Romans 8:1 - Marcion according to Adamantius

[Steven Avery]

The apparatus for

Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

has for the omission variant:
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Marcion according to Adamantius (the last three words are put in superscript.)

Can any of our Marcion experts verify this, finding the source, and parsing any nuances?
Likely in the:

Adamantius: Dialogue on the True Faith in God;
(One early version is listed as: Dialogus Contra Marcionitas, sive De recta in Deum fide )

Which Roger Pearse discussed in 2009 here:

Adamantius, De recta in deum fide
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/200 ... deum-fide/

Also did the words of Adamantius help to indicate his own text? Thus, a separate apparatus entry.

Any help appreciated.
Thanks!

=======

Correction: I had "acc" originally, they do the entry with "according"

[Stuart]

We cannot say anything about the Marcionite text here. But we can reject the reading referred to as being Marcionite. From my notes this is a late correction, long after the Marcionite text - it might even reflect later corruption of the text in Adamantius:

apparently read ἡμᾶς "us" supported by Ψ against σε "you" of the main recension B א 1739* (F G σαι) However the UBS is correct. ἡμᾶς is a correction to ἡμῖν in verse 8:4, while the majority text corrected to με of 7:24

The assumption above is that Dialogue Adamantius 5th part quotes from the Marcionite text. However Clabeaux demolishes this argument, demonstrating reading after reading in the 5th part is from the Catholic text before the author and not the Marcionite. In fact he concludes that author of the work did not have a copy of any Marcionite text before him, but instead 2nd hand tracts. He voiced the opinion that when Adamantius says he is reading from the Marcionite, it merely means he is reading from ten letter collection of Paul (that is not the Pastorals) but not in the earlier form known to the Marcionites, rather the Catholic form.

In general quotes from the Catholic champion Adamantius have to viewed with great suspicion as they are either drawn from a local Catholic text known to the author or are quoted from arguments lifted from an earlier work used to form the Dialogue.

In my view the specific reference in part five in which Adamantius makes to reading from the Marcionite text --hat quoting from a source claiming to quote the Marcionite text-- in 5.14 ONLY refers to the one passage from Luke about the blind man outside Jericho.

Because Megethius, who holds Marcion's teaching, is present, I will read from their Gospel: ...

He quotes Luke 18:35-38, 40-43 in full, but with omissions and variants that are clearly Marcionite (e.g., Nazareth, ὁ Ναζωραῖος / Nazarenus, is missing from 18:37, consistent with the Marcionite text not having that), but also with other variants that are clearly late and from Catholic texts (e.g., verse 18:39 is only omitted in later manuscripts, so cannot be Marcionite). But on the whole I think the text of this passage reflects a haphazardly "corrected" version of the Marcionite text. This unfortunately this tells us other Marcionite passages likely suffered Catholic adjustments.

But the quote of the Gospel passage does not mean that anything following was intended to have been read from the Marcionite text. In fact the debate moderator follows with a rather long winded commentary, making it unlikely the Marcionite quotes would follow. So it is a bit of a wold stretch to claim any text quoted by Adamantius after that is still from the Marcionite.

Back to the point, the only halfway reliable quotes of Marcionite text occur in Parts One and Two, spoken by the Marcionite Champions Megethius and Markus. However it is my view that a good part of what they quote are from the lost work, the Antithesis and not from the Marcionite Paul or Gospel, rather paraphrases of those two sources as well as the LXX. So one has to be extremely cautious to avoid over assigning Marcionite readings to what may be a paraphrase rather than a quote.

Anything from these first two parts from Adamantius' mouth are almost certainly not Marcionite. An excellent example comes from The Marcionite reading from 1 Corinthians 5: 5 of ⌐ παρέδωκα (Tradidi) for παραδοῦναι. This Marcionite reading is supported in AM 5.7.2 as well. Paul says "I delivered up such a one" says Markus in DA 2.8 (and also 2.21), but earlier in DA 2.5 Adamantius quotes the passage "You are to deliver up such a one." The author of DA seems oblivious to the conflict here, and has the Champion quote the Catholic text, and yet twoce puts words from his source in Markus' mouth. There are other examples of where the Marcionite champions quote a passage with different variants than the Catholic champion does. This has led me to the conclusion that the Marcionite Champions are used in the artificial Dialogue form to put forth well know Marcionite comments, and that the author of Adamantius used catholic sources as well as his own inspiration to make the counter arguments. The words of Adamantius are thus not drawn from the same source as the Marcionite opponents, except perhaps some of the passages (by no means all) where he specifically states it comes from the Marcionite -- again sometimes that merely means he is quoting from the Catholic letter of the same name,

