Did Proto-Catholics circumcise as per Marcionite Galatians?

[stephan happy huller]

The passage in question:

Refuted however on the vocation of the gentiles, you now turn back to proselytes. You ask who they are from among the gentiles, that are passing over to the Creator, when those specifically mentioned by the prophet are proselytes, of a different condition, separate, by themselves: Behold, Isaiah says, proselytes by me shall come near unto thee,a showing that even proselytes were to come to God through Christ. Also the gentiles, which we are, likewise had their own mention, as people that were hoping in Christ: And in his name, he says, shall the gentiles hope.b Proselytes however, whom you interpolate into the prophecy concerning the gentiles, do not as a rule hope in Christ's name, but in Moses' law, from which their instruction comes: whereas the promotion of the gentiles has come about in these last days.

[stephan happy huller]

Consider also the parallel in Justin's Dialogue with the Jew Trypho:

"Sir," said Trypho, "as I already remarked, you are very careful to keep close to the Scriptures in all your statements. But, tell me truthfully, do you really believe that this place Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and do you actually expect that you Christians will one day congregate there to live joyfully with Christ, together with the patriarchs, the prophets, the saints of our people and those who became proselytes before your Christ arrived? Or did you admit this only to win the argument ?"

"Trypho," I replied, "I am not such a wretch as to say one thing and to think another. I have declared to you earlier, that I, with many others, feel that such an event will take place. However, I did point out that there are many pure and pious Christians who do not share our opinion. Moreover, I also informed you that there are some who are Christians in name, but in reality are godless and impious heretics whose doctrines are entirely blasphemous, atheistic, and foolish. However, that you may be assured that I am not making this admission in your presence only, I promise to write up our whole debate in book form as well as I can, and in it I will insert the admission I just made to you, for I do not desire to be a follower of men and their teachings, but of God and His doctrines. If you have ever encountered any so-called Christians who do not admit this doctrine [of the millennium], but dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob by asserting that there is no resurrection of the dead, but that their souls are taken up to Heaven at the very moment of their death, do not consider them to be real Christians; just as one, after careful examination, would not acknowledge as Jews the Sadducees or the similar sects of the Genistae, Meristae, Galileans, Hellenians, and the Baptist Pharisees (please take no offense if I speak my mind), but would realize that they are Jews and children of Abraham in name only, paying lip service to God, while their hearts (as God Himself declared) are far from Him. But I and every other completely orthodox Christian feel certain that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, followed by a thousand years in the rebuilt, embellished, and enlarged city of Jerusalem, as was announced by the Prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and the others. [Dialogue 80]

[stephan happy huller]

The strange low estimation of proselytes in the Gospel of Nicodemus:

Then said certain of them that stood by, devout men of the Jews: We say not that he came of fornication; but we know that Joseph was betrothed unto Mary, and he was not born of fornication. Pilate saith unto those Jews which said that he came of fornication: This your saying is not true for there were espousals, as these also say which are of your nation. Annas and Caiaphas say unto Pilate: The whole multitude of us cry out that he was born of fornication, and we are not believed: but these are proselytes and disciples of his. And Pilate called Annas and Caiaphas unto him and said to them: What be proselytes? They say unto him: They were born children of Greeks, and now are they become Jews. Then said they which said l that he was not born of fornication, even Lazarus, Asterius, Antonius, Jacob, Amnes, Zenas, Samuel, Isaac, Phinees, Crispus, Agrippa and Judas: We were not born proselytes (are not Greeks, Copt.), but we are children of Jews and we speak the truth; for verily we were present at the espousals of Joseph and Mary. [Gospel of Nicodemus 4]

[stephan happy huller]

Notice also that Clement seems to think Paul - like the Marcionites - references the baptism of the proselytes:

And how shall one "judge" the apostate "angels," who has become himself an apostate from that forgetfulness of injuries, which is according to the Gospel? "Why do ye not rather suffer wrong?" he says; "why are ye not rather defrauded? Yea, ye do wrong and defraud," manifestly by praying against those who transgress in ignorance, and deprive of the philanthropy and goodness of God, as far as in you lies, those against whom you pray, "and these your brethren,"--not meaning those in the faith only, but also the proselytes. For whether he who now is hostile shall afterwards believe, we know not as yet. From which the conclusion follows clearly, if all are not yet brethren to us, they ought to be regarded in that light. And now it is only the man of knowledge who recognises all men to be the work of one God, and invested with one image in one nature, although some may be more turbid than others; and in the creatures he recognises the operation, by which again he adores the will of God. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"[5] He acts unrighteously who retaliates, whether by deed or word, or by the conception of a wish, which, after the training of the Law, the Gospel rejects. "And such were some of you"--such manifestly as those still are whom you do not forgive; "but ye are washed,"[6] not simply as the rest, but with knowledge; ye have cast off the passions of the soul, in order to become assimilated, as far as possible, to the goodness of God's providence by long-suffering, and by forgiveness "towards the just and the unjust," casting on them the gleam of benignity in word and deeds, as the sun.
[Stromata 7:14]

[stephan happy huller]

Vinzent has apparently taken the argument one step further and argued that Marcion was himself a proselyte http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduc ... 03548555-1:

I am showing in a forthcoming article in Judaisme antique (Brepols, 2013) - he himself being of Jewish proselyte background. Of course, I entirely agree with Judith Lieu that not only 'the possibility' existed, but that it is fact that 'some were unaware of Marcion, dismissed him as of no consequence, concentrated their interest or anxieties elsewhere, or carried on regardless' (560), yet, because of the centrality that Paul's letters and the Gospel narratives won in the decades after Marcion, and specifically with Irenaeus, 'Christianity' becomes the religion of the New (and also Old) Testament, a religion that conceptualizes itself as being distinct from Judaism (and Paganism), again, an idea - as I will show in another forthcoming monograph - which cannot be found before Marcion. So 'Pan-Marcionism' for the time after Marcion is not an invention of a paranoid scholar, but a possibility that needs to be reckoned with.

I suspect when I examine the article I will find many of the ideas developed at my blog incorporated into this article. Let's see.

[arnoldo]

It seems clear to me that the original of Galatians was a Marcionite tirade against circumcision and submission by Christians to obligations of Jewish Law.

Since Marcion's opponents in this epistle and in general were from the Proto-Catholic wing of Christianity, this would seem to imply that Proto-Catholics were practising circumcision.

Is this a reasonable conclusion, though, given that second-century apologists universally (?) described their creed as rejecting the obligations of Jewish Law? .

Also take into consideration that circumcision was legal only for jewish male children according to roman law in the second century.

11. Modestinus, Rules, Book VI.

By a Rescript of the Divine Pius, Jews are permitted to circumcise only their own children, and anyone who performs this operation upon persons of a different religion will incur the penalty for castration.

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2009 ... ur-slaves/