Markus Vinzent on 'Marcion the Jew'

[Blood]

Well but what do you know about Marcion? No insult intended but to read this compared with what has previously been written about Marcion is like day and night.

The point isn't that every page of the writings against Marcion make Marcion's Jewishness explicit. Rather there are a number of references (Vinzent has only scratched the surface) which make Marcion's Jewishness clear.

Again, I recommend you actually look at the references cited by Vinzent in their original context and then like Alan Segal compare the critique of Tertullian (and Irenaeus) against the Marcionites with that of the rabbanites against the heretics who promote the two powers in heaven doctrine (so called by Segal). Then take note that Against Marcion III is a reworking of large sections of Against the Jews (or is it the other way around?). Then read Eznik of Kolb's allusion to the preference of the Marcionites for the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch over the LXX. Then look at De Recta in Deum Fide's reference to the Marcionite interest in the year 6000 from creation (apparently related in some way to the beginning of the gospel). Then notice Tertullian's statement in Book Two that Moses was greater than his god (once again a depreciation of the Jewish 'Lord' as opposed to the hero of the Jews). Then reflect upon Heschel's observation that the gospel's criticism of divorce is connected with the established opinion of the minim that Moses gave out commandments on his own authority and that only the ten commandments were from God. Similarly the parallels with Aquila (and alternatively Agrippa) with respect to circumcision being unnecessary owing to it not being included into the ten commandments. Then observe that Irenaeus and later authorities consistently criticize Marcion for dividing the godhead into powers of mercy and judgment (as did the early Jews like Philo and the rabbinic authorities). Similarly read Ephrem's rejection of the Marcionite understanding of the mountain of the transfiguration being associated with Moses and other patriarchs and being connected to the highest mountain (as Gerizim is understood to be among the Samaritans).

The list goes on and on. Not one piece of evidence on its own demonstrates the proposition that the Marcionites were 'Jews' in itself. Nevertheless when taken as a whole there seems to be a sense that Marcionitism developed directly from some sort of Jewish tradition which:

1. understood there to be two powers in heaven
2. which understood Elohim to be superior (or a god of the elect) when compared with Yahweh (see Clement and Philo's interpretation of Jacob's experience at Bethel).
3. which understood Moses to have gained his authority from Yahweh (but perhaps in the distant past developed from magical practices and thus 'control' over the divinity) however because of Yahweh's inferiority when compared to Elohim's merciful goodness, the argument seems to be that Jesus was the superior 'heavenly man' to Moses, (his heavenly twin?)

Beyond this I don't have any definitive ideas about what this Jewish sectarian tradition looked like. I change my mind from day to day. But I do think there is a discernable core to this 'Jewish' Marcionitism which really amounts to radical Philonic Judaism (if such a thing can be imagined).

You didn't even address the main point of my contention.

[stephan happy huller]

Here is the missing page 172 http://www.scribd.com/doc/197014116/Marcion-the-Jew-4

Blood, I don't know what you want me to say. You have a problem with Vinzent's writing style or the way he crafted his argument to give it broader significance other than 'Marcionite studies' I guess. Well, so be it. What was said in the article had to be said and if he just limited himself to a 'niche market' it would have a limited audience. On the other hand, you acknowledge that the 'rediscovery' of Jesus the Jew coincided with 'guilt' (not sure if you used the term explicitly) over the Holocaust. Well, that would tend to reinforce Vinzent's main point wouldn't it? So what you are saying is that you agree that it is probable that Marcion's 'Jewishness' may have been under estimated but you don't like it. Ok. Maybe you just don't like Jews (I think it is more probable that you don't like the rediscovery of any kind of 'Jewishness' because it gets in the way of attempts to reconstruct a 'completely mythical' Jesus and a total mythical gospel narrative - which I think is your interest from previous encounters with you). Again so be it.

I have noticed that the 'rediscovery' of Paul's Jewishness is apparently the big thing in scholarship right now. Not surprising that Marcion's rediscovery would happen after Jesus and after Paul.

[stephan happy huller]

If we actually come to understand the core idea shared by Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and the rest of the 'gang' at the beginning of Christianity as we know it (c. 180 - 200 CE) we start to see how it goes back to understanding - explicit in Philo - of two 'men' at the beginning of creation. As Genesis notes there are two men - one after the image (= Adam) and another 'after the likeness' (= ?). All of Christian theology develops from the idea that when Adam left Paradise he lost touch with the man after the likeness. John Behr (an Orthodox seminarian) in his Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement concludes his chapter on Irenaeus with an important discussion that helps us reorient how Marcion must have 'reconnected' back to first century Judaism (= Philo). He writes:

Having looked at Irenaeus's protology, the formation of man and woman and the character of their existence in Paradise, we can now turn to the final category of Irenaeus's theological anthropology, the notion of 'likeness' (óμοíωσις). So far we have come across this term only once, in AH 5. 6. 1, where, in distinction to the image, located in the flesh, the likeness was said to be 'through the Spirit'. Irenaeus's most characteristic statement about the 'likeness' is that while man, lost it in Adam, he has regained it in Christ. The most detailed and important text is AH 5. 16. 2:

For in times long past, it was said man was made in the image of God, but it was not shown [to be so]; for the Word was as yet invisible, after whose image man was created, and because of this he easily lost the likeness. When, however, the Word of God became flesh, He confirmed both these: for He both showed forth the image truly, Himself becoming that which was His image; and He re-established the similitude in a sure manner, by co-assimilating man to the invisible Father through the Word. (AH 5.16.2)

