On the parable of the rich man : Pharaoh

[Giuseppe]

So Marcion is identical to Luke, here:

13 And one out of the multitude said unto him,
Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
14 And he said unto him,
Man, who appointed me a judge or a divider over you?
15 And he said unto them,
Take heed, and guard yourselves from covetousness:
for not in a man's abundance consisteth his life out of his possessions.

Tertullian compares the answer given by Christ with the answer received by Moses:

But see how clear a difference there is between the example of Moses and of Christ.

(14) Moses voluntarily interferes with brothers(15) who were quarrelling, and chides the offender: "Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?" He is, however, rejected by him: "Who made thee a prince or a judge over us?"(16) Christ, on the contrary, when requested by a certain man to compose a strife between him and his brother about dividing an inheritance, refused His assistance, although in so honest a cause. Well, then, my Moses is better than your Christ, aiming as he did at the peace of brethren, and obviating their wrong. But of course the case must be different with Christ, for he is the Christ of the simply good and non-judicial god. "Who," says he, "made me a judge over you?"(17) No other word of excuse was he able to find,without using(1) that with which the wicked, man and impious brother had rejected(2) the defender of probity and piety! In short, he approved of the excuse, although a bad one, by his use of it; and of the act, although a bad one, by his refusal to make peace between brothers. Or rather, would He not show His resentment(3) at the rejection of Moses with such a word? And therefore did He not wish in a similar case of contentious brothers, to confound them with the recollection of so harsh a word? Clearly so. For He had Himself been present in Moses, who heard such a rejection--even He, the Spirit of the Creator.(4) I think that we have already, in another passage,(5) sufficiently shown that the glory of riches is condemned by our God, "who putteth down the mighty from their throne, and exalts the poor from the dunghill."

http://gnosis.org/library/marcion/Tert8.html



It is virtually impossible that the true author of this episode was one unaware of the following episode of Exodus 2:

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

Moses's reaction confirms that we have here a marcionite antithesis:

See easily the antithesis:

Marcionite Jesus	Moses
the people want him judge	he wants to be judge of the people
he rejects the title of judge	he is rejected as judge
denies the possessions of this life	fears for the his same life

Pharaoh was a rich and strong man. And Moses did fear him. Instead Jesus is denying the value of the riches.
Take heed, and guard yourselves from covetousness:
for not in a man's abundance consisteth his life out of his possessions.

Replace the Paharoh in the Gospel verse above and you will have an implicit direct attack against Moses, the same Giver of the Torah!!!

Jesus continues:

16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying,
The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
17 And he reasoned within himself, saying,
What shall I do, because I have not where to collect my fruits?
18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater;
and there will I collect all my fruits and my goods.
19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years;
take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
20 But God said unto him, Foolish one, this night they require thy soul from thee:
and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?
21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

So Tertullian:

(6) From Him, therefore, will proceed the parable of the rich man, who flattered himself about the increase of his fields, and to Whom God said: "Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?"(7) It was just in the like manner that the king Hezekiah heard from Isaiah the sad doom of his kingdom, when he gloried, before the envoys of Babylon,(8) in his treasures and the deposits of his precious things.(9)

Here Tertullian is adopting the same interpretation of Marcion of the parable of the rich man. The demiurge is the God who said:

"Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?"

But for Tertullian these words are full of sacred justice and confirmed in the divine answer to Hezekiah. Tertullian is OK with that. But so he didn't realize that it is precisely the way, by Marcion, to accuse the cruelty of the demiurge. The antithesis between Jesus and Moses is evident and probably continues in that same parable:

the Demiurge punished the Pharaoh and his army.

Even when the rich is immoral, it is not the Alien God to punish him, but only and always the Demiurge, the God of the Jews.

[Giuseppe]

See the clear Luke's interpolation:

21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

...to make a positive character that ''God''.

I am very sure that that last verse is not found in Marcion.