Indeed I want to take the argument of the last post one step further - can't we agree that the author is citing from his text of Galatians? There is no pretense in any of this that he has in his possession the Marcionite recension. Why else does he say with respect to his own text of Galatians (how does it make sense for the Marcionite recension?) - "now if even to this degree the Acts of the Apostles are in agreement with Paul, it becomes evident why you reject them." Surely if the Marcionite recension had all the stuff listed as agreeing with Acts that would have been 'checkmate' for the Catholic tradition. The history of Acts is proved by the reference to its account of Paul's meeting with the Jerusalem Church and vice versa. The fact that the author (Tertullian/Irenaeus) doesn't pronounce 'checkmate' demands an explanation. The most obvious explanation is that he is merely reading from his own text of Acts throughout.
Si enim et creator evangelium repromittit, dicens per Esaiam, Ascende in montem excelsum, qui evangelizas Sioni, extolle vocem in valentia tua, qui evangelizas Hierusalem (Get thee up into the high mountain, thou that preachest the gospel to Sion, lift up the voice in thy strength, thou that preachest the gospel to Jerusalem); item ad apostolorum personam, Quam tempestivi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona (How timely are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, that preach the gospel of good things), quoniam et, utique et nationibus evangelizantium, In nomine eius, inquit, nationes sperabunt (In his name shall the gentiles hope), Christi scilicet, cui ait, Posui te in lumen nationum (I have set thee for a light of the gentiles); est autem evangelium etiam dei novi (So that if there is also a gospel of this new god), quod vis tunc ab apostolo defensum (and you will have it that this is what the apostle was then upholding); iam ergo duo sunt evangelia apud duos deos (in that case there are two gospels, belonging to two gods), et mentitus erit apostolus dicens quod aliud omnino non est (and the apostle told a lie when he said there was no possible other gospel), cum sit et aliud (though there is another), cum sic suum evangelium defendere potuisset, ut potius demonstraret, non ut unum determinaret (and he could just as well have upheld his own gospel by proving it the better one, not by laying
it down that it is the only one). Sed fortasse, ut fugias hinc, Et ideo, dices, subtexuit, Licet angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit, anathema sit, quia et creatorem sciebat evangelizaturum (But perhaps, to escape from this, you will say, And that is why he subjoined, Though an angel from
heaven preach the gospel otherwise, let him be anathema, because he knew the Creator also was going to preach the gospel.
There are so many things that are interesting about this passage. The hint that the Marcionites imagine two gospels - one associated with the Creator, the other with the better god - is a most intriguing suggestion. It explains the 'two god' discussions elsewhere in the treatise.
But let's start by noticing that Galatians 1:8 is cited two different ways in the treatise. Here:
Licet angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit, anathema sit
and later:
Sed et si nos aut angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit
The natural assumption (I would say 'lazy' assumption) of scholars is that the first citation is the 'Marcionite reading' and the latter the Catholic reading. But this assumptions fades from view when we see Tertullian cites Galatians 1:8 without the 'we' reference. For instance:
In Marc. 5,2,6 zitiert Tertullian Gal 1,8 folgendermaßen: sed et si nos au! angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit. Dazu ist zu vergleichen cam. 6,2; 24,2: etiamsi angelus de caelis aliter evangelizaverit vobis, quam nos (24,2: evangelizavimus), anathema sit; praescr. 6,5: itaque etiamsi angelus de caelis aliter evangelizaret anathema diceretur a nobis; praescr. 29,7: et si angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit citra quam nos, anathema sit.
Most scholarship struggles over the question of whether the Marcionite gospel read "other gospel" but Schmid rightly sees this as a "lateinische Übersetzungsvariante" within Tertullian. Indeed I see what is going on here as the best proof that almost none of the readings in Tertullian are specifically 'Marcionite.'
Note that while the 'aliter' (other) is consistent the variant reading within Tertullian involves whether or not Paul says 'we' or 'us' in this section:
But perhaps, to escape from this, you will say, And that is why he subjoined, Though an angel from heaven preach the gospel otherwise, let him be anathema (Licet angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit, anathema sit), because he knew the Creator also was going to preach the gospel. So again you are tying yourself in knots: for this is what you are entangled with. It is not possible for one to affirm there are two gospels, who has just denied that there is more than one. Yet his meaning is clear, as he has put himself down first: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach the gospel otherwise (Sed et si nos aut angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit). He said it for the sake of emphasis. And yet, if he himself is not going to preach the gospel otherwise, certainly an angel is not. So the reason why he referred to the angel was that as they were not to believe an angel, or an apostle, even less must they believe men: he had no intention of connecting the angel with the Creator's gospel.
Indeed in Carne Christi:
Etiamsi angelus de caelis aliter evangelizaverit vobis quam nos evangelizavimus, anathema sit
Most commentators argue that Licet angelus de caelo aliter evangelizaverit, anathema sit has been truncated. But clearly the original reading was:
Though an angel from heaven preaches otherwise than we preach let him be anathematized.
The material in Book 5 is not wrestling with 'variant Marcionite readings' but rather is actively 'working out' what the anti-Marcionite, what the best position 'against Marcion' is by playing with, rewriting not only each new recension of 'Against Marcion' but ultimately what the final text of the Catholic Pauline Epistles should be.
In other words, the original author (perhaps Irenaeus or some previous Church Father) simply laid out the Marcionite position of Paul in the letter:
there is a gospel of this new god [and the gospel of the Creator] ... there are two gospels, belonging to two gods ... the apostle upheld his own gospel ... [as] the better one
Against Marcion is at its core a systematic approach to countering this understanding - viz. two gospels, one according to the Son another according to the Father essentially. The critical manner to understand how the Catholic corpus developed is to see it expanding hand in hand with the argumentation in Against Marcion as if Against Marcion was reshaping both the Gospel of Luke (Book 4) and the Pauline Epistles (Book 5).
Here we uncover the ultimate 'logic' in this effort. It is the manner in which the original author(s) struggled with the original line:
Though an angel from heaven preaches otherwise than I preach let him be anathematized.
The apostle may have at one time been attached to an apostle - let's say for argument sake Peter. In this way he was like Mark who in some sense published a gospel according to Peter and then had a revelation and published a secret gospel. This is the problem the Catholics were wrestling with:
So that if there is also a gospel of this new god, and you will have it that this is what the apostle was then upholding, in that case there are two gospels, belonging to two gods, and the apostle told a lie when he said there was no possible other gospel, though there is another, and he could just as well have upheld his own gospel by proving it the better one, not by laying it down that it is the only one. But perhaps, to escape from this you will say, And that is why he subjoined, Though an angel from heaven preach the gospel otherwise, let him be anathema, because he knew the Creator also was going to preach the gospel. So again you are tying yourself in knots: for this is what you are entangled with. It is not possible for one to affirm there are two gospels, who has just denied that there is more than one. Yet his meaning is clear, as he has put himself down first: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach the gospel otherwise. He said it for the sake of emphasis. And yet, if he himself is not going to preach the gospel otherwise, certainly an angel is not. So the reason why he referred to the angel was that as they were not to believe an angel, or an apostle, even less must they believe men: he had no intention of connecting the angel with the Creator's gospel.
The 'we' is clearly related to what originally followed in the Marcionite recension - the condemning of Peter 'to his face' in Galatians chapter 2 (of our recension).
Indeed let us leap forward to the discussion of that incident in Galatians. Tertullian writes after a long argument drawn from the parallels with Acts that:
Thus it is beyond doubt that it was a question solely of the law, until decision was reached as to how much out of the law it was convenient should be Thus it is beyond doubt that it was a question solely of the law, until decision was reached as to how much out of the law it was convenient should be retained. But, you object, he censures Peter for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. Yes, he does censure him, yet not for anything more than inconsistency in his taking of food: for this he varied according to various kinds of company, through fear of those who were of the circumcision, not because of any perverse view of deity: on that matter he would have withstood any others to their face, when for the smaller matter of inconsistent converse he did not spare even Peter. But what do the Marcionites expect us to believe?
My point is that the Marcionite recension of Galatians simply connected "Though an angel from heaven preaches otherwise than I/we preach let him be condemned' to when Peter " came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." All the other details - which Tertullian admits are exactly paralleled by Acts which Marcionites reject - were added to smooth over this original understanding.
“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