This text demonstrates what we have seen concerning the uniqueness of the manifestation of God in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, at the same time both God and man. The Word becoming incarnate, becoming himself the image, truly demonstrated what the image of God is: that is, the reality of man as the image of God. According to this passage, it was because this fact had previously been only asserted,77 and not seen, that man lost the likeness easily. But Christ, being himself God made visible, 'the visible of the invisible Father' (AH 4. 6. 6), assimilates, in himself, man to the invisible Father, thus re-establishing the likeness in a steadfast manner. What is this likeness, then, that man lost in Adam and regained, in a sure manner, in Christ? Although in AH 5. 6. 1, it is said to be 'through the Spirit', it cannot simply be, as Fantino suggests, the presence of the Spirit, for, as we have seen, the Spirit is present with creation throughout the unfolding of the economy; nor can it be the gift of the Spirit as it is received in baptism and adoption, for this was made possible only in Christ. That which Adam lost in the apostasy was the strength of the breath of life, which would have kept Adam immortal, and his 'natural and childlike mind' or the 'robe of holiness from the Spirit', and both these are the expressions or results of man seeing God through the creation, recognizing the fact that he is created and therefore dependent upon his Creator, an attitude of thankfulness and obedience. It is this recognition and disposition that enables man to live, whether animated by the breath of life or vivified directly by the life creating Spirit. The truly living man is the glory of God, and this is the one who was fashioned in the image and likeness of God. Having lost the strength of the breath, mans life is now mortal. But in Christ man has been given the possibility of living by seeing the Father, by receiving, as an adopted son, a pledge of the Spirit which prepares him to be fully vivified by the Spirit in a permanent fashion, thus rendering the likeness secure. http://books.google.com/books?id=rnEgkO ... 22&f=false

Irenaeus may have reorganized the canon. That must can be conceded. But he couldn't have completely transformed contemporary theology. Believers must have already had a sense of what was expected from them no less than a basic sense of the gospel narrative. To this end, it should not be surprising that the 'two men' theology (as I will suggest - at the heart of the Marcionite 'antitheses' i.e. Corinthians 15:38 - 53) one being Adam the other being Christ presupposes however that Jesus was somehow present in Genesis 1 - 2.

[andrewcriddle]

Markus Vinzent's main point is that Marcion (unlike "orthodox" Christians) did not believe that Jews who rejected Christ were misunderstanding the Hebrew Scriptures. They were correctly understanding the Hebrew Scriptures but these Scriptures come from an inferior God.

This is probably broadly correct (and quite widely supported in modern scholarship). I am dubious whether it makes Marcion a Jew in any usual sense.

Andrew Criddle

[Blood]

Here is the missing page 172 http://www.scribd.com/doc/197014116/Marcion-the-Jew-4

Blood, I don't know what you want me to say. You have a problem with Vinzent's writing style or the way he crafted his argument to give it broader significance other than 'Marcionite studies' I guess. Well, so be it. What was said in the article had to be said and if he just limited himself to a 'niche market' it would have a limited audience. On the other hand, you acknowledge that the 'rediscovery' of Jesus the Jew coincided with 'guilt' (not sure if you used the term explicitly) over the Holocaust. Well, that would tend to reinforce Vinzent's main point wouldn't it? So what you are saying is that you agree that it is probable that Marcion's 'Jewishness' may have been under estimated but you don't like it. Ok. Maybe you just don't like Jews (I think it is more probable that you don't like the rediscovery of any kind of 'Jewishness' because it gets in the way of attempts to reconstruct a 'completely mythical' Jesus and a total mythical gospel narrative - which I think is your interest from previous encounters with you). Again so be it.

You can't be serious. This is such a gross misreading of my views that it doesn't deserve a response.

[Blood]

Thank God for the ignore function. Goodbye, Stephen.

[beowulf]

'rediscovery' of Jesus the Jew coincided with 'guilt' ... over the Holocaust.

This book was published in London in 1912 second edition (first edition in 1905, I think).
The author says that Jesus was a Jew that argued with men of his own race , who apparently were expecting someone to rescue them from their political abasement and raise them to a position of national supremacy.
.
William Gordon Holmes: The age of Justinian and Theodora.Vol.1, second edition.
London, G. Bell and Sons LTD. 1912, page 246

At that point of time a man, previously unknown among the Jews, assumed the role of a public teacher of religion and ethics... He preached a reformation of manners among the people generally, and rebuked with a penetrating bitterness the pride and hypocrisy of the chief men of his own race... Finally he declared himself to be the Messiah or Christ, a more than mortal being whom the Jews expected to rescue them from their political abasement and raise them to a position of national supremacy.

https://archive.org/details/ageofjustinianth01holmuoft

[stephan happy huller]

Andrew,

I agree that the evidence that can be assembled can only support the 'Jewishness' of Marcionitism not the 'Jewishness' per se of Marcion. But how could a non-Jew be the founder of a Jewish heresy? He was a proselyte? We're down to a proselyte or a Jew. So the article might better have been entitled 'the Jewishness of Marcion' rather than 'Marcion the Jew.' But who's going to quibble with absolute genius? Not me. As I said, I could furnish the dear professor with enough new information to support a second article.

I will say I am tired of all these people who insult 'scholarship' as such in the field of earliest Christianity. My two favorite scholars both happen to come from King's College (Vinzent and Brent). They are without a doubt among the best in their field. Maybe the problem is that there are two many mediocre scholars in America. I will put up a link for another brilliant European scholar later this evening. The problem as always is that there are two many stupid people in North America.

I think the new scholarship that is coming out now - especially in the field of Patristics - is quite amazing. Much better than before.

[stephan happy huller]

Goodbye, Stephen

Well if you are so careless as to consistently misspell my name when it is placed right in front of you, ignore might be the best thing. Goodbye blood ... or is it, Professor Kraft?

[Andrew]

The problem as always is that there are two many stupid people in North America.

At least there aren't three many.