On the Marcionite hate against the Jewish God

[Secret Alias]

A middle way of compromise would be:

the Jewish God is simply not loved by Marcion.

Are you saying the Marcionites didn't love Jesus/Isu?

[Secret Alias]

When Tertullian says:

they had been in any error on the subject of God the Creator, or of his Christ. [Adv Marc 1.4]

Are you saying that the Marcionites only denied the Father was the Creator, that Jesus was the Father, that 'Christ' was the Father, that Christ = Jesus? Which is the proper denial here? Do you at least begin to see that there is a proposition being put forward by Tertullian:

the Creator + his Christ

sets up the reaction which follows:

i.e. that the Marcionites 'deny' that Christ was the subordinate of the Creator

what they actually believed however isn't clear. It could be:

1. Christ was the Almighty 'Father' and Jesus the subordinate god (= the Creator)
2. Jesus and the Almighty 'Father' were one (= monarchianism/Patripassianism)
3. Jesus and the Father one one and Christ was someone else

I happen to believe (1) but the point is that it isn't clear.

[Secret Alias]

Another thing Tertullian says:

that he directs to the one purpose of setting up opposition between the Old Testament and the New, and thereby putting his Christ in separation from the Creator, as belonging to another god (proinde Christum suum a creatore separatum, ut dei alterius), and having no connection with the law and the prophets. [Adv Marc 1.6]

The Latin is:

Certe enim totum quod elaboravit etiam Antitheses praestruendo in hoc cogit, ut veteris et novi testamenti diversitatem constituat,1 proinde Christum suum a creatore separatum, ut dei alterius, ut alienum legis et prophetarum

Holmes translates it as:

that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.

But I find it curious that "ut dei alterius" has nothing resembling 'belonging.' The sentence is more properly rendered:

... so that (he is) another god

The point is that the argument is something to the effect that one god gave the new dispensation (Knox writes at length about the change in meaning from διαθήκη to testamentum) the other god gave the old. Who was the old god? The god at Sinai = Ishu. The voice in the heaven isn't seen by the Israelites. Moses is the 'man of God' because he takes on the form of Ishu = His (God's) Man.

Now look at Christianity. When is the new διαθήκη established? Does it begin anywhere in the gospel? Not if you think that Jesus's crucifixion, death and resurrection are part of the new διαθήκη. Necessarily then the god of the new διαθήκη is Christ (as opposed to Ishu/Yahweh the 'man of war' seen at Sinai). Christ spoke through Paul. Christ is necessarily the superior Father.

[Secret Alias]

So the point would be for me that the author objects to the two powers proposition (i.e. there is no other god besides the Creator). The same god seen at Sinai was Jesus (that much the Marcionites would agree I propose) and the same god who established the New Covenant/Testament. But Jesus didn't write anything. How did Jesus establish the New Testament (novi testamenti)? To a Marcionite it means Paul speaking on behalf of the Almighty Father (= Christ). They would have agreed on Jesus being there at Sinai. They would have disagreed with regards to the identity of Christ being = Jesus.

[Peter Kirby]

But wait, there's more...

OK, this helps to clarify. The quote does not come from Democritus at all. It originates from Apion and is paraphrased by Josephus in Contra Apion:

No, that's not a justified conclusion.

This is the reference (footnote 8):

Reinach, Nos. 60, 61, p. 121; Josephus, Against Apion, II, 8.

Here are those references in Reinach.

https://archive.org/stream/textesdauteu ... 0/mode/2up



https://archive.org/stream/textesdauteu ... 2/mode/2up



Here's Mueller.

https://archive.org/stream/fragmentahis ... 6/mode/2up







Google translate of Reinach's French:

Democritus, historian. Books: Tactics in two books; Of the Jews in this book he said they worshiped a donkey head in gold, and every seven years they captured a foreigner, led him (in their temple) and sacrificed by cutting his flesh in small pieces.

Google translate of Mueller's Latin:

Democritus, the historian, he wrote two books on tactics, and also of the Jews, in which the head of an ass, the golden works give them over to worship, offer sacrifices, and to kill, and in the seventh year, which was taken by a stranger, his flesh, finely grinded.

PS -- this is not the famous philosopher Democritus. The Jewish Encyclopedia has this to say:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... accusation

Similar in import is the following statement of a certain Democritus, which the Greek lexicographer Suidas (tenth century) has preserved: "Every seven years the Jews catch a stranger, whom they offer as a sacrifice, killing him by tearing his flesh into shreds" (0151τι κατὰ έπταετίαν ξένων άγρεόοντες προσέφερον καί κατὰ λεπτὰ τὰς σάρκας διέξαινον καί οὓτως ἀνῄρουν). Nothing further is known of Democritus. Perhaps he drew his information from Apion's book.

