Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

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Stuart
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Stuart »

Sorry for the delay. I tied up completing the German to English translation of Dr. Detering's "Die gnostische Deutung des Exodus und die Anfänge des Josua/Jesus-Kultes" (The Gnostic Interpretation and Exegesis of Exodus). It's off getting reviewed now --- I have a bonus English only section covering 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 which Dr. Detering and I have had some back and forth on about how it fits the patterns (he basically forgot about, or rather didn't consider the passage when he was putting this together). Anyway that was eating up my time.

I looked at my notes and list for the Antithesis, and it's a bit too messy to post right now. Give me another week to put it together. I will refrain from commentary beyond that about how it was pulled together.

Looking over my notes, I can make a few comments. Tertullian actually only cites two of the Antithesis, and then spend much of books 1 and 2 in attempting to refute just those two (also part of book 3). Both two antithesis are cited in other sources more fully.

The comment by Isayre on AH 4.13 is semi-relevant. Looking over the material it is focused on the same topic, using Matthew precisely as it was intended. He does cite some of the passages that try to "flip" the antithesis. (IMO this is not the same author as AH 1.1-21, for reasons of argumentative style, use and reverence for specific scriptures that are very different from one another).

But in general, you see a consistent style among the Church fathers, which is throughout AH4 and Tertullian, where great effort is made to show the same principles are preached by the old and new testament books. Chapter 13 is a continuation of chapter 12 which try to counter the Marcionite argument from Romans 10:3-4 and 13:10 that Christ abrogated the Mosaic Law.

However, this author, like Adamantius, and sometimes Tertullian, uses Catholic verses of Paul and Luke, not found in Marcion. At least Tertullian, and to the extent Adamantius knew (he didn't, as some text is from his sources and some he filled in with the Scripture he knew), would mark quotations as from the Marcionite text (T would often run on, with Catholic text, especially in his exposition of what he just read).

But bottom line he is aware of the comparison going on between OT and NT, and does his best to show they are compatible. (Note, in many places he quotes every Gospel and Catholic form of Paul, clearly without knowing the Marcionite text differences. This makes him at best a secondary witness where other witnesses provide primary testimony)
“’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
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DCHindley
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by DCHindley »

lsayre wrote: Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:30 pm Does Irenaeus work titled 'Against Heresies' in Book 4, Chapter 13 hint of Marcion's antithesis? http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103413.htm
You mean, then, 4.13.1?
... For all these do not contain or imply an opposition to and an overturning of the [precepts] of the past, as Marcion's followers do strenuously maintain; but [they exhibit] a fulfilling and an extension of them ..."
I think that we should distinguish between
1) Marcion's cosmology: That there was a divine being superior to the creator divinity, but previously unknown; The previously unknown God was first revealed through the teaching of Jesus. Jesus himself was considered the messiah/Christ by Judeans, but in error;
2) Marcion's campaign to get the Bishop of the church at Rome to adopt his cosmology, changing the old guard doctrine which sees Jesus' teaching and death/resurrection as a fulfillment of Judean law, in which worship of the creator God was a pillar.

So, I don't think the comment refers to Marcion's work Antithesis (pl), which, I understand, contrasts things said about the creator God, with things Jesus said about the newly revealed supreme God, to show that the two must be quite distinct beings. The latter could not represent a purified or corrected view of the creator God.

DCH
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

I think there should always be a debate about the first principles of our assumptions. Yes plenty has been written by 'scholars' on the subject of Marcion. Detering is one of such 'scholars.' But let's be honest about at least some of these 'scholars' and their agenda(s). The Patristic writers set up Marcion as a boogeyman who was 'against the Church' and 'against the Jews.' If you are trying to find a beachhead against the inherited scriptures of the Church - the ones Irenaeus claims were 'always preserved' by the Roman Church - and the 'Judeo-Christian tradition' as such then you are naturally going to bolster the very things said in the Patristic writers about Marcion - even though they make little sense.

First of all, you turn around the claim that Marcion's gospel was an adulterated Luke. Luke is clearly a secondary gospel. The opening lines of Luke are obviously a 'set up' for defining Luke as an 'apostolic' as defined by Irenaeus - the 'discoverer' of Luke. But the fact these 'scholars' are certainly right about Luke being a 'secondary gospel' it still remains true that Luke is obviously set up this way by Irenaeus and those who used his writings. I think Detering and others willingly go down a rabbit hole in order to combat 'the Church' and its defenders by setting up Marcion as a precursor of their own hostilities often times against the Jews.

I was watching a debate between Risen and Grunwald about the Russia interference story and Grunwald clear comes across as a Detering in another field. Grunwald comes across rabidly set against the 'Democratic establishment.' He will appear on Fox News as part of that agenda. The more that Risen pressed Grunwald as to the inconsistency (and irrationality) of his position the more Grunwald dodged. I find the same thing to be true of Detering's 'nationalist German' defense of Marcion (interestingly Detering's Facebook page often apologizes or acts as a conduit for Russian disinformation).

The point is that when hate is a guiding motivation in your research you grab on to the Marcionite caricature of a hateful 'dualist' opposing Jewish encroachment into Western culture. In the case of Antitheses - the subject of this discussion - there is no reason to believe that the Antitheses were/is/are an actual composition by Marcion. You have to see that the information that comes to us from Tertullian is highly suspect. As Against Marcion 1:1 absolutely and explicitly points out, as the use of Greek terminology still left untranslated in the present Latin translation - what we possess now is a thrice reworked Latin 'final edition' of an original treatise probably by Justin or someone in his circle by way of a Greek reworking by Irenaeus. What Justin did or didn't say about 'antitheses' (another Greek terminology) associated with Marcion is anyone's guess. But the haters like that this claim is directed against the Jews. They aren't 'anti-Semitic' necessarily in the traditional sense of the word. Rather they carry the banner against contemporary Ausländer knowing that the past mistreatment of the Jews acts as a break for the nation today.

