Earliest Church Father reference to Luke 19:27 ??

[Stuart]

Adam,

In my view Q1 is Marcionite (Gospel of the Lord), Q2 is from Matthew, Jewish Christian. Luke then incorporates Matthew's layer into his revision of Marcion's Gospel as fits his theological perspective.

There is no evidence whatsoever for an Aramaic version of any Gospel. No text survived in this language.

The entire Q theory is based on ignoring Marcion, ignoring the evidence of vocabulary that his gospel has priority over Luke. Accepting at face value Tertullian's polemic. It doesn't hold up. For me two Greek words with zero theological meaning missing in Marcion convinced me, παραχρῆμα and τε -- there would have been no reason for Marcion to have removed the latter and replace παραχρῆμα with εὐθέως. Nearly all the famous favorite words of Luke are missing.

As a result Q theory seems to me to have things backwards. Much of the so called militant material is secondary. The exegesis carried out on the passages today simply ignores the what the Church fathers report of the way heretics read the passage and what they say of their own interpretation.

The passage above was interpreted by the Marcionites as an example of the vindictive and unmerciful God of the OT. (note, verse 19:11 almost certainly did not contain the words starting from διὰ to the end of the verse) Tertullian in roughly 211 AD reports the same understanding of how to interpret the passage as Origen two or three generations later, saying in AM 4.37.4

The parable also of the (ten) servants, who received their several recompenses according to the manner in which they had increased their lord's money by trading proves Him to be a God of judgment----even a God who, in strict account, not only bestows honor, but also takes away what a man seems to have. Else, if it is the Creator whom He has here delineated as the "austere man," who "takes up what he laid not down, and reaps what he did not sow," my instructor even here is He, (whoever He may be, ) to whom belongs the money He teaches me fruitfully to expend.

The "understanding" that has become the fashion of Q scholars today, requires one to deliberately ignore the interpretation of both the heretics and the orthodox of the 2nd century; its a back handed way of saying that the faith of that era already diverged radically from the original meaning which they have uncovered. I reject the premise. There has to be some connection to a extant Christian community, not communities invented by those scholars.

So yes I understand you, but I think the proposition ignores the earliest evidence for how people understood the text.


NOTE: corrected "invented" from "invested; thanks Adam.

[Adam]

You must have meant, Stuart, "invented" not "invested" in your penultimate sentence.)
I'm pleased to see you rejecting the typical false premise of so many scholars (I don't put quotes around "scholars", because I have too little regard for most of them to need to add additional evidence of my low regard for most of them), but I would hope you can also get around the false premise that nothing in the gospels was originally written in Aramaic. Now that Maurice Casey has recently died, I admit that no one is pushing much for Aramaic originals, but all the great work in the past by Burney, C. C. Torrey, and Matthew Black has to have validity for at least some of the gospel sources having been written originally (as I say) in Aramaic (or possibly Hebrew per the Jerusalem School).

I'm open to the early influence of Marcion, but at most I see Marcion's Luke and canonical GLuke as sharing a common original. Orthodox Christians like to say GLuke preceded what Marcion expurgated, and radicals like to believe that Luke interpolated into Marcion's text. Similarly, I have been teaching for over a year now that no gospel depended on any other; the Synoptics all share a common Proto-Gospel (that splits into a Proto-Luke further developed into GLuke and a Proto-Matthew that is a shared source by GMatthew and for the abbreviation we find in GMark. See my thread here, "Horizontal Synoptic Solution".
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 2&start=60 (most of the thread, but perhaps adequately recapped at Pg. 7, my Sept. 24, 2014 posting)

