Did Mark neutralize the marcionite nature of the anointing of Bethany?

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

Did Mark neutralize the marcionite nature of the anointing of Bethany?

Post by Giuseppe »

Mark 14 :1-9
14 Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2 “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”
3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

In Marcion, the anointing of Jesus is a Gnostic sarcastic parody against the anointing of David (and therefore of the Messiah Son of David), since Jesus is anointed for the his burial and resurrection in heaven, not for the his throne on the earth.

Marcion had given all his money to the Elders of Rome. Marcion preached abstinence from any material possession. So Marcion was attacked behind the people who 'rebuked her harshly". For him, the same body of Jesus had no value since Jesus was without a body, so the woman was really doing waste of perfume (unless the episode was for Marcion the parody of the davidic Anointed) to anoint a body-that-was-not-a-body.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Did Mark neutralize the marcionite nature of the anointing of Bethany?

Post by Giuseppe »

So the Simon the Leper allegorizes Marcion himself, as he is Simon Magus (a type per se of the Gnostics). Not coincidentially, just he is made become the rebuker of the woman for a question of money, in later Gospels.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Did Mark neutralize the marcionite nature of the anointing of Bethany?

Post by Giuseppe »

Jesus himself had ordained: “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” So there would be a contradiction with the waste of perfume for Jesus.

This points to the marcionite nature of the following passage:

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ ”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

...especially when read in connection with the following episode (Mark 12:28-31):

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The commandament to love the demiurge is a right commandament only if the goal is to have longevity (the demiurge being who killed cruelly the Rich Fool in the Lukan Parable):

In the true Gospel, a certain doctor of the law comes to the Lord and asks, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? In the heretical gospel life only is mentioned, without the attribute eternal; so that the lawyer seems to have consulted Christ simply about the life which the Creator in the law promises to prolong, and the Lord to have therefore answered him according to the law, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, Luke 10:27 since the question was concerning the conditions of mere life. But the lawyer of course knew very well in what way the life which the law meant was to be obtained, so that his question could have had no relation to the life whose rules he was himself in the habit of teaching.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03124.htm

So to the question about how to have eternal life (by the Higher God and not by the demiurge), Jesus is explicit:

“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

In this way it becomes evident that Jesus is not 'good' insofar he is taken for a 'rabbi', just as the his advise to love the same demiurge (!) is made only according to the need of prolonging the own life in the demiurgical world.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply