Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

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Secret Alias
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Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

It is very curious that Against Marcion should begin with a confession - a confession that the work that follows is a 'reconstituted text.' As the editor puts it:
Whatever in times past2 we have wrought in opposition to Marcion, is from the present moment no longer to be accounted of.3 It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one.4 My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a brother,5 but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it. [2] The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise. This present text,6 therefore, of my work--which is the third as superseding7 the second, but henceforward to be considered the first instead of the third--renders a preface necessary to this issue of the tract itself that no reader may be perplexed, if he should by chance fall in with the various forms of it which are scattered about.
And of course Book 1 merrily goes along from here and tells us all about the Marcion and the Marcionites originating near the Euxene Sea. The thing that I always found curious was the fact that - even if Irenaeus or Tertullian had falsified an earlier treatise - why do they come out and say it in the beginning?

I think I found something which might explain it.

It is interesting that at the beginning of Book Three - at the middle of the massive Against Marcion tome - there is a 'shout out' to the original statement at the start of the book:
Following the track of my original treatise, the loss of which we are steadily proceeding1 to restore, we come now, in the order of our subject, to treat of Christ, although this be a work of supererogation,2 after the proof which we have gone through that there is but one only God.

Secundum vestigia pristini operis, quod amissum reformare perseveramus, iam hinc ordo de Christo, licet ex abundanti post decursam defensionem unicae divinitatis
Evans translates it as:
Continuing with my reconstruction of the work which was lost, and following its original lines, I have now to treat of the Christ, even though, by having completed my proof that divinity necessarily implies unity, I have rendered this superfluous
So the question isn't now - why does AM mention the 'correction' of an original treatise circulating in the name of an apostate? - but why does he mention it twice?

We know that Book Three is to a large degree a re-purposing of a section also preserved in another treatise of Tertullian - Against the Jews. In other words, rather than rescuing the text - reformare perseveramus - should be taken to mean 'continuing to reshape' or remodel an original text. Why is this at the beginning of Book Three? I think it is obvious - given the dependence on the common material found in Against the Jews - that the editor (Irenaeus) is breaking off the original continuity between Book Two and what is now Book Four. After all Book Two ends exactly where Book Four picks up - i.e. the antitheses of Marcion.

The ending words of Book Two:
Now in the matter of pettinesses and malignities, and the rest of those bad marks, I can myself put together a few rival antitheses in opposition to Marcion. If my God was unaware that there was another god above him, yours likewise did not know that there was another beneath him: as it was put by Heraclitus the obscure, It is the same road upwards as downwards.1 In fact, if he had not been ignorant of him, he would have opposed him from the start. Sin and death, and the actual author of sin, the devil, and every evil thing which my God has allowed to exist, yours also has allowed, by allowing him to allow them. Our God has altered his decisions—exactly as yours has: for your god, who has at so late a date had regard for the human race, has altered that decision by which for all those long ages he abstained from regarding them. Our God, in the case of a certain person, repented of the evil: and so did yours. For the fact that he did at length have respect for man's salvation was an act of repentance
for his initial disregard—such repentance as is owed to an evil deed. Moreover, neglect of man's salvation must be accounted an evil deed, and in the case of your god this was rectified only by repentance. Our God recommended theft—but of gold and silver. But by how much a man is of greater value than gold and silver, by so much is your god more of a thief, stealing man away from his Owner and Maker. Our God demands an eye for an eye: but your god, by prohibiting retaliation, makes it more likely the injury will be repeated—for surely any man who is not hit back will repeat his blow. Our God is unaware of the character of the men he is promoting: and so is yours: he would not have promoted Judas the traitor if he had known beforehand (what he was to be). And as you affirm that in one place the Creator told a lie, there is a much greater lie in your Christ,
for his body was not a true one. My God's cruelty has put an end to many: your god in his turn consigns to destruction those whom he omits to save. My God ordered a certain person to be put to death: yours desired himself to be killed, a murderer as well of himself as of the man by whom it was his will to be put to death. I shall prove to Marcion that his god has put to death a great many: for he made (Israel) a murderer, who consequently must perish, unless it is the case that that people committed no sin against (Marcion's) Christ. But the power of truth is quick in
action, content with few words: falsehood will stand in need of many.

