From Wells' article:
https://www.academia.edu/78135390/MARCI ... us_Vinzent
(the order of 2-3 or 4 sentences has been changed)
MARCION and PAUL
Nobody up to the middle of the second century, apart from Marcion, showed any interest in Paul. To the extent that Paul doesn’t even seem to have existed before. Prolific Justin never mentions Paul nor his letters ...
Tertullian, fifty years later, considered that Marcion had redacted Paul’s letters. Tertullian is separating Paul from Marcion’s previous hold. Tertullian contrasts Paul’s authority, repeatedly, against Marcion who is accused of altering the original wording and arguments. Tertullian is aiming the essentially docetic markers found in Paul’s letters that reject the Creator God. He is not arguing against the separation of Jews and Gentiles that had become acted with the canonical Epistle to the Romans (attributed to Paul) that overflows with no less than Marcionite and Justinian borrowed fingerprints. Neither Justin nor Marcion show familiarity with the canonical version of the Roman Epistle.
Here again, Tertullian accuses Marcion of using a pair of scissors to corrupt and considerably shorten the Roman Epistle. Most analysts, including Vinzent, agree that Marcion somehow managed to get a copy of Galatians. Harnack considered it was Marcion’s starting point in rejecting false apostles. Galatians is also the first letter in the Marcionite collection, denoting its importance for the group. Harnack judged that Marcion was the first person to really understand the significance of Paul’s letters, indicating that he believed in a first century Paul having composed the collection of letters containing the Jerusalem episodes in Galatians where he encounters the Jerusalem pillars ...
... Paul’s epistles are remarkable by their dual theology, Judean, and Hellenistic, already casting doubt on a single author ... Paul’s belonging to the historical niche of the thirties was a later second century church tradition that most scholars once again prefer to ignore and accept Paul as a ‘free electron’ before the Jesus stories were set in writing.
Apart from the Messiah’s crucifixion and the associated salvation, there is no hint of an ascension in Paul (No ascension story in Marcion’s Gospel either); he knew nothing about the Jerusalem week with the last supper and Pilate’s trial (a late Church tradition). He does not evoke any edifying Jesus Galilean episodes, and very few verifiable sayings of the Lord ...
But was there really an early proselyte named Paul? It is not a Jewish patronym, and nobody mentions the name before Marcion. Providing the Jesus missionary with a Roman passport representing the values of the Empire intended to counter the Judean lobby defended by Peter the Jew, an outsider to Roman culture, his voice supposedly rising from Jerusalem. Marcion’s apostolic actor is portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles as a Roman Citizen—a feature Tarsus’ special status allowed—and was given the Roman patronym Paul. The impressive speculative Hellenistic theology found in Paul’s letters, as well as Apostle Paul’s declared dedication to Gentiles, are more at home with Marcion rather than as a mid-first century debate that would have been centered on pro-Jesus versus anti-Jesus Jewish standpoints. ‘Paul’ was at best an anonymous missionary as those who went to Bithynia, the Pontus, Smyrna, and other cities.
Paul is Marcion’s creation, eventually from an originally anonymous itinerant missionary who left a few notes. Robert M. Price advances the interesting idea that the centrist Church modified Marcion’s letters by introducing Judean themes. This is exactly what they did in the Acts of the Apostles when rehabilitating Paul to distance him from Marcion. The hypothesis is not devoid of acuteness. Changing the focus imparts that the mouse of the Pontus added much more than he nibbled away, except for the distinct composition of the Epistle to the Romans.
But whether Marcion created Paul or not, whether he intervened in his letters or not, whether one chooses to believe that Paul existed in the early first century or not, there is little doubt that Marcion considered that Paul was Jesus’ only valid apostle opposed to false Judean apostles. At this point, all Marcion’s supporters as well as his detractors agree. In other words, had Marcion written the very first Gospel from which all the others were derived, Paul would have been recorded as an apostle in his text.
