Tertullian Accepts Paul had a Written Gospel, Matthew (!)

[Stephan Huller]

Ted M: I think Irenaeus thought Luke wrote his gospel while paul was alive and of course it would have been known by paul and reflected paul's thoughts.

If you think this why are you wasting my time? We aren't talking about accepting Marcion's position. Only that Tertullian might have reflected what you talk about right here - i.e. Paul knew a written gospel. If you accept that there is nothing more to discuss unless for some reason you suppose that Tertullian didn't believe what Irenaeus thought about the relationship between Paul and a written gospel.

[TedM]

I don't know Latin but do you see where Tertullian says 'he says' in the first sentence? 'He' refers to Paul. Similarly he could have written: He also says in [the gospel] [the gospel he wrote]: "Blessed..." But he doesn't. Instead Tertullian INFERS that Paul was REMEMBERING what was in "the Gospel". That is more fitting with a gospel either spoken or written by someone else, and not him. The entire lack of attribution contrasted with the earlier clear and unambiguous attribution strongly argues against your interpretation here. Do you not see this? It's pretty obvious to me.

[TedM]

Ted M: I think Irenaeus thought Luke wrote his gospel while paul was alive and of course it would have been known by paul and reflected paul's thoughts.

If you think this why are you wasting my time? We aren't talking about accepting Marcion's position. Only that Tertullian might have reflected what you talk about right here - i.e. Paul knew a written gospel. If you accept that there is nothing more to discuss unless for some reason you suppose that Tertullian didn't believe what Irenaeus thought about the relationship between Paul and a written gospel.

Come on, I know and you know that Marcion's position is exactly where you are trying to lead this thing--the one 'true' gospel. The problem with you talking about a Paul 'knowing' of a gospel is that Paul's gospel message clearly was created and initiated by PAUL! and not someone else.

If a written gospel existed, so what? Why do you care if a written gospel existed that reflected Paul's message?

[Stephan Huller]

But this thread isn't about Marcion. It is about Tertullian.

[Stephan Huller]

If a written gospel existed, so what? Why do you care if a written gospel existed that reflected Paul's message?

Ummm. You started the thread by telling me that things were like X. Now you are saying, 'I meant to say things are like Y but its no big deal because of Z.' Can you stop putting up presumptions and presuppositions and just find out what the evidence actually says? Is that too much to ask?

[TedM]

bull. I haven't changed my position. Tertullian is of no help to you because your interpretation is unlikely. The so-called 'evidence' from Tertullian is very very weak, and the other evidence you present isn't much better. But even if you happen to be correct, who cares? What would it matter if Paul used a gospel if is wasn't for your acceptance of a thinly supported conspiracy theory against orthodoxy?

People who hate authority love conspiracy theories. This is why you can't let it go Stephan -- it's a psychological addiction. Search for the truth? You may think you are but I think there are other things going on because you can't seem to grasp how far 'out there' your views really are.

[Stephan Huller]

But you seem incapable of separating what I have said previously about Marcion and his gospel and what I have discovered here about Tertullian (or his source) and his. Indeed you opposed what I said about Tertullian as an involuntary reaction to what implication you see it having on my other point. Real scholarship doesn't proceed like that.

Whether or not I think Irenaeus edited the New Testament rather than Marcion that will stand or fall based on similar evidentiary appeals like this. You have clearly demonstrated your are incapable of examining evidence objectively - i.e. that you will ignore or refuse to consider evidence which contradicts a beloved opinion that Mommy and Daddy and your Christian community gave you when your little mind was being formed. That hasn't been demonstrated on my part. I am still asking questions and probing what information we have. I see Andrew Criddle doing that also and many others here at the board who may or may not agree with my broader interests. This isn't an atheist vs religious dichotomy but honest vs dishonest axis and you have demonstrated yourself to be incapable of even asking the most basic questions which might have a 'dangerous' answer for your faith and so basically demonstrate yourself as a dishonest investigator.

I engage with you here at the forum nevertheless because it helps me ask questions like - where did the idea of Paul not having a gospel come from? That is a particularly fascination question and one I am indebted to you for leading me to pose. So thank you for that.

[TedM]

But you seem incapable of separating what I have said previously about Marcion and his gospel and what I have discovered here about Tertullian (or his source) and his. Indeed you opposed what I said about Tertullian as an involuntary reaction to what implication you see it having on my other point. Real scholarship doesn't proceed like that.

Let me make is clear: Your evidence is weak, no matter what your hypothesis overall is.

I just know what you are trying to do-- you are scouring all of the writings you can for references that link Luke Paul Marcion and mention of a gospel. No problem, its just very disingenuous to pretend that you aren't simply trying to bolster your flimsy hypothesis further. No problem -- I don't object to this, I was pointing it out as a motivation for what you are doing--therefore a likely explanation for how you aren't able to see how weak all this stuff you are coming up with really is.

Whether or not I think Irenaeus edited the New Testament rather than Marcion that will stand or fall based on similar evidentiary appeals like this.

You had better hope it is not similar. Your next book needs something better.

I engage with you here at the forum nevertheless because it helps me ask questions like - where did the idea of Paul not having a gospel come from?

Rather than recognizing that they come from the very solid reasons I've given, you prefer to fall back on a tired stereotype that doesn't even apply to me.

[Stephan Huller]

But what 'evidence is weak'? This demonstrates the narrowness of your mind. The subject of the thread? Is that evidence weak for that? Is the evidence decisively against the proposition that Tertullian thought that Paul had a written gospel? Really? Of course not. If no one before the fifth century (at least as far as I can see so far) held that Paul only knew an 'oral gospel' (whatever the fuck that means) then a case could be made that the proposition that Tertullian should not be seen as acknowledging Paul had or knew a written gospel with Matthew chapter 5 contained within it. But if as we have seen almost everyone at least acknowledged the Alexandrian understanding that Paul did have access to a written gospel - why is the evidence 'weak' for something which Andrew Criddle acknowledged might well be implied by the written word of Tertullian? It is at best 'undecided' but hardly 'weak.' Only a zealot would say that (or someone trying to prevent an open door to the Marcionite position as you are).

In any event let's move on and note that it is worth noting that the translator of that passage from Resurrection of Tertullian sees an uncanny parallel between what follows and a passage in Against Marcion 5.12:

It is still the same sentiment which he follows up in the passage in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings: “for we know;” he says, “that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;” 7552 in other words, owing to the fact that our flesh is undergoing dissolution through its sufferings, we shall be provided with a home in heaven. He remembered the award (which the Lord assigns) in the Gospel: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 7553 Yet, when he thus contrasted the recompense of the reward, he did not deny the flesh’s restoration; since the recompense is due to the same substance to which the dissolution is attributed,—that is, of course, the flesh. Because, however, he had called the flesh a house, he wished elegantly to use the same term in his comparison of the ultimate reward; promising to the very house, which undergoes dissolution through suffering, a better house through the resurrection. Just as the Lord also promises us many mansions as of a house in His Father’s home; 7554 although this may possibly be understood of the domicile of this world, on the dissolution of whose fabric an eternal abode is promised in heaven, inasmuch as the following context, having a manifest reference to the flesh, seems to show that these preceding words have no such reference. For the apostle makes a distinction, when he goes on to say, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked;” 7555 which means, before we put off the garment of the flesh, we wish to be clothed with the celestial glory of immortality. Now the privilege of this favour awaits those who shall at the coming of the Lord be found in the flesh, and who shall, owing to the oppressions of the time of Antichrist, deserve by an instantaneous death, 7556 which is accomplished by a sudden change, to become qualified to join the rising saints; as he writes to the Thessalonians: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we too shall ourselves be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

7556 Compendio mortis. Compare our Anti-Marcion for the same thoughts and words, v. 12. [p. 455, supra.]

Here is that passage:

As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that "we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands,"549 he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator's hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death.550 He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that "in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven,551 if so be, that having been unclothed,552 we shall not be found naked; "in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed553 with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but (we wish)to be clothed upon."554 [2] He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly555 in his first epistle, where he wrote: ) "The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh).556 Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body----and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last moment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti-christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as "a clothing upon" with the vesture which is from heaven.557 [3] So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this, heavenly raiment, the dead also shall for their part558 recover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorruption of heaven;559 because of these it was that he said: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."560 The one put on this (heavenly) apparel,561 when they recover their bodies; the others put it on as a supervesture,562 when they indeed hardly lose them (in the suddenness of their change). [4] It was accordingly not without good reason that he described them as "not wishing indeed to be unclothed," but (rather as wanting) "to be clothed upon; "563 in other words, as wishing not to undergo death, but to be surprised into life,564 "that this moral (body) might be swallowed up of life,"565 by being rescued from death in the supervesture of its changed state. This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be surprised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit"566 (pledged as it were thereby to have "the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that "so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord; "567 moreover, that we ought on this account to prefer568 "rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,"569 and so to be ready to meet even death with joy. In this view it is that he informs us how "we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according as he hath done either good or bad."570 [5] Since, however, there is then to be a retribution according to men's merits, how will any be able to reckon with571 God? But by mentioning both the judgment-seat and the distinction between works good and bad, he sets before us a Judge who is to award both sentences,572 and has thereby affirmed that all will have to be present at the tribunal in their bodies. For it will be impossible to pass sentence except on the body, for what has been done in the body. God would be unjust, if any one were not punished or else rewarded in that very condition,573 wherein the merit was itself achieved. [6] "If therefore any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old; things are passed away; behold, all things are become new; "574 and so is accomplished the prophecy of Isaiah.575 When also he (in a later passage) enjoins us "to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and blood"576 (since this substance enters not the kingdom of Gods577 ); when, again, he "espouses the church as a chaste virgin to Christ,"578 a spouse to a spouse in very deed,579 an image cannot be combined and compared with what is opposed to the real nature the thing (with which it is compared). when he designates "false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves" into likenesses of himself,580 of course by their hypocrisy, he charges them with the guilt of disorderly conversation, rather than of false doctrine.581 [7] The contrariety, therefore, was one of conduct, not of gods.582 If "Satan himself, too, is transformed into an angel of light,"583 such an assertion must not be used to the prejudice of the Creator. The Creator is not an angel, but God. Into a god of light, and not an angel of light, must Satan then have been said to be transformed, if he did not mean to call him "the angel," which both we and Marcion know him to be. [8] On Paradise is the title of a treatise of ours, in which is discussed all that the subject admits of.584 I shall here simply wonder, in connection with this matter, whether a god who has no dispensation of any kind on earth could possibly have a paradise to call his own----without perchance availing himself of the paradise of the Creator, to use it as he does His world----much in the character of a mendicant.585 And yet of the removal of a man from earth to heaven we have an instance afforded us by the Creator in Elijah.586 But what will excite my surprise still more is the case (next supposed by Marcion), that a God so good and gracious, and so averse to blows and cruelty, should have suborned the angel Satan----not his own either, but the Creator's----"to buffet" the apostle,587 and then to have refused his request, when thrice entreated to liberate him! It would seem, therefore, that Marcion's god imitates the Creator's conduct, who is an enemy to the proud, even "putting down the mighty from their seats."588 Is he then the same God as He who gave Satan power over the person of Job that his "strength might be made perfect in weakness? "589 [9] How is it that the censurer of the Galatians590 still retains the very formula of the law: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established? "591 How again is it that he threatens sinners "that he will not spare" them592 ----he, the preacher of a most gentle god? Yea, he even declares that "the Lord hath given to him the power of using sharpness in their presence!"593 Deny now, O heretic, (at your cost, ) that your god is an object to be feared, when his apostle was for making himself so formidable!