Now if my plea that the Creator combines goodness with judgement had called for a more elaborate demolition of Marcion's Antitheses, I should have gone on to overthrow them one by one, on the principle that the instances cited of both aspects are, as I have already proved, jointly in keeping with (a sound idea of) God. Both aspects, the goodness and the judgement, combine to produce a complete and worthy conception of a divinity to which nothing is impossible: and so I am for the time being content to have rebutted in summary fashion those antitheses which, by criticism of the moral value of the Creator's works, his laws, and his miracles, indicate anxiety to establish a division, making Christ a stranger to the Creator—as it were the supremely good a stranger to the judge, the kind to the cruel, the bringer of salvation a stranger to the author of destruction. Instead of dividing, those antitheses do rather combine into unity the two whom they place in such oppositions as, when combined together, give a complete conception of God. Take away Marcion's title take away the intention and purpose of his work, and this book will provide neither more nor less than a description of one and the same God, in his supreme goodness and in his judgement— for these two conceptions are conjoined in God and in him alone. In fact Marcion's very anxiety, by means of the instances cited, to set Christ in opposition to the Creator, does rather envisage their unity. For the one and only real and objective divinity showed itself, in these very instances and these very deductions
from them, to be both kind and stern: for his purpose was to give evidence of his kindness, particularly in those against whom he had previously shown severity. The change which time brought about is nothing to be wondered at: God subsequently became more gentle, in proportion as things had become subdued, having been at first more strict when they were unsubdued. So Marcion's antitheses make it easier to explain how the Creator's mode of action was by Christ rather refashioned than repudiated, re- stored rather than rejected: especially so when you make your good god exempt from every bitterness of feeling, and, in that case, from hostility to the Creator. If that is the case how can the antitheses prove he has been in opposition to one or another aspect of the Creator's character? To sum up: I shall by means of these antitheses recognize in Christ my own jealous God. He did in the beginning by his own right, by a hostility which was rational and therefore good, provide beforehand for the maturity and fuller ripeness of the things which were his. His antitheses are in conformity with his own world: for it is composed and regulated by elements contrary to each other, yet in perfect proportion. Therefore, most thoughtless Marcion, you ought rather to have shown that there is one god of light and another of darkness: after that you would have found it easier to persuade us that there is one god of kindness and another of severity. In any case, the antithesis, or opposition, will belong to that God in whose world it is to be found.
And Book Four begins:
Every sentence, indeed the whole structure, arising from Marcion's impiety and profanity, I now challenge in terms of that gospel which he has by manipulation made his own. Besides that, to work up credence for it he has contrived a sort of dowry, a work entitled Antitheses because of its juxtaposition of opposites, a work strained into making such a division between the Law and the Gospel as thereby to make two separate gods, opposite to each other, one belonging to one instrument (or, as it is more usual to say, testament), one to the other, and thus lend its patronage to faith in another gospel, that according to the Antitheses. Now I might have demolished those antitheses by a specially directed hand-to-hand attack, taking each of the statements of the man of Pontus one by one, except that it was much more convenient to refute them both in and along with that gospel which they serve: although it is perfectly easy to take action against them by counter-claim,1 even accepting them as admissible, accounting them valid, and alleging that they support my argument, that so they may be put to shame for the blindness of their author, having now become my antitheses against Marcion. So then I do admit that there was a different course followed in the old dispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation under Christ ...
Book Three has absolutely nothing to do with the antitheses - Marcionite or otherwise. I can't help but get the feeling that the manner in which Book Two ends there would be no way of not knowing that Marcion did not mean that the original antitheses was conceived in terms of two gods who were 'good' and 'evil' but a more traditional Jewish understanding of two powers 'good' and 'just.'

The best argument however for some sort of link between Books Two and Four is that both make the same accusation against Marcion - viz. excising passages which only appear in Matthew. We read in Book Two:
These considerations show that the entire order of God as Judge is an operative one, and (that I may express myself in worthier words) protective of His Catholic and supreme goodness, which, removed as it is from judiciary emotions, and pure in its own condition, the Marcionites refuse to acknowledge to be in one and the same Deity, "raining on the just and on the unjust, and making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,"208 --a bounty which no other god at all exercises. It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription is read by each man's conscience. [2.17.1]
This claim that Marcion removed Matthew 5.35 from his gospel is produced almost verbatim in Book 4:
Because, he continues, he is kind unto the unthankful and evil. Well done, Marcion. Cleverly enough have you deprived him of rain and sunshine, that he might not be taken for the Creator. Yet who is this kind one, who has never been heard of until now? [4.17]
I've already explained why this particular identification of a Matthean 'excision' is significant - it comes from the Matthean antitheses. So we know at once why the editor inserted a whole new treatise - Book Three - in between Books 2 and 4 viz. if read in its original context we would know at once that Marcion's antitheses are the same as Matthew's.
“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: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

Osborn notes the 'change of gear' in Book 3:
After the accumulated argument of Books 1 and 2, we anticipate a change of gear in Book 3 which, like Books 4 and 5, is largely concerned with scriptural evidence. [p. 104]
on the similarities between much of Adv Marc 3 and Adv Iud cf. Lieu:
A particular problem is posed by the close, often verbal, similarities between parts of Book III of Against Marcion and the later chapters of the Against the Jews (AJ) attributed to him. 18 There is a growing consensus that Against the Jews is a genuine and earlier work by Tertullian, which perhaps was never completed or properly published, although it seems likely that there also may have been some reverse influence from Against Marcion on its later transmission. [p. 34]
“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
Charles Wilson
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Re: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Charles Wilson »

It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one. My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published
Stephan --

1. I am in my role as observer here. Your work is very interesting but I don't wish to comment . Something else stood out.

2.
It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one
Fascinating! No mention of the Pipeline to God or "No Errors" here!

3.
My original tract, as too hurriedly composed...
What does "too hurriedly composed" mean? Is it like the quote from a character in Frank Zappa's Masterwork, "200 Motels"?
Centerville! It's a real nice place to raise your kids up!...
That kinda' "too hurried..."? A kinder reading of this would be: This is Political! What would distinguish this New! Improved! Treatise from the standard Brand X Treatise? Probably a variation of the Peter Principle: An ounce of Pull is greater than a pound of Talent. "I'm from Rome...That's where the Big People, the important people live...(h/t to Andy Kaufman...).

4. This is supported by the next sentence:
This latter I lost, before it was completely published...
This isn't a matter of going to Copy City and running off 20 copies for your friends in a half hour of free time. How many copies did Titus order of Wars...? Think about how long it took to copy those few books. Further, the New! Improved! Treatise was not completely published before it was ummm..."Lost...".

This points to a fluidity of production. The positions are not fully worked out. The "Stolen" copy probably numbered precisely "One". Positions taken at the time of the original are "No longer Operative...". "We need a new set of lies..."

Someone needs to do a Thesis on written production of books as large as this.
Something else is going on.

CW
Secret Alias
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Re: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

I agree. Part of the work has already been initiated by those who note that 'chapter headings' seem to be introduced with ecclesiastical books such as these. The fact that both Adversus Haereses and Adversus Marcionem are both 'Five Books' is curious too. Because of the Pentateuch? Maybe. Maybe not.

What I think is particularly interesting in light of this particular topic is the manner in which Adversus Marcionem has two contrary impulses or tendencies within the series:

1. the 'books' are on the one hand clearly composite in nature
2. on the other hand they are very deliberately structured in a certain direction (i.e. all the parts are marshaled against a specific literary target

So it is on the one hand impossible to imagine that a person wrote all the books in order, line by line, in the manner of a modern or ancient book, for that matter. Each book is filled with bits and pieces from older books. Perhaps even multiple authors. Look at Tertullian's Against the Valentinians. Most of this book is represented by the Valentinian section of Adversus Haereses Book 1. Irenaeus clearly came before Tertullian. So it is natural to assume that Adversus Haereses 'came first.' But the form of Adv Val is clearly older. It is generally surmised that Adversus Haereses goes back to Justin's Syntagma at least at its core. But Lampe demonstrates that Justin wasn't opposed to the Valentinians and Adversus Haereses is OVERTLY written against the Valentinians (i.e. where all the extraneous stuff are little appendages sprouting off of what is by now 'the main root' - i.e. a systematic treatise against the Valentinians).

As such Tertullian's preservation of Against the Valentinians can't be his own 'siphoning' of bits and pieces 'against Valentinus' from Adv Haer but the other way around - i.e. the author of Against Haereses took something written by Justin and a few other people (Hegesippus most clearly) and strangely recast Justin's Syntagma as a way of buttressing another work written against the Valentinians. It's very strange. We know for instances that chapter 25 of Adv Haer comes largely from Hegesippus's mention of Marcellina and her bringing over the doctrines of Carpocrates. The group as a whole is said by Hegesippus to be 'the first to call themselves gnostics' (loosely quoted). But this is changed in Adv Haer where Marcellina is no longer even the subject of the chapter (the chapter is devoted to the Carpocratians). In Hegesippus Marcellina is the subject and the Carpocratians are the abstraction. Even more importantly Hegesippus's charge that the community were the first to call themselves gnostics is deflected in Adv Haer. Why? Because again, the information is culled as part of a larger effort against the Valentinians.

In other words, we already have three identifiable source materials - (a) Justin's Syntagma (b) the Greek text behind Tertullian's Adv Val and (c) Hegesippus. Justin's Syntagma must have had some authority as an effort to define orthodoxy (i.e. by negatively speaking of 'sects' outside of the true apostolic community). Oddly enough Marcion and Valentinus go unmentioned in that Syntagma. We know this in also by the fact that chapter 27 of Adv Haer the one against Marcion is an unstable chapter. In other versions of the treatise (= the Philosophumena) a different treatise against Marcion appears with none of the 'Marcion defiled Luke' argument. But this effort to 'rope' Justin as a witness against Marcion is evidenced also by the fact that another treatise of Justin's - the core text at the heart of Adversus Marcionem which used a gospel harmony rather than Luke - was reshaped into the five book effort against Marcion when the original elements were not so.

Indeed if we pay careful attention to the charge at the beginning of Adv Marc the false brother' who became an apostate:
My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a brother,5 but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it. The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise.
So according to the author/editor of our present text there was:

1. once upon a time a short treatise allegedly written by the narrator
3. a 'fuller' treatise written before (1) was stolen by this apostate and altered

so:

1. short original treatise
2. "the apostate's" version of the treatise
3. the restored version strangely 'already written at the time of the theft' but also 'restored' in some sense subsequent to the theft

It should be noted that the whole story and the structure of the work 'in five books' bears a remarkable similarity to the story of the Pentateuch. Irenaeus interestingly cites approvingly Ezra's 'restoration' of the Pentateuch written originally by Moses but also at once 'restored' by Ezra.

We know only of one 'apostate' in the early period of Christianity - Ammonius Saccas (HE 6.19.7). We interestingly know also of Ammonius's involvement or interest in the relation of the four gospels to the/a gospel harmony. Ammonius wrote a canon which did this. Interestingly Irenaeus figures on the other side of the equation. The earliest Christian exponent of the canonical four, Irenaeus disappears from history. We know nothing of his later influence or writings. Irenaeus, like Ammonius was a Platonist who could write against the gnostics appropriations from the Greek philosopher. Very curious.

But in any event when we apply this situation to what we know of Adversus Marcionem the introduction references an 'apostate' who altered what must have been Justin's original work. Of course the editor says it was his original work. But this could be the 'spirit' talking - i.e. in the manner of a latter day Ezra. The point is that I can see parallels between Adv Marc and Adv Haer's development. Reminding ourselves of the three levels to the text:

1. proto-text written by Justin
2. apostate text
3. final edition written by the final editor as if he were also the author of (1)

We know that books 1 and 3 bear signs that they were edited/written by the same person. He says at the beginning of book three that adding this section was part of the 'restoration' process. This tells us that it was not present in level (2). So part of undoing the argument of the apostate was adding book 3 - a work which we know in part had nothing at all to do with Marcion but was written against the Jews and was - like all of these additions - a stand alone text.

Now basic math tells us that if there existed a time when Book 3 was not a part of AM then the book was only 'in Five Books' at the final stage of its transmission. Since the editorial style of AM matches that of AH and both works are in 'Five Books' at the final stage of their development it is at least possible that both were written/edited by the same editor. He had an interest in making works 'in five books' which may have had some connection with Ezra's composition of THE Pentateuch (at least in spirit). I can't shake the suspicion that Irenaeus's name - though slapped onto the Five Books of AH - really belongs to the second layer of each work.

I know it is normal to associate the first identification of the fourfold gospel with Irenaeus because of the reference in AH Book Three. But the work as a whole has very few references to the four gospels. One such reference - the reference to the Marcionites relationship with Luke in 1.27 is as previously noted a late addition to AH. What if the references to the fourfold gospel or four gospels were late references or references added to the latest stage of AH? Note that Book Three of AH is the core of 'fourgospel' references. They appear at the beginning (with the reference to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being created at the start) and the middle (the long section related to the Roman episcopal list itself appropriated against from Hegesippus). The Hegesippus section in Book 1 is a parallel 'late addition.'

In any event AH is a five volume work against Valentinus built around a treatise written by Justin that had nothing to do with Valentinus. Similarly AM is a five volume work written against Marcion build around a treatise originally written by Justin which may have had nothing to with Marcion. At the very least it had nothing to do with Marcion corrupting Luke. This argument was added to Book Four after the final editor' of (3) added Book Three to separate Books 2 and 4 from running one to the next. Indeed the final editor admits to two things:

i) he added Book Three as part of his 'restoration' work
ii) "the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise."

If Book Three DELIBERATE separated Books Two and Four and the editor admits its subsequent addition (reading the text critically) it is clear that Book Two contextualizes what the 'antitheses of Marcion' were - they are clearly Matthew's antitheses. You can see from the final chapters of Book 2 that they had something to do with the Ten Commandments. The last few chapters mention the Marcionite critique of the Ten. But more on this later.

The clues (i) (ii) make clear that our resultant text which runs from Book 2 to Book 4 would be too long for an original composition. We also know that the specific argument that takes up most of Book 4 - namely that Marcion's gospel is a 'cut' version of the gospel of Luke was a later addition. But which layer of the rewriting did it come? It's hard to know that. It would seem to me that when the final editor = (3) added Book Three he did so because it was an original treatise of Justin. There must have been some recognition that (1) was also written by Justin - hence adding book 3 was plausible argued to have been 'intended' to have been added to another work of Justin by its original writer.

IMHO this means that the 'apostate' who authored (2) must have been Irenaeus. In other words, the same person who says in AH that the Marcionites had an interest in the Matthean antitheses is undoubtedly the same person who wrote the proto-text of Books 2-4 of AM arguing that Marcion also 'took an interest in the Matthean antitheses.' Since most of the accusations of Marcion 'cutting' things which only appear in Matthew are limited to the anitheses of Matthew chapter 5, I might have to reconsider my original understanding of why these curious references STILL appear in AM 2 and 4.

