Marcion, Paul, and the first century. This is an important statement in the First Book Against Marcion:
They (the Marcionites) allege that in separating the Law and the Gospel Marcion did not so much invent a new rule as refurbish a rule previously debased.
Aiunt enim Marcionem non tam innovasse regulam separationc legis et evangelii quam retro adulteratam recurasse.
So then Christ, our most patient Lord, has through all these years borne with a perversion of the preaching about himself, until, if you please, Marcion should come to his rescue.
O Christe, patientissime domine, qui tot annis interversionem praedicationis tui sustinuisti, donec scilicet tibi Marcion subveniret!
They object that Peter and those others, pillars of the apostleship, were reproved by Paul for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel—by that Paul, you understand, who, yet inexperienced in grace, and anxious lest he had run or was running in vain, was then for the first time conferring with those who were apostles before him.
Nam et ipsum Petrum ceterosque, columnas apostolatus, a Paulo reprehensos opponunt quod non recto pede incederent ad evangelii veritatem, ab illo certe Paulo qui adhuc in gratia rudis, trepidans denique ne in vacuum cucurrisset aut curreret, tunc primum cum antecessoribus apostolis conferebat, [Adv Marc. 1.20]
I find this passage interesting because Marcion is suddenly stuck in the middle of a paragraph which we would think would be about Paul:
They allege that in separating the Law and the Gospel Marcion did not so much invent a new rule as refurbish a rule previously adulterated.
Tertullian is clearly reporting something that the Marcionites say - i.e. 'Marcion did not so much as invent a new rule' [about there being two different gods connected with the Law and the gospel respectively] 'as refurbish a rule previously debased' or Holmes translates it 'as restore it after it had been previously adulterated.' The language here and all that follows is drawn from Galatians chapter 2 as Moll notes "He refers to the Apostle's Letter to the Galatians, in which Peter and the other pillars of the Apostleship (that is, John and James) were reprehended by Paul for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. This rebuke of Peter by Paul seems to have been of great importance to Marcion, as not only does Tertullian refer to it four times in his works against him36, but it already had been discussed in Irenaeus." [p. 83, 84] But Moll and others fail to take into account that when the discussion is still placed in the mouth of the Marcionites the role of 'rescuer' in Galatians is Marcion rather than - or in the place of - Paul. This very much seems to echo Marutha's basic observance that "Instead of Peter they (the Marcionites) set up for themselves Marcion as the head of the apostles." Instead we might well say - in place of Paul.
Indeed in the very next sentence we read more of this transposition of Marcion for Paul - identified as the Paraclete of the Marcionites by Origen - when Tertullian goes on to say "so then Christ, our most patient Lord, has through all these years borne with a perversion of the preaching about himself, until, if you please, Marcion should come to his rescue." As noted this is the Paraclete doctrine of Mani and Muhammad only now placed in the second century. But did the Marcionites really believe that Marcion lived in the mid second century? No I don't think so. Everything about this section seems to make sense only if the Marcionites identified our Paul as their Marcion.
The text continues as we just saw "they object that Peter and those others, pillars of the apostleship, were reproved by Paul for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospela—by that Paul, you understand, who, yet inexperienced in grace, and anxious lest he had run or was running in vain, was then for the first time conferring with those who were apostles before him." But in the first two sentences the role of 'Paul' was being filled by Marcion. Why is that? Because the Marcionites identified Marcion as head of the apostles in place of our Paul. When the material being covered obviously applied to 'Paul' in Galatians, Tertullian's argument changes to discuss 'Paul.' Yet it is immediately clear that for the Marcionites Paul was one and the same with Marcion.
Indeed if we go back to the previous section (Adv Marc. 1.19) here Tertullian goes out of his way to identify Marcion as living in a completely different age than Jesus:
'In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar Christ Jesus vouchsafed to glide down from heaven, a salutary spirit.' In what year of the elder Antoninus the pestilential breeze of Marcion's salvation, whose opinion this was, breathed out from his own Pontus, I have forborne to inquire. But of this I am sure, that he is an Antoninian heretic, impious under Pius. Now from
Tiberius to Antoninus there are a matter of a hundred and fifteen and a half years and half a month. This length of time do they posit between Christ and Marcion (Tantundem temporis ponunt inter Christum et Marcionem). Since therefore it was under Antoninus that, as I have proved, Marcion first brought this god on the scene, at once, if you are in your senses, the fact is clear. The dates themselves put it beyond argument that that which first came to light under Antoninus did not come to light under Tiberius: that is, that the god of Antoninus' reign was not the God of the reign of Tiberius, and therefore he who it is admitted was first reported to exist by Marcion, had not been revealed by Christ.
But is Tertullian telling the truth here? Did the Marcionites really identify that a hundred and fifteen and a half years and half a month lay between Christ and Marcion? I don't think so for the very reasons laid out by Hoffmann ""Tertullian's calculation is not offered, therefore, in the interest of supplying biographical information, but rather in order to prove that Marcion's teaching did not arise before the middle decades of the second century. Obviously, however, if the Marcionites had accepted this reckoning, as Tertullian claims, there would be no need for such proof. The only possible conclusion is that the Marcionites themselves posited a much earlier date for the founding of their church and, accordingly, for the teaching of Marcion."
After the washing-up my colleague sorted the cups in the cupboard of our office in a way that all cups are exactly in one direction with the handle. Then I go into the kitchen and say to the cups: "At ease!"