So I am told that 'all sorts of exciting things' are going on in the world of Marcionite studies. All you have to do is attend the AAR-SBL conference. Trust me, my readership - there's nothing going on there. The problem is that these people have no imagination and no intuition. I am not an accredited scholar. But what I have going for me is the real world. I've been with all sorts of people from all over the world. My major in university was philosophy not religion. I was born into an atheist family so when I look at the problems of early Christianity I don't have a saint perched on my shoulder, pleading with me to just believe.
There is probably nothing exciting going on at the AAR-SBL conference other than a few scholars are waking up to the 'problem of Marcion.' Why is it a problem? Let me tell you the story of Attila the Hun. He never stopped sleeping in tents. He even built a massive palace but continued to live in front of the building. In other words, the truth about early Christianity is outside of the institutions of the study of religion. In order to understand Marcion you have to live like a nomad, not because Marcion was nomadic (although Adv. Marc. 1.2!) but because you have to learn self-sufficiency. You can't be led to eat the poison grapes fed to us by the prejudiced account of the Church Fathers.
Marcion - whoever he was - likely lived in doors, likely was a man of culture and means. Yet the truth about Marcion blew out into the wilderness and now we have to find it. Schmid and Clabeaux tell us that all we have to do is go through Against Marcion Book Four and Five, compile a list of the scriptural reference et voila! we have the outline of the Marcionite New Testament canon.
Ah these complacent sheep! As if the truth about Marcion is just lying openly in a single ancient book. If it were that easy we'd have to assume that all the people who read Tertullian and Epiphanius were fully informed about the tradition, that the truth about Marcion has always been within reach. These cowardly weaklings! What do they know about the warrior's quest for truth? As if truth was ever conquered by domesticated animals.
No my friends, the truth about Marcion like the tradition itself, was forced to leave the comfort of Roman civilization and travel eastward. It was tortured, abused and abandoned and left to fend for itself in the wilderness. If we want to seek it out and bring it back we will require fortitude, self-sufficiency and ingenuity.
It's not just a matter of taking Tertullian's narrative, isolating the references, comparing them to existing readings and developing a solid methodology. These idiots confuse 'the things which further their career' for 'the things which uncover the truth.' They aren't warriors. They have no idea how to hunt prey - which requires above all to study its habits, know its movements and predict its behavior.
In any event, I have already told you that there is no evidence that Tertullian ever saw the original Marcionite New Testament. He certainly wasn't writing Books Four and Five 'from scratch' with the 'Gospel of Christ' and 'the Apostolikon' within hands reach. These fucking sheep want to bring the elusive Marcion into their sheep's paradise and lull him to sleep with harp playing. They are not discovering signs of Marcion's Bible at all but participating in the confused, multi-layered literary monstrosity which is the anti-Marcionite tradition within the Patristic writings.
Tertullian and Epiphanius come from some common literary source. This is why they generally refer to the same material within the Apostolikon. Yet Clabeaux and Schmid wonder why it is that Epiphanius often disagrees with Tertullian (and to a lesser extent Adamatius). There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Tertullian ever saw the Apostolikon. None whatsoever. The only evidence I can find is that the original author of Against Marcion saw a copy of a Marcionite work called the Antitheses and developed his familiarity with the tradition from that work. So where did all these readings come from in Books Four and Five. As I have noted before most necessarily came from the original author's own New Testament, not Marcion's.
Now if Tertullian never saw the Apostolikon it is impossible to use him as a guide for the reconstruction of the Apostolikon. As such all of the work and research of Clabeaux and Schmid - while terribly interesting - is ultimately misguided. These men need to demonstrate that Tertullian had the Apostolikon available to him in order to go forward and use the material in his work to reconstruct Marcion. They can't provide that level of proof so their claims should be ignored.
Indeed, as I suggested in the last post, the most likely scenario is that the Latin text of Books Four and Five of Against Marcion are actually based on the lost anti-Marcionite work referenced in Book Three of Irenaeus's Against Heresies:
Wherefore also Marcion and his followers have betaken themselves to mutilating the Scriptures, not acknowledging some books at all; and, curtailing the Gospel according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these are alone authentic, which they have themselves thus shortened. In another work, however, I shall, God granting [me strength], refute them out of these which they still retain. But all the rest, inflated with the false name of "knowledge," do certainly recognise the Scriptures; but they pervert the interpretations, as I have shown in the first book [Irenaeus Against Heresies 3.12.12]
If I am correct then, and Irenaeus is the source of the anti-Marcionite material developed and cited by Tertullian and Epiphanius, there never originally was a claim that the actual Marcionite Bible was being referenced by the author. Irenaeus, was that original author, and as he demonstrates his actual argument was a little more nuanced (and quite bizarre actually).