If one of the final editors simply used a treatise written by another author (Justin) who happened to employ a gospel harmony it would certainly have been plausible and possible that this author could have completely expunged any trace of the resultant 'Marcion erased things from Matthew' from a text supposedly devoted to a thesis 'Marcion exclusively cut from the gospel of Luke. ' He could have. But why didn't he? I think the answer comes from the recognition that level 3 to the text - i.e. 'the final editor' - represents only the last manipulation of the text. The argument at the heart of the proto-text books 2-4 was Irenaeus's argument that Marcion took in an interest in the specifically Matthean antitheses.

What I am saying is that in the proto-text 2-4 we have the core arguments of Irenaeus about Marcion at the core of AH:

1. Marcion had two gods - one kind the other just
2. his antitheses are to show that the Jewish god is the just god, the Christian god was the 'other' god of the Bible who was ignored/unknown to the Jews.
3. Marcion did this by appealing to the antitheses which do not appear in Luke but Matthew. In other words, the traditional way of defining the Marcionite antitheses was to argue that he/they criticized the Jewish god for being 'evil.' No this was not the actual case. The antitheses were meant to show that only one of the ten commandments was 'kind' - do not lust - and this commandment belonged not to 'just' god of the Jews (who promulgated the 9 other commandments) but that this 'kind' commandment was related to the kind god.
4. the accusations of 'cutting things from Matthew which do not appear in Luke' are almost exclusively restricted to Matthew 5:17 -45. Somehow the kind god allowed the promulgation of the other nine but not came to reveal that only the tenth commandment saved.

The argument at (2) seems to have been that Marcion used a version of Luke which had a highly mutilated version of Matthew 5:17 - 45 which was used to argue for two powers in heaven (one kind, one just) which somehow was related to a rejection of 9 of the 10 commandments or perhaps an identification or appropriation of the tenth commandment as the exclusive domain of Jesus (i.e in favor of 'do not lust' being Jesus's commandment).

I guess my new position is that the 'final editor' seems to know that AM goes back to something written by Justin. The core text might still go back to a commentary on the gospel written by Justin. All indications seem to support this idea at least on the part of (3). But I think the important thing to see now is that we can fairly certain that the 'Marcion falsified Luke' argument properly belongs at level (2). (3) consciously reshaped the work away from (2) and towards an unknown (1) probably written by Justin. But something in the argument of (2) - mostly likely the authors repeated conviction that Marcion's two gods were the Jewish pairing of a 'kind' power and a 'just' power was problematic for the final editor. I think this author, perhaps writing under the influence of proto-Manichaean dualisms wanted to get away from the monarchian concerns which prompted (2).
“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: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

This appears near the end of Book Three:
This prophecy, indeed, has been very lately fulfilled in an expedition to the East.
This is understood to date to Severus's expedition against the Parthians - so Holmes's notes. In 195 the Roman invasion of Mesopotamia began under the Emperor Septimius Severus, who occupied Seleucia and Babylon, and then sacked Ctesiphon yet again in 197. Why does this mean that Tertullian wrote these words? It is these same dates that the Greek text of Justin seems to have been corrupted as multiple scholars have noted. Craig Evans points out, there exists a similar tradition in the aforementioned text of Tertullian ascribed originally to Irenaeus. “Damascus was reckoned to Arabia until it was brought into Coele Syria, on the division of Syria by Septimius Severus between 193 and 198 (Dio Cassius 53.12): Justin, dial. 78, seems to have previous knowledge of this rearrangement unless the observation is a later addition.” Why isn't this proof of a parallel copying effort of older MSS in Greek by Irenaeus? Why is it necessarily Tertullian?

