Memoirs of the Apostles in Justin's Trypho Dialogue

[Secret Alias]

I don't mean to hijack this thread. So I waited a few days to see if anyone else was going to post something that took the conversation in another direction. While I admit this is getting away from the OP, I seemed to get a lot of interest for my theory that Against Marcion - in its original form - influenced the arrangement of the Pauline Epistles. My theory was that what we have now as 'the writings of Paul' is really the blending of 'Marcion' and Justin's original treatise against Marcion which is now preserved in Latin by Tertullian in an imperfect form. As noted above 1 Corinthians 15:50 - 2 is the problematic verse. All that appears before it isn't 'Pauline' at all but bits and pieces derived from Justin. I now want to ask the reader whether Tertullian's source is citing 1 Corinthians 15:54 - 55 or - as I would have it - Justin original cited Hosea 13:14 against 1 Corinthians 15:50 and later Irenaeus blended the two 'antitheses' into a synthesis. Let's read the passage in Adv Marc:

Else if there is going to be no flesh, how shall it be clothed upon with incorruption and immortality? So then, made into something else by that change, it will obtain the kingdom of God, being no longer flesh and blood, but the body which God will have given to it. And so the apostle rightly says, Flesh and blood shall not obtain the kingdom of God, for he ascribes that to the change which ensues upon the resurrection. So if then will be brought to pass the word which is written in the Creator's scriptures, O death, where is thy victory, or, thy striving? O death where is thy sting?—and this is a word of the Creator, spoken by the prophet—the fact itself, the kingdom, will belong to him whose word will come to pass in the kingdom. Nor are his thanks for having enabled us to gain the victory—over death, he means—addressed to any other god than the God from whom he has accepted that word of exultation over death, that word of triumph.

You see what I mean? It doesn't seem that Tertullian knows that Hosea 13:14 is in Paul. He is citing the words out of his own imagination. There is nothing to indicate that he knows that Paul referenced these words.

[Secret Alias]

Here is what is in our '1 Corinthians'

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Against Marcion:

But some men will say, How will the dead rise again ? And with what body will they come? For after the defence of the resurrection, which was under denial, his next step was to discuss those attributes of the body, which were not open to view. But concerning these we have to join issue with other opponents: for since Marcion entirely refuses to admit the resurrection of the flesh, promising salvation to the soul alone, he makes this a question not of attributes but of substance. For all that, he is most evidently discredited by the things the apostle says with reference to the attributes of the body for the benefit of those who do ask, How will the dead rise again, and with what body will they come ? For he has already declared that the body will rise again, by having discussed the body's attributes. Again if he proposes the examples of the grain of wheat, or something of that sort, things to which God gives a body, as it shall please him, and if he says that to every seed there is its own particular body, as there is one kind of flesh of men, and another of beasts and birds, and bodies celestial and terrestrial, and one glory of the sun and another of the moon and another of the stars, does he not indicate that this is a carnal and corporeal resurrection, which he commends by carnal and corporeal examples? And is he not giving assurance of it on behalf of that God from whom come the examples he adduces? So also, he says, is the resurrection. How so? Like the grain of wheat, as a body it is sown, as a body it rises again. Thus he has described the dissolution of the body into earth as the sowing of a seed, because it is sown in corruption to honour, to power. The process followed at the resurrection is the act of that same whose was the course taken at the dissolution—-just like the grain. If not, if you take away from the resurrection that body which you have surrendered to dissolution, what ground can there be for any difference of outcome? And further, if it is sown an animate object and rises again a spiritual one, although soul or even spirit possesses some sort of body of its own, so that animate body might be taken to mean soul, and spiritual body to mean spirit, he does not by that affirm that at the resurrection the soul will become spirit, but that the body, which by being born along with the soul, and living by means of the soul may properly be termed animate, will become spiritual when by the spirit it rises again to eternity. In short, since it is not soul, but flesh, that is sown in corruption when dissolved into the earth, then that animate body cannot be soul, but is that flesh which has been an animate body, so that out of animate the body is made spiritual:

I can't help that Justin's think is entire original here (as preserved by Tertullian). There are clear signs that he is not referencing something already written by Paul but rather something original.

[Secret Alias]

For those interested, I first had the idea that Adv Marc influenced Luke (rather than merely 'commenting' upon it) in this passage from Book Four. I didn't feel that Tertullian (or better yet his source) was commenting upon a gospel that had David in the temple but rather bringing up the parallel out of his own imagination:

Marcion takes exception to the heads of the controversy —if I may play about a bit with the truth of my Lord—written document and intention. A plausible answer is based upon the Creator's written document and on Christ's intention, as by the precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into the
templeb and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves of the shewbread. For he too remembered that even from the beginning, since the sabbath day was first instituted, this privilege was granted to it—I mean exemption from fasting. For when the Creator forbade the gathering of two days' supply of manna, he allowed it only on the day before the sabbath, so that by having food prepared the day before he might make immune from fasting the holy day of the sabbath that followed. Well it is then that our Lord followed the same purpose in breaking down the sabbath—if that is what they want it called: well it is also that he gave effect to the Creator's intention by the privilege of not fasting on the sabbath. In fact he would have once and for all
broken the sabbath, and the Creator besides, if he had enjoined his disciples to fast on the sabbath, in opposition to the fact of scripture and of the Creator's intention. So then, as he did not keep his disciples in close constraint, but now finds excuse for them: as he puts in answer human necessity as begging for considerate treatment: as he conserves the higher privilege of the sabbath, of freedom from sorrow rather than abstention from work: as he associates David and his followers with his own disciples in fault and in permission: as he is in agreement with the relaxation the Creator has given: as after the Creator's example he himself is equally kind: is he on that account an alien from the Creator?

[Secret Alias]

And notice the implications of this observation. Both the gospel of Marcion AND the gospel of Tertullian's source did not know the bit about Jesus referencing the story from the first verses of 1 Samuel 21:

David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.” David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

Tertullian's source (Justin) just alludes to the story to counter the story in Marcion's gospel. He does not claim it is 'in' his gospel. It was never in a gospel. It is one of many Tanach stories that is used to reinforce that Christianity was compatible with Judaism.

So if 'the idea' of David breaking commandments came from Justin, isn't it interesting that everyone of our canonical gospels now pretends that Jesus 'said' exactly what Justin 'thought' 100+ years later:

Mark 2

The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Luke 6

Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Matthew 12

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

The question of course is how is it that Marcion and Justin at 150 CE have no clue that 1 Samuel 21 is in the gospel. Clearly someone subsequent to Justin took his argument from Adv Marc and wove it into every gospel to distract from the consistent (original idea) that Jesus was a god who was superior to the Sabbath.

[Secret Alias]

And clearly Justin (Tertullian's source) has some different ideas about the original context of the Sabbath discussion. He (as a Dosithean Samaritan) understands that from the beginning God demanded that the Israelites fast on the Sabbath. The discussion in the gospel then - according to Justin "the exemption from fasting" - or between the representatives of tradition religion (which uphold the demand for fasting on the Sabbath) and Jesus who annulled the rule while he was on earth (the Marcionites continued to abide by the fasting requirement once Jesus left the earth). Justin supposes that Jesus encouraging the feeding of the disciples on the Sabbath was thinking of "the precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into the temple and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves of the shewbread." I wouldn't be at all surprised if the original context of this story was the multiplication of loaves.

This is then followed by the more traditional statement that Jesus is action in feeding the disciples is consistent with him being the Creator because:

when the Creator forbade the gathering of two days' supply of manna, he allowed it only on the day before the sabbath, so that by having food prepared the day before he might make immune from fasting the holy day of the sabbath that followed. Well it is then that our Lord followed the same purpose in breaking down the sabbath—if that is what they want it called: well it is also that he gave effect to the Creator's intention by the privilege of not fasting on the sabbath.

The underlined word here I believe comes from either a later hand (either Irenaeus or Tertullian). The business about two days supply of manna is clearly making reference to the implication of Exodus 16 where it is evident that the Israelites must have eaten manna on the Sabbath again contradicting the apparent rule that fasting must be kept on the Sabbath:

They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat; but when the sun grew hot, it would melt. 22Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, 23then he said to them, "This is what the LORD meant: Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning." 24So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. 25Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 25Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 26"Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none." 27It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 28Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? 29"See, the LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the Sabbath.

In the gospel narrative though (whatever the original context was) - I strongly believe it was the multiplication of loaves - the feeding of the disciples occurs ONLY on the Sabbath. Thus there is a clear antithesis with story in Exodus 16.

If we follow my hunch that this discussion of the multiplication of loaves in Adv Marc 4:21 it is apparent that the author identified the feeding of the 5000 with the giving of manna in the wilderness:

If there is not the same impressiveness, then on this occasion he is inferior to the Creator, who not for one day but for forty years, not with earthly provisions of bread and fish, but with manna from heaven, prolonged the lives not of about five thousand, but of six hundred thousand men. Yet in this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following the ancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should not merely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephath by the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all the time of famine:a you have it in the third of Kingdoms. If you also turn to the fourth, you will find the whole of this activity of Christ in the case of that man of God to whom were brought ten loaves of barley: and when he had ordered them to be distributed to the people, and his servitor, comparing the number of the people and the smallness of the provision, had answered, What, should I set this before an hundred men ?, he replied, Give, and they shall eat, for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave remainders according to the word of the Lord.

Again in Adv Marc 4:26 the identification of the feeding in the gospel with the manna in the wilderness is made. But what is more interesting in the original reference cited above is that Marcion too must have made the connection between the two. Otherwise the antithesis doesn't make any sense.

And notice also that the discussion of the multiplication of loaves - one of the greatest miracles of Jesus - is extremely paltry in the present edition of Adv Marc. If - as I suggest - the narrative has been broken up to fit Luke (or perhaps better yet, broke so as to distract from the original discussion in Justin which reflects contact with Marcion and later Luke was remolded to fit the break up) the original question is clearly how can Jesus be feeding the 5000 on the Sabbath and Jesus responds that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. In other words, the Son of Man is superior to the god who stopped short of feeding on the seventh day. Now with the Son of Man the next step is taken. Manna appears on the seventh day.

But all of this helps explain why Irenaeus went to such lengths to add Justin's original reference to 1 Samuel 21 as a scriptural reference to every single canonical gospel. John explicitly contradicts the idea that the feedings happened on a Sabbath. But now we are beginning to see that it certainly did. This helps explain Justin's original statement that the feeding of 600,000 Israelites for 40 years proved that the Creator was superior to Jesus. Clearly the Marcionites were inferring that Jesus choosing the Sabbath to bring forward the heavenly manna demonstrated a higher sanctity to the act given that this was something that wasn't done the first time. Indeed the fact that Christians continue to eat the manna on the (Christian) Sabbath = Sunday shows some underlying preservation of the original (Marcionite) understanding.

Once the 'Lord even of the Sabbath' and the feeding being against the Law have been removed from the multiplication story there must still have been echoes of the connection of Jesus feeding on the Sabbath lingering in the community. A whole new 'pericope' was created to break the lingering association between feeding of the 5000 and the Sabbath. Of course the liturgy could still allude to the other narrative. But now the original antitheses of Jesus completing what had been forbidden in the Exodus (i.e. taking it to the next level) is gone. But something need to explain why Jesus was remembered to feed his disciples on the Sabbath. The 1 Samuel 21 'idea' of Justin came to the rescue for Irenaeus and the narratives were shaped.

One more interesting note. Another example of Adv Marc shaping Luke is to be found in the aforementioned Adv Marc 4.21 where Justin says:

Yet in this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following the ancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should not merely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephath by the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all the time of famine: you have it in the third of Kingdoms.

Interesting when Irenaeus was looking for blasphemous things to explain why the synagogue attendees were enraged at Jesus in Luke he borrowed again from Justin (who clearly in the aforementioned allusion is not citing Luke):

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Notice that the reference to Naaman is also found in Adv Marc with Justin referencing something in Marcion's gospel which appears in a completely different section in Luke:

Nor can he be supposed to have held in contempt that defilement which he had no ground for: nor for that matter to have destroyed the law, since he had escaped defilement through the good fortune of the phantasm and not by any display of power. But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansed no more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were all those many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christ was in some sense different, as though he were in this respect superior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper, whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse: because the Syrian was more easily cleansed as a sign throughout the gentiles of their cleansing in Christ the light of the gentiles, who were marked with those seven stains of capital sins, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, adultery, fornication, false witness, fraud. Therefore seven times over, as though once under each heading, did he wash in Jordan, both with intent to prophesy the purging of the whole seven, and because the force and fullness of one single washing was reserved for Christ alone, who was to make upon earth not only a determined wordc but also a determined washing. Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elisha needed a material help, and made use of water, seven times at that, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it, immediately put the healing into effect—as though I were not bold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of the Creator's property. In any and every object the primary author has the better claim to it. You regard it perhaps as incredible that the Creator's power should with a word have performed the healing of one single sickness, though that power did with a word produce at an instant this great fabric of the universe. How better may one discern the Christ of the Creator than by the power of his word? But perhaps he is another's Christ, because his action
is other than Elisha's, because any master is more powerful than his own servant. By what right, Marcion, do you rule that servants' activities are exactly like their masters' ? Are you not afraid of it turning to your discredit if you claim that Christ is not the Creator's, on the ground that he had greater powers than the Creator's servant, when it is evident that he is greater by comparison with Elisha's littleness—if indeed he is greater? For the
healing is the same, though the method of working is different. Has your Christ provided a greater gift than my Elisha gave? What indeed was that great effect of your Christ's word, which did just the same as the Creator's river had done?2 The rest of what he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoidance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned the observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to be followed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded.

This complicated passage IMO clearly reflects that Justin knew that Marcion's gospel has Jesus healing 10 lepers (Luke 17) only one turns back Jesus says show yourself to the priests (Luke 5). Within this original section of Marcion's gospel Jesus declares " And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian." This is another examples of the centonized state of the current gospels (i.e. a single line moved to a new place out of context for the purpose of giving the passage new context and meaning).

[Secret Alias]

And clearly Justin (Tertullian's source) has some different ideas about the original context of the Sabbath discussion. He (as a Dosithean Samaritan) understands that from the beginning God demanded that the Israelites fast on the Sabbath. The discussion in the gospel then - according to Justin "the exemption from fasting" - or between the representatives of tradition religion (which uphold the demand for fasting on the Sabbath) and Jesus who annulled the rule while he was on earth (the Marcionites continued to abide by the fasting requirement once Jesus left the earth). Justin supposes that Jesus encouraging the feeding of the disciples on the Sabbath was thinking of "the precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into the temple and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves of the shewbread." I wouldn't be at all surprised if the original context of this story was the multiplication of loaves.

This is then followed by the more traditional statement that Jesus is action in feeding the disciples is consistent with him being the Creator because:

when the Creator forbade the gathering of two days' supply of manna, he allowed it only on the day before the sabbath, so that by having food prepared the day before he might make immune from fasting the holy day of the sabbath that followed. Well it is then that our Lord followed the same purpose in breaking down the sabbath—if that is what they want it called: well it is also that he gave effect to the Creator's intention by the privilege of not fasting on the sabbath.

The underlined word here I believe comes from either a later hand (either Irenaeus or Tertullian). The business about two days supply of manna is clearly making reference to the implication of Exodus 16 where it is evident that the Israelites must have eaten manna on the Sabbath again contradicting the apparent rule that fasting must be kept on the Sabbath:

They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat; but when the sun grew hot, it would melt. 22Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, 23then he said to them, "This is what the LORD meant: Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning." 24So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. 25Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 25Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 26"Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none." 27It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 28Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? 29"See, the LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the Sabbath.

In the gospel narrative though (whatever the original context was) - I strongly believe it was the multiplication of loaves - the feeding of the disciples occurs ONLY on the Sabbath. Thus there is a clear antithesis with story in Exodus 16.

If we follow my hunch that this discussion of the multiplication of loaves in Adv Marc 4:21 it is apparent that the author identified the feeding of the 5000 with the giving of manna in the wilderness:

If there is not the same impressiveness, then on this occasion he is inferior to the Creator, who not for one day but for forty years, not with earthly provisions of bread and fish, but with manna from heaven, prolonged the lives not of about five thousand, but of six hundred thousand men. Yet in this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following the ancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should not merely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephath by the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all the time of famine:a you have it in the third of Kingdoms. If you also turn to the fourth, you will find the whole of this activity of Christ in the case of that man of God to whom were brought ten loaves of barley: and when he had ordered them to be distributed to the people, and his servitor, comparing the number of the people and the smallness of the provision, had answered, What, should I set this before an hundred men ?, he replied, Give, and they shall eat, for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave remainders according to the word of the Lord.

Again in Adv Marc 4:26 the identification of the feeding in the gospel with the manna in the wilderness is made. But what is more interesting in the original reference cited above is that Marcion too must have made the connection between the two. Otherwise the antithesis doesn't make any sense.

And notice also that the discussion of the multiplication of loaves - one of the greatest miracles of Jesus - is extremely paltry in the present edition of Adv Marc. If - as I suggest - the narrative has been broken up to fit Luke (or perhaps better yet, broke so as to distract from the original discussion in Justin which reflects contact with Marcion and later Luke was remolded to fit the break up) the original question is clearly how can Jesus be feeding the 5000 on the Sabbath and Jesus responds that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. In other words, the Son of Man is superior to the god who stopped short of feeding on the seventh day. Now with the Son of Man the next step is taken. Manna appears on the seventh day.

But all of this helps explain why Irenaeus went to such lengths to add Justin's original reference to 1 Samuel 21 as a scriptural reference to every single canonical gospel. John explicitly contradicts the idea that the feedings happened on a Sabbath. But now we are beginning to see that it certainly did. This helps explain Justin's original statement that the feeding of 600,000 Israelites for 40 years proved that the Creator was superior to Jesus. Clearly the Marcionites were inferring that Jesus choosing the Sabbath to bring forward the heavenly manna demonstrated a higher sanctity to the act given that this was something that wasn't done the first time. Indeed the fact that Christians continue to eat the manna on the (Christian) Sabbath = Sunday shows some underlying preservation of the original (Marcionite) understanding.

Once the 'Lord even of the Sabbath' and the feeding being against the Law have been removed from the multiplication story there must still have been echoes of the connection of Jesus feeding on the Sabbath lingering in the community. A whole new 'pericope' was created to break the lingering association between feeding of the 5000 and the Sabbath. Of course the liturgy could still allude to the other narrative. But now the original antitheses of Jesus completing what had been forbidden in the Exodus (i.e. taking it to the next level) is gone. But something need to explain why Jesus was remembered to feed his disciples on the Sabbath. The 1 Samuel 21 'idea' of Justin came to the rescue for Irenaeus and the narratives were shaped.

One more interesting note. Another example of Adv Marc shaping Luke is to be found in the aforementioned Adv Marc 4.21 where Justin says:

Yet in this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following the ancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should not merely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephath by the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all the time of famine: you have it in the third of Kingdoms.

Interesting when Irenaeus was looking for blasphemous things to explain why the synagogue attendees were enraged at Jesus in Luke he borrowed again from Justin (who clearly in the aforementioned allusion is not citing Luke):

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Notice that the reference to Naaman is also found in Adv Marc with Justin referencing something in Marcion's gospel which appears in a completely different section in Luke:

Nor can he be supposed to have held in contempt that defilement which he had no ground for: nor for that matter to have destroyed the law, since he had escaped defilement through the good fortune of the phantasm and not by any display of power. But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansed no more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were all those many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christ was in some sense different, as though he were in this respect superior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper, whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse: because the Syrian was more easily cleansed as a sign throughout the gentiles of their cleansing in Christ the light of the gentiles, who were marked with those seven stains of capital sins, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, adultery, fornication, false witness, fraud. Therefore seven times over, as though once under each heading, did he wash in Jordan, both with intent to prophesy the purging of the whole seven, and because the force and fullness of one single washing was reserved for Christ alone, who was to make upon earth not only a determined wordc but also a determined washing. Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elisha needed a material help, and made use of water, seven times at that, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it, immediately put the healing into effect—as though I were not bold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of the Creator's property. In any and every object the primary author has the better claim to it. You regard it perhaps as incredible that the Creator's power should with a word have performed the healing of one single sickness, though that power did with a word produce at an instant this great fabric of the universe. How better may one discern the Christ of the Creator than by the power of his word? But perhaps he is another's Christ, because his action
is other than Elisha's, because any master is more powerful than his own servant. By what right, Marcion, do you rule that servants' activities are exactly like their masters' ? Are you not afraid of it turning to your discredit if you claim that Christ is not the Creator's, on the ground that he had greater powers than the Creator's servant, when it is evident that he is greater by comparison with Elisha's littleness—if indeed he is greater? For the
healing is the same, though the method of working is different. Has your Christ provided a greater gift than my Elisha gave? What indeed was that great effect of your Christ's word, which did just the same as the Creator's river had done?2 The rest of what he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoidance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned the observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to be followed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded.

This complicated passage IMO clearly reflects that Justin knew that Marcion's gospel has Jesus healing 10 lepers (Luke 17) only one turns back Jesus says show yourself to the priests (Luke 5). Within this original section of Marcion's gospel Jesus declares " And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian." This is another examples of the centonized state of the current gospels (i.e. a single line moved to a new place out of context for the purpose of giving the passage new context and meaning).

[Secret Alias]

So I keep coming back to the idea that:

1. there was a 'gospel of Marcion' which seemed to argue that 'something better than the Creator and his original revelation' had come to the world with Jesus
2. Justin wrote a commentary which MAY have criticized the conclusions the heretics drew from this gospel (I am still not sure of this)
3. but more importantly Justin argued consistently made the argument for parallels between the gospel and the Jewish scriptures

Justin seemed to do this (= find scriptural parallels for the gospel, argued for the 'harmony' of the gospel and the scriptures) better than anyone else. These parallels weren't original 'in' the gospel. But someone (like Irenaeus) ENHANCED the harmony by taking Justin's arguments FOR HARMONY and literally making them stronger by adding them to the gospel or help shape the gospel in such a way that Justin's points BECAME ENHANCED by their re-placement in newly crafted narratives (accomplished through breaking up old narratives).

What kind of a person was Irenaeus? He seems to have very little original thought at all. He seems to like the idea that Justin argued openly and persuasively for Jesus being the Creator (= the god of the Jews) and thus advance a single rule(r) in the cosmos. I am not sure that Irenaeus even needs to have been a Christian. Indeed what kind of Christian would have taken the holiest book of the tradition and subjected it to such re-writing. Could Irenaeus simply have been a pagan philosopher commissioned to 'harmonize' Justin and Marcion?

[Secret Alias]

Let's go back and start at the beginning. When is Tertullian's Adv Marc citing the gospel, when is it possible the author is providing the information out of his own imagination or supplementary resources or claims? The first reference is interesting:

Anno quintodecimo principatus Tiberiani proponit descendisse in civitatem Galilaeae Capharnaum, utique de caelo creatoris, in quod de suo ante descenderat.

This is translated in such a way by Holmes which makes it sound as if 'the fifteenth of Tiberius' is something found in a written gospel:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius (for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum," of course meaning from the heaven of the Creator, to which he had previously descended from his own.

Evans:

Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own.

I would render it closer to "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius he proposes "he came (or 'God came') down to the Galilean city of Capernaum," of course meaning from the heaven of the Creator, to which he had previously descended from his own." The point of dispute (and the discussion) is not the 'fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius' - this is an assertion of the author.

The real point of discussion and controversy is what follows the proponit - i.e. the question of what heaven Christ came from (viz. that of the Creator or a superior God. So we read immediately afterward:

In the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he proposes he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own. Did not then due order demand that it should first be explained how he came down from his own heaven into the Creator's? For why should I not pass censure on such matters as do not satisfy the claims of orderly narrative, <but let it> always tail off in falsehood? So let us ask once for all a question I have already discussed elsewhere, whether, while coming down through the Creator's territory and
in opposition to him, he could have expected the Creator to let him in, and allow him to pass on from thence into the earth, which no less is the Creator's. Next however, admitting that he came down, I demand to know the rest of the order of that descent. It is no matter if somewhere the word 'appeared' is used. 'Appear' suggests a sudden and unexpected sight, <by one> who at some instant has cast his eyes on a thing which has at that instant appeared.

Leaving aside where exactly 'appear' appears in the Lukan narrative (I don't see it) the important thing to see is that the descent from heaven is what Marcion 'sets forth' in his gospel not necessarily the 'fifteenth year' business. We are talking then about a Marcionite gospel that 'sets forth' a heavenly descent and Justin says this is the heaven of the Creator. This is the discussion that follows.

In a parallel manner in Adv Marc 4.26.9 proponit only pertains to what follows it:

Itaque interroganti Petro in illos an et in omnes parabolam dixisset, ad ipsos et ad universos qui ecclesiis praefuturi essent proponit actorum similitudinem, quorum qui bene tractaverit conservos absentia domini reverso eo omnibus bonis praeponetur

When, therefore, Peter asked whether He had spoken the parable "unto them, or even to all,"1197 He sets forth for them, and for all who should bear rule in the churches, the similitude of stewards. , of whom the one who in his lord's absence has treated his fellow servants well will on his return be
put in charge of all his goods

[Secret Alias]

I wonder whether it is even Marcion who 'sets forth' that God descended from heaven or Jesus himself in the gospel. It would seem propono is almost exclusively used in conjunction with things said by Jesus.

How, moreover, does it happen that he proposed the similitude of a physician, if he did not verify it? (Adv Marc 4.11.3)

Nor in Christ do we even find any novel form of discourse. Whether He proposes similitudes or refute questions, it comes from the seventy-seventh Psalm. "I will open," says He, "my mouth in a parable" (that is, in a similitude); "I will utter dark problems" (that is, I will set forth questions).371 If you should wish to prove that a man belonged to another race, no doubt you would fetch your proof from the idiom of his language. (ibid 4.11.12)

How does he propose to invest his followers with a name which he has already erased? (Adv Marc 4.17.4)

It will thus become more fully evident that His object was not the abolition of the Mosaic ordinance by any suddenly devised proposal of divorce; because it was not suddenly proposed, but had its root in the previously mentioned John. (Adv Marc 4.34.8)

[Charles Wilson]

And clearly Justin (Tertullian's source) has some different ideas about the original context of the Sabbath discussion. He (as a Dosithean Samaritan) understands that from the beginning God demanded that the Israelites fast on the Sabbath. The discussion in the gospel then - according to Justin "the exemption from fasting" - or between the representatives of tradition religion (which uphold the demand for fasting on the Sabbath) and Jesus who annulled the rule while he was on earth (the Marcionites continued to abide by the fasting requirement once Jesus left the earth). Justin supposes that Jesus encouraging the feeding of the disciples on the Sabbath was thinking of "the precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into the temple and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves of the shewbread." I wouldn't be at all surprised if the original context of this story was the multiplication of loaves.

Very, very nice stuff, SA.

This may be tangential but this seems to be an argument that had importance to the "Fasting Arguments" that were of different TYPE to the Judaic thinkers:

http://www.franknelte.net/article.php?article_id=42

CW