Polycarp and the Original Canon of John [Part Three]

I know that despite writing about these things all week, about half of my readership STILL don't get what I am suggesting, so I think we go back to the very beginning. There is this story that we have all inherited from Irenaeus that four independent witnesses to the 'gospel of Jesus' all basically agreed with one another. This coming together of the four was originally identified as 'the Gospel' of the Catholic tradition. I cited extended sections of Trobisch's book which analyses all the original manuscripts and his conclusions were that the 'final editor' in the late second century 'adjusted' the four texts to make them all 'fit' as one gospel.

While this is logical right at the outset, Trobisch's conclusions are troublesome for the pious. I happen to think that Irenaeus is the most likely candidate for the 'final editor' of the canon. I also think that Trobisch tends to oversimplify the transitional period that followed and moreover, fails to take into account the role that the Diatessaron played in the reformation effort. Nevertheless with all of that said Trobisch is an amazing scholar whose work is enough to base ANY theory which seeks to identify a late second century figure as the editor of our present canon.

What I have been developing since last week (when I was citing extensive sections of Trobisch's work) is sketching what happened BEFORE Irenaeus' final editing. I have been working along two tracks to demonstrate that Polycarp's text was an Aramaic or Syriac text BEHIND the Diatessarion, a gospel 'according to John' BEFORE the parallel synoptic passages were mostly removed from his original and various 'additions' were developed by Irenaeus for specific doctrinal reasons.

If Polycarp's text can be described as 'ur-John' we should be careful NOT to use the canonical arrangement Irenaeus gives us for determining what 'Johannine' meant to the contemporaries of Polycarp. My guess is that Polycarp's Gospel which was 'according to John' looked very similar to the Alexandrian Gospel according to Mark save for some notable differences (such as that the addition to Secret Mark is the original upon which 'the raising of Lazarus' narrative is developed).

I think both traditions shared the same introduction (i.e. John chapter 1). I think both texts referenced the Paraclete and many other features WE would identify as 'Johannine' (merely because the synoptic gospels were edited by Irenaeus so as not to reference these concept).

The essential thing now for us to see is that the canon was arranged to bring harmony by a 'peacemaker' or as Origen writes in the Philocalia:

“Blessed are the peacemakers.…” [Matt. v. 9] To the man who is a peacemaker in either sense there is in the Divine oracles nothing crooked or perverse, for they are all plain to those who understand. [Prov. viii. 8, 9] And because to such an one there is nothing crooked or perverse, he sees therefore abundance of peace [Ps. lxxii. 7] in all the Scriptures, even in those which seem to be at conflict, and in contradiction with one another. And likewise he becomes a third peacemaker as he demonstrates that that which appears to others to be a conflict in the Scriptures is no conflict, and exhibits their concord and peace, whether of the Old Scriptures with the New, or of the Law with the Prophets, or of the Gospels with the Apostolic Scriptures, or of the Apostolic Scriptures with each other. For, also, according to the Preacher, all the Scriptures are “words of the wise like goads, and as nails firmly fixed which were given by agreement from one shepherd;” [Ecc. xii. 11] and there is nothing superfluous in them. But the Word is the one Shepherd of things rational which may have an appearance of discord to those who have not ears to hear, but are truly at perfect concord. For as the different chords of the psalter or the lyre, each of which gives forth a certain sound of its own which seems unlike the sound of another chord, are thought by a man who is not musical and ignorant of the principle of musical harmony, to be inharmonious, because of the dissimilarity of the sounds, so those who are not skilled in hearing the harmony of God in the sacred Scriptures think that the Old is not in harmony with the New, or the Prophets with the Law, or the Gospels with one another, or the Apostle with the Gospel, or with himself, or with the other Apostles. But he who comes instructed in the music of God, being a man wise in word and deed, and, on this account, like another David—which is, by interpretation, skilful with the hand—will bring out the sound of the music of God, having learned from this at the right time to strike the chords, now the chords of the Law, now the Gospel chords in harmony with them, and again the Prophetic chords, and, when reason demands it, the Apostolic chords which are in harmony with the Prophetic, and likewise the Apostolic with those of the Gospels. For he knows that all the Scripture is the one perfect and harmonised [Or, fitted] instrument of God, which from different sounds gives forth one saving voice to those willing to learn, which stops and restrains every working of an evil spirit, just as the music of David laid to rest the evil spirit in Saul, which also was choking him. [1 Sam. xvi. 14] You see, then, that he is in the third place a peacemaker, who sees in accordance with the Scripture the peace of it all, and implants this peace in those who rightly seek and make nice distinctions in a genuine spirit.

