Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion 3

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Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

I want to consider Luke as being constructed around fairly unusual ideas represented in the third edition of Against Marcion again. In the last post we noted that the editor of the third edition - the 'third edition' of Against Marcion being the one which saw the establishment of (i) the introduction of the main work where three editions are specifically mentioned (ii) the falsification of Against the Jews into the third book of Against Marcion crammed in between Book Two's explicit mention of a dichotomy between 'the antitheses' (= the original Marcionite source between Matthew chapter 5:17 f) and two gods one of kindness = Elohim and one of judgement = Yahweh - deliberately introduced a falsified Against the Jews into Against Marcion in order to justify, anticipate the introduction of the gospel of Luke.

I know this sounds like a crazy theory, and maybe it is, but it has long been acknowledged that citations which 'seem to come' from Luke and explicit mention of a gospel named 'Luke' aren't exactly the same thing. The first mention of Luke appears in Irenaeus. Irenaeus makes mention of Luke for the first time in the Marcionite section of Book One of Against Heresies and Luke takes up a lot of Book Three which is at once also the first introduction to the 'four gospels as one gospel' concept. Irenaeus says things to the effect that Marcionites and the other heretics who use sayings which now only appear (= in the four gospels as one gospel arrangement) in Luke have to accept Luke and Paul (meaning the orthodox version of their apostle) if they want to retain or use 'Lukan sayings' at all. In other words, 'Luke' is a kind of trap set for the heretics. Luke defined not only who Paul was (because allegedly Paul chose Luke over John Mark in Luke's own Acts and to write his gospel) but also Luke proved that Paul did not want to set up a church separate from the Jerusalem Church.

My question has always been - how did we get here? Of course if all the things contained in Acts are true or mostly true then Paul and Peter's fight in Antioch wasn't as big a deal as the heretics claimed. They patched things up, made a unified Church and the Marcionite Church based solely on 'the Apostle' was one of history's great scams. But there are so many problems with this claim of Paul agreeing to subordinate himself to the authorities of the so-called 'Jewish Church.' I don't believe it for a minute and instead I ask the readers to consider whether the third edition of Against Marcion (our surviving version of the text ascribed to Tertullian) might be the 'smoking gun' for understanding how Paul was falsified.

Let's start with the most basic claim of the orthodox - Paul didn't write a written gospel. Why do the orthodox believe this or claim this? Clearly the Marcionites said he did write a gospel and they had possession of it and used it as the basis to their separate Church. I think that the Marcionite understanding makes basic sense. I am not saying that everything the Marcionites claimed - i.e. that their gospel was the first gospel - was necessarily true. But the idea that an ego maniac like Paul who did a lot of writing would likely have taken the time to write a gospel and that at least part of the split between the two factions of the Church (however defined) was over the 'true text' of the gospel.

We see the same thing in Jewish and Samaritan communities. One text of the Torah was written by Ezra (or someone at that time) and either the Jews removed references to the sacredness of Mount Gerizim or the Samaritans added them in. I tend to support the former. But the other textual differences amount to things which just creep into written texts when they become 'sectarianized.'

The orthodox counter claim to the Marcionite understanding is basically to say that NEITHER Paul nor his opponents in Jerusalem wrote a written gospel in the beginning. In other words, it seems like a systematic denial that the Antioch incident might have been about or related to a written gospel. By saying in effect gospel in the Pauline writings meant 'oral gospel' it seems not only an excuse influenced by Jewish thought (regarding a strange category called 'oral Torah') Paul looks less and less like the founder of a separate religion .

Going back to the Jewish-Samaritan example, I noted that Books One and Two of Against Marcion have no trace of references to Luke. They don't bother to mention the idea that Paul didn't write a gospel (or even any mention of Paul whatsoever) for the simple reason that they are closer to the original historical situation regarding the dispute between the Marcionites and the proto-orthodox. The fight wasn't about Luke vs a Marcionite gospel which looked like Luke, or whether Luke was the disciple chosen by Paul to write his gospel. Luke wasn't even known before the third edition of Against Marcion. I am arguing that the third edition of Against Marcion is the point in history in which 'Luke' was invented and introduced to the world.

Indeed Books One and Two show that the original debate between the Marcionites and the proto-orthodox was over the so-called 'antitheses.' The Marcionites believed Chrestos was the kind god of Philo of Alexandria and earliest (pre-monarchian) Judaism. In the same way that the 'judge god' came to Moses to reveal 'the Law' his counterpart the 'kind god' introduced a doctrine of love which was the gospel. The antitheses (basically again the Marcionite equivalent to Matthew 5:17f) made the case that (a) Chr(i)st was a god, one of two in the Jewish religion and that (b) in the same way the Law was associated with Yahweh, the gospel was associated with Elohim. It was really that simple.

Somehow by the time the first edition of Against Marcion was written there were two principle communities in Christianity each of whom used a 'super gospel' (i.e. a so-called gospel harmony like Justin Martyr which contained stories from the four gospels). But the Marcionite gospel was distinguished for its inclusion of 'the antitheses' a point by point which contradicted the authority of the Law. 'The Law says X but I say ...' These are the antitheses which are now preserved in Matthew in a 'not-so-radical' version. The reason Matthew has the 'antitheses' now is in my mind part of the genius of the 'editor' of the 'third edition' of Against Marcion (I suppose that the editor of the four gospels was one and the same with the final editor of Against Marcion and the work itself was written as an introduction to Luke).

You couldn't leave the 'antitheses' in the Marcionite gospel and hope to have unity in the Church. So what did he do? He demolished the original argument of Against Marcion by inserting a fabricated 'Book Three' (developed as aforementioned by taking arguments against the Jews in Against the Jews and twisting them in strange ways against the Marcionites) thus interrupting the flow between what is now Book Two and Book Four. Take a look at the end of Book Two:
Now if my plea that the Creator combines goodness with judgement had called for a more elaborate demolition of Marcion's Antitheses, I should have gone on to overthrow them one by one, on the principle that the instances cited of both aspects are, as I have already proved, jointly in keeping with (a sound idea of) God. Both aspects, the goodness and the judgement, combine to produce a complete and worthy conception of a divinity to which nothing is impossible: and so I am for the time being content to have rebutted in summary fashion those antitheses which, by criticism of the moral value of the Creator's works, his laws, and his miracles, indicate anxiety to establish a division, making Christ a stranger to the Creator—as it were the supremely good a stranger to the judge, the kind to the cruel, the bringer of salvation a stranger to the author of destruction. Instead of dividing, those antitheses do rather combine into unity the two whom they place in such oppositions as, when combined together, give a complete conception of God. Take away Marcion's title, take away the intention and purpose of his work, and this book will provide neither more nor less than a description of one and the same God, in his supreme goodness and in his judgement— for these two conceptions are conjoined in God and in him alone. In fact Marcion's very anxiety, by means of the instances cited, to set Christ in opposition to the Creator, does rather envisage their unity. For the one and only real and objective divinity showed itself, in these very instances and these very deductions from them, to be both kind and stern: for his purpose was to give evidence of his kindness, particularly in those against whom he had previously shown severity [2.29]
and the first lines of Book Four:
Every sentence, indeed the whole structure, arising from Marcion's impiety and profanity, I now challenge in terms of that gospel which he has by manipulation made his own. Besides that, to work up credence for it he has contrived a sort of dowry, a work entitled Antitheses because of its juxtaposition of opposites, a work strained into making such a division between the Law and the Gospel as thereby to make two separate gods, opposite to each other, one belonging to one instrument (or, as it is more usual to say, testament), one to the other, and thus lend its patronage to faith in another gospel, that according to the Antitheses. Now I might have demolished those antitheses by a specially directed hand-to-hand attack, taking each of the statements of the man of Pontus one by one, except that it was much more convenient to refute them both in and along with that gospel which they serve: although it is perfectly easy to take action against them by counter-claim,1 even accepting them as admissible, accounting them valid, and alleging that they support my argument, that so they may be put to shame for the blindness of their author, having now become my antitheses against Marcion. So then I do admit that there was a different course followed in the old dispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation under Christ. I do not deny a difference in records of things spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law, provided that all these differences have reference to one and the same God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were ordained and also foretold. [4.1.1f]
and you see at once that Book There is a deliberate interruption of the original flow of ideas from Against Marcion. The work that followed in Book Four was simply going to argue that rather than having two gods the Jews had only one god and so Marcion's antitheses between a 'kind god' (Chrestos) and a 'judging' Lord is disproved.

But my point here is that the final editor of both Against Marcion and the Christian gospel canon wasn't satisfied with the original state of the argument against Marcion. As we have seen he took arguments against the Jewish claim that Jesus wasn't the Christ of the 'Old Testament' and brought them into the discussion. The big question has always been 'why?' Why do something so incredibly stupid and ill-informed? My answer is that he did so first of all to take the argument away from the Marcionite understanding of Chrestos (= Christ). The Marcionites simply said that Christ wasn't a name which appeared in the forward-looking Jewish prophesies. The only place it appears in our canon in this light (i.e. future prophesies) is Daniel 9:24 - 27 - at least theoretically and Theodotion's translation of the material squashes that possibility (because mashiach is translated otherwise).

So to get around this Theodotion firewall set up by the Marcionites the final editor of Against Marcion took a treatise written by a user of Theodotion which argued on behalf of Jesus being the Christ of the Jewish prophets. The idea that 'Christ' was expected by the Jewish prophets is just assumed even if the name 'Christ' isn't actually uttered by them. Why take Against the Jews this way? I think the author wasn't necessarily a knowledgeable or deep thinking Christian thinker. Maybe he wasn't even a Christian at all. He was on a mission to transform Christianity from within by using things already written by other Christian writers and adapting them in such a way that would suit the interests of peace in the Empire. Sort of like if George Bush had tried to rewrite the Quran after 911.

The point is that Against the Jews had a very interesting section for the author - a place where the author points to a pattern in Isaiah which was used to 'prove' that Jesus was Isaiah's 'Christ' (again even though Isaiah never specifically used the terminology). Against the Jews makes reference to a pattern of 'preaching and power' related to two sections in the Book of Isaiah which the 'final editor' reused in his Book Three of Against Marcion in a slightly different, more calculated manner. Book Three says in effect Jesus was the Christ of the Jewish prophets because he proved himself by his consistent pattern of 'preaching and power' which I will demonstrate in the next book, which deals with the Marcion's gospel, the gospel of Luke.

Does anyone really believe that someone who would falsify one pre-exstent text (i.e. Against the Jews) and reshape in a direction which was not intended by its original author into the Third Book Against Marcion 'just happened' to find a gospel (= Luke) which exhibited the ultimate messianic proof linking Jesus to the Jewish prophets? Indeed Book Four is intended to complement Book Three - i.e. where Book Three says the Jewish prophets predicted Christ to 'preach and (exhibit) power' Book Four we are told at 3.17 will prove that Marcion's gospel (Luke) shows Jesus in exactly this light. But what are the odds that a falsified Book Three should presage a hitherto unheard of gospel supposedly which was the original gospel of Marcion? I say always mistrust a proven liar, forger and cheat. My guess is that in the same way Against the Jews was falsified as part of a plan against Marcion so too was the gospel of Luke arranged in a similar manner.
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

And I want to take a moment to understand and appreciate our second clue for how Book 3 was going to guide the shaping not only of the book that followed in the 'series' Against Marcion (i.e. Book 4) but the gospel of Luke itself which was introduced to the world by Book 4. We just saw that the final editor took the original statement in Against the Jews that the 'Jewish prophets' (but principally Isaiah) announced that Christ would reveal himself by 'preaching and power.' As I noted before, the editor removed what followed in Against the Jews when reshaping the third book of Against Marcion (i.e. lengthy citations of Jewish prophesy) and instead argued that his Book 4 would illustrate how this applied to Marcion's gospel - i.e. the gospel of Luke.

Importantly the final editor of Against Marcion says explicitly in Book 3 what the Marcionite position was - namely that Chrestos would come and demonstrate 'power' (i.e. miracles) and the people would believe in him. There was no need for prophesy, no need for preaching on his part - "you say, was not necessary, because He was forthwith to prove Himself the Son and the Sent One, and the Christ of God in very deed, by means of the evidence of His wonderful works."(3.3) So what does that really mean? Surely the Marcionite gospel had its 'Chrestos' speak. It wasn't the precursor to the silent movies of the last century. But while Chrestos spoke he clearly spoke mysteriously. It was a secret gospel, a gospel which Irenaeus and his followers repeatedly rail against.

I wonder how far we can go with this understanding. Did the Marcionites deny that Chrestos 'preached' at all? Meaning, did he only speak mysteriously? Let's go through Book 4 and see what we can learn. At the very start of the discussion, the scene at the Capernaum synagogue (which also happens to be Epiphanius's first 'scene' from Luke used by Marcion undoubtedly because Against Marcion 4 shaped Epiphanius's perception). He says that if Jesus had preached the other god the Jews in attendance:
would not have been astonished but horrified; would not have marvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of the law and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of a different god, because he could not have given teaching contrary to the law and the prophets, and, by that token, contrary to the Creator, without some previous profession of belief in an alien and hostile deity. (4.7)
So the logic goes something like this. Jesus was a 'preacher.' When he was in the Galilean synagogue he preached his gospel. The Marcionites say that he scandalized the Jews by revealing the other god, Chrestos, the kind god.

Of course the difficulty here is that there is no sign of 'preaching' whatsoever at Capernaum. It is entirely a 'power' demonstration - i.e. he commands the demon leave someone. So on the surface the Marcionites appear to have simply been 'correct' for saying that Jesus only expected people to have faith in him because of his displays of 'power' - i.e. there was no preaching. But this is too simplistic an understanding. Indeed for some strange reason Tertullian seems to argue in his second breath (the following line that Jesus did preach in the synagogue:
As then the scripture gives no indication of this kind (i.e. regarding the two gods), but only that the power and authority of his speech were a matter of wonder, it more readily indicates that his teaching was in accordance with the Creator, since it does not deny that, than that it was opposed to the Creator, since it has not said so. It follows that he must either be acknowledged to belong to him in accordance with whom his teaching was given, or else judged a turn-coat if his teaching was in accordance with him whom he had come to oppose.
So sticking literally to the text of Luke (and presuming this was Marcion's gospel) it is true - there is no reference to what Jesus said. Yet there is a difficulty nevertheless. This is the first scene from Luke that Tertullian looks at following the initial - and very lengthy - discussion of the antitheses which Marcion 'added' to his gospel. In other words, the antitheses are somewhere in the Marcionite gospel. The original author of Against Marcion accused Marcion of adding them to a commonly held gospel (originally a 'super gospel/gospel harmony') and now in the third edition, Luke. But the point is clearly that given this is the first scene of 'Marcion's Luke' which follows the lengthy discussion of 'the antitheses' and we just saw Tertullian accuse Marcion of claiming - quite explicitly - that the antitheses were said here in the synagogue - viz "(the Jews) would not have been astonished (Luke 4:32) but horrified; would not have marvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of the law and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of a different god, because he could not have given teaching contrary to the law and the prophets."

It is worth noting that an important clue exists in the Arabic Diatessaron and Matthew with regards to this situation. The Sermon on the Mount closes with the very same or indeed very similar words to the unnamed teaching in the Capernaum synagogue:
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching; and that because he was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes and the Pharisees. [Arabic Diatessaron]

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. [Matthew]
compare the first chapter of Mark which is the precursor of all these texts:
The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.
My point is that if the antitheses of Marcion were indeed the section of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that proceeds from 5:17f as many others have argued and this text was originally a Marcionite, then the parallel use of this description of 'the people' being amazed at his teaching' and it being unlike the teachers of the law' in the now 'censored' gospel description of a 'teaching' taking place without preserving what was said was the likely original Marcionite location of the preaching.