I find it curious that the last line in Book 3 which is shared by Against the Jews is:
And so in this manner the law and the prophets were until John, but the dews of divine grace were withdrawn from the nation. After his time their madness still continued, and the name of the Lord was blasphemed by them, as saith the Scripture: "Because of you my name is continually blasphemed amongst the nations" (for from them did the blasphemy originate); neither in the interval from Tiberius to Vespasian did they learn repentance. Therefore "has their land become desolate, their cities are burnt with fire, their country strangers are devouring before their own eyes; the daughter of Sion has been deserted like a cottage in a vineyard, or a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,"330 ever since the time when "Israel acknowledged not the Lord, and the people understood Him not, but forsook Him, and provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger."331 [4] So likewise that conditional threat of the sword, "If ye refuse and hear me not, the sword shall devour you,"332 has proved that it was Christ, for rebellion against whom they have perished. In the fifty-eighth Psalm He demands of the Father their dispersion: "Scatter them in Thy power."333 By Isaiah He also says, as He finishes a prophecy of their consumption by fire:334 "Because of me has this happened to you; ye shall lie down in sorrow. But all this would be unmeaning enough, if they suffered this retribution not on account of Him, who had in prophecy assigned their suffering to His own cause, but for the sake of the Christ of the other god. Well, then, although you affirm that it is the Christ of the other god who was driven to the cross by the powers and authorities of the Creator, as it were by hostile beings, still I have to say, See how manifestly He was defended by the Creator: there were given to Him both "the wicked for His burial," even those who had strenuously maintained that His corpse had been stolen, "and the rich for His death,"337 even those who had redeemed Him from the treachery of Judas, as well as from the lying report of the soldiers that His body had been taken away. [6] Therefore these things either did not happen to the Jews on His account, in which case you will be refuted by the sense of the Scriptures tallying with the issue of the facts and the order of the times, or else they did happen on His account, and then the Creator could not have inflicted the vengeance except for His own Christ; nay, He must have rather had a reward for Judas, if it had been his master's enemy whom they put to death. At all events,338 if the Creator's Christ has not come yet, on whose account the prophecy dooms them to such sufferings, they will have to endure the sufferings when He shall have come. Then where will there be a daughter of Sion to be reduced to desolation, for there is none now to be found? [7] Where will there be cities to be burnt with fire, for they are now in heaps?339 Where a nation to be dispersed, which is already in banishment? Restore to Judaea its former state, that the Creator's Christ may find it, and then you may contend that another Christ has come. But then, again,340 how is it that He can have permitted to range through341 His own heaven one whom He was some day to put to death on His own earth, after the more noble and glorious region of His kingdom had been violated, and His own very palace and sublimest height had been trodden by him? Or was it only in appearance rather that he did this?342 God is no doubt a jealous God! Yet he gained the victory. You should blush with shame, who put your faith in a vanquished god! What have you to hope for from him, who was not strong enough to protect himself? For it was either through his infirmity that he was crushed by the powers and human agents of the Creator, or else through maliciousness, in order that he might fasten so great a stigma on them by his endurance of their wickedness. Yes, certainly, you say, I do hope from Him that which amounts in itself to a proof of the diversity (of Christs), God's kingdom in an everlasting and heavenly possession. Besides, your Christ promises to the Jews their primitive condition, with the recovery of their country

Et ita subtractis charismatum roribus lex et prophetae usque ad Ioannem. Dehinc cum ea perseverantia furoris et nomen domini per ipsos blasphemaretur, sicut scriptum est: Propter vos blasphematur nomen meum in nationibus (ab illis enim coepit infamia), et tempus medium a Tiberio usque ad Vespasianum non paenitentiam intellexissent, facta est terra eorum deserta, civitates eorum exustae, regionem eorum sub ipsorum conspectu extranei devorant, derelicta filia Sion, et tanquam specula in vinea vel in cucumerario casula, ex quo scilicet Israel dominum non cognovit, et populus eum non intellexit, sed dereliquit, et in indignationem provocavit sanctum Israelis. [4] Sic et machaerae condicionalis comminatio, Si nolueritis nec audieritis me, machaera vos comedet, probavit Christum fuisse quem non audiendo perierunt. Qui et in psalmo quinquagesimo octavo dispersionem eis postulat a patre: Disperge eos in virtute tua. Qui et rursus per Esaiam in exustionem eorum perorans, Propter me haec, inquit, facta sunt vobis, in anxietate dormietis. [5] Satis vane, si haec non propter eum passi sunt qui propter se passuros pronuntiarat, sed propter Christum dei alterius. Atquin Christum, inquam, alterius dei dicitis a creatoris virtutibus et potestatibus, ut ab aemulis, in crucem actum. Sed ecce defensus ostenditur a creatore, et dati sunt pessimi pro sepultura eius, qui scilicet subreptam eam2 asseveraverant, et locupletes pro morte eius, qui scilicet et a Iuda traditionem redemerant, et a militibus falsum testimonium cadaveris subrepti. Igitur aut non propter illum acciderunt ista Iudaeis—sed revinceris conspirante et sensu scripturarum cum exitu rerum et ordine temporumaut si propter illum acciderunt, non potuit creator ulcisci nisi suum Christum, remuneraturus potius Iudam si adversarium domini sui peremissent. Certe si nondum venit Christus creatoris, propter quem haec passuri praedicantur, cum venerit ergo, patientur. Et ubi tunc filia Sion derelinquenda, quae nulla hodie est? Ubi civitates exurendae, quae iam in tumulis? Ubi dispersio gentis, quae iamextorris? Redde statum Iudaeae, quem Christus creatoris inveniat, et alium contende venisse. Iam vero quale est ut per caelum suum admiserit quem in terra sua esset interempturus, honestiore et gloriosiore regni sui regione violata, ipsa aula sua et arce calcata? An hoc magis affectavit? Plane deus zelotes, tamen vicit. Erubesce, qui victo deo credis. Quid sperabis ab eo qui se protegere non valuit? Aut enim per infirmitatem oppressus est a virtutibus et hominibus creatoris, aut per malitiositatem, ut tantum illis sceleris patientia infigeret.
Et ita subtractis charismatis prioribus lex et prophetae usque ad Iohannem fuerunt et piscina Bethsaida usque ad adventum Christi: [valetudines ab Israele curare] desiit a beneficiis deinde, cum ex perseverantia furoris sui nomen domini per ipsos blasphemaretur, sicut scriptum est: Propter vos nomen domini blasphematur in gentibus. Ab illis enim incepit infamia, et tempus medium a Tiberio usque ad Vespasianum. Qui cum ista commisissent nec intellexissent Christum in tempore suae visitationis venientem, facta est terra eorum deserta et civitates eorum igni exustae; regionem ipsorum sub eorum conspectu extraneis devorantibus derelicta est filia Sion tamquam specula in vinea, velut in cucumerario casula, ex quo scilicet Israel dominum non cognovit et populus eum non intellexit, sed dereliquit magis et ad indignationem provocavit sanctum Israelis. Sic et machaerae condicionalis comminatio: Si nolueritis nec obaudieritis, gladius vos comedet. Ex quo probamus machaeram Christum fuisse, quem non audiendo perierunt, qui et in psalmo dispersionem eis postulat a patre dicens: Disperge eos in virtute tua. Qui et rursus per Esaiam in exustionem eorum perorans: Propter me, inquit, haec facta sunt vobis; in anxietate dormietis. Haec igitur cum pati praedicarentur Iudaei propter Christum et passos eos inveniamus et in dispersionem demorari cernamus, manifestum est propter Christum Iudaeis ista accidisse conspirante sensu scripturarum cum exitu rerum et ordine temporum. Aut si nondum venit Christus propter quem haec passuri praedicabantur, cum venerit ergo patientur. Et ubi tunc filia Sion relinquenda quae in Iudaea hodie <non> est ? Ubi civitates exurendae quae iam in tumulis ? Ubi dispersio gentis quae iam extorris est? Redde statum Iudaeae quem Christus inveniat et alium contende venire.

