Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

I've noted that Kok doesn't think that Mark's lack of 'order' means chronological order. I've argued that the way our canon is ordered - in four books - is deemed to be the 'right order' by the founder of our religion. Here's another example in Against Marcion:
Yes, but our god,' the Marcionites rejoin, 'though not revealed from the beginning, or by virtue of any creation, yet has by his own self been revealed in Christ Jesus.' One of my books will have reference to Christ and all that he stands for: for the divisions of our subject have to be kept distinct, so as to receive more complete and orderly treatment (quo plenius et ordinatius retractentur). (1.19)
And then again in chapter 23:
how can that secondary rationality be credited to a goodness which lacks the primary, having no man of its own, and on this account again is even defective? And being defective through having no man of its own, how can it have overflowed into a man not its own? Put in evidence that primary rationality, and then you may lay claim to the secondary. No object, outside its due order, can be claimed as rational: far less can rationality itself in any person be deprived of its due order. Even suppose there could be a rationality of goodness, which began at the second degree, that in respect of the stranger, not even this second degree could be firmly based upon rationality (Exhibe principalem rationem, et tunc vindica sequentem. Nulla res sine ordine rationalis potest vindicari, tanto abest ut ratio ipsa in aliquo ordinem amittat. Sit nunc et a secundo gradu incipiens ratio bonitatis, in extraneum scilicet, nec secundus illi gradus ratione constabit alio modo destructus).
Again in 24:
As a god is both eternal and rational, no less, I suppose, is he perfect in all things: for, Ye shall be perfect, as is your Father who is in heaven. Produce the evidence of <your god's> goodness being perfect. Although it is surely enough imperfect, as it is seen to be neither natural nor rational, I shall next expose it by a different approach. It is now not even imperfect, but altogether less than that, defective and impoverished, less than the total of the calls upon it, seeing it is not in evidence among all(Etsi de imperfecta satis constat, quae neque naturalis invenitur neque rationalis, nunc et alio ordine traducetur; nec iam imperfecta, immo et defecta, exigua et exhausta, minor numero materiarum suarum, quae non in omnibus exhibetur
Again in 2.3:
Exempt then both from order of beginning and from measure of time, (God's goodness) must be accounted of age unmeasurable and without end. Nor can it be reckoned makeshift or adventitious or occasional, since it has no point from which it can be reckoned, no time of any sort (Atque ita carens et ordine initii et modo temporis de immensa et interminabili aetate censebitur): but it must be taken to be eternal, ingenerate in God, and everlasting, and on that account worthy of God. From the first then it puts to shame the goodness of Marcion's god, which is subsequent not only to the Creator's beginnings and times, but even to his malice—if indeed it is possible that malice has ever been a function of goodness.
In 2.5:
So too could you find it in the Creator's later laws: he sets before man good and evil, life and death: for that whole course of discipline laid down in precepts (sed nec alias totum ordinem disciplinae per praecepta dispositum), in which God warns and threatens and exhorts, assumes through- out that man is possessed of both liberty and initiative, either to submit or to despise.
2.10
He began to sin when he sowed the seed of sin, and so from then onwards was engaged in the multitude of his merchandise, his wickedness, the full measure of his transgressions: for he also, being a spirit, was no less (than the man) created with freedom of choice. Anything so near to himself God cannot but have established in freedom of that sort (Nihil enim deus proximum sibi non libertate eiusmodi ordinasset).
2:12
So then since, goodness and justice are in such close association and agreement that the separation of one from the other is inconceivable, how can you dare to postulate an opposition between two gods, counting out separately on the one side a good god and on the other side a just one? Goodness is firmly established where justice also is. Since the beginning then the Creator is both good and just, both just and good. Both qualities came into evidence at the same time. His goodness constructed the world, his justice regulated it, since it even then judged that the world must be fashioned of good <materials>: thus did judgement take counsel with goodness. It was by an act of justice that separation was decreed between light and darkness, between day and night, between heaven and earth, between the water above and the water below, between the gathering together of the sea and the building up of the dry land, between the greater lights and the lesser, between those of the day and those of the night, between male and female, between the tree of knowledge of death and of life, between the world and paradise, between animals born in the water and animals born on land.1 As soon as goodness had conceived them all, justice distinguished between them. By an act of justice this whole was established and set in order (Totum hoc iudicato dispositum et ordinatum est). Every position and every situation of the heavenly bodies, the activities, motions, and conjunctions, the risings and settings, of each one of them, are the Creator's judgements.
2.14
They are , no doubt , evil to those by whom they are endured , but still on their own account good , as being just and defensive of good and hostile to sin . In this respect they are , moreover , worthy of God (atque in hoc ordine deo digna).
2.17
These facts thus expounded show how God's whole activity as judge (Haec ita dispecta totum ordinem dei iudicis operarium) is the artificer and, to put it more correctly, the protector of his all-embracing and supreme goodness. The Marcionites refuse to admit in that same God the presence of this goodness, clear of judicial sentiments, and in its own state unadulterated.
2.19
It is enough for the present that, without figurative meaning, it was putting man under obligation to God: and therefore none have any right to complain, except such as take no pleasure in God's service. So as to carry further this good gift, not burden, of the law, that same goodness of God has also appointed prophets ( legis adiuvandum etiam prophetas eadem bonitas dei ordinavit) who teach of godly conduct—to remove wickedness from the soul,b to learn to do well, to seek judgement, to judge for the fatherless and maintain the cause of the widow, to love requests (for God's guidance), to flee from association with the wicked, to let the afflicted go free, to break down the unjust accusation, to share one's bread with the hungry and take into one's house him that has no roof of his own—If thou seest the naked cover him, and despise not the kinsmen of thine own seedc—to keep one's tongue from evil, and one's lips that they speak no guile, to depart from evil and to do good, to seek peace ...
2.22
If the dependent of a wealthy man or a monarch, even though his patron is in need of nothing, offers him some trivial gift, will the smallness and cheapness of the gift darken the countenance of that wealthy man or king? Will not rather the token of respect afford him pleasure? But if that dependent when his turn comes round offers him gifts (ordine suo offerat), whether voluntary or requisitioned, and performs the services due to a king, yet not out of true fidelity or of a pure heart, but a heart not fully intent upon the rest of his obligations
2.27
But seeing that you yourselves have already stated your belief that a god has dwelt in human shape and in all the rest of what belongs to man's estate (et in reliquo ordine humanae conditionis deversatum iam credidistis), you will assuredly not demand any further persuasion that God has in fact made himself conformable to human condition, but are confuted by virtue of your own creed.
ibid
How great then is your unreasonableness in the face of both one and the other of the Creator's courses of action (ordinem creatoris). You mark him down as a judge, yet the sternness which is natural to a judge in accordance with the demands of the cases before him you stigmatize as cruelty.
2.29
So Marcion's antitheses make it easier to explain how the Creator's order was by Christ rather refashioned than repudiated (Ita per antitheses facilius ostendi potest ordo creatoris a Christo refonnatus quam repercussus), restored 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?
3.2
Now for my first line of attack. I suggest that he had no right to come so unexpectedly. For two reasons. First because he too was the son of his own god. Proper order (ordinis) required that father should tell of son's existence before son told of father's, and father bear witness to son before son bore witness to father.
3.2,3
And so it required preparatory work in order to be credible—preparatory work built upon foundations of previous intention and prior announcement. Only by being built up in this order could faith with good cause be imposed upon man by God, and shown towards God by man (quo ordine fides informata merito et homini indiceretur a deo et deo exhiberetur ab homine)—a faith which, since there was knowledge, might be required to believe because belief was a possibility, and in fact had learned to believe by virtue of that previous announcement.

There was no need, you say, for such an ordering of events (Non fuit, inquis, ordo eiusmodi necessarius), seeing that he would immediately by the evidence of miracles prove himself in actual fact both son and emissary, and the Christ of God. My answer will be that this form of proof by itself could never have provided satisfactory testimony to him, and in fact he himself subsequently discounted it.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

It is at this point that the 'order' argument appears in Against Marcion. The Marcionites, according to Against Marcion, just have miracles without rooting in the prophets. This is 'not the correct ordering.' Correct ordering for the author would root the actions of Jesus in the predictions of the prophets. This is what Papias means by Mark's 'not in the correct order.'
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

Continuing in Book Three we finally understand what 'order' means in Papias's criticism of Mark because the gospel of Mark is the gospel of Marcionites:
Your god was too proud, I suppose, to copy our God's order (est imitari ordinem dei nostri), since he disapproved of him and thought he would soon be shown wrong. Himself a newcomer, he decided to come in novel fashion, the son before the father's acknowledgement, the emissary before his principal's warrant. In this way he would become the inventor of a faith most unnatural, in which belief in Christ's coming would precede any knowledge of his existence. It occurs to me here to discuss this further question, why he did not let (the Creator's) Christ come first. (3.4)
It is another matter if he too is to come again after that other, so that at his first coming he should have taken proceedings against the Creator by destroying his law and prophets, while at the second he will proceed against the Creator's Christ, disproving his kingship. As he will at that event complete his course/order (Tunc ergo conclusurus ordinem suum), at that event, if ever, he will deserve our credence: or else, if his business is now already completed, his coming will be devoid of purpose, seeing he will have nothing to do. (ibid)
It is becoming increasingly clear that Papias's slight of Mark, that his gospel wasn't ordered properly according to the Lordly oracles it at the core of Against Marcion.
If also I am to submit an interpretation of the two goats which were offered at the Fast, are not these also figures of Christ's two orders (et illi utrumque ordinem Christi figurant)? They are indeed of the same age and appearance because the Lord's is one and the same aspect: because he will return in no other form, seeing he has to be recognized by those of whom he has suffered injury. (3.7)
Therefore a virgin mother, ordained for a sign, naturally carries credence: an infant warrior by no means so. For in this second case no question of a sign is involved, but after the sign of the new nativity has been written down, immediately after the sign another part (alius ordo) of the infant's upbringing is indicated, that he will eat honey and butter. (3.13)
Again and again he asserted his own name which he had conferred upon him, because he had ordered him to be addressed in future not as angel or as Auses [Oshea] but as Jesus. Therefore in as much as both these names are appropriate to the Creator's Christ, to that extent neither of them is appropriate to the Christ of a non-creator—nor again is the rest of what his order (sicut nec reliquus ordo). So from this point onwards there must be marked out between you and me that firm and definite ruling, necessary to both parties, by which it is laid down that there can be nothing at all in common between the Christ of another god and the Christ of the Creator. You will have as great a need to defend their diversity, as I to oppose it: because you will only be able to prove that another god's Christ has come, by showing that he is far and away different from the Christ of the Creator: while I shall only be able to prove him the Creator's by showing him to be such a one as is commissioned by the Creator. On the matter of the names I have now gained my point: I claim Christ as mine, I assert that Jesus belongs to me.

Let us bring the rest of his order (reliquum ordinem) into comparison with the scriptures. Whatever that poor body may be, in whatever condition it was, and however regarded, so long as he is without glory, without nobility, and without honour, he will be the Christ I know, because it was foretold that in condition and in aspect such he would be. Once more Isaiah helps us: We have announced, he says, before him: as a young boy(3.16, 17)
I think I have finally found my proof that the Marcionite gospel was originally Mark not Luke. At the end of the same chapter:
But I challenge you to say what you have in mind. If you grant that to him applies all this humility and patience and non-resistance, and in view of these he is to be Isaiah's Christ—a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness, who has been brought as a sheep to sacrifice, and as a lamb before the shearer he opened not his mouth: who neither did strive nor cry, nor was his voice heard out of doors: who did not break the bruised reed, which means the shaken faith of the Jews, nor quench the burning flax, which was the recently kindled ardour of the gentiles—he cannot be any other than the one the prophet foretold. His activity needs to be reviewed by the canon of the scriptures , where, if I mistake not, it is distinguished as a twofold series of acts, of preaching and of power. But I shall arrange my treatment of both topics as follows. Since I have thought it well that Marcion's own gospel should be cast off (excuti), I shall defer until then my treatment of various aspects of his teaching and miracles, as for the matter then in hand. Here however in general terms I shall complete the order I have entered upon (hic autem generaliter expungamus ordinem coeptum), explaining meanwhile that Christ is announced by Isaiah as one who preaches: for he says, Who is there among you who feareth God, and will hear the voice of his Son?g and as a healer, for he says, He himself hath taken away our weaknesses and borne <our> wearinesses.
And 3.19,20
But I can prove both the death and the burial and the resurrection of my Christ by one word of Isaiah, who says, His sepulture hath been taken away out of the midst.g He could not have been buried without having died, nor could his sepulture have been taken away out of the midst except by resurrection. And so he added, Therefore shall he have many for an inheritance, and of many shall he divide the spoils, because his soul hath been delivered over unto death. For in this is indicated the purpose of this grace, that it is to be a recompense for the insult of death. It is likewise indicated that he is to obtain these things after death, by virtue, that is, of resurrection.

It is enough so far to have traced out Christ's order in these matters (Sufficit hucusque de his interim ordinem Christi decucurrisse), far enough for it to be proved that he is such a one as was foretold, and consequently ought not to be taken as any other than he who it was foretold would be such as this. And so now, because what happened to him is in harmony with the Creator's scriptures, the prior authority of the majority of instances must restore credibility to those others which in the interest of opposing opinions are either brought into doubt or completely denied. I now go further, and build up all those parallels from the Creator's scriptures of things it was prophesied would occur after Christ's coming: for events are found to be happening as they were ordained, which could not have been the case apart from the coming of Christ which had to precede them. See how all the nations since then are looking up out of the abyss of human error towards God the Creator, and towards his Christ, and deny, if you dare, that this was prophesied.
Proselytes however, whom you interpolate into the prophecy concerning the gentiles, do not as a rule hope in Christ's name, but in Moses' law (ordine), from which their instruction comes: whereas the promotion of the gentiles has come about in these last days. (3.21)
And what was the apostles' experience after that? All the iniquity of persecutions, you answer, as from men who belonged to the Creator, the adversary of the god whom they were preaching. But why, if the Creator was Christ's adversary, does he not only prophesy that Christ's apostles will be so treated, but also show himself displeased at it? He was not likely to be prophesying the order of that other god (alterius dei ordinem), whose existence, you say, he was unaware of, nor to have expressed his displeasure at an occurrence he himself had arranged for (3.22)
Yes, you say, it was the Christ of the other god who was brought to the cross, by the Creator's powers and principalities which were hostile to him. I reply that he is shown as being avenged by the Creator, And wicked men are given for his burying-place, those who affirmed that it had been robbed, and rich men for his death, those who had paid money to Judas for his betrayal, and money to the soldiers for false witness that the dead body had been stolen away. It follows that, either these things did not happen to the Jews because of him—but on this you are confuted by the agreement of the sense of the scriptures with the course of events and the order of the times (et ordine temporum) —or, if they did happen because of him, it is impossible for the Creator to have avenged any Christ but his own, since he would by preference have rewarded Judas if it had been an opponent of their Lord whom the Jews had put to death. (3.23)
I am starting to question my assumptions that Book Three is developed from Against the Jews.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

Book 4.1
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 (Atque adeo confiteor alium ordinem decucurrisse in veteri dispositione apud creatorem, alium in nova apud Christum). I do not deny a difference in records of things spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law, provided that all these differences have reference to one and the same God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were ordained and also foretold. (4.1)
4.2
You have there my short and sharp answer to the Antitheses. I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic but Pontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of my order of approach (praestructuram ordinem quem aggredimur). I lay it down to begin with that the documents of the gospel have the apostles for their authors, and that this task of promulgating the gospel was imposed upon them by our Lord himself. If they also have for their authors apostolic men, yet these stand not alone, but as companions of apostles or followers of apostles (4.2)
There is a parallel between the Antitheses of Marcion being attached to the head of his gospel and the author of Against Marcion fixing his antitheses as a praestructure to this document.
. We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator (Habemus et Ioannis alumnas ecclesias. Nam etsi Apocalypsin eius Marcion respuit, ordo tamen episcoporum ad originem recensus in Ioannem stabit auctorem). (4.5)
The use of ordo to pertain to the succession of bishops is an Irenaean argument.

These are the sort of summary arguments I use when skirmishing light-armed against heretics on behalf of the faith of the gospel, arguments which claim the support of that succession of times (et temporum ordinem) which pleads the previous question against the late emergence of falsifiers, as well as that authority of the churches which gives expert witness to the tradition of the apostles: because the truth must of necessity precede the false, and proceed from those from whom its tradition began. (ibid)

And then when the discussion of the gospel of Luke begins:
Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own. Did not then due order demand that it should first be explained how he came down from his own heaven into the Creator's? (Ecquid ergo ordinis fuerat ut prius de suo caelo in creatoris descendens describeretur?)For why should I not pass censure on such matters as do not satisfy the claims of orderly narrative, <but let it> always tail off in falsehood? (Cur enim non et ista reprehendam quae non implent fidem ordinariae narrationis, deficientis in mendacio semper?) So let us ask once for all a question I have already discussed elsewhere, (I. 23 above) whether, while coming down through the Creator's territory and in opposition to him, he could have expected the Creator to let him in, and allow him to pass on from thence into the earth, which no less is the Creator's. Next however, admitting that he came down, I demand to know the rest of the order of that descent (Nunc autem et reliquum ordinem descensionis expostulo, tenens descendisse illum). It is no matter if somewhere the word 'appeared' is used. 'Appear' suggests a sudden and unexpected sight, <by one> who at some instant has cast his eyes on a thing which has at that instant appeared. To have come down, however—when that takes place the fact is in view and comes beneath the eye: it also puts the event into sequence (De facto etiam ordinem facit), and enforces the inquiry in what sort of aspect, in what sort of array, with how much speed or moderation, as also at what time of day, or of night, he came down: and besides that, who saw him coming down, who reported it, and who gave assurance of a fact not easily credible even to him who gives assurance. (4.7)
This is absolutely the closest sense of 'order' that Papias uses against Mark. While there are obvious differences between our canonical gospel of Mark and what is referenced here the underlying sense of how the suddenness of the beginning of the gospel lacks 'order' is clearly echoing Papias.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

I think I am developing a theory as to the development of canonical Luke. The things originally referenced in Against Marcion where the incorrect order of Mark was specifically referenced might have been reorganized into canonical Luke by Irenaeus knowing what Papias has originally written:
The rest of what he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoidance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned the observance of the law, he ordered the proper order to be followed (iussit ordinem impleri): Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded. (4.9)
The author complains that the appearance of John the Baptist isn't 'ordered' properly either:
From what direction does John make his appearance? Christ unexpected: John also unexpected (Unde autem et Ioannes venit in medium? Subito Christus, subito et Ioannes). With Marcion all things are like that: with the Creator they have their own compact order (Sic sunt omnia apud Marcionem, quae suum et plenum habent ordinem apud creatorem.). The rest about John later, since it is best to answer each separate point as it arises. At present I shall make it my purpose to show both that John is in accord with Christ and Christ in accord with John, the Creator's Christ with the Creator's prophet, that so the heretic may be put to shame at having to no advantage made John's order of no advantage (Ioannis ordinem frustra frustratus, Holmes "and so the heretic may blush at frustrating, to his own frustration, the mission of John the Baptist"). For if John's work had been utterly without effect when, as Isaiah says, he cried aloud in the wilderness as preparer of the ways of the Lord by the demanding and commending of repentance as if he had not along with the others baptized Christ himself, no one could have challenged Christ's disciples for eating and drinking, or referred them to the example of John's disciples who were assidous in fasting and prayer: because if any opposition had stood between Christ and John, and between the followers of each, there could have been no demand for imitation, and the force of the challenge would have been lost (4.11)
Notice that if the Law and the gospel are antithetical to one another than John and Jesus must be too.
You cannot deny that he brings to Sion and Jerusalem good tidings of peace and of all good things, nor that he goes up into the mountain and there spends all night in prayer, and in effect is heard by his Father. Open then the prophets, and you will find it all set in order there (et ordinem totum recognosce). Get thee up, says Isaiah, into the high mountain, O thou that bringest good tidings to Sion, lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem. Even now with strength were they astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had power. (4.13)
It should be readily apparent that this scene could equally well apply to Mark even as we know it. The Marcionite gospel began on a high top in Jerusalem where Jesus flew away from the mob and his enemies plunged over a cliff like the Yom Kippur goat.

