Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

We're NOT talking about Against Marcion. We're talking about the testimony in On the Flesh of Christ.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:40 pm We're NOT talking about Against Marcion. We're talking about the testimony in On the Flesh of Christ.
It's still two or three generations after the split. Materially changes nothing, if it is that early, if it is authentic. De Carne Christi presents a story of how the Orthodoxy viewed their rivals. It is interesting that the Johannine (Apelles) group are lumped in with the two other rivals, Marcionites with their own church, and Valentinians who have a parallel structure. What unites the other two is a rejection of the authority of Catholic bishops. This hints to me that the Apellean (Johannine) followers, although in the Catholic fold, had conflicts with the Orthodoxy over bishops.

You seem to go back and forth between sources in your arguments. The eye witness one clearly refers to the Marcionite text, which is not this tract. So it was you who switched sources, and that is what I responded to.

But back to the issue at hand. How a writer two or three generations after Apelles was active, writing what is likely meant as a text book for Christian trainees (nobody hauled these polemics around as itinerant preachers), could be considered an eye witness is beyond me. He's writing a polemic for those who are being trained, to be indoctrinated and inoculated against their rivals. It's absurd to think he had a clue what the books looked like before his time. He is speaking the polemics from the material as he knows it 50 or so years afterward.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

Here is a suggestion that 'Tertullian' is a composite of many Greek authors translated into Latin:
Lattke focuses on a passage in Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean that describes John 20:31 as “the conclusion of the gospel” (25.4, here in the Latin text of Kroymann):

ipsa quoque clausula euangelii propter quid consignat haec scripta, nisi: ut credatis, inquit, Iesum Christum filium dei?

“For what purpose does even the very conclusion of the Gospel confirm these writings, except, ‘That ye may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’?”
But yet elsewhere 'Tertullian' cites from John 21. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/e ... ohn21.html
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 9:51 pm Here is a suggestion that 'Tertullian' is a composite of many Greek authors translated into Latin:
If this observation is correct his collection would be no different a collection in nature than those of Irenaeus or Augustine (see O du leiber Augustine: Falsche Bekennntnisse, Hermann Detering). And the material equally hard to pin down a reliable date.

We tend to make the mistake, when confronted with the use of a collection of sources, of dating the sources earlier rather than dating the compendium later. Again this all circles back to accepting the pseudo autobiographical material as legitimate and accurate, rather than story writing by the collector/editor of the compendium.

This materially changes nothing, only reinforces my argument that we should consider the church fathers later and less reliable.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't think it is as complicated as you make it and I think you want to make it that complicated so you have the liberty to do what you want with the evidence. Tertullian's use of Irenaeus's Against the Valentinians is slavish to the original in most places. Irenaeus wrote a treatise against Marcion which resembles Tertullian's methodology from Irenaeus's own description of the intended project that a relationship is clearly discernible and where Against the Valentinian can serve as a guide. Tertullian at least has a Greek text which he is copying at various places in Against Marcion. Whether or not this is Irenaeus is debatable but clearly it is the most likely assumption. In this particular case - and indeed in Against Marcion as well - Tertullian is saying that Marcion received the fourfold gospel through John or by John or by means of the Johannine tradition which Marcion deliberate rejected taking only a 'portion' (that is in Irenaeus Book Three explicitly) instead of the whole. It can't be that Tertullian came to this line of reasoning on his own or through an independent investigation. Irenaeus has to be the source of this idea. Wriggle as you want, there is no escape from this. You will have to discipline your speculation with the inescapable facts that Tertullian derived most of his important ideas from Irenaeus.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 9:36 am I don't think it is as complicated as you make it and I think you want to make it that complicated so you have the liberty to do what you want with the evidence. Tertullian's use of Irenaeus's Against the Valentinians is slavish to the original in most places. Irenaeus wrote a treatise against Marcion which resembles Tertullian's methodology from Irenaeus's own description of the intended project that a relationship is clearly discernible and where Against the Valentinian can serve as a guide. Tertullian at least has a Greek text which he is copying at various places in Against Marcion. Whether or not this is Irenaeus is debatable but clearly it is the most likely assumption. In this particular case - and indeed in Against Marcion as well - Tertullian is saying that Marcion received the fourfold gospel through John or by John or by means of the Johannine tradition which Marcion deliberate rejected taking only a 'portion' (that is in Irenaeus Book Three explicitly) instead of the whole. It can't be that Tertullian came to this line of reasoning on his own or through an independent investigation. Irenaeus has to be the source of this idea. Wriggle as you want, there is no escape from this. You will have to discipline your speculation with the inescapable facts that Tertullian derived most of his important ideas from Irenaeus.
You are loose and free with naming sources. And your standard for Proof is very low. There is an association, which I agree. But it is probably to unknown source(s). These sources might well date to when we have the church fathers in tradition, which is the end of the 2nd and early 3rd century.

