Antithesis (Clean thread)

[Secret Alias]

I am just saying that if you read the description of the 'antitheses' of Marcion in AM without having any knowledge of anything in early Christianity you'd swear that you had found them in Matthew's antitheses. They are so perfectly 'antithetical' that this is what they are called in scholarship - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5#Antitheses. I don't have a guiding belief that guides me through the evidence. I don't know that Mark is the first gospel, only that it is the oldest canonical gospel. I don't get distracted by - or perhaps more honestly - don't spend the time 'categorizing' my beliefs or suspicions which perhaps accounts for me often being misunderstood at the forum.

My point simply is that if you read Tertullian's description of the 'antitheses' of Marcion and then you read the 'antitheses' of Matthew you'd swear you'd found your match. That has to count for something. And I don't just mean what's in the sermon on the mount. The bit about "Moses said ... but (I say) ..." with respect to divorce is most antithetical in Matthew.

And then my additional consideration is - why are there 'antinomian antitheses' in a supposedly Jewish gospel? Any answer is necessarily speculative. But I am not the first to suggest that the Matthean antitheses are really Marcion's antitheses. Harnack was one - "The antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 provide the nearest parallel to these. [i.e. the Marcionite Antitheses] They could have inspired Marcion ... https://books.google.com/books?id=1ixKA ... ck&f=false" The reason Harnack says this is because it is obvious - Matthew provides exactly what Tertullian is suggesting in AM. Zahn was another. The difficulty is that once we trash the exclusively Luke claim for the Marcionite gospel we can't pontificate with any authority. Sort of like admitting you have a problem with erectile dysfunction on a date.

Again I am saying that the Matthean antitheses are the best answer to the identity of the Antitheses. I am not saying that we can be a hundred percent certain that this is what Tertullian - or Tertullian's source - meant by the terminology.

[Secret Alias]

Hare on Matthew p. 50:

The ghost of Marcion can be exorcized only by those who inform themselves concerning the rootedness of the New Testament in the Old. Matthew 5:17-20 reminds us of that rootedness. Six. Antitheses. (5:21-48). Before we examine the six antitheses individually, it is incumbent upon us to consider the role played by the passage as a whole. Although Mark and Luke contain parallels to some of the material, none of these are given in the antithetical form found in Matthew ("You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times . . . . But I say to you . . ."). Matthew intends in this section to present Jesus' interpretation of God's will in a way that contrasts it with previous understandings.

[Secret Alias]

It's worth noting that Clement's gospel has the clearest 'Marcionite' version of the Matthean Antitheses:

Jesus said "You have heard the injunction of the Law. ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ I say, ‘You shall not lust.’

This is IMHO ground zero for the Antitheses. This is EXACTLY how Marcion would have formulated the antitheses. This is what we should expect. What is this gospel Clement is citing? My guess is that it is VERY closely related to the Marcionite gospel.

[Secret Alias]

The thing I can't figure out - and have never figured out - is that Jesus is still invoking the ten commandments (the tenth commandment) in his response. He isn't positing an entirely new commandment at first glance. Instead he is saying 'only listen to the tenth commandment' which is very odd. In what sense is the commandment of Jesus 'antinomian' when he is still citing the 10th commandment (9th for the Samaritans)? I can't figure out IN WHAT SENSE this is an antithesis. There is a long history of the mystical significance of the tenth which was evidenced in certain Christian sects and passed from Judaism to Islam - http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/asura

[Secret Alias]

Note that Jesus's citation of the tenth commandment is identical with Philo's https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ee86/5 ... 9d5fcc.pdf

Philo abbreviates the Septuagint version, which lists various aims of desire: a neighbor's wife, house, field, etc.28 Although he never explains or justifies this abbreviation

That the generic nature of this briefest of utterances 'do not lust' necessarily had some relationship with asceticism was obvious to Wolfson who:

recognizes that "[t]he negative tenth commandment is . . . a command to control one's desire."52 In other words, the negative prohibition implies a positive command to cultivate the virtue of enkrateia", which—as Wolfson notes—is "the positive term . . . by which the control of excessive desire is to be described."

Surely Marcion's asceticism can't be entirely removed from the Philonic groundwork. But again I can't explain why Marcion or Jesus would set the tenth commandment against the others.