So where is/are the parallel(s)?

[Stephan Huller]

I think the parallel seen by the translator is as follows:

It is still the same sentiment which he follows up in the passage in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings: “for we know;” he says, “that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;” in other words, owing to the fact that our flesh is undergoing dissolution through its sufferings, we shall be provided with a home in heaven. He remembered the award (which the Lord assigns) in the Gospel: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Yet, when he thus contrasted the recompense of the reward, he did not deny the flesh’s restoration; since the recompense is due to the same substance to which the dissolution is attributed,—that is, of course, the flesh. Because, however, he had called the flesh a house, he wished elegantly to use the same term in his comparison of the ultimate reward; promising to the very house, which undergoes dissolution through suffering, a better house through the resurrection. Just as the Lord also promises us many mansions as of a house in His Father’s home; although this may possibly be understood of the domicile of this world, on the dissolution of whose fabric an eternal abode is promised in heaven, inasmuch as the following context, having a manifest reference to the flesh, seems to show that these preceding words have no such reference. For the apostle makes a distinction, when he goes on to say, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked;” which means, before we put off the garment of the flesh, we wish to be clothed with the celestial glory of immortality. Now the privilege of this favour awaits those who shall at the coming of the Lord be found in the flesh, and who shall, owing to the oppressions of the time of Antichrist, deserve by an instantaneous death, which is accomplished by a sudden change, to become qualified to join the rising saints; as he writes to the Thessalonians: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we too shall ourselves be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

compare:

As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that "we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands," he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator's hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death. He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution (= i.e. martyrdom), as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that "in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven, if so be, that having been unclothed, we shall not be found naked; "in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but (we wish)to be clothed upon." He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly in his first epistle, where he wrote: ) "The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh). Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body----and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last moment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti-christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as "a clothing upon" with the vesture which is from heaven. So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this, heavenly raiment, the dead also shall for their part recover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorruption of heaven; because of these it was that he said: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." The one put on this (heavenly) apparel, when they recover their bodies; the others put it on as a supervesture, when they indeed hardly lose them (in the suddenness of their change). It was accordingly not without good reason that he described them as "not wishing indeed to be unclothed," but (rather as wanting) "to be clothed upon; "563 in other words, as wishing not to undergo death, but to be surprised into life, "that this moral (body) might be swallowed up of life,"565 by being rescued from death in the supervesture of its changed state. This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be surprised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit" (pledged as it were thereby to have "the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that "so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord; " moreover, that we ought on this account to prefer "rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord," and so to be ready to meet even death with joy ... I shall here simply wonder, in connection with this matter, whether a god who has no dispensation of any kind on earth could possibly have a paradise to call his own----without perchance availing himself of the paradise of the Creator, to use it as he does His world----much in the character of a mendicant.

There is no explicit reference to a gospel in Against Marcion but the translator is correct in identifying the arguments in the two passages to be identical and likely written by the same author. In the second case the Marcionites clearly advocate the doctrine of transmigration of the soul (= Heb. gilgul). This ties in undoubtedly with an understanding that Jesus gives the believer his 'life' or 'soul' and so by putting on this garment the individual will no longer face the eternal cycle of rebirth (cf. the Book of Job).