And thus, the former gifts of grace being withdrawn, "the law and the prophets were until John," and the fishpool of Bethsaida until the advent of Christ: thereafter it ceased curatively to remove from Israel infirmities of health; since, as the result of their perseverance in their frenzy, the name of the Lord was through them blasphemed, as it is written: "On your account the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles: "313 for it is from them that the infamy (attached to that name) began, and (was propagated during) the interval from Tiberius to Vespasian. And because they had committed these crimes, and had failed to understand that Christ "was to be found"314 in "the time of their visitation,"315 their land has been made "desert, and their cities utterly burnt with fire, while strangers devour their region in their sight: the daughter of Sion is derelict, as a watch-tower in a vineyard, or as a shed in a cucumber garden,"--ever since the time, to wit, when "Israel knew not" the Lord, and "the People understood Him not; "but rather "quite forsook, and provoked unto indignation, the Holy One of Israel."316 [27] So, again, we find a conditional threat of the sword: "If ye shall have been unwilling, and shall not have been obedient, the glaive shall eat you up."317 Whence we prove that the sword was Christ, by not hearing whom they perished; who, again, in the Psalm, demands of the Father their dispersion, saying, "Disperse them in Thy power; "318 who, withal, again through Isaiah prays for their utter burning. "On My account," He says, "have these things happened to you; in anxiety shall ye sleep."319

[28] Since, therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on Christ's account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on Christ's account that these things have befallen the Jews, the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the times. [29] Or else, if Christ is not yet come, on whose account they were predicted as destined thus to suffer, when He shall have come it follows that they will thus suffer. And where will then be a daughter of Sion to be derelict, who now has no existence? where the cities to be exust, which are already exust and in heaps? where the dispersion of a race which is now in exile? Restore to Judea the condition which Christ is to find; and (then, if you will), contend that some other (Christ) is coming.
“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: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

But whereas the more original text in Against the Jews explains the mysteries of Christ in terms of the two advents of Christ (as Justin would have) the text of Against Marcion 3 clearly borrows from Irenaeus when it claims that 'recently' a heavenly Jerusalem was seen suspended over Jerusalem. https://books.google.com/books?id=hTjxq ... an&f=false
“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
Charles Wilson
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Re: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Charles Wilson »

Stephan --

If the question of authorship of Adv M is in question, I might have a raw anecdotal for you. Our old friend and Poster Jay Raskin used a "Tell" of Eusebius to track down his mischief used in building his "Church History". The Tell is a variation of "Down to this day...". Thus, for example, Eusebius creates a fictional Hegisippus to manufacture agreement with his views since "down to this day..." is found in the quoted Hegisippus.

I searched the text of AM with the word "<space>day" to get the word "day" in its use in AM. The raw data is/are interesting:

Book 1: 7 instances of "day"
Book 2: 20
Book 3: 19

Book 4: 61.

Book 5: 20

Raw Data, rough and crude. Interesting, nonetheless.