Notice also that ordo or related words inevitably appear at the start of chapters:
I come next to those customary judgements (ad ordinarias sententias eius) by which he builds up his own special doctrine (per quas proprietatem doctrinae suae inducit), what I may call the magisterial edict of Christ (but which the Marcionites apparently called the Antitheses). Blessed are the indigent—for the translation of the word which is in the Greek requires it so—for theirs is the kingdom of God. (4.14)
And then:
Now if anyone wishes to argue that the Creator ordered gifts to be given to the brethren, but that Christ said they must be given to all who ask, so that this is something new and different, I answer that this will be one of those points in which the Creator's law is found in Christ. For Christ has prescribed the same action to- wards all men, as the Creator did towards the brethren. For although that kindness is greater which is exercised towards strangers, it takes no precedence of that which was previously a debt towards the people next door. For who is there that is able to love strangers? But if the second degree of kindness, towards strangers, is the same as that first degree, towards one's neighbours, that second degree will have to belong to the same one to whom the first belonged—much more easily than that the second degree should belong to one whose first was non-existent. So it was in accordance with the course of nature that the Creator first taught of kindness towards neighbours (et secundum naturae ordinem primum in proximos), intending afterwards to extend it towards strangers, and, according to the reckoning of his own dispensation, at first towards the Jews, and afterwards also towards every race of men. (4.16)
And again:
He feeds the people in the wilderness, after his ancient custom. If there is not the same impressiveness, then on this occasion he is inferior to the Creator, who not for one day but for forty years, not with earthly provisions of bread and fish, but with manna from heaven, prolonged the lives not of about five thousand, but of six hundred thousand men. Yet in this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following the ancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should not merely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephath by the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all the time of famine: you have it in the third of Kingdoms. If you also turn to the fourth book, you will find the whole of this order of Christ (hunc ordinem Christi) in the case of that man of God to whom were brought ten loaves of barley: and when he had ordered them to be distributed to the people, and his servitor, comparing the number of the people and the smallness of the provision, had answered, What, should I set this before an hundred men ?, he replied, Give, and they shall eat, for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave remainders according to the word of the Lord. Even in new things Christ is as of old. Peter, who had seen these doings and compared them with the ancient things, perceived that they were not only events of time past but were even then prophecies for the future: so that when our Lord asked who they thought he was, and Peter answered on behalf of them all, Thou art the Christ, he cannot have Supposed him a novel Christ, but only the one he knew in the scriptures and was now observing in deeds. (4.21)
To me also he shows himself a jealous God, who returns evil for evil: Whoso shall be ashamed of me, he says, of him will I also be ashamed. Yet order (ordo) for shame does not attach to any Christ but mine, whose whole life was so much a matter of shame that it lies exposed even to the taunts of heretics, who with all the malice they are capable of complain endlessly of nothing but the squalor of his birth and babyhood, and even the indignity of his flesh. But that Christ of yours, what fear is there of anyone being ashamed of him, when he himself no cause for it? (ibid)
Lastly, you could find, if you were to read what goes before, that the times of the promise are in agreement: Be strong, ye weak hands and ye feeble knees: . . . then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hearken: then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be clear. So when he had told of benefits of healing, then it was that he put scorpions and serpents under subjection to his saints: and this was he who had first received from his Father this authority so as to grant it also to others, and now made it manifest in the order the prophecy had foretold (et secundum ordinem praedicationis exhibuit). (4.24)
No man would have desired to know how to pray, without having previously got to know whom he was to pray to. If then that disciple already knew this, prove it. As however even to this moment you prove nothing of the kind, take it from me that what he asked for was a form of prayer to that Creator to whom also John's disciples addressed their prayers. But seeing that John too had introduced a kind of new order of prayer (et Ioannes novum aliquem ordinem orationis induxerat), for this reason Christ's disciple had good reason to assume that he must make this request of him, so that they too might in their own Master's own appointed way make their prayer to God—not a different god, but in a different manner. (4.26)

Who is it will not let us be led into temptation? He whom the tempter has no call to be afraid of, or he who since the beginning of the world has held under condemnation the angel who became a tempter? Any man who in such orders (hoc ordine) as these makes request to another god, and not the Creator, is not praying to him, but insulting him. (ibid)
Of the rehearsal of this order (hoc ordine) in accordance with the covenant and prophecies of the Creator, how much can have any application to that <Christ> whose <god> has done all his work at one time, and has neither order (nec ordinem) nor covenant to harmonize with the parable? Or what is to be his first invitation, and what his admonition at the second stage? There ought first to be people making excuses, and afterwards others accepting. But as things are, he has come in time to invite both groups together, whether from the city or from the hedges, contrary to the picture the parable gives. (4.31)
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

