The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Okay, Stephan, happy times indeed, but I wanted to mull over this topic a bit more, if you do not mind.

The two parallels to Luke 4.30-31 that you mention are from the Syriac Diatessaron (with all due diligence intended as to how we treat that title) and from the Evangelion of Marcion, according to Tertullian, correct?

Here are the texts that I think you have in mind. First, the Diatessaron as reconstructed by Tjitze Baarda:

Image

Second, Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.8.2b-3a (Latin text and English translation by Ernest Evans):

Et tamen apud Nazareth. quoque nihil novi notatur praedicasse, dum alio, merito unius proverbii, eiectus refertur. Hic primum manus ei iniectas animadvertens necesse habeo iam de substantia eius corporali praefinire, quod non possit phantasma credi qui contactum et quidem violentia plenum detentus et captus et ad praecipitium usque protractus admiserit. Nam etsi per medios evasit, sed ante iam vim expertus, et postea dimissus; scilicet soluto, uti assolet, tumultu, vel etiam irrupto, non tamen per caliginem eluso, quae nulli omnino tactui succidisset, si fuisset.

Even at Nazareth there is no indication that his preaching was of anything new, though for all that, by reason of one single proverb, we are told that he was cast out. Here, as I for the first time observe that hands were laid upon him, I am called upon to say something definite about his corporal substance; that he who admitted of contact, contact even full of violence, in being seized and captured and dragged even to the brow of the hill, cannot be thought of as a phantasm. It is true that he slipped away through the midst of them, but this was when he had experienced their violence, and had afterwards been let go: for, as often happens, the crowd gave way, or was even broken up: there is no question of its being deceived by invisibility, for this, if it had been such, would never have submitted to contact at all.

Are there any more texts immediately relevant to this discussion that you know of?

Ben.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Stephan Huller »

I don't have the paper in front of me but other witnesses are Augustine, Ephrem and Aphrahat. There's another reference to consider for Marcion too.
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Stephan Huller »

I am also not sure what the context of the discussion is here. I think the reference to Capernaum is only in the Syriac gospel. The Marcionite gospel places the event at Jerusalem on the temple mount.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stephan Huller wrote:I am also not sure what the context of the discussion is here. I think the reference to Capernaum is only in the Syriac gospel. The Marcionite gospel places the event at Jerusalem on the temple mount.
Okay, that would be quite relevant. What are the texts for this Jerusalemite bit of the Marcion gospel?

Ben.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stephan Huller wrote:I don't have the paper in front of me but other witnesses are Augustine, Ephrem and Aphrahat. There's another reference to consider for Marcion too.
Well, Baarda summons Aphrahat, Ephraem, and (possibly) Augustine as witnesses to the text of the Diatessaron, which he then summarizes on the page that I presented in the OP. (Augustine was represented as Faustus on that page, since the relevant remarks are found in Against Faustus.) So I simply presented the reconstruction of the text I am actually investigating in terms of the synoptic problem: the Diatessaron. If you disagree with that reconstruction, and if the disagreement makes a difference as to how the Diatessaron might relate to Luke and to Marcion, then by all means let me know. But I was not trying to give a critical text of the passage, with full apparatus; Baarda did that in the article.

Any idea what the other reference for Marcion is?

Ben.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: The flying Jesus (for Stephan Huller).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stephan Huller wrote:The Marcionite gospel places the event at Jerusalem on the temple mount.
Are we talking about two different events, then? Tertullian seems to be talking about an event that takes place at Nazareth (as in Luke 3.16-30), and he chides Marcion for including Nazareth in his narrative despite its prophetic overtones.

Ben.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Post Reply