[Secret Alias]

Perhaps the answer is to be found in Romans 7 which can be read as a commentary or exposition of his own gospel:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not lust." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

[Secret Alias]

Betz's estimation is very close to my own when dealing with the Matthean antitheses. He writes "Who first used the term "antitheses" to designate this section (i.e. Matthew 5's antitheses)? As far as we can determine, it was the second-century "heretic" Marcion who gave the title Antitheses to one of his works as a whole, now unfortunately lost." https://muse.jhu.edu/book/45975

[Secret Alias]

I think I am making progress on the reason why the tenth commandment morphed into the greatest commandment for Jesus. Maybe it has something to do with the 'last shall be first' business. Philo begins by noting that the first five commandments are the better commandments:

These, then, were the things which it was necessary to explain beforehand. But now we must turn to the commands themselves, and investigate everything which is marked by especial importance or difference in them. Now God divided them, being ten, as they are, into two tables of five each, which he engraved on two pillars. And the first five have the precedence and pre-eminence in honour; but the second five have an inferior place assigned to them. But both the tables are beautiful and advantageous to life, opening to men wrought and level roads kept within limits by one end, so as to secure the unwavering and secure progress of that soul which is continually desiring what is most excellent. (51) Now the most excellent five were of this character, they related to the monarchial principle on which the world is governed; to images and statues, and in short to all erections of any kind made by hand; to the duty of not taking the name of God in vain; to that of keeping the holy seventh day in a manner worthy of its holiness; to paying honour to parents both separately to each, and commonly to both. So that of the one table the beginning is the God and Father and Creator of the universe; and the end are one's parents, who imitate his nature, and so generate the particular individuals. And the other table of five contains all the prohibitions against adulteries, and murder, and theft, and false witness, and covetousness.

I think the solution has something to do with the two powers in heaven - the powers of judgment and mercy. The first five belong to the ruling principle, the second five presumably to the power of mercy. Moreover the tenth commandment must necessarily be the meekest and least of all the commandments:

The fifth is that which cuts off desire, the fountain of all iniquity, from which flow all the most unlawful actions, whether of individuals or of states, whether important or trivial, whether sacred or profane, whether they relate to one's life and soul, or to what are called external things; for, as I have said before, nothing ever escapes desire, but, like a fire in a wood, it proceeds onward, consuming and destroying everything; (174) and there are a great many subordinate sins, which are prohibited likewise under this commandment, for the sake of correcting those persons who cheerfully receive admonitions, and of chastising those stubborn people who devote their whole lives to the indulgence of passion.

XXXIII. (175) I have now spoken in this manner, at sufficient length, concerning the second table of five commandments, which make up the whole number of ten, which God himself promulgated with the dignity befitting their holy character; for it was suitable to his own nature to promulgate in his own person the heads and principles of all particular laws, but to send forth the particular and special laws by the most perfect of the prophets, whom he selected for his preeminent excellence, and filled with his divine spirit, and then appointed to be the interpreter of his holy oracles. (176) After having explained these matters, let us now proceed to relate the cause for which God, having pronounced these ten commandments or laws, in simple injunctions and prohibitions, appointed no punishment for those who should violate them, as lawgivers usually do. The reason is this: he was God, and being so he was at once the good Lord, the cause of good alone, and of no evil; (177) therefore, thinking it most appropriate to his own nature to deliver saving commands unalloyed, and partaking of no punishment, so that no one yielding to a foolish counsellor might accidentally choose what is best, but might do so from wise consideration and of his own deliberate purpose, he did not think fit to give his oracles to mankind in connection with any denunciation of punishment; not because he meant to give immunity to transgressors, but because he knew that justice was sitting by him, and surveying all human affairs, and that she would never rest, as being by nature a hater of evil and looking upon the chastisement of sinners as her own most appropriate task

This idea that the tenth commandment was originally conceived as 'almost not' a commandment or the least of the commandments is reinforced by Philo's discussion of the fifth commandment:

This commandment He placed on the borderline between the two sets of five; it is the last of the first set in which the most sacred injunctions are given and it adjoins the second set which contains the duties of man to man.

Clearly then by inference the tenth commandment is on the cusp of almost not being a divine commandment.

[Secret Alias]

I also wonder whether Matthew 5 prefaced the antitheses by calling the tenth commandment 'the least commandment'

Therefore anyone who sets aside one, the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven

Flusser rightly argued that 'the least of the commandments' has something to do with the second 'pillar' (i.e. the last five utterances) based on his study of the Didache and Qumran texts - https://books.google.com/books?id=OkRIj ... st&f=false

[Secret Alias]

The tenth commandment - οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις [LXX Exod. 20:17]

The gospel citation in Clement Stromata 3.11.71 is:

ἠκούσατε τοῦ νόμου παραγγέλλοντος· οὐ μοιχεύσεις. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω· οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις

It is repeatedly echoed in the Stromata:

If the adulteress and her paramour are both punished with death, it is surely clear that the commandment "You shall not lust for your neighbor’s wife" applies to the gentiles, so that anyone who follows the Law in keeping his hands off his neighbor’s wife and his sister may hear directly from the Lord: "But I say to you, you shall not lust. (ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω, οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις)" The addition of the pronoun "I" shows that the application of the commandment is more rigidly binding, (2) and that Carpocrates and Epiphanes are battling against God. [3.2]

Here you have a clear Marcionite antithesis and it comes from a gospel. Matthew reads:

Ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη Οὐ μοιχεύσεις. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