Others assign the historian Democritus to the 1st century BCE, which (if true) would mean that he wouldn't be dependent on Josephus.

[Blood]

Now I'm really confused. The Democritus who wrote Maxims was the 5th Century Pre-Socratic atomist philosopher. Only fragments survive.

Josephus's Contra Apion makes no mention of Democritus.

[Peter Kirby]

Now I'm really confused. The Democritus who wrote Maxims was the 5th Century Pre-Socratic atomist philosopher.

Yeah, that Democritus probably has nothing to do with it.

And "Maxims" also has nothing to do with it; it is a false identification (by sloppy modern scribblers).

The 10th century Suda refers to Democritus "the historian" who wrote a book called On the Jews (and also On Tactics).

Quotes and sources given above. What's confusing?

[Blood]

I've got it now. I think.

The OP attributed the quote to Democritus, the pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th Century, and his lost book Maxims.

This is incorrect. The quote is actually some later character also named Democritus, in a lost book called "On the Jews." We only know about this attribution because the 10th century Suda refers to it.

The same story of human sacrifice appears in Josephus, Contra Apion, Book Two, but that book makes no reference to either of the Democrituses. Josephus is apparently quoting Apion, who may be quoting Democritus "the historian," but if so, it isn't cited by Apion or Josephus.

So, to bring it back around to the OP, no "blood libel" was known to exist to pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. The "blood libel" legend can be definitively traced only to the First Century CE via Apion and Josephus, who may be drawing on a slightly earlier Greek writer named Democritus.

[Peter Kirby]

I've got it now. I think.

The OP attributed the quote to Democritus, the pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th Century, and his lost book Maxims.

This is incorrect. The quote is actually some later character also named Democritus, in a lost book called "On the Jews." We only know about this attribution because the 10th century Suda refers to it.

The same story of human sacrifice appears in Josephus, Contra Apion, Book Two, but that book makes no reference to either of the Democrituses. Josephus is apparently quoting Apion, who may be quoting Democritus "the historian," but if so, it isn't cited by Apion or Josephus.

So, to bring it back around to the OP, no "blood libel" was known to exist to pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. The "blood libel" legend can be definitively traced only to the First Century CE via Apion and Josephus, who may be drawing on a slightly earlier Greek writer named Democritus.

Yes, that's right.

[Giuseppe]

I want to know what is my personal quasi ''pathological'' problem with the identity ''(First) Gospel Jesus = the Jewish God'' . The paradox is that I am really disturbed from this view (more than all the possible offensive language coming from SA) without to know really why. My instinct seems to reject a priori the idea.

I list here my first problem with the idea:

The Gospel Jesus seems to be (if meant as the Jewish God in need of a conversion to a superior God in the first Gospel) a kind of a Hamletic figure, in the sense of : undecided; hesitating; uncertain; vacillating.
The risk is seeing the first Gospel as a real comedy, more than a tragedy: and this is 0% unexpected.

It is very disturbing, in my eyes, the idea that a god (in precedence, a warrior god) wants to humiliate himself so much as to appear not as an innocent man who humbles himself (the Philippians hymn), but as a repentant sinner who humbles himself.
There is no farce, no real embarrassment with the idea that an innocent decides to humble himself. While I find it too embarrassing, really beyond measure, an embarrassment not able of being overcomed, the idea that a god wants to seem as one sinner who decides to humble himself on the earth by ending crucified by his same adorers. This remembers me more the farce of the Greek mythology, where a Zeus is a sinner and asks excuse to his wife Hera by doing some penitence. This remembers me more the 12 labours of Hercules, someone (not surely a saint but a real sinner!) who decides to humble himself by doing the 12 labours.

It seems that to propose something of this kind (Jesus as YHWH repentant sinner) in a not-farcical way you need building very much ''psychological introspection'' about the Gospel Jesus, something that in ancient times was not done with any other character. ''Psychological introspection'' means to doubt about the presumed deity of Jesus=YHWH. A god who doubts about himself is not a god, is really very much embarrassing. A god by definition doesn't doubt but knows what he is doing: in Gethsemani Jesus prays by knowing very well his future. The despair of Jesus on Gethsemane is just a literary device to introduce the possibility of a Jesus who is not crucified: Barabbas.

See the conversion of Paul: all that that pseudo-Luke could say in Acts about that conversion is described only in a single episode: no ''psychological introspection''. So also for the conversion of Pilate in the Acta Pilati, I think (without reading it). You don't need the writign of an entire Gospel to describe the conversion of a god. To do so means to have the modern means, unthinkable at the time.