I stumbled upon τῶν Κλήμεντίων used in an old manuscript to describe the collection of writings ascribed to Clement. Of course the Clementine Recognitions are often identified as τα Κλημεντια so the identification shouldn't be surprising. But the idea that Μαρκίων might have been similarly conceived as a collection of writings associated with Mark never occurred to me.
One of the manuscript which calls the Clementine writings Κλήμεντίων is MS Regio 940. The other is reproduced here - ms in celeberrima bibliotheca Claromontana, etiam memoratus a doctissimo viro Philippo Labbe, in comspecdu novae editionis S. Damasceni - which resides at College de Clermont in Paris.
What I like about this thesis is that the idea that Μαρκίων was a collection of writings, formed after the manner of Κλήμεντίων to Clement and moreover Ὅμηρείων or Ὁμηρίων to Homer (= the Homeric writings), Ἡρακλειτείων to Heraclitus etc.
There are a number of reasons why I think this is a winner. The most obvious is that there are so many strange things said about Marcion in the writings of the Church Fathers - many of them fit the idea of 'Marcion' being a collection of writings. Consider for instance the unusual statement repeated in the Church Fathers that Μαρκίων 'castrated himself.' This leads to many stories about the Marcionites as a castrated priesthood.
Yet isn't it more plausible that many of these references simply represent 'Marcion' as a collection of writings who self-mutilated him/themselves? Consider:
More ill-conducted also is Marcion than the wild beasts of that barbarous land: for is any beaver more self-castrating than this man who has abolished marriage? What Pontic mouse is more corrosive than the man who has gnawed away the Gospels? [Tertullian Against Marcion 1.1]So too with the understanding that Μαρκίων was a man who appeared under Antoninus. Isn't more likely that he/it was a collection of writings which came to light under Antoninus Pius:
But of this I am sure, that he is an Antoninian heretic, impious under Pius. Now from Tiberius to Antoninus there are a matter of a hundred and fifteen and a half years and half a month. This length of time do they posit between Christ and Marcion. Since therefore it was under Antoninus that, as I have proved, Marcion first brought this god on the scene, at once, if you are in your senses, the fact is clear. The dates themselves put it beyond argument that that which first came to light under Antoninus did not come to light under Tiberius: that is, that the god of Antoninus' reign was not the God of the reign of Tiberius, and therefore he who it is admitted was first reported to exist by Marcion, had not been revealed by Christ. [ibid 1.19]
As corrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberius to those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes to light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time, repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without Marcion to protect them. [ibid 4.4]
Consider also the so-called 'antitheses' as a document written by a man named Marcion in addition to the gospel. Couldn't the Marcionite gospel have been the antitheses which in turn is Marcion:
To prove next that this is a fact, I shall take up the restfrom my opponents themselves. The separation of Law and Gospel is the primary and principal exploit of Marcion. His disciples cannot deny this, which stands at the head of their document, that document by which they are inducted, into and confirmed in this heresy. For such are Marcion's Anti-theses, or Contrary Oppositions, which are designed to show the conflict and disagreement of the Gospel and the Law, so that from the diversity of principles between those two documents they may argue further for a diversity of gods. Therefore, as it is precisely this separation of Law and Gospel which has suggested a god of the Gospel, other than and in opposition to the God of the Law, it is evident that before that separation was made, god was still unknown who has just come into notice in consequence of the argument for separation: and so he was not revealed by Christ, who came before the separation, but was invented by Marcion, who set up the separation in opposition to that peace between Gospel and Law which previously, from the appearance of Christ until the impudence of Marcion, had been kept unimpaired and unshaken by virtue of that reasoning which refused to contemplate any other god of the Law and the Gospel than that Creator against whom after so long a time, by a man of Pontus, separation has been let loose. [ibid]
It is also worth noting that when we read that 'Marcion retains' or 'Marcion erases' this or that passage is he talking about a collection of writings named Marcion or a person so named?
And since even Marcion retains that a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, and yet has used the word 'wickedness'—which one supremely good is incapable of—surely there remains the possibility of some interpretation by which to understand the kind of wickednesses which can have come to exist in one supremely good. [Tertullian 2.24] Yet the facts show him sending rain upon good and evil, and making his sun to rise upon just and unjust:a of which that other god makes no sort of provision. For although Marcion attempted to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator (Marcion de evangelio eradere ausus est), yet the whole world is inscribed with it, and every man's conscience reads it there. [ibid 2.17]
Or even the most basic question - was 'Marcion' a gospel or a man:
If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see whether it is Marcion (viderimus an et penes Marcionem) —if that is the same that Marcion by his antitheses (ipsum est quod Marcion per Antitheses)accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already. [ibid 4.4]Or why doesn't Tertullian know who/what Marcion was/is? Could it be that he knew that Marcion wasn't a person?
And yet heresy, which is always in this manner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is the effect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even if Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Marcion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so we preach: and if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of the prophets have to be subject to the prophets,b for they are notthe man Marcion have a copy of John's Apocalypse in his stomach or was he/it a collection of writings? Quote: We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion spits out (respuit) his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator.[ibid 4.5]of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were an angel, he is more likely to be called anathema than evangelist (evangelizator), seeing he has preached a different gospel. And so, by making these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and that that other came later which he has put together out of his corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own. [ibid 4.4]
If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see whether it is Marcion (viderimus an et penes Marcionem) —if that is the same that Marcion by his antitheses (ipsum est quod Marcion per Antitheses)accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already. [ibid 4.4]
And yet heresy, which is always in this manner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is the effect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even if Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Marcion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so we preach: and if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of the prophets have to be subject to the prophets,b for they are not of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were an angel, he is more likely to be called anathema than evangelist (evangelizator), seeing he has preached a different gospel. And so, by making these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and that that other came later which he has put together out of his corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own. [ibid 4.4]
We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion spits out (respuit) his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator.[ibid 4.5]
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."