As for the passage from Romans 7:24-8:2 there is no help from either Epiphanius or Tertullian. So we do not have anything to base any readings on. We are forced to evaluate from internal reading and that leads to uncertain or eclectic results.

In short anyone claiming they have the Marcionite text for this passage is giving you a WAG. Or else they have convinced themselves, like Harnack apparently did, that Methodius' Free Will drew from a Marcionite tract (extremely unlikely) and not a Valentinian tract (very possible).

[Steven Avery]

Thank you, Stuart, much appreciated.

So the actual apparatus entry was simply a phantom. Adamantius does not quote the "no condemnation" verse in any fashion?

Methodius is not referenced as using the verse anywhere, afaik.

the phrase we are concerned with is:

Οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριμα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ·
μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα

Do you have a theory how this got into the apparatus?
Was there some hyper-conjectural scholarship?

So far, I see about 13 of these
"Marcion according to Adamantius" references.

6 in Luke, 2 in Romans, 3 in 1 Corinthians, 1 in Ephesians, 1 in Galatians
Luke 5:38 9:1 9:2 16:20 16:21 16:23
Romans 8:1 8:2
1 Corinthians 15:47 15:51 15:52
Ephesians 3:9
Galatians 2:20

Do you think some of them might be legitimate, with Adamantius actually stating the text in the context of Marcion? Even if Adamantius might have been in error, and even if there might be some interpretation involved to get to the final conclusion of a Marcion text.

Steven

[Ben C. Smith]

The Adamantius Dialogue quotes Romans 8.1-2 without the line about walking according to the spirit instead of the flesh (μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα):

Romans 8.1-2: 1 οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριμα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῶ Ἰησοῦ· 2 ὁ γὰρ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῶ Ἰησοῦ ἠλευθέρωσέν σε ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου.

Adamantius Dialogue 5.27: 27 .... <οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριμα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, ὁ γὰρ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠλευθέρωσεν ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου>. ....

The notation in the apparatus is based on this quotation.

But proving an absence is not easy, since that is where the quote (which actually started back at Romans 7.25b) ends. And, as Stuart was saying, it is always debatable whether this goes back to the Marcionite text itself. It could be another.

ETA: The stricken line is in error.

[Secret Alias]

... the same holds true for "evidence" of what is in Marcion from Tertullian.

[Steven Avery]

Thanks, Ben, much appreciated. So the apparatus entry for Adamantius (but Marcion according to Adamanius is too conjectural) is reasonably valid, although alternately it might be much better to be in parenthesis due to ending at the point. Where does Adamantius go after the Romans 8:1a quote?

The "according to" aspect would only be valid if Adamantius specifically said .. "as in the Marcion text.." or something of that nature.

[Secret Alias]

But as I have noted MANY, MANY times at this forum - the information for 'what is in the Marcionite canon' is uncertain, of very low quality and often contradictory. There is no way to simply connect 'things said in Tertullian' with 'things said in Adamantius' and 'things said in Epiphanius' and 'things said in Origen' and draw a straight line between them. The reason for this is:

1. most of the texts (i.e. Tertullian Against Marcion 4 and 5, De Recta in Deum Fide and the Panarion ARE COMPILATIONS or reworkings of earlier material.
2. using the parable of the three blind men touching different parts of the elephant we aren't even sure that in their original forum all these sources (or their sources) are necessarily 'touching' the same elephant or even an elephant.

The final editions of these works were laid down in the third and fourth centuries. THE SOURCES for these books likely come from the middle to late second century where a different canon with different gospels (i.e. harmony gospels) were 'orthodox.' We can use the example of Ephrem as a point of reference. Ephrem uses a harmony and criticizes Marcion for possessing or promoting a 'harmony-like' