The Prevalence of Matthew in Anti-Marcionite Sayings

[Secret Alias]

We all know how you work Bernard. You basically demand that a later Church Father would stand up and contradict Irenaeus's explicit testimony to the effect that 'the gospel of Marcion did not only have Luke but also Matthew' but that certainly is a naive and untruthful standard of truth-seeking. That ain't going to happen. First of all 'the blessed presbyter Irenaeus' wrote what became the standard definition of 'heresies' in Christianity. Once that standard disappears and cracks appear in the dogma, the whole claim of infallibility disappears from the rest of Irenaeus's revelation.

The idea that Methodius is remarking on a pattern of 'later Marcionites' is a last ditched effort on the part of latter dogmatists like you to salvage the same 'idealism' regarding Irenaeus's testimony. You like Irenaeus's testimony for the same reason that other third century Church Fathers did - it provides a clear cut explanation for the primacy of the four gospels (sort of - I might add because it says in Adv Haer 3.11 that the heresies still had the corrupt gospel copies of Matthew, Luke, Mark and John BEFORE Irenaeus did and no clear case is made that the Catholic churches had earlier exemplars).

The fact that you didn't notice this little flaw again shows how desperate you are to maintain a four gospel primacy argument build on wet sand. Irenaeus is but one testimony. Methodius another. Clement of Alexandria another. Origen yet another. Tertullian is just Irenaeus reworked so we can't count Tertullian and Irenaeus as two testimonies.

If we assume that there was a Marcionite gospel. Yes, let's do that. How many independent witnesses do we have to its composition? Irenaeus and Tertullian represent one witness (there is no evidence to suggest that Tertullian actually saw the text in Carthage or that Marcionites were in Carthage). So that's one 'early' testimony - but how early? I've been thinking about the dating for Irenaeus lately. What's the proper date for the composition of Adv Haer? What's the earliest possible date? What's the latest possible date? This becomes especially important with the parallels in Celsus.

I'd say that the earliest possible date for Irenaeus is the reign of Commodus. The Moscow MS for the Martyrdom of Polycarp infers that he was in Rome when Polycarp died c. 160 CE. Is that really reliable? Not really. Then there is the claim that Irenaeus saw Polycarp when he was a baby 'in the royal palace.' The plain meaning of the statement is that Polycarp was in Rome and Irenaeus saw him as a boy (there are many who manipulate the text in ways that set the story in Asia Minor but that is nonsense because the context is clearly that Florinus was also there and that reinforces a Roman provenance once again).

If Polycarp visited Rome during the reign of Anicetus (157 - 168 CE) and Irenaeus was a 'boy' then and the statement in the surviving fragment assumes an age where Irenaeus was an elder looking back at this event I see no reason to rule out an early third century dating for the statement. Legends about Irenaeus are hardly worth taking too seriously. The statement about the beloved elder Irenaeus in the Philosophumena was written after Callixtus (218 - 223 CE). Is it really unthinkable that Adv Haer was written in the early years of the third century or assembled then? Why not?

Photius mentions a collection of lectures given by Irenaeus which may well have been the building blocks for many of the chapters. Perhaps earlier material from other Church Fathers (Justin, Theophilus) were also thrown into the mix of material which further complicates dating. But still an early third century dating for the contents of Adv Haer and the statement in Book One about the Marcionite gospel's origin from a corrupt version of Luke.

How much better is that information about the Marcionite gospel than Origen and Methodius information? Why the preference? Origen was a young prodigy who emerged under the wing of a patron who was a Marcionite. He certainly did not depend upon Irenaeus for his information about the text. So if Irenaeus and Origen were contemporaries why is Irenaeus's information better?

When did Methodius live? Who was Methodius? Where did he operate from? No one knows. But it is safe to say that he and Origen were contemporaries. Perhaps Methodius was a little later than Origen. But still if two of three contemporaries identify Matthew 15:13 as being used by Marcionites as you say - why isn't that another in a series of identifications of 'sayings of Matthew' being present in the Marcionite gospel?

Moreover if we go back to the point that Irenaeus himself makes about using a treatise originally written by Justin (which is lost) to develop his alleged line by line analysis of the Marcionite gospel which clearly (Andrew would undoubtedly agree) emerges in a corrupt form in our Against Marcion attributed to Tertullian (albeit now the third in three 'generations' of corrections to the original text) why doesn't that reinforce the notion that Justin who used a 'harmony' text which included Matthew, Luke and Mark was criticizing and commenting upon a shared Marcionite gospel ('my gospel' vs 'his gospel' where 'his = Marcion's gospel') which was a corruption of that harmony?

It all falls perfectly into place where indeed the numerous accusations of Marcion 'removing things' from Matthew in Adv Marc come from Justin's harmony based text having now been reconstituted according to Irenaeus's early third century lie about Marcion corrupting only Luke. I think everyone at the forum and most informed people in the world will think my explanation of ALL of the evidence is better than your naive claims about the unworthiness of Methodius and Origen's shared testimony here and Justin and others too. Irenaeus isn't as sacred a testimony as you want to make him. you recognize (rightly) that the four gospel claim originates with Irenaeus. He decided the texts which were sacred by some unknown means. Yet his testimony has many dubious elements which we can also discuss - assuming of course you have the stomach.

But the idea that Irenaeus could have been wrong is certainly likely. Irenaeus might be providing us with bad information about the origin of the gospels. Why not? We expect the same from our politicians and corporate leaders. Does anyone expect to get the truth from Exxon if one it's oil tankers starts leaking in the Gulf of Mexico? Why then do we believe Irenaeus uncritically? We have to recognize that Irenaeus's worldview was that there were four 'schools' of Christianity using four gospels a priori to the assembly of the fourfold canon (Adv Haer 3.11). The identification of the Marcionite gospel with Luke has been squeezed into this bizarre aesthetic. Like all appeals to aesthetics - beauty and symmetry is bad argument. It assumes that the world is run by God and that 'the right symmetry' is proof of providence. It's not a very scientific appeal.

[Secret Alias]

His version of the Gospel of Luke was the core of his collection of authoritative Christian writings which were compiled by him to replace the Scriptures of Judaism. Marcion clearly knew the Gospel of Matthew, but he rejected it, apparently for its Judaizing tendencies, even though that particular gospel was in Marcion's time probably the most widely circulated and respected of all the gospel writings. [Thompson Studies in Luke-Acts p. 55]

[andrewcriddle]

The other text which demonstrates the Marcionite gospel had Matthew 15:13 is J. Schafers, Eine altsyrische antimarkionitische Erkldrung von Parabeln des Herrn und zwei andere altsyrische Abhandlungen zu Texten der Evangelien

See https://archive.org/details/MN41656ucmf_2 (if your German is good enough.)

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

After dealing with the German government all week I know my German sucks. But thank you again.

[Secret Alias]

I remember this book. Great