Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

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lsayre
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by lsayre »

DCHindley wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:36 pm If Marcion saw the matter as a philosophical issue (like Plato did) these three entities would be Marcion's "principals" (beings that are top shelf gods):
1) The Good (the God preached by Jesus),
2) the Just (the God who gave the Law and chose Judeans for his special people), and
3) Matter (originally neutral, but which is sometimes later on called Evil).

In Platonism, the principals are:
1) The One, from which all governing entities are emitted.
2) The Creator (Craftsman), always there and does not do anything other than fashion useful things using pre-existing/eternal patterns.
3) Matter (neutral unformed matter, without any inherently evil attributes), which forms the raw material out of which all physical things are fashioned by the Craftsman.

DCH
Did either Plato or Neo-Platonism offer an explanation for the presence of evil?

At the beginning of 'DofA' Megathius proclaims: "I declare there are three principles: One God, the Father of Christ, the Good - and another the Creator, and [another] the third, Evil. And indeed the Good God is neither the Creator or the Evil one, nor the dispensator, nor here is the founder of this world. An Alien in fact is he from all wickedness and all the creation. And thus I will show what he does hold."
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DCHindley
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by DCHindley »

lsayre wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:58 am
DCHindley wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:36 pm In Platonism, the principals are:
1) The One, from which all governing entities are emitted.
2) The Creator (Craftsman), always there and does not do anything other than fashion useful things using pre-existing/eternal patterns.
3) Matter (neutral unformed matter, without any inherently evil attributes), which forms the raw material out of which all physical things are fashioned by the Craftsman.
Did either Plato or Neo-Platonism offer an explanation for the presence of evil?

At the beginning of 'DofA' Megathius proclaims: "I declare there are three principles: One God, the Father of Christ, the Good - and another the Creator, and [another] the third, Evil. And indeed the Good God is neither the Creator or the Evil one, nor the dispensator, nor here is the founder of this world. An Alien in fact is he from all wickedness and all the creation. And thus I will show what he does hold."
My understanding is that they acknowledged it as a necessary byproduct of the formatting/shaping of divine primordial matter by the divine craftsman. I understand that late into the Middle-Platonic period and perhaps into the Neo-Platonic eras (about 200 CE) period, some Platonists were starting to lean in the direction of calling matter "evil." I don't believe this was the prevailing view, but a dissenting one.

DCH
Secret Alias
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by Secret Alias »

An example of how difficult it is to distinguish "Christian" writings on matter and Platonic ones is found in Eusebius' s citation of On Matter by a certain "Maximus."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
andrewcriddle
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Re: Antithesis: What do we know of Marcion's 'Antithesis'?

Post by andrewcriddle »

DCHindley wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:10 pm
lsayre wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:58 am

Did either Plato or Neo-Platonism offer an explanation for the presence of evil?

At the beginning of 'DofA' Megathius proclaims: "I declare there are three principles: One God, the Father of Christ, the Good - and another the Creator, and [another] the third, Evil. And indeed the Good God is neither the Creator or the Evil one, nor the dispensator, nor here is the founder of this world. An Alien in fact is he from all wickedness and all the creation. And thus I will show what he does hold."
My understanding is that they acknowledged it as a necessary byproduct of the formatting/shaping of divine primordial matter by the divine craftsman. I understand that late into the Middle-Platonic period and perhaps into the Neo-Platonic eras (about 200 CE) period, some Platonists were starting to lean in the direction of calling matter "evil." I don't believe this was the prevailing view, but a dissenting one.

DCH
Some Middle Platonists identified matter as the source of evil.

Neo-Platonism moved away from this idea which is entirely absent in late Neo-Platonists such as Proclus.

Andrew Criddle
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