I am merely saying that we need to apply the same scrutiny to the Church Fathers are we do the NT itself.

We need to ask straight forward questions we do not ask:

1) what was the work written for?
2) what was the audience, or how was it used?
3) Is there any reason to assume any of these were written in a single sitting by a single person?
4) where did the pseudo autobiographical material come from? Is it from an apocryphal acts? Is there any reason to think it isn't utter fiction?

You do not even ask these questions, except when you want to dismiss evidence inconvenient to your theory, and even then very narrowly and selectively. You routinely accept myths from the 4th and 5th century as if original and first hand for the 2nd century.

I treat all the church fathers as anonymous works, heavily edited and likely from decades and even a century or more later than their supposed authorship. They deal with issues, such as gospel order and gospel binding order, which were irrelevant in the 2nd century. They are cited as support for the binding orders in the 4th century, which suggests some circular commendation going on.

Fundamentally that is where we do not find common ground. You assert certain people wrote certain things, and that they are true and original I hold skeptical all of it.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

Eusebius Church History 3.24.6 - 7
And when Mark and Luke had already published their Gospels, they say that John, who had employed all his time in proclaiming the Gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason. The three Gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry.

8. And this indeed is true. For it is evident that the three evangelists recorded only the deeds done by the Saviour for one year after the imprisonment of John the Baptist, and indicated this in the beginning of their account.

9. For Matthew, after the forty days' fast and the temptation which followed it, indicates the chronology of his work when he says: Now when he heard that John was delivered up he withdrew from Judea into Galilee. Matthew 4:12

10. Mark likewise says: Now after that John was delivered up Jesus came into Galilee. Mark 1:14 And Luke, before commencing his account of the deeds of Jesus, similarly marks the time, when he says that Herod, adding to all the evil deeds which he had done, shut up John in prison. Luke 3:20

11. They say, therefore, that the apostle John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his Gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of those which were done before the imprisonment of the Baptist. And this is indicated by him, they say, in the following words: This beginning of miracles did Jesus; and again when he refers to the Baptist, in the midst of the deeds of Jesus, as still baptizing in Ænon near Salim; John 3:23 where he states the matter clearly in the words: For John was not yet cast into prison.

12. John accordingly, in his Gospel, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.

13. One who understands this can no longer think that the Gospels are at variance with one another, inasmuch as the Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life. And the genealogy of our Saviour according to the flesh John quite naturally omitted, because it had been already given by Matthew and Luke, and began with the doctrine of his divinity, which had, as it were, been reserved for him, as their superior, by the divine Spirit.

14. These things may suffice, which we have said concerning the Gospel of John. The cause which led to the composition of the Gospel of Mark has been already stated by us.

15. But as for Luke, in the beginning of his Gospel, he states himself the reasons which led him to write it. He states that since many others had more rashly undertaken to compose a narrative of the events of which he had acquired perfect knowledge, he himself, feeling the necessity of freeing us from their uncertain opinions, delivered in his own Gospel an accurate account of those events in regard to which he had learned the full truth, being aided by his intimacy and his stay with Paul and by his acquaintance with the rest of the apostles.

16. So much for our own account of these things. But in a more fitting place we shall attempt to show by quotations from the ancients, what others have said concerning them.
“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: Proof that Irenaeus Meant Marcion had All Four Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

A Greek scholion, not certainly from Origen, ascribes to "a written account" the notion that the apostle John, "still alive under Nero, collected the written gospels and approved and recognized those which the plot of the devil had not touched but refused and rejected those which he knew did not contain the truth." [Origen Homilies on Luke 1, GCS 35, pp. 4-6. Perhaps Jerome preferred not to translate this story about John, though it was told by Eusebius, who insisted that it was "true" ( Church History 3. 24.7-8)]
“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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