Whereas Paul is entirely absent in all the canonical Gospels, and even in Marcion’s ‘own’ version as collected by his followers. This anomaly means that the faintest prospect that Marcion was the initial gospel writer can be dismissed.
Marcion’s real sting is here. He created Paul’s apostolic stature to counter the reliance on Peter that the centrist church was developing against him. In the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, centrist writers are expressing a systematic denial of Hellenistic theology. Peter, who always had a negative role in the early Gospels, is chosen as the new apostolic leader to voice the standpoints ordered by a resurrected Jesus. Eye for eye, fake news for fake news, Marcionites used Paul as their counter-apostle to claim equal legitimacy —both receive their marching orders from a resurrected Christ—and Peter’s anteriority is turned into contemporaneity—both are linked to Gamaliel (Peter with his trial and Paul as a Jerusalem student). The traveling episodes are full of Marcionite declarations, until a new redactor portrays Paul as a Jew respectful of traditions, distancing Paul from his mentor. Marcion strongly influenced Acts that recorded Church disputes belonging to her history. As usual, all the competing standpoints were presented as biographies begging to be falsely interpreted.
More than any other propagandist, Marcion submerged the church with Paul’s acquired apostolic authority and knew how to handle Judean religious politicians, using their own arguments, obliging them to react. Paul’s apostolic authority in Galatians (and Romans) is in stark contrast with the restrictions given in the Acts of the Apostles: the selection criteria to replace Judas excluded Paul as an Apostle. To the centrist Judean-orthodoxy Church, Paul was a false apostle—an apostle to the heretics—that Marcion was using to try and undermine their authority. Peter versus Paul resumed the challenges opposing Judean and Hellenistic legacies during most of the second century. Paul was Marcion’s Trojan horse that attacked the congregation from within. From within, using their own textual arguments to oppose the Judean lobby. And he is not recorded in Marcion’s gospel! The idea that Marcion wrote the first gospel loses all credibility, via Paul.
Marcion’s work of a different caliber was Paul, not the Luke-like Gospel.
PAUL’S ABSENCE IN MARCION’S GOSPEL
Paul’s absence in the pre-canonical Luke, later confirmed by the canonical versions, did not go unnoticed and had to be repaired. The Jerusalem episodes in Galatians serve that purpose: Paul meets the Jerusalem pillars. The Jerusalem episodes are set together as a collection.
The Jesus movement originated, so it seems, in northern Syria (The Nazarene community in northern Syria that Pliny the Elder mentioned around 70 CE [Natural History, V, 81] probably corresponds to Antioch, still in Palestine) and could not spread to occupied Judea or ruined Jerusalem that now belonged to the past. Rome occupied the cities throughout Judea and Galilee, redistributed the land, reorganized the political control leaving no place for the good news of Jesus to be proclaimed “from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum” as boasted in a late addition to Romans (15:19). The good news spread from Antioch to Anatolia, Bithynia, the Pontus, to Greece, Rome, and to Alexandria. Jerusalem and Judea were out of their sphere of action. Even the traditional Essene groups had abandoned the city of Jerusalem and Pharisees had fled for Jamnia.
Considering that Jerusalem only comes into Christian focus with Peter in Acts written in reaction against the Marcionite challenges (Jerusalem is hardly mentioned elsewhere), all the Jerusalem and Judea references in Galatians were added to Paul’s letters after the middle of the second century. This later focus should help explain why Paul was not known by sight to the churches in Judea and the meaning of the Jerusalem encounters recorded in Galatians.
Claiming that Paul was not known by sight throughout the churches of Judea (Gal 1:22-24) explains his absence from Marcion’s Luke-like text. People had only heard about him: “and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard that "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy." In his early Jesus days, Paul was unnamed, and therefore absent from Luke’s account. The verse on ‘the one who was formerly persecuting us’ evokes a centrist addition, rehabilitating Paul ...
The first Jerusalem encounter ... The first Jerusalem encounter gives the initial attempt to establish a mutual recognition between both actors. The writer declares that Paul wants to get to know Cephas, however briefly and made him go to Jerusalem for the encounter. The three-year delay allows for Paul's not being known by sight in Judea ...* Once in Jerusalem, admitted within the narrow circle of the acknowledged Jerusalem pillars, Paul is implicitly known by sight and name, and gains a different standing [*And Paul must also meet James and show familiarity or professionalism between them]. The Jerusalem pillars are late comers in Galatians to whom Paul owes nothing, Marcion’s program.
The Jerusalem Conference recorded in Galatians. The original Jerusalem Conference story was created when writing Acts 15 and secondarily set into Galatians (before Acts was later corrupted with Peter replacing Paul as the eminent speaker) ...
The Antioch confrontation Galatians 2:11 ... The debate had however been settled in Acts with the Cornelius episode, Peter in the lead. In th[is] later story relating the Antioch meeting in Galatians, the focus is entirely on Paul. The story essentially indicates that he has the authority to scold Peter. This is interesting because Paul downplays Peter with the same authority as the unnamed and beloved disciple in John’s Gospel. The connection raises a too often neglected question: who was the unnamed and beloved disciple who systematically downplayed Peter before Irenaeus ingeniously identified him as John, the writer from Patmos who firmly defended all the Judean legacies?
REHABILITATING PAUL
Marcion’s Paul, the apostle and Roman citizen, undermined the Jerusalem Peter on the same textual grounds. And Paul had an impressive collection of letters recorded under his name. If the later Hellenistic minded Church wanted to be credible, it had no choice other than to canonize Paul or exclude him. (Knox. Marcion 115-117) The most astute decision consisted in rehabilitating Paul, as shows in the Acts of the Apostles. Siding with Marcionite declarations, Paul is described as a Jew obedient to Scripture and the Creator God, he speaks Hebrew, he practices circumcision, is categorized as a strict Pharisee or as a ringleader of the Nazarenes and performs their vows. He wants to go to Jerusalem despite being warned against his project. Propaganda is disguised as biography, as usual. Paul, portrayed as an obedient Jew, distanced him from Marcion’s hold, showing that the heretic was not Paul, but Marcion alone. The calculated disinformation allowed to preserve Paul’s letters without connecting hem to Marcion’s Docetism rejecting Judaism. Rehabilitating ‘our dear brother Paul’ will find a place in 1 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Irenaeus, all ferociously anti-Marcionites. Understood as belonging to the historical niche, Paul’s numerous letters were the earliest available documents in which to confide Church top-secrets. It was as placing highly sensitive records within a safe that was so secure that they could be freely accessed without the deception being discovered. The procedure consisted in displacing Church history from second century (and even later) to mid-first century CE. The historical niche is a perfect trap.
MARCION’S INFLUENCE on CANONICAL LUKE
Contrary to Tertullian’s claims having proved Marcion’s Gospel to be later, representing a corrupted version of the earlier canonical texts, the historical and Church chronologies must, as often, be inverted. The canonical version of Luke was later than Marcion’s version. Marcion influenced the composition through his challenges. Here I rely entirely on Tyson’s study [Luke-Acts and Marcion: A Defining Struggle, 2006].
...< . . short paragraph omitted . . >
In brief, the birth and childhood narratives that completed Luke’s non-canonical text are resolutely anti-Marcionite declarations. They are a denial of a heavenly Jesus disconnected from Judaism. Here, Jesus is born on earth of human and angelic interventions, is circumcised as previously his cousin John the Baptist, and learns within the Temple ... These chapters were later added to the pre-canonical version of Marcion ... The additions corrupted the significance of the initial writings. It becomes the story of a man and savior born at Bethlehem, David’s town ... [A] Judean legacy is reaffirmed [established]. The importance of Jerusalem and the Temple in the childhood narratives is shared with the ecclesial redactor of John’s Gospel. Polycarp of Smyrna has been advanced as the putative author or inspirer of both texts, incisive against the ‘first-born of Satan.’ The additions created and extended an anti-heretical pro-Judean front.
The birth and childhood narratives made the Matthew group react differently: behind the revised biography, a different political message. The chapters were written by a group aware that the initial drafts were composed against the Jerusalem Temple and its leaders, a brood of vipers. They were not arguing against mid-second century deviant Greco-Roman policies as the Luke redactor but confirming Judean policies ... The redactor looked for Scriptural antecedents prior to the Jerusalem Temple and used elements of Moses’ biography, linked via Herod and the massacre of the first born. Thus, the family fled to Egypt and came back to the homeland, contrary to Moses, when dangers subsided.
If Tyson is right about Luke's added chapters, then Matthew's first two chapters are very likely to be still later second century additions that relied here on the reworked Luke. The later writer of Luke created an anti-heretical front advertising the Jerusalem Temple; the writer in Matthew brought further support to the anti-heretical front, without the Temple. Evaluating the respective influences between Gospel writers was originally biased by believing that they were one-shot compositions from Palestine, giving a biographical account of Mr. Jesus. The texts however were not biographies but compilations of rivaling religious/political factions ...
CAN WE SIMPLY FORGET VALENTINIUS and the GNOSTIC SCHOOLS?
...< . . short paragraph omitted . . >
The pre-Christian Gnostics had a trinitarian understanding of the creation comprising a Heavenly Father, a Son and Wisdom or Sophia. The relations between Father and Son were propitious to understand that Jesus occupied the filial rank. The Heavenly Son, whose role was to spread Gnosis among followers, thus came to earth in human form to instruct them in the Logos and, his mission accomplished, returned to heaven. Sophia’s fault, in times immemorial, gave birth to the Judean Creator God, who introduced death to the world. The goal of the elitist Gnostics was to escape from Yahweh’s world of eternal death. As a divine figure, Jesus could not be crucified, a ‘fable’ the Gnostics refuted. Because Gnosticism had rejected the Creator God and Scripture a few centuries earlier, they felt unconcerned about the associated culture, and the Judean inspired Church would not have affected their beliefs. The salvation systems ran in parallel, with no overlapping, no bridge between them except Jesus who, as a shared Judean and Hellenistic staged salvific figure, made no real difference to their creed ...
The Gnostic’s ideology is essentially known to us by John’s Gospel filtered from its added centrist compositions [Randel McCraw Helms,
Who Wrote the Gospels?, 1997] and the Nag Hammadi Library (NHL). Irenaeus already complained of their many unauthorized gospels, showing that they were actively diffused by the end of the second century. They were probably better known than the canonical texts and weren’t rejected.
...< . . short paragraph omitted . . >
One of the most interesting cases of the Synoptic mess concerns Jesus’ wisdom sayings. Apart from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that has DSS parallels, they are unattested elsewhere than in the Gospel of Thomas. The hypothesis of other DSS wisdom sayings remains unconfirmed. The supposed association of Jesus’ Jewish sayings and Gnostic wisdom sayings in Thomas as most scholars defend, can be contested, and not only on the grounds of textual criticism. It would be very odd indeed that Judean culture, supposedly represented by Jesus’s sayings, would have massively invaded the Thomas collection that was esteemed and collected by Gnostic’s so opposed to Judean culture. It is more probable that the ‘saying source’ was originally Thomas, as Linssen defends, that spread through the Gnostic inspired Christian communities that developed within the Eastern part of the Roman Empire before the canonical versions were established. Thomas was ‘tamed’ into a Judean culture-box as can be gathered from Papias’ false declarations concerning Matthew and the Oracles of the Lord written in Hebrew, as well as by the hypothetical Q source explained as sayings preserved by Jesus’ apostles before the texts were written. The enduring systemic rejection of Jewish culture makes the Thomas collection poorly compatible with 40% co-existing Jewish wisdom sayings. [continues]
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