To that end on the one hand, we have something of a mixed bag from the Marcionite gospel. On the one hand, the Marcionites claim that Jesus only wanted people to believe him because of his display of 'power' i.e. miracles. The motivation of the final editor and his falsifying of Against the Jews was - quite explicitly - to take the argument from it that 'the Jewish prophets' expected him to both preach and display power to prove that he was the Christ. One can immediately see how the first scene from the Marcionite gospel helps his cause - even if it did originally contain the antitheses (i.e. Matt 5.17f). This is because Jesus isn't just displaying 'power.' The Marcionite gospel has him come to earth enter into a Jewish house of worship and 'preach' (i.e. teach the synagogue) and then display 'power' (make the demon come out of the man). To this end, despite the obvious problems with the 'antitheses' (which the editor ultimately solved by removing the antitheses from Luke) you have kind of a 'proof text' that Jesus was operating as the Christ was expected to behave from the Jewish prophets - thus justify in essence his repurposing of Against the Jews as an anti-Marcionite argument.
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

This is the key to understanding the use of Book 3 (itself a bastardized Against the Jews) in the third edition of Against Marcion. The editor must have been staring down at a very unsatisfactory argument in the previous edition (a text attributed to an 'apostate' in the introduction). The argument went from Book 2's observation (at the very end i.e. 2.29) that Marcion claims the antitheses (i.e. Matt 5:17f) reveals two gods, one of kindness (Chrestos) and a just 'Lord' to the opening scene of Jesus in the synagogue declaring the antitheses and then casting the demon out of an opponent convincing the people of his 'authority' and his being something other than the 'teachers of the Law' - perhaps all in one book (i.e. it was only with the coming of Book 3 that 'Books Two and Four" were created as a result of the division.

Indeed the final editor confesses as much when he says at the start of Book 2:
The fortunes of this work have been described in the preface to Book I. The opportunity of revision gives me this further advantage, that in the discussion of two gods, in opposition to Marcion, I am now able to assign to each of them a separate book with its distinctive heading: for so does the subject-matter naturally divide. (2.1)
This is a very curious statement. The reference to the statement in the preface to Book 1 is the familiar admission that this is the third version of Against Marcion. Evans has acknowledged that the same editor falsified Book 3 from sections of Against the Jews. Now the same editor is betrayed being present at the start of Book 2 saying 'each of them' will be assigned 'a separate book.' I am not sure what this exactly means.

Here is the Latin original:
Occasio reformandi opusculi huius, cui quid acciderit primo libellulo praefati sumus, hoc quoque contulit nobis, uti duobus deis adversus Marcionem retractandis suum cuique titulum et volumen distingueremus pro materiae divisione, alterum deum definientes omnino non esse, alterum defendentes digne deum esse, quatenus ita Pontico placuit alterum inducere, alterum excludere
Monceaux argues that this is confessing to the creation of an extra book (presumably Book 3) at the time of the third revision of Against Marcion:
Elle conservait le plan de la première édition, mais en la complétant et la développant: elle comptait au moins un livre de plus. Les livres II-IV ont dû paraître en même temps, car ils sont étroitement liés au premier, qui déjà les annonce et esquisse l'ensemble.
I am not so sure. But we will have to investigate matters a little further. If we go almost to the end of Book 2 we see clearly in fact that the two books - one for each god - actually pertains to Book One and Book Two:
He (God) meets with your approval neither as great nor as small, neither as judge nor as friend. But what if these same characteristics are found to be in your god too? I have already, in the book assigned to him, proved that he is a judge, and as a judge necessarily stern, and as stern also cruel if cruelty is the proper word.
Evans notes correctly that the past tense and the reference belong to Book One - " I. 25 sqq" he says in the footnote. So clearly what the editor is saying in fact is - I have divided up the original text here into two books. The first deals with the Marcionite god (i.e. Book One) the second deals with my god (i.e. the Creator) or Book Two.

Interestingly then we have a precedent to what happened with respect to Book 3 dividing the continuous narrative which ran from Book 2 to Book 4 before Book 3 was created (from the 'rib' of Against the Jews). Remember the same editor wrote (i) the preface to the entire book which appears at the start of Book One (ii) the statement at the start of Book Two which says I divided Books 1 and 2 to conform to the two gods proposed by Marcion (iii) the statement we just cited at 2.27 which references "the book assigned to him (i.e. the Creator)" in this series i.e. Against Marcion and (iv) the statement at the start of Book 3 which introduces it into Against Marcion. So clearly the editor is hovering around announcing himself at every critical point in his 'recreation' of the previous text of Against Marcion - undoubtedly because the previous incarnation was well known.

But it is worth noting that the announcement of the creation of two books - one for each god - at the 2.1.1 and 2.27.3 - undoubtedly mark the division and culmination of the original lost work that was divided. It can't be coincidence that it is exactly at this point in Book 2 that all the references to Marcion's 'antitheses' begin. The manuscript reads as follows:
But what if these same characteristics are found to be in your god too? I have already, in the book assigned to him,3 proved that he is a judge, and as a judge necessarily stern, and as stern also cruel— if cruelty is the proper word.

28. Now in the matter of pettinesses and malignities, and the rest of those bad marks, I can myself put together a few rival antitheses in opposition to Marcion. If my God was unaware that there was another god above him, yours likewise did not know that there was another beneath him: as it was put by Heraclitus the obscure, It is the same road upwards as downwards. In fact, if he had not been ignorant of him, he would have opposed him from the start. Sin and death, and the actual author of sin, the devil, and every evil thing which my God has allowed to exist, yours also has allowed, by allowing him to allow them. Our God has altered his decisions—exactly as yours has: for your god, who has at so late a date had regard for the human race, has altered that decision by which for all those long ages he abstained from regarding them. Our God, in the case of a certain person, repented of the evil: and so did yours.
Seven more references to 'antitheses' follow in what remains of the work (i.e. chapter 29). Book 3 announces itself as a newly fashioned 'recreation' by the editor from Against the Jews. It severs the natural continuation of the eight 'antitheses' references at the end of Book 2 from the seven 'antitheses' references in the first chapter and a half of Book 4. There are absolutely no 'antitheses' references in Book 3. So clearly I take the final editor to basically 'reshaping' a two volume Against Marcion in its previous incarnation. In other words, Books 1 and 2 are confessed to be assigned 'to each god' from some previous text and similarly chapters 2.28 - 29 was the original start of the work which continued throughout Book 4 before the creation of Book 3. Book 3 was intended to act as the proper context for the discussion of the gospel which followed (in Book 4) - that is contextualizing the gospel in terms of 'Christ' coming to 'preach' and demonstrate 'power.' The clearest example of this doctrine, from the editor's point of view was Jesus coming to Capernaum and preaching and demonstrating power in the synagogue - with the people responding especially to his preaching.
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

Evans's take on the development:
The present, the third, edition of adversus Marcionem was completed between April 207 and April 208, during the fifteenth year of Severus, as is seen from I. 15. The first edition appeared perhaps as early as 198, while the Judaean campaign referred to at III. 24 was still a recent memory. That edition Tertullian himself, as he observes at I. 1, came to regard as too brief and hasty. It was shortly afterwards replaced by the second, and this in its turn came to call for improvement, not least because certain extracts from it had been made and circulated without permission. In this third edition the discussion of the doctrine of God has been expanded into two books: in it also Tertullian's growing interest in Montanism begins in a few places to appear in his argument.
The reference:
This prophecy was recently fulfilled, during the expedition to the East: for it is admitted, even on heathen men's evidence, that in Judaea for forty days there was a city suspended from the sky at the break of morning, that the whole fashion of the ramparts faded out as day advanced, and at other times it suddenly disappeared. This city we affirm has been provided by God for the reception of the saints by resurrection, and for their refreshment with abundance of all blessings—spiritual ones—in compensation for those which in this world we have either refused or been denied.
Curious that Julius Africanus could have been the source for this information. Africanus may have served under Septimius Severus against the Osrhoenians in 195
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

Another oddity. As noted previously the final editor of Against Marcion took this one statement in Against the Jews pertaining to the 'Christ' in Isa. 58 : 1 ff. and the miraculous power in Isa. 35 : 4 ff:
we find Him (i.e. Jesus) distinguished by a twofold operation,--that of preaching and that of power (operatione distinctum eum legimus praedicationis et virtutis).
Instead of merely transcribing the original argument in Against the Jews - which pertained to Jews and their rejection of Jesus as Christ he saw something in it and made a promise to his readers that he would discuss this more fully later:
It is right that His conduct be investigated according to the rule of Scripture, distinguishable as it is unless I am mistaken, by the twofold operation of preaching and of miracle (operatione distinctum, praedicationis et virtutis). But the treatment of both these topics I shall so arrange as to postpone, to the chapter wherein I have determined to discuss the actual gospel of Marcion, the consideration of His wonderful doctrines and miracles--with a view, however, to our present purpose.
Yet from all of my research in Book 4 I don't see the argument manifest itself outside of his discussion of the context of the original 'antitheses' (as I understand it) - viz. the synagogue in Capernaum, which is allegedly the first scene in the Marcionite gospel (at least according to our reconstructions).

praedĭcātĭo is a public proclaiming, a proclamation, publication and can even mean prophesy. But Osborn rightly zeroes in on the very definition in Tertullian as follows "Faith, when informed by such a process, might justly be required of man by God; for once recognition has made faith possible, it is obligatory to believe what one has indeed learned to believe from what has been predicted (praedicatio)' (3.2.4) This is what distinguishes 'right belief' from orthodoxy - namely that God gave human beings the opportunity to know Jesus as Christ by means of prophets.

This is the context of the statement in Against Marcion 3.2:
Suddenly a Son, suddenly Sent, and suddenly Christ! On the contrary, I should suppose that from God nothing comes suddenly, because there is nothing which is not ordered and arranged by God. And if ordered, why not also foretold (Si autem dispositum, cur non et praedicatum), that it may be proved to have been ordered by the prediction, and by the ordering to be divine (ut probari posset et dispositum ex praedicatione et divinum ex dispositione?) [4] And indeed so great a work, which (we may be sure) required preparation, as being for the salvation of man, could not have been on that very account a sudden thing, because it was through faith that it was to be of avail. Inasmuch, then, as it had to be believed in order to be of use, so far did it require, for the securing of this faith, a preparation built upon the foundations of pre-arrangement and fore-announcement. Faith, when informed by such a process, might justly be required of man by God, and by man be reposed in God; it being a duty, after that knowledge has made it a possibility, to believe those things which a man had learned indeed to believe from the fore-announcement (praedictatio)
Of course this point is made against Marcion. And it would appear that praedicatio is used by Tertullian in this sense of the Christ being 'preached' by the prophets in the past. But in Against the Jews the critical reference cited at the start of our discussion here it is clear that the author means to say that Christ himself will preach and convince people to his Christhood by his pronouncements as well as his acts of power (miracles).

We read in Against the Jews again where preferred meaning of Tertullian begins the discussion - namely the prophets preaching the coming of Christ:
I demand, again--granting that He who was ever predicted (praedicabatur) by prophets as destined to come out of Jesse's race, was withal to exhibit all humility, patience, and tranquillity--whether He be come? [28] Equally so (in this case as in the former), the man who is shown to bear that character will be the very Christ who is come. For of Him the prophet says, "A man set in a plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity; "who "was led as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb before him who sheareth him, opened not His mouth."183 If He "neither did contend nor shout, nor was His voice heard abroad," who "crushed not the bruised reed"--Israel's faith, who "quenched not the burning flax"184 --that is, the momentary glow of the Gentiles--but made it shine more by the rising of His own light,--He can be none other than He who was predicted (praedicabatur). [29] The action, therefore, of the Christ who is come must be examined by being placed side by side with the rule of the Scriptures. For, if I mistake not, we find Him distinguished by a twofold operation,--that of preaching and that of power (praedicationis et virtutis). Now, let each count be disposed of summarily. Accordingly, let us work out the order we have set down, teaching that Christ was announced as a preacher ( praedicatorem adnuntiatum Christum); as, through Isaiah: [30] "Cry out," he says, "in vigour, and spare not; lift up, as with a trumpet, thy voice, and announce to my commonalty their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins. Me from day to day they seek, and to learn my ways they covet, as a people which hath done righteousness, and hath not forsaken the judgment of God," and so forth:185 that, moreover, He was to do acts of power from the Father: "Behold, our God will deal retributive judgment; Himself will come and save us: then shall the infirm be healed, and the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the mutes' tongues shall be loosed, and the lame shall leap as an hart,"186 and so on; [31] which works not even you deny that Christ did, inasmuch as you were wont to say that, "on account of the works ye stoned Him not, but because He did them on the Sabbaths." [1] Concerning the last step, plainly, of His passion you raise a doubt; affirming that the passion of the cross was not predicted (praedicatam) with reference to Christ, and urging, besides, that it is not credible that God should have exposed His own Son to that kind of death
Clearly then we should expect to find some example of Jesus acting as a prophet or a preacher and testing the faith of his hearers. The only example that comes to mind is the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, which would tie all our loose ends together here.
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

