Romans 8:1 - Marcion according to Adamantius

[Steven Avery]

The Church Fathers don't EXPLICITLY say for the most part 'X is part of the Marcionite canon' s.

Which is why the apparatus entry that I asked about that says "Marcion according to Adamantius" really is off-base. It is not even couched with a parenthesis.

Thanks, Ben, for the additional info. I am doing a study on all the apparatus entries and errors on Romans 8:1. This is one of many.

[Secret Alias]

Right but there was an implicit suggestion that Adamantius's report is worth something.

[Steven Avery]

Right but there was an implicit suggestion that Adamantius's report is worth something.

My question is only

1) What text of Romans 8:1 was in front of Adamantius?
2) And, does he supply evidence as to what text was in front of Marcion?

For those purposes, I am not particularly concerned if he was Christian or gnostic, truthful or liar, farmer or merchant, tall or short, rich or poor. Such questions might be very interesting in their own right, but do not affect the apparatus entry.

The answer of the first one is ambiguous, because of how he stops right after Acts 8:1a, but you could argue that the fact that he changes gears after the first phrase might support an apparatus to have then entry "(Adamantius)" Yet not "Adamantius." It is an interesting logic question as to the value of such a stopped extract.

The thinking would go like this: If Adamantius had the short text in front of him, it is 100% natural for him to switch gears right after Romans 8:1a. However, if he had the longer text in front of him, there is a reasonable probability that he would have finished the sentence with the defining or qualifying phrase 8:1b and 8:1c (or just 8:1b if he had the partial text) before switching gears. Weighing post-facto probability calculation is a bit tricky.

Logically, does that give enough ammunition for an apparatus entry? Textual critics tend to be weak on logic, We had a discussion on the Evangelical Textual Criticism forum where they stumbled badly, and we were even discussing the Monty Hall problem. And I am just mulling it over in the context of Romans 8:1 myself.

From what I understand from the responses, the theory that Adamantius supplies significant apparatus evidence of what was the text of Marcion should simply be discarded. Clear enough, and very helpful.

One wonders how the apparatus entry originally came to fruition? Presumably in the 20th century. In the Westcott-Hort text of 1881 they did reference Adamantius, with no pointing to Marcion. (They may be taking from Griesbach or Tischendorf or somebody, they did not really work with the materials.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=gZ4HA ... =RA1-PA109

[DCHindley]

Steven Avery

FWIW, there is an English translation published by Peeters publishing house, but it is under copyright. You should be able to find a used or remaindered copy.

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... IUS#p40744

DCH

[Stuart]

Steven,

One final comment on an observation made by Clabeaux about the Marcionite text I find poignant. He held the concept of a "pre-Marcionite" text of Paul and the Gospels, which were shorter than our Canonical. Although I doubt a pre-Marcionite version of the texts was "publicly" available, the observation that the text expanded, adding material over time is not new. Such suggestions are generally categorized as snowball theories for composition - they hold up very well to scrutiny. His view is that the Marcionite represents a snapshot of the texts in earlier form than the received text, but not an original text.

This IMO is important to understanding the Marcionite text. It is not the original merely an earlier form, but one, due to the evangelism of the Marcionites, that was likely the first published and available beyond the confines of the early pre-evangelical Christian communities.

A shorter version of Romans 8:1, without the second phrase merely means it likely is an earlier form than the received (Canonical) text, and not necessarily Marcionite. Verses 7:24-8:1(a) could just as easily be a post-Marcionite addition as a pre-Marcionite addition -- there is a bit of Valentinian flavor hinted here. (Or the missing phrases could merely be a local variant due to some scribal error.) In this more general view of development of Christian scripture one needs to be more cautious in assigning the "Marcionite" label to any particular reading.

[perseusomega9]

[perseusomega9]

I don't know why SA and Stuart don't get along better, they pretty much say the same thing.

[Steven Avery]

Steven Avery
FWIW, there is an English translation published by Peeters publishing house, but it is under copyright. You should be able to find a used or remaindered copy.
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... IUS#p40744
DCH

Thanks! I notice your comment about:

"how murky the evidence is for whether a pericope was or was not in Marcion's Gospel or Evangelion. It often has to be deduced from the arguments, and that involves a certain amount of subjective interpretation. So, in short, no one will agree about anything, but it can be fun to go for the ride anyways."

And from what has been said here, the apparatus likely does not do any careful analysis. Although, as you suggest,reading the English of the section would be a more helpful verification.

In the $25-$30 range used with shipping, available at Columbia University and a few other places per Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/dialogue- ... ht=edition

[Steven Avery]

I don't know why SA and Stuart don't get along better, they pretty much say the same thing.

Stuart was very helpful on the Adamantius and Marcion questions of Romans 8:1. Afaik, we get along fine .

Although I am not really concerned with some of his theorizing about textual redaction addition. I see the subtraction of material as much easier than addition, especially when the support for the phrase or verse is wide and deep in many locales or languages.

Yet even that is not really a factor in the more simple question of apparatus analysis and errors. I may go into that more later, as many of the references for Romans 8:1, maybe 10 to 12, are not translated to English and would have to come from the Greek and Latin referencing.

I'll give two examples here where the quotes are needed:

Victorinus-Rome (AD 362) - in the apparatus (twice in Westcott-Hort, one has an m before the name, perhaps part of the entry)
Ephraem (AD 373) - in the apparatus

Steven

[Secret Alias]

the theory that Adamantius supplies significant apparatus evidence of what was the text of Marcion should simply be discarded

My position would be that none of the surviving material helps us get close to whether/what the Marcionite text looked like. Adamantius has problems. Tertullian has problems. Epiphanius has problems. Adamantius and Tertullian suffer from basically the same problem. Adamantius was rewritten a number of times. Tertullian's Against Marcion was rewritten and reworked at least three times. Epiphanius's problem is that he is utterly dishonest and 'makes up a lot of shit' to use the street terminology. He is the last person you'd expect to have sat down and combed through the Marcionite gospel to establish textual variants. His usual methodology is just to lie and say things like 'I visited a heretical sex cult and saw their scriptures.' He never visited a heretical sex cult and the scriptures he describes associated with this group are made up. I once compiled the number of lies or misrepresentations in the Panarion and there ended up being about 70 of them.

I acknowledge that Epiphanius had a large library of Christian material at his disposal. The Marcionite scriptures were not in that library nor were they available to him. This web page brings up the problem of whether or not Tertullian or Epiphanius ever actually had their hands on the Marcionite gospel - https://sites.google.com/site/inglisonm ... at-of-luke Lieu on the question of whether either Tertullian or Epiphanius saw a Marcionite canon - https://books.google.com/books?id=PtXeB ... 22&f=false. Roth on the question of disagreements between Tertullian and Epiphanius on the composition of the Marcionite gospel - https://books.google.com/books?id=hNYuB ... 22&f=false. Harnack thought Origen had access to the Marcionite Bible https://books.google.com/books?id=1ixKA ... 22&f=false but this is less surprising as his patron Ambrose was a Marcionite. I think Epiphanius instead had access to books written about Marcion and more or less randomly compiled textual variants he saw in those works.