The way we can see Irenaeus 'harmonizing' the complex web of single, long gospels BEFORE his development of four 'separated' texts is by finally abandoning the idea that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John represent the 'natural' lengths of the original gospels they are associated with.

Mark is a castrated version of the original single, long Gospel according to Mark referenced in Clement's To Theodore (and likely referenced throughout the ages as the so-called 'Alexandrian Diatessaron'). The current canonical Gospel according to John is really Polycarp's gospel minus almost all the synoptic references. In this way 'Mark' and 'John' can coexist in one canon.

My guess is that many or all of ur-John's original synoptic readings (if we can still call it this) made their way into Matthew. I also think that all the contention readings of the Alexandrian Gospel according to Mark were 'corrected' and placed in the Gospel according to Luke (so named because 'Lucius' was the name of the mad Emperor of Irenaeus' day). The text might even have been a gift to Commodus through Marcia (if we want to indulge in fanciful speculation).

To this end, we have to keep in mind that the only 'real Gospel text' that average people ever saw was the Diatessaron. Nevertheless, Irenaeus placed the quaternion - i.e. the four texts which taken together officially and 'mystically' represented 'the true Gospel' - in each major See of the Church. One may imagine that while many single, long gospels continued to float around in the period and therefore (i.e. 'Diatessarons') their readings were 'checked against' the fourfold gospel and ultimately 'corrected.'

As such it is critical to recognize again that whenever we come across 'Marcionites' in the writings of the Church Fathers they emphasize (a) that their gospel never identified who its human author was and (b) that, at least in the later period, no clearly defined hierarchy remained. As such - and I have to ask my readership to close their eyes and meditate on the scenario I am presenting - when officials came across 'variant texts' like the Marcionite gospel for instance, Irenaeus already provided them with a frame work for 'correcting' those texts (i.e. the fourfold gospel).

The underlying concept though - at least initially (i.e. at the end of the second century) - was that the Marcionite gospel would naturally be compared to the Diatessaron, at least with regards to the FORM of the text. This explains the curious argument which develops in Tertullian's source for much of Against Marcion Book Four where the source accuses Marcion of erasing things from his gospel which were never in Luke to begin with. ONLY THE REWRITE in Tertullian (perhaps initiated by Irenaeus first in his treatise Against Marcion) compares the Marcionite gospel to Luke. This was a natural progression from the Diatessaron vs. Gospel of Marcion argument which in turn, I think ultimately comes from the original scenario at the time of Polycarp where one Gospel of Mark also called John was compared with another (i.e. the traditional Alexandrian text).

In any case I think that Irenaeus is actually working with something which would be generally recognized as being historically true when he essentially says that the Gospel of the Hebrews was the first gospel, then came 'according to Mark' and then came 'according to John' (Luke is a wholly artificial textual tradition with no witnesses other than Irenaeus himself). His identification of 'according to Matthew' AS the Gospel of the Hebrews is false, so to canonical Mark as 'the original gospel according to Mark' and John with 'canonical John' but it is important to note that the basic framework is probably correct.

One can reconcile Markan primacy by arguing that it is at least possible that Mark/John wrote originally in Hebrew/Aramaic. At the very least we must admit that is possible, if not likely.

As I said using the canonical texts as 'guide maps' to anything other than Irenaeus' methodology for greater ecumenisms within the Church is entirely foolish. Then again, there are a lot of fools in New Testament scholarship ...