If this was originally at the beginning of the gospel and Against Marcion:
I can now find out why Marcion's god remained all those long ages in hiding. He was waiting, I suspect, until he should learn all these things from the Creator. So he learned them, right down to the time of John, and then after that came forth to announce the kingdom of God, saying, The law and the prophets were until John, since which time the kingdom of God is announced. As though we too did not know that John has been set as a sort of dividing-line between old things and new, a line at which Judaism should cease and Christianity should begin—not however that by the action of any alien power there came about this cessation of the law and the prophets, and the inception of that gospel in which is the kingdom of God, Christ himself. For if, as I have proved, it was the Creator who prophesied that old things would pass away and new things take their place; and if John is set forth as the forerunner who prepares the ways of that Lord who will bring in the gospel and proclaim the kingdom of God, and from the fact that John is now come, this must be that Christ who was to come after John as forerunner; and if old things have come to an end, and new things have begun, with John as the point of division: then that which conforms to the Creator's ordinance will not be so unexpected as to amount to proof that the kingdom of God takes its origin from every imaginable source except the sunset of the law and the prophets upon John, and the daybreak that came after. So then let heaven and earth pass away, as have the law and the prophets, more quickly than one tittle of the words of the Lord (Luke 16: 17 with 21: 33) for Isaiah says, The word of our God abideth for ever. For Christ, who is the Word and Spirit of the Creator, had in Isaiah so long before prophesied of John as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and as one who was to come for this end, that the order of law and prophets should from that time cease (in hoc venturum ut legis et prophetarum ordo exinde cessaret)—by being fulfilled, not by being destroyed—and that the kingdom of God should be proclaimed by Christ: which is why he appended the statement that it would be easier for the heavenly bodies than for his words to pass away, so affirming that this too which he had spoken of John had not passed into abeyance.
I think this came from the beginning of the gospel and the start of Against Marcion's treatment of the gospel originally making the statement about John the disciple.
For the whole of the promise to the tribe of Judah was Christ himself: so that they might know that at Jerusalem were both priests and temple and the matrix of religion and the fountain, not a <mere> well, of salvation. And so, when he saw that they had acknowledged that the law must be fulfilled at Jerusalem, as they were now fit to be justified by faith without the observance of the law (ex fide iam iustificandos sine legis ordine remediavit), he gave them healing. So again when he marvelled that that one alone of the ten, a Samaritan, on his release remembered to give thanks to God, he did not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already offered a sufficient sacrifice by giving glory to God—and it is in this way that our Lord wishes the law to be interpreted (4.35)
The ordering of Against Marcion:

As then I have now in the ordering of my treatise (ex opusculi ordine) reached this part of the subject, I desire to hear from Marcion the origin of Paul the apostle. I am a sort of new disciple, having had instruction from no other teacher.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

Papias's τάξις = Tertullian's ordo.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

The now 'classic' (at least among nerds like us) statement of Irenaeus against some heretical group (not necessarily the Valentinians) in Book One:
Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures (ordinem quidem et textum Scripturarum supergredientes also translated as 'contradict the order and the continuity of the scriptures, and, as best they can, dissolve the members of the truth. They transfer and transform, making one thing out of another, and thus lead many astray by the badly constructed phantom that they make out of the Lord's words they adjust.

It is as if someone destroyed the figure of a man in the authentic portrait of a king, carefully created by a skillful artist out of precious stones to make instead the image of a dog or fox, declaring that this badly composed image is that good image of the king made by the skillful artist. He shows the stones arranged by the first artist for the image of the king but now transferred by another into the image of a dog, and by the appearance of the stones deceives the simple - that is, those ignorant of the real king's image - and persuades them that this ugly picture of a fox is the good image of a king. In the same way these people compile old wives' tales and then, transferring the sayings and words and parables, want to accommodate the words of God to their fables.)
, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king's form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch together old wives' fables, and then endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions (1.8.1)
This passage is clearly developed from Papias too. And a little later John is cited as one who was obsessed with 'order' (as per Papias):
You see, my friend, the method which these men employ to deceive themselves, while they abuse the Scriptures by endeavouring to support their own system out of them. For this reason, I have brought forward their modes of expressing themselves, that thus thou mightest understand the deceitfulness of their procedure, and the wickedness of their error. For, in the first place, if it had been John's intention to set forth that Ogdoad above, he would surely have preserved the order of its production (ordinem custodisset utique emissionis), and would doubtless have placed the primary Tetrad first as being, according to them, most venerable and would then have annexed the second, that, by the sequence of the names, the order of the Ogdoad might be exhibited (ut per ordinem nominum ordo ostenderetur octonationis), and not after so long an interval, as if forgetful for the moment and then again calling the matter to mind, he, last of all, made mention of the primary Tetrad. In the next place, if he had meant to indicate their conjunctions, he certainly would not have omitted the name of Ecclesia; while, with respect to the other conjunctions, he either would have been satisfied with the mention of the male [AEons] (since the others [like Ecclesia] might be understood), so as to preserve a uniformity throughout; or if he enumerated the conjunctions of the rest, he would also have announced the spouse of Anthropos, and would not have left us to find out her name by divination. (1.9.1)
The argument again derives clearly from Papias to the effect that (1) Papias identifies John as noting that Mark wasn't properly 'ordered' so (2) he wouldn't have hidden details of the production of the Aeons in his gospel because we already know his obsessiveness with 'order.'