What I am wrestling with is that although the editor of the final edition of Against Marcion promises to demonstrate that Jesus acted like Christ predicted in the prophets in Book 4 his actual argument doesn't match the expectation. Judging from the section he appropriated in Against the Jews in Against Marcion 3 you'd have expected him to say 'here is an example of Jesus preaching/prophesying and people having faith in him' and 'here is an example of Jesus demonstrating power and people having faith in him' = therefore case proved he's the Christ of the prophets. Instead what we see (especially when we look at Book 4's use of praedicatio) is something like - 'here is something Jesus said, it sounds like something predicted by the prophets.' But there is a missing 'bit' in all of this which is difficult to explain. You never get the argument 'people had faith in his preaching' which - from the set up in Against the Jews (the original source of Book 3) in a section appropriated by the very editor - you'd think he'd have to demonstrate if he was being intellectually honest.

For instance you can't say 'I am going to pull a rabbit out of my hat' and then fail to pull a rabbit but say 'well I acted in the same way as other magicians acted.' Why even bother make the original promise? Tertullian says both in Against the Jews and Against Marcion 3, the Christ was to demonstrate his Christhood through preaching/prophesying and power. He says somewhere else 'hey you Marcionites only think he's going to demonstrate power and people will know it's him because of the power.' But, getting back to my original point, when Tertullian ends up cutting out the examples form Isaiah showing how Christ was going to admonish the people for their wickedness, predict a cataclysm for their sins, we can see at once that he must have realized there was a difficulty simply 'stealing' an argument made against the Jews and applying it against Marcion.

The Jews certainly thought that the messiah would attract Jewish followers. Leaving aside the issue of whether he would die or fail, the idea of simply saying Jesus demonstrated himself to be the Jewish messiah because he admonished the Jews and performed miracles seems to be lacking something. Even though we can accept that Isaiah admonished the people and was killed by the authorities, he wasn't 'the Christ.' Surely if all of history builds up to the coming of one person predicted by the Jewish prophets - i.e. 'the Christ' - one would expect something more historically significant than just a loud voice. Surely that voice has to convince at least some Jews - indeed a sizable number of Jews - to follow him. Otherwise it is difficult to see how he is just another prophet, or simply a prophet like Isaiah.

Since we know that the idea of Jesus as 'the prophet' or a prophet was likely in so-called 'Jewish Christianity' (from the Clementine Literature) it might seem plausible that this indeed was the idea of the source material behind Against the Jews. But then why does Tertullian promise that he will take the barest reference to the 'point' made by Against the Jews and promise to answer it in his section on the gospel (i.e. Book 4) but never actually fulfill that promise. The answer has to be that Tertullian was being intellectually dishonest. He realized that his use of Against the Jews i.e. copying it out in Book 3 - had basically reached a dead end. He had written himself into a corner and at that point he stops, promises to answer the point raised in the future and never does (operating then like a modern academic writing a paper).
“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
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Clear Sign that Against the Jews is From Something Like Justin's Dialogue and is More Original Than Against Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

My conclusion therefore as to the motivation of Tertullian for copying Against the Jews as Against Marcion 3 and inserting it between what became Books 2 and 4 was that he simply wanted to introduce Jewish prophesy into the discussion. The original author apparently never made the argument that Jesus was Jewish, that he was Christ because he was predicted by the prophets or anything like that. Transforming large chunks of Against the Jews into Against Marcion 3 helped pave the way for the complete rewrite of the original material behind Book 4. To simply go from Book 2 to a newly rewritten Book 4 which focused on the Jewishness of Christ, the Jewishness of the Creator would have been too much because it wasn't there originally.
“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
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