Boid on Marcion's Faithfulness

The last messages from both of you are important, and have set me thinking. What follows is probably so self-evident it doesn’t need to be said, but it could be useful as an indication of how I approach the question of what Markion REALLY said, as opposed to deliberate misrepresentation. You will both see your influence here.

I refuse to believe that Markion could have separated the god of the Old Testament from the god of the New Testament, or that he rejected the Torah. There certainly were world-rejecting Gnostics that did this, and that would have made it easy to attribute the same position to him, by deliberately (or stupidly perhaps) obscuring his argument. First, the dichotomy “just” and “merciful” is fanciful. Exodus XXXIV: 6 onwards. This is a Creed (I use the word advisedly) either quoted in full or alluded to by citation of the opening words אל רחום וחנון a dozen times in the O.T. Second, the Greek word dikaios (or the English word just) are rather hollow representations of the Hebrew word tsaddik צדיק There is absolutely no negative connotation to the word.

Where, then, is the TRUE contrast made by Markion. Simple. When Moses heard these words and caught a glimpse of the lower YHWH from behind (that is, from the direction of the Created World) he was in a state of not having to eat or drink for forty days and forty nights. When the Elders saw a clear vision of a figure on a throne on a sapphire pavement (Exodus XXIV: 10-11) they were still in a state of having to eat and drink. This clear vision is accordingly a much lower grade. We are even told why: they only saw the God of Israel. When Isaiah clearly saw a form in the Temple, it was only אדני not יהוה (Have a look). Ezekiel’s vision was of the same lower grade. So was the vision of Akatri’el Yah in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement by the last Jewish High Priest, Yishma’el. (Yishma’el was a Sadducee, but he is the authority behind the Rabbinic metaphysical and mystical tradition. Think about this amazing fact). Now, there is a misrepresentation in the Church Fathers (I can’t give references at the moment) to the effect that Isaiah must have seen further than Moses because he saw a defined figure. This is rubbish. It is, however, a neat trick to devalue the Torah. It also means that if Markion put Moses’s revelation in its rightful place by pointing out what I have just said, that Moses only caught a glimpse of the interaction between God and Creation, he could be falsely (or stupidly) accused of devaluing the same revelation, In the process, the distinction between different levels of manifestation of God could be misrepresented as a distinction between two gods. In the same process, Markion’s corollary, that Isaiah had a lower vision, could be misrepresented as a claim by Markion that Isaiah was only aware of the just god

But why would anyone have wanted to misrepresent the position of someone that was explaining exactly what Scripture intended? Because it was really Markion’s opponents that devalued the Torah. Then they could misrepresent Jesus as having simply dismissed the Torah. But why? Simple. So as to conceal his actual message, which assumed the value of the revelation to Moses, as well as the value of lower degrees of revelation to other later figures.

I agree with Stephan that John’s Gospel was written as a corrective. Notice how much effort has been made to misrepresent verses 16 to 18 of the first chapter. This is what the words actually mean. On top of the first grace of the Torah, the grace mentioned in the words heard by Moses, there is another grace. The Law was given through Moses. The grace mentioned in the words heard by Moses together with the access to the vision of that grace, that is, truth, that is, the perception of reality came through Jesus Christ. Moses saw further than any other person. A Unique God who is in the bosom of the Father has made God known. (The Unique God in other mss., probably wrongly. The Unique Son in later text-witnesses, an explanatory adjustment). There is God, unknowable; there is God, made known: God, at a lower level, making God known; there is the work of the lower level of God, called the Light, becoming apparent by making God known. (You don’t see light: you see what is lit up by light). The coming of Jesus is somehow the vehicle of the process, but this does not make Jesus into God. I think you can imagine how there would have been an intense effort to obscure the plain words of John’s Gospel here, and in many other passages. A very convenient way of hiding the evidence of misrepresentation of the Gospel would be to misrepresent the meaning of each phrase, but by turning the true meaning of each phrase into a statement taken from Markion, thus putting each individual misrepresentation into a fictitious system. How better to hide the meaning of the Gospel than to call it the doctrine of a heretic, and to call the person that explains the meaning truthfully a heretic?

I have just acquired a copy of the Philosophumena (Philosophoumena) of Hippolytus of Rome. The author is hostile to Markion because he believes the misrepresentation of what he actually said, but what Hippolytus does put forward as the truth is what Markion actually did say, as far as I can see from a quick reading. (Assuming my reconstruction of Markion is accurate). This is a remarkable book in many respects. Have either of you read it?