Irenaeus is telling us 'I will refute them out of the portion of our scriptures which they still retain in their corrupt canon.' So how did Irenaeus know what the Marcionites cut out? Clearly he could gain a sense of what was missing from conversations with Marcionites and from literary texts like the Antitheses. Yet even if Irenaeus managed to obtain the original Marcionite Bible (which I see no evidence for) he deliberately constructed a work which often 'crossed the line' as it were much as Tertullian's present 'loose translation' of that material demonstrates. In other words, he could 'switch' from - 'Marcion changed this' to 'listen to what our text says' in a heartbeat. The important thing to see again is that Irenaeus was using his own text.
The clearest example of (a) the original text behind Tertullian's Book Four and Five of Against Marcion being written by Irenaeus and (b) the argument being developed by the Latin writer in his translation is found in Tertullian Book Five Chapter Three. Indeed one could argue that in Against Marcion 5:3 Tertullian is referencing Marcion's deletion of οὐδὲ in Galatians 2:5. Yet a careful reading of Harvey's critical edition of Irenaeus leads us to the correct answer - Tertullian is actually wrestling with his source, trying to make sense of a reading in Irenaeus's Against Marcion which lacks the οὐδὲ in its 'orthodox text' and likely accused the Marcionites of adding the οὐδὲ to prove that the apostle opposed the apostles.
Let's start with Irenaeus's original material in Book Three of Against Heresies which explicitly deals with the Marcionite rejection of the Luke-Act corpus. To prove that Luke's account of Paul's friendship with Peter and the rest of the apostles, Irenaeus brings forward Gal 2:5 arguing that it agrees with what the accommodating attitude of Paul in Acts (16:3 and 21:23-27):
But that Paul acceded to [the request of] those who summoned him to the apostles, on account of the question [which had been raised], and went up to them, with Barnabas, to Jerusalem, not without reason, but that the liberty of the Gentiles might be confirmed by them, he does himself say, in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Then, fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking also Titus. But I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that Gospel which I preached among the Gentiles." And again he says, "For an hour we did give place to subjection, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." If, then, any one shall, from the Acts of the Apostles, carefully scrutinize the time concerning which it is written that he went up to Jerusalem on account of the forementioned question, he will find those years mentioned by Paul coinciding with it. Thus the statement of Paul harmonizes with, and is, as it were, identical with, the testimony of Luke regarding the apostles. [Irenaeus Against Heresies 3.14.4]
We must be very careful here and note that Irenaeus doesn't accuse the Marcionites of deleting anything pertaining to this text. Rather the context of the material from this section of Book Three is clearly that the Marcionites rejected Acts and Irenaeus is saying that Acts agrees with the material in Galatians chapter 2 including verse 5.
While it is tempting for us to simply assume that the Marcionites 'must have had' all the material from Galatians chapter two used by Irenaeus in his attack, this is by no means certain. It is just convenient for us to argue this because it makes everything 'neat' and wonderful. The reality is - as we have showed in our last post - that Irenaeus often cites texts were rejected by his opponents in order to convict them of falsehoods. So it is that Harvey's observation that Tertullian makes a very similar argument against the Marcionites in Book Five is worth noting:
Irenaeus evidently quotes Gal. ii. 5, ¡m giving a very different sense from that which it has, when affected as in the received text with the negative. In this form it can only mean that S. Paul, in the matter of the circumcision of the circumcision of Titus, did not so admit the authority of the other Apostles, as to disparage his own divine commission. Whereas as it stands in Irenaeus, it refers to the collation at Jerusalem of the Gospel preached by S. Paul, with that declared by the other Apostles; in reference to which collation he says, In horam cessimus subjectioni etc. It is remarkable that Tertuluan having quoted this text in the negative form, proceeds to argue as if the reading were corrupt, and the Apostle's words could only be expressed with truth by the removal of the negative (adv. Marc. V.3) Intendamus enim et sensui ipsi et causae eius, et apparebit vitiatio scripturae ... dicas velim, si non subintroissent falsi illi fratres ... cessissent subiectioni? Non opinor. Ergo cesserunt, quia fuerunt propter quos cederetur.