Maybe, just maybe the glory of Germany can be resurrected again. Maybe we can repel the present Muslim influence in the cities. Maybe just maybe we can rework, recast the way Jews were 'mistreated' by previous German administrations as part of a new vision for the Westernization of the formerly great nation.

But these aren't good reasons for believing what the Church Fathers tell us about Marcion. And many contemporary German scholars recognize this. It's just a useful tool for an agenda beyond legitimate scholarship.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Mar 04, 2018 9:51 am
... edited to remove offensive material and falsehoods. I left the truthful material intact as you can see

This is a post that deserves to get you banned. The sheer number of falsehoods and false characterizations of people's positions, as well as the completely unfounded assault on Dr. Detering's character is breathtaking. And for Mr. Agenda himself, Stephen Huller to claim agendas of other people. My, my we have some serious projection going on here.

I have to date refrained from taking on your blatant character assassination, which is clearly driven by your personal agenda and failure to be accepted as a serious scholar of note. (This is mostly due to your style, which to be kind is almost unreadable, and often incoherent)

First off, if you spoke German and actually read what is on Sr. Detering's time line you'd find the consistent type of article he has on the subject of Immigration is about how the establishment (Merkel and the SDP and the media) try to label all concerns about immigration as "racists", and so rather than dealing with the issue seriously as a public concern, they have given rise to extremist of the AfD and new Left. He is not affiliated with either. From personal conversations, I can tell you his views most closely align with the FDP, although he has become disillusioned with their passivity; he longs for a real conservative party (better classified as "classical liberal") like the British Tories, instead of the blood and soil type parties (Trump is attempting to morph the GOP into a blood and soil party) which have sprung due in the collapse of the center left. As for organizations he belongs to, primarily one is a park preservation group (saving old trees in Berlin for example), the other a classical music group of some sort. He is a long married minister in a smaller village. His views on the current state of the Church in Germany and Europe are familiar to those who know the situation; hardly extreme or nationalist.

As for Detering's position on the NT, you are wildly off course as well. The Marcionites are only a small sliver of what he considers, and their priority is not at all in his concerns. Like me, he merely thinks their versions of the text represent earlier forms that circulated in the church. He is one of a very large number of scholars who think the process was drawn out and built in snowball manner. He puts much less weight on it than I do. The manner of the origin of Christianity in Dr. Detering's view will become much more clear when you read the English version of his Buddhist essay. You will see how out of line and off the mark you are.

As for agenda, you have a very strong personal and possibly professional interest that is laid bare in your hostility to an earlier form coming from a camp other than the more Torah oriented Christian camp. That is plain in everything you post. Fine, so be it, we all take your rants at this being largely dismissed as off base for what they are.

But Mr. Huller your constant resort to character assassination, misrepresentation, false straw man arguments are unacceptable. Your arrogance is perhaps the pièce de résistance of all this. An apology is owed, but we should not expect it from you.
“’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
Giuseppe
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Giuseppe »

As for agenda, you have a very strong personal and possibly professional interest that is laid bare in your hostility to an earlier form coming from a camp other than the more Torah oriented Christian camp
without offence, but this was the same my point when I said that Secret Alias likes "to judaize" the heretics because the heretics (and anything of heretical) seem cool in this particular historical time. Just as the proto-catholics judaized Mcn because Mcn was cool by their time.

Another special criticism is that he seems sometimes to think that the epistles are post-70 forgeries by Samaritan (or at any rate Jewish) "marcionites". But if Detering's case is more persuasive in this sense is simply because he assumes the not-jewishness of the first forger of the epistles: Marcion. If instead a Jew wrote the epistles, the best candidate to that role is by need a Jew pre-70: Paul the Apostle.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

ummm. It's a Judeo-Christian tradition until demonstrated to be otherwise. Of course that is the focus of these "nationalists." They love the Marcion invented by the Church Fathers because he's them. The idea that I "choose" to investigate the Jewish roots of Christianity is downright demented. That's the starting point. Just as the historical existence of Jesus is the normal assumption of research. There might not have been a historical Jesus, Christianity might have started out as a non or extra Jewish religion. But until this or these things become part of the consensus of scholarship you can't act as if you are battling somewhere out in the margins.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

And yes Detering vocalizes his empathy for "cultural nationalists" in Germany and anti-Muslim sympathies from time to time on his Facebook page. I think that there is a relationship between these anti-Islamic sentiments and his interest in the anti-Jewish Marcion of the Church Fathers. I don't think that's a stretch. I don't hate him for that. My father was German and these sympathies are expressed by some of my family members in Germany.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

It's odd to take up an obsessive interest in a marginal some would say fictitious boogeyman like Marcion of the Patristic writings. What's even stranger is to argue that Paul or Jesus might have been fictitious on some level but to hallow the portrait of the "anti-Jewish" Marcion. Why does he get special treatment? Why does this shadow from the realm of marginalia get a pass? Why do we doubt the individuals where more information and better quality information exists in favor of the Jew-hater? Could it be, could it be ... he finds something appealing in this heretic? And what might that be?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

My point again is Jesus is more likely to be a real historical person than Marcion. Christianity is more likely to have been a first century movement than a second century one. I could go down through the list but it just seems odd to apply hyper-criticism to the idea that Christianity was a Jewish sect or off-shoot but not to the idea that Marcion was a Jew-hater. Why is the evidence for the reality of who or what Marcion was so certain but Christianity's origin in Judaism so uncertain. It's almost the text book definition of subjectivity.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

And I think I figured out who Stuart is. I thought you lived in Pennsylvania.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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