After the example of the Homeric centos Irenaeus returns to the mosaic of the king:
In like manner he also who retains unchangeable in his heart the rule of the truth which he received by means of baptism, will doubtless recognise the names, the expressions, and the parables taken from the Scriptures, but will by no means acknowledge the blasphemous use which these men make of them. For, though he will acknowledge the gems, he will certainly not receive the fox instead of the likeness of the king. But when he has restored every one of the expressions quoted to its proper order (Unumquemque autem sermonum reddens suo ordini), and has fitted it to the body of the truth, he will lay bare, and prove to be without any foundation, the figment of these heretics. (1.9.5)
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

On the discussion of the kabbalah of the Marcosians notice the Latin/Greek terminologies:
for Lambda is the eleventh in order (quas est undecimo loco in ordine [ενδέκατον όν τη τάξει]) among the letters, and represents the number thirty ... (1.14.2)
In the ordination of Nicolaus:
qui primi ad diaconium ab apostolis ordinati sunt
In the order of heavenly beings:
Moreover, they represent these heavens, potentates, powers, angels, and creators, as sitting in their proper order in heaven (per Ordinem sedentes in coelo), according to their generation, and as invisibly ruling over things celestial and terrestrial. (1.30.5)
At the conclusion of Book One where Irenaeus assures that his very treatise Against the Heresies is 'in the right order':
But I shall furnish means for overthrowing them, by meeting all their opinions in the order in which they have been described (occurrentes omnibus sententiis secundum narrationis ordinem), that I may not only expose the wild beast to view, but may inflict wounds upon it from every side. 1.31.4)
God establishes order:

But He Himself in Himself, after a fashion which we can neither describe nor conceive, predestinating all things, formed them as He pleased, bestowing harmony on all things, and assigning them their own place (et ordinem suum), and the beginning of their creation.(2.2.4)

With respect to the production of the Aeons:

If, again, they affirm that neither according to configuration nor formation, but according to number and the order of production (sed secundum numerum et ordinem emissionis), those things [above] are the images [of these below], then, in the first place, these things [below] ought not to be spoken of as images and likenesses of those AEons that are above. For how can the things which have neither the fashion nor shape of those [above] be their images? (2.7.7)
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Is Papias's "Mark wasn't in the Correct Order" At the Heart of Against Marcion's Appeal to Ordo?

Post by Secret Alias »

I want to make a mental note:

1. BECAUSE Papias said that John was interested (obsessed) with 'order' with respect to the gospels not only do we have him establish the gospels in four (see the last note in the Gospel of John as a statement about all the gospels) but also the opposition to 'mysteries' or secret knowledge generally. For instance, the gnostics say that John 1 = statement about the production of the aeons. It is found in the Gospel of John no less (now). But Irenaeus says, 'hey, we know John was into 'order' - how then would he have made these cryptic statements about supposed aeons without providing an 'orderly account' of their production. See how it works?

Another point. People might be thinking to themselves - why does he (me) spend so much time on this Secret Mark business. He must be gay, anti-establishment whatever narrative they make up. The reason is really, I don't think scholars have spent much time thinking about the implications. For instance. When Irenaeus is seen through the lens of Papias you get this understanding of John 'the order' guy constructing a fourfold gospel. That's the 'right order' of the gospel. Mark is in the wrong order. But the Letter to Theodore says that he constructed a two gospel formula - one public, one secret. Irenaeus's construction four public gospels arranged side by side in columns. That's the correct arrangement. People just see things in terms of Mark and Matthew but Irenaeus also claimed John wrote his own gospel.
Post Reply