reasons. For the two Lesthai, again the Matthew and Mark common source is where we probably have to look for their symbolic meaning.

As for Simon, there is some real evidence to support you hunch, at least that he is post-Marcionite in the fourth Gospel. John again (like so many other theological points) takes issue with Matthew's account. While Matthew (and Mark) says that Simon was compelled to carry the cross, John 19:17 directly refutes that, saying 'Jesus ... went out, bearing his own cross.' John betrays knowledge of Matthew's version, and rejects it, and like Marcion (although John is clearly not a Marcionite, rather he belongs a different heretical sect) his Christ needs no helpers. This confirms to me there is a proto-orthodox symbolism in Simon.

And we have to look for the symbolic understanding of Simon of Cyre'ne within the proto-Orthodox texts of Mark and Matthew, just as we must for the . (Luke IMO is entirely secondary here, using Matthew as his source.) Mark's comment about Simon being the father of Alexander and Rufus is secondary legend, but apocrypha about them might shed some light (thinking aloud here, have not investigated).
Last edited by Stuart on Thu Nov 16, 2017 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
Posts: 2110
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:19 pm
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Contact:

Re: The names of the two Lesthai found in Mcn

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 5:00 pmHow does he tell which variants preserve the Marcionite tradition?
I don't know enough about Klinghardt, especially regarding this case. But I noticed that in some cases he advocated a Latin variant of Luke as original Marcionite when "it made good sense" to him. His reconstruction is clearly more speculatively than the ones of Harnack and of Roth.
Post Reply