This is a most amazing set of circumstances which Clabeaux and Schmid vainly struggle with. The original text of Tertullian agrees not only with the received text of Irenaeus but also his interpretation. Tertullian actually goes on to connect the argument with Acts in exactly the same manner as what appears in Against Heresies 3:14:
So he writes that after fourteen years he went
up to Jerusalem, to seek the support of Peter and the rest of the
apostles, to confer with them concerning the content of his gospel,
for fear lest for all those years he had run, or was still running,
in vain—meaning, if he was preaching the gospel in any form
inconsistent with theirs. So great as this was his desire to be
approved of and confirmed by those very people who, if you
please, you suggest should be understood to be of too close
kindred with Judaism. But when he says that not even was Titus
circumcised, he now begins to make it plain that it was solely
the question of circumcision which had suffered disturbance, be-
cause of their continued maintenance of the law, from those whom
for that reason he calls false brethren unawares brought in: for
their policy was none other than to safeguard the continuance
of the law, dependent no doubt on unimpaired faith in the
Creator; so that they were perverting the gospel, not by any such
interpolation of scripture as to suggest that Christ belonged to the
Creator, but by such a retention of the old rule of conduct as
not to repudiate the Creator's law. So he says, On account of false
brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty
which we have in Christ, that they might reduce us to bondage, we gave
place by subjection not even for an hour. For let us pay attention to
the meaning of his words, and the purpose of them, and
falsification of scripture will become evident. When he says first,
But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled
to be circumcised, and then proceeds, On account of false brethren unawares brought in, and what follows, he begins at once to render
a reason for a contrary action, indicating for what purpose he did
a thing he would neither have done nor have let it be known he
had done, except for the previous occurrence of that on account
of which he did do it. So then I would have you tell me, if those
false brethren had not come in unawares to spy out their liberty,
would they have given place to subjection? I think not. Then
they did give place because there were people on whose account
concession was advisable. For this was in keeping with faith unripe and still in doubt regarding the observance of the law, when
even the apostle himself suspected he might have run, or might
still be running, in vain. So there was cause to discountenance
those false brethren who were spying upon Christian liberty, to
prevent them from leading it astray into the bondage of Judaism
before Paul learned that he had not run in vain, before those who
were apostles before him gave him their right hands, before with
their agreement he undertook the task of preaching among the
gentiles. Of necessity therefore he gave place, for a time, and so
also had sound reason for circumcising Timothy,a and bringing
nazirites into the temple,b facts narrated in the Acts, and to this
extent true, that they are in character with an apostle who pro-
fesses that to the Jews he became a Jew that he might gain the
Jews, and one living under the law for the sake of those who were
living under the lawc—and so even for the sake of those brought
in unawares—and lastly that he had become all things to all men,
that he might gain them all. If these facts too require to be under-
stood in this sense, neither can any man deny that Paul was a
preacher of that God and that Christ, whose law, although he
rejects it, yet he did now and again for circumstances' sake act
on, but would have needed without hesitation to thrust out of his
way if it had been a new god he had brought to light.
What this demonstrates most clearly and convincing - alongside the evidence we have cited previously - is that the original core of Against Marcion is likely Irenaeus's original treatise Against Marcion referenced in Against Heresies as not completed yet.
What is all the more astounding - and once again reinforces how misguided attempting to reconstruct Marcion's Apostolikon from Tertullian's existing text - is the fact that the full citation of Galatians 2:5 was clearly dropped into the original stuff that was 'imported' from Irenaeus. In other words, a later Catholic editor came along and added the new version which says that Paul did not subject himself for even a half hour into the original Irenaean text which said he did subject himself to the apostles. Indeed if we take the single line out the text actually reads better:
But when he says that not even was Titus circumcised, he now begins to make it plain that it was solely the question of circumcision which had suffered disturbance, be- cause of their continued maintenance of the law, from those whom for that reason he calls false brethren unawares brought in: for their policy was none other than to safeguard the continuance of the law, dependent no doubt on unimpaired faith in the Creator; so that they were perverting the gospel, not by any such interpolation of scripture as to suggest that Christ belonged to the Creator, but by such a retention of the old rule of conduct as not to repudiate the Creator's law ... For let us pay attention to the meaning of his words, and the purpose of them, and falsification of scripture will become evident. When he says first, But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, and then proceeds, On account of false brethren unawares brought in, and what follows, he begins at once to render a reason for a contrary action, indicating for what purpose he did a thing he would neither have done nor have let it be known he had done, except for the previous occurrence of that on account of which he did do it. So then I would have you tell me, if those false brethren had not come in unawares to spy out their liberty, would they have given place to subjection? I think not. Then they did give place because there were people on whose account concession was advisable.
The point then is that we have here very, very compelling evidence for suggesting that the original material used by Tertullian for Book Four and Five actually came from Irenaeus's lost book and it was often changed and developed by later editors. Epiphanius interesting only begins citing from Galatians chapter 3 perhaps because he knew the Marcionite letter started at Gal 2:19 as with Clement's text. More on that later ...
