No “Son of Man” in Marcion

[Giuseppe]

Would a bunch of subsistence level agrarian farmers and city dwelling peasants fathom anything at the level of a gnostic? If such myths have their root in poverty and despair it seems that the core of the myth would be likely to have a far more simple base. Only the wealthy would have the time, education, and resources to contemplate and entertain such philosophical entanglements as nuances between terms such as Son of Man and Son of God. At what level did the poor and ignorant perceive such matters? Or did they even bother? Is all of religion a game played among the wealthy classes?

But the evangelists came only in full liturgy, when the poor and ignorant had already open the way to leaders etc.

[Ben C. Smith]

Ben, there is really evidence clear and simple of the fact that Son of Man was used as anti-marcionite element. Please see the figure of idiot made by the marcionite Meghetius here:

Ad. What then does it say of Christ who is the son of man? If he is the son of man, according to you he will not be your son of God.
Meg. He is God's son.
Ad. But explain the scriptures in such a way as to be intelligible, as the scriptures are. In what way is he the son of God, who declared himself the son of man?
Meg. He made use of a parable, in saying that he was the son of man.
Eutr. It was to be understood as a spiritual parable, -can that be historical?
Meg. Spiritual.
Eutr. In what way does he say that - is the scripture not spiritual? Thus it is spiritual, and not plain and historical.
Meg. A certain thing he intends as spiritual, while he may speak simply in another.
Eutr. This opinion seems inconsistent to me.
Meg. In places there are scriptures that are parables, those that are spiritual, others that are certainly historical.
Ad. Show then from the scriptures where the son of man is a "parable"? ...

http://www.marcionite-scripture.info/dialogues.htm

There is no way to allegorize Son of Man by a true marcionite.

Does Vinzent disagree with you, then?

Evidently prof Vinzent is able to see the anti-Jewish use of the term "Son of Man" by Marcion, differently from Secret Alias:

the 'son of man' locution is one of the key markers of Marcion's text - you only need to read Tertullian, how he criticises Marcion for it. Yet, he also gives Marcion's answer: the 'son of man' is Daniel's typos which misleads everybody who immediately thinks of the messiah as the warrior prince of the Creator god, instead the Christ of the transcendent God of mercy does not fight, but takes off suffering through his suffering and forgiving. Marcion, if you like, takes the typoi, but undermines them by giving them the new revealed meaning.

http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2015/ ... 2258763683

Face it, Giuseppe. You were wrong. You guessed on pure reasoning alone that the term "son of man" probably held no place in the Marcionite gospel, and it turns out that we know nothing about that gospel if we do not know this much: that "son of man" appeared therein.

I care literally nothing at this juncture for why it appeared there, or how the Marcionites did or did not interpret it, and I make no speculations on that front (as yet). My contribution here is limited strictly to the bare presence (or absence) of the term "son of man" in (or from) the Marcionite gospel, my overall point being that pure reasoning alone is a great way to be wrong about a text.

[Giuseppe]

I believed that it was clear, Ben, that I have corrected my error, precisely here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4540&start=20#p91857


I would say that for the 80% I think that there is mention of the Son of Man in Marcion, but for the 20% I am open to consider the other possibility: that Son of Man is an interpolation that replaced Christ. Please, appreciate my estimates.

[DCHindley]

Would a bunch of subsistence level agrarian farmers and city dwelling peasants fathom anything at the level of a gnostic? If such myths have their root in poverty and despair it seems that the core of the myth would be likely to have a far more simple base. Only the wealthy would have the time, education, and resources to contemplate and entertain such philosophical entanglements as nuances between terms such as Son of Man and Son of God. At what level did the poor and ignorant perceive such matters? Or did they even bother? Is all of religion a game played among the wealthy classes?

I am not so sure it is a good idea to lump agrarian peasants with village or town retainer classes and slaves. The elite classes (military & aristocracy) would certainly have had enough leisure, at least in their youth, to pursue interests like mathematics, music theory, and philosophy (which often included sub-branches dedicated to the above, plus law, logic, cosmology/metaphysics, etc.). Even some slaves of their households would have been educated as well. Inter-household collegia consisting of slaves and retainers such as artisans and merchants often belonged to these. Regular meetings were held, a simple communal meal, maybe a lot of bad wine. I am sure it is at household level group meetings like these where the literature of interest to the master is read and probably commented upon.

But even agrarian peasants periodically went to market in the villages and/or towns, where there was a sort of open forum of ideas being discussed and knowledge exchanged. In southern Syria there were a lot of Judean tenant farmers working side by side with local pagan peasant farmers. The Judean terrirories (Judaea, Samaria, Galilee, Idumea, Trachonitis & Batanea) also had a significant number of gentile towns along with their chora, where again Judean tenants interacted with pagan ones. I was once reading a book on archeology (name now escapes me) in which a typical village housing unit was described: Four dwellings in a square with a central court shared by the four peasant households.

There were signs that some of them had tied off the entire courtyard with string to make it a single house for Sabbatical purposes, even though some of the dwellings were clearly pagan. Neighbors in close proximity, and in the same boat so to speak, just learn how to get along. And with getting along, there is also sharing of culture and ideas. Pagans, of course, had their own social institutions (worship at shrines, burial association meetings/dinners, etc.) as did Judeans (Sabbath worship, maybe a little scripture reading by scribes, socuializing).

Between inter-household collegia, pagan institutions, and Judean institutions, ideas are just going to get around. But being aware of them, even in detail, and agreement with those ideas, are two different things. It was this "getting along" scenario that completely broke down in the early part of the Judean rebellion, in which the parties (Judeans & gentiles) came to sharp division, and an "us against them" mentality developed with the war crimes and ethnic cleansing by both sides.

This was similar to the situation in Yugoslavia, where Catholic Croats and Eastern Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnian-Herzegovinian ethnicities got along "just fine" on the surface, creating a unique blended culture in some of the major towns under marshal Tito, but as soon as he died, everything just unraveled. But until then, Sarajevo reflected the multi-cultural heritage.

So, it is possible that "Gnostic" ideas (big "G"), if they really existed as such in the 1st century CE, could be transmitted. However, there is very little to go on until the 2nd century CE, when they seem to have been highly developed.

DCH