To the extent it is still useful to speak of any type of "Q", we must understand that it underlies GMark, too. Most likely it is found not just in speeches in GMark (like the Parable of the Sower), but in narrative as well like the Twelve-Source that was so popular in the Mid-20th Century (squelched by the prevalence of Form Criticism, but unfortunately not revived after the later disenchantment with Form Criticism). Nor had any of its proponents devised a reliable system for distinguishing Twelve-Source from the more obviously Petrine parts of GMark (GLuke as well, we're really talking about Triple Tradition here). Even my listings in my thread where I develop my Thesis of seven written eyewitness account of Jesus, Gospel Eyewitnesses,
http://www.christianforums.com/t7594923/ (See especially my Posts #4 & #5)
has proven to need revision based on my very recent study of the Greek synonyms for "say".
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 2&start=70 ("Horizontal..."), at Page 8, Dec. 31 to Jan. 7, 2015)

[Stuart]

Adam,

When I speak of Marcionite priority, I only mean of the Gospels we have. Theology of the material suggests that Matthew was written to counter Marcion, and John was written to counter Matthew. But that does not solve the Synoptic problem.

And I think you are correct, Mark comes from a proto-gospel or perhaps gospels plural. Mark doe snot seem to be in the narrative battle of the other Gospels. My own opinion is that it was written after Marcion's gospel, around the same time as Matthew, but was a conflation of two proto-gospels, with only a smattering of theological additions. The proto Gospels are more complex than has been recognized.

My own WAG (it's by no means more than partly worked out) is there was probably a single proto-Gospel. Through the miracle of accretion, and forged by separation of distance and time, multiple forms emerged. One I call "L" would be used as the foundation for Marcion's gospel, one "M" would be the foundation for Matthew's, and both would go into Mark. "M" is more complex than "L" as "M" includes an extensive doublet section, with the same stories told again (e.g., 4000 fed instead of 5000 ... the doublet section looks like an older version), meaning conflation occurred before any Gospel we actually know of was composed. How much time and distance is anyone's guess.

Note: my personal belief is the theological conflicts were so intense in the second century that almost everything from prototypes to near canonical forms of all but a few books in the NT were written in a window of barely more than fifty years or two generations. Heretical and Orthodox camps waged an intense argument, and that necessitated the NT. As one item was written, another was required in a literary arms race. And this is when Christianity really began to rise.

BTW something to keep in mind, Luke not only rewrote Marcion's gospel, but also changed some words to his favorites. Its inconsistent, as you would expect in a redaction. And we know he put his mark in his book and over his sources. That could explain some strangeness in things like λέγων and εἶπεν in Luke, without any need of Aramaic. And frankly that sort of explanation has to be exhausted before you can consider any other source.

And example of what I see as Mark's composition. The opening is Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγέλίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (ιυ χυ). It seems to me that this is a title, not an opening if you remove Ἀρχὴ you have an opening remarkably similar to what Paul says τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ (χυ) which seems interchangeable with "the Gospel of the Lord" just a kappa for a chi. Before there were the four there was now need for a κατα title. It sort of suggests itself that Mark took the first verse from a proto-gospel title. The opening of the proto-Gospel was more likely something like Matthew 3:1 (and Mark 1:9, which indicates possibly a different start point) ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις. As is typical of redaction, detail specificity creeps in, and so the Marcionite Gospel replaces that simply phrase with ἐν ἔτει δὲ πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς ἡγεμονίας Τιβερίου Καίσαρος before starting at a common verse with Mark 1:21. So it seems every Synoptic Gospel came from a source, adjusting to fit their message.

Until you can distill the prototype from the Synoptic author's composition (difficult to say the least) I think its foolish to reach for source theology and purpose. You first have to unravel what Matthew wrote to counter Marcion, and what Marcion's gospel contained separate of Luke, and then reconstruct source (or I say two sources) from Matthew, Mark and Luke. Each step in the process increases the uncertainty of the result, increases the chance of error. Only after Greek solutions fail - and this requires understanding how the audience of orthodox and heretic understood it in the 2nd century - can one seriously look at Aramaic.

Everyone I think wants to get to the end game, so they attempt to bypass the hard work to unravel the upper layers. We need to instead understand the later layers and work back. Until we understand how things developed in the 2nd century, whatever there was in the 1st century (which I am not convinced there was much to speak of), is without context. Whatever might be Aramaic origin only makes sense once we account for the much larger Greek. And that is where my focus is. As a result I refuse to get dragged into any debate about Christianity before Hadrain's reign.

[Stephan Huller]

Stuart is one of the good posters here at the forum. One of less than a dozen who are worth reading.

[Adam]

Yes, Stephan,
I too love Stuart's post here. He's even touting a proto-gospel, like I do. And you love his focus on Marcion, though I see Marcion as at most parallel to GLuke and have never even heard of proposed influence of Marcion on GMatthew and GMark. Stuart, where can I find out about this, or is it just your "partly worked out" idea?

Agreed, the Greek finalization is larger than the Aramaic portions that underlie it, but isn't this just too obvious to need saying? The Aramaic core of whatever appears in necessarily-not-quite-identical parallel Synoptic verses almost has to be First Century, so you can't accomplish much by excluding consideration of anything before the reign of Hadrian.

[Sheshbazzar]

^Origen mentions the Noble Man from v14+15, but not v27 where Jesus asks his followers to bring non-believers to him to be slaughtered...

Understandable that he would not mention something which wasn't present.

λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι παντὶ τῷ ἔχοντι δοθήσεται ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ μὴ ἔχοντος καὶ ὃ ἔχει ἀρθήσεται ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ
πλὴν τοὺς ἐχθρούς μου ἐκείνους, τοὺς μὴ θελήσαντάς με βασιλεῦσαι ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἀγάγετε ὧδε καὶ κατασφάξατε ἔμπροσθέν μου

‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them_Bring them here and slaughter them in my presence!’

Omitting the late inserted verse numbers it can be seen that v27 is linked to and incorporated with the preceding text.

Certainly the statement or instruction is strong enough that in the context of a specific discussion of this specific text by Origen, it certainly would have elicited some mention or commentary. IF it were then present. Especially in the context of that overheated 3rd century 'heretic' hating environment.

IMV verse 27 was added post-Origen as a means to excuse and to justify the slaughter of 'heretics' that the corrupt orthodox cult had became engaged in.

Sheshbazzar

[toejam]

^I suspect so too. But I'm always hesitant assuming on what commentators would have mentioned. E.g. Origen may simply not have commented on it for the same reasons many modern popular books on Jesus and lightweight commentaries tend to skip over it - i.e. to sweep it under the rug, pretend it's trivial and not that important etc. My 'New Collegville' commentary on Luke by Michael Patella completely igonres v27.

[Sheshbazzar]

^3rd century CE on till the 18th century, such things were not trivial or swept under a rug. Rather they were shouted from the rooftops, and used for inciting the slaughter of 'heretics' with the temerity to oppose or to the challenge the claims of the orthodox cult.

.

[Leucius Charinus]

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-27.htm

These commentaries seem to accept the reference. The prospect of interpolation is not mentioned. One says:

• The word κατασφαξατε, here rendered slay them, properly signifies, slay them with the sword, and seems first to refer to the dreadful slaughter of the impenitent Jews, by the sword of each other and of the Romans. But that does not seem to be the chief design of the passage; it more especially relates to the far more terrible execution which shall be done on all impenitent sinners in the great day, when the faithful servants of Christ shall be rewarded.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Oo ... on&f=false
Unholy Hands on the Bible, Volume 1
By Dean J. Burgon

Here the author is discussing at p.93 some manuscript D about which he writes that the scribe of D inserts Matt 25:30 at the end of Luke 19:27

And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Interesting question toejam.



LC

[Sheshbazzar]

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-27.htm

These commentaries seem to accept the reference. The prospect of interpolation is not mentioned.

Christian Apologists. Of course they would accept the text as genuine, and not mention the prospect of an interpolation within their sacrosanct texts.
What do you expect, for them, Christian Apologists, to publicly discredit any NT text? ...pffft.
That's NOT their job, nor methodology. They have an a priori Faith commitment to defend and to 'explain away' any inconsistencies or perceived flaws in these texts, not to ever concede that the texts were tampered with.
They are not writing for the likes of you and me, but for uncritical Christian sheeple who will swallow it all, whole hog.