CW
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Re: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

I will say this - not that anyone will care. The situation with AM 3 and AI is very odd because I would have assumed that the transmission might have occurred in Greek. In other words, someone added proto-AM3/IA to a Greek version of AM and AI was separately translated into Greek and then Latin. But clearly the Latin is nearly identical between AM3 and IA so this was not the case. All of which presents challenges to any theory explaining proto-AM3/IA being added to AM. AM would have had to have been assembled in Latin taking a proto-AM3/IA already translated into Latin and then added to a Latin 'final edition AM.' There are a number of signs that a Greek original lays behind the proto-AM3/IA text. I will list all the evidence shortly. But clearly Latin was the language that AM was composed in its final 'assembled' version. Greek originals certainly. But the final AM was a Latin composition.
“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: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

Another question I thought of today while playing tennis with my wife. What evidence is there for the use of Latin in North Africa? What sorts of people spoke Latin there?
“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: Was Against Marcion Book 3 Deliberately Inserted Between Books 2 and 4?

Post by Secret Alias »

So getting back to the last point, up until the end of the section just cited the two text appear as near identical Latin sections. But then in what follows the two texts diverge. In AM 3 Greek a crazy section - apparently written as Greek or at least with Greek terminology in mind - continues:
For we do profess that even on earth a kingdom is promised us: but this is before we come to heaven, and in a different polity—in fact after the resurrection, for a thousand years, in that city of God's building, Jerusalem brought down from heaven, which the apostle declares is our mother on high: and when he affirms that our politeuma, our citizenship, is in heaven, he is evidently locating it in some heavenly city.

Nam et confitemur in terra nobis regnum repromissum, sed ante caelum, sed alio statu, utpote post resurrectionem, in mille annos in civitate divini operis Hierusalem caelo delata, quam et apostolus matrem nostram sursum designat: et politeuma nostrum, id est municipatum, in caelis esse pronuntians alicui utique caelesti civitati eum deputat.
What is so interesting about this section - aside from its appeal to Greek - is the fact that the author here cites the same text of Galatians:
For if Abraham had two sons, one by a bondmaid and the other by a free woman, but he that was by the bondmaid was bom after the flesh, while he that was by the free woman was by promise: which things are allegorical, which means, indicative of something else : for these are two testaments—or two revelations, as I see they have translated it—the one from Mount Sinai referring to the synagogue of the Jews, which according to the law gendereth to bondage: the other gendering above all principality, power, and domination, and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come:j for she is our mother, that holy church, in whom we have expressed our faith: and consequently he adds, So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. In all this the apostle has clearly shown that the noble dignity of Christianity has its allegorical type and figure in the son of Abraham born of a free woman, while the legal bondage of Judaism has its type in the son of the bondmaid
Of course that text is strange because it would appear that 'the heavenly Jerusalem ... who is our mother' clearly goes against the original sense of the antithesis in the apostle:
Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.
Odd that AM3 was added to AM late in its development and concludes with a section explaining 'the heavenly Jerusalem' which the apostle apparently (or at least it pretends) awaited.

Indeed we can be certain that the heavenly Jerusalem was not in the Marcionite text of Galatians. Nevertheless proto-AM3/AI was deliberately added to AM. That new text - now called AM3 - is without question, at least in part, an original treatise directed against the Jews which is now adapted for refutation against the Marcionites. How was that switch accomplished? Strangely the 'connective tissue' seems to be that the Marcionites - like the Jews - deny that Jesus was the messiah or 'Christ.' The idea must have been that the Marcionites called him 'Chrestos' not 'Christos' even though the two terms were pronounced the same way.

But that's a very odd development. The Jews apparently argued that the messiah was related to the expectation of an earthly kingdom. The Marcionites 'agreed' that Jesus wasn't the Christ. But to what degree the Marcionites 'agreed' that the messiah was to lead an earthly kingdom is debatable. We just don't know. But interestingly, outside of an extended core section where the Latin text is identical, the conclusions are totally different.

In AM3 as we noted it is argued that Marcion was wrong to think that Jesus wasn't the Christ - like the Jews. The Jewish argument that the messiah would lead an earthly kingdom for the Jews is denied because ... get this ... reports coming out of Judea c. 195 - 197 CE tell of a 'heavenly city' being seen suspended over the land. In other words, not only was Jesus 'the Christ' awaited in scriptures, that Christ was understood by Ezekiel at least as presiding over a heavenly city descending in place of the now pagan city which was closed to Jewish residents.

It is hard not to see this as being related to a similar expectation among the Montanists albeit removed in later generations to a Phrygian locale. But even more clear is the dependence on Irenaeus's millenarism. Also the date explicitly referenced seems to be connected to Clement of Alexandria's report about a certain interpretation of Daniel promulgated by a certain Judas. As Eusebius notes:
At this time, also, another historian, discoursing on the seventy weeks of Daniel, extends his chronology down to the tenth year of the reign of Severus, who also thought that the appearance of antichrist, so much in the mouths of men, was now fully at hand. So mightily did the agitation of persecution, then prevailing, shake the minds of many.
If the text references a prodigy from 195 - 197 CE as having already happened it is hard to see how this expectation of the fulfillment of Daniel in 203 CE is unrelated.
“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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