Some Friendly Encouragement From Some Notable People

I have just demonstrated that the Letter to the Corinthians is clearly witnessed to have been the original 'first epistle' of the Pauline canon in both the Marcionite and Muratorian canons. I dispensed with the inherited assumption among scholars that the Letter to the Galatians was first in the Marcionite canon. The source for this is Epiphanius and - well - Epiphanius is among the least reliable sources in Patristic literature. Epiphanius has access to good sources but he is either too careless, too lazy, too stupid or too eager to make assumptions without supporting evidence.

The point is that Tertullian never once says that Galatians appears first in the Marcionite canon. The reason many people - including Epiphanius - were misled by Tertullian is that Galatians is the first epistle that he takes apart and scrutinizes in order to 'correct' popular Marcionite interpretations. The reason Galatians comes before Corinthians in his account is because - as he himself notes - he thinks it imperative to take the one epistle which gives us some idea of the historical apostle Paul.

By showing that this portrays confirms the apostle's orthodoxy, all subsequent examinations of Marcionite claims about the apostles veneration of a god above the God of the Jews can be handled much easier.

Indeed Tertullian twice cites the order of the Marcionite canon - once explicitly and another implicitly - as beginning with Corinthians and following with Galatians.

I also began to suggest that evidence from Tertullian's Against Marcion suggests that the Marcionites had a different title for the epistle. Internal evidence as well as some crack detective work by Petrement and Price all suggest the that the Marcionites identified the letter as 'to the Alexandrians' and - at least for me - opens the possibility that the Marcionite papacy was based out of Alexandria (Origen in his Homilies on Luke provides us with the image of the enthroned Marcion; Megethius in the Dialogues of Adamantius makes it explicit that 'Marcion' was the original episcopus from which the rest of the Marcionite presbytery were named).

In any event, no one before me ever bothered to notice that Tertullian twice cites the 'Corinthians first' order for the Pauline epistles in Against Marcion. I am starting to wonder whether there are others buried in the writings of the Church Fathers which no one has bothered to notice because - well - Patristic scholars quite frankly already think they know everything there is to know about the Church Fathers.

In the end though, when I started to think about it, it was difficult to argue against the Letter to the Corinthians being the most important of the Pauline Epistles. It is at the very least the longest of the epistles. Yet what I have never understood for as long as I knew anything about Christianity, is how THIS epistle could be imagined to be directed at a city like Corinth.

Yes, to be certain, Corinth was the largest city in Greece. But why on earth is it to THIS city that the apostle's advocacy of a monarchical episcopacy is addressed.

I can't help but think that Alexandria is a much better fit. After all Alexandria is the home of two Popes - the Coptic tradition is only the most obvious. The reality is that even with in the Orthodox tradition all Patriarchs are of equal rank but only the Alexandrian Patriarch holds the title of 'Papa' - i.e. Pope. But I digress ...

Some notable people have been reading my blog and thinking about my suggestions and have emailed their encouragement to continue piecing this all together. I haven't asked them whether I can post their comments at my site. You never know it may lead to another 'huge incident.' But then again these are 'my people' - i.e. people who think I am doing something worthwhile with my research.

In any event here are those email comments. The first from Danny Mahar of the Institute for Marcionite Research (and the man who is the single, most important reason why I ended up interested in Marcion):

Stephan,

Your discoveries never cease to amaze me. This proposal is interesting, and very well done!

That may certainly go a long way toward accounting for the "antithetical" nature of Corinthians (or, as may be the case, "To the Alexandrians").

Now at some point I need to re-examine the proposal made by Clabeaux that Ephraem's Syrian Pauline corpus (as had been derived from his commentary) had followed an order beginning with "Galatians".

But being later, I don't think it ultimately affects the case you've made concerning the order of a Pauline canon preceding Ireneaus.

You deserve an honorary doctorate for this one, my friend.

Congratulations, and thank you so much for sharing this with me.

Danny

And another - Robert Price - the single greatest reason I ever bothered to waste so much time pursuing 'truths' in the Bible:

As always, you're amazing!

Not much of a comment I guess but worth sharing in light of recent events. The point - as always - is that someone other 'professional scholar' should have probed into whether the Marcionite canon REALLY began with Galatians. I know the Marcionites don't matter. Scholars typically show as much interest in them as a lesbian does the prospect of making love to a 300 pound man (no Joel, I am not talking about you).

Sometimes it's good enough to start by asking questions and see where things lead. I thought that's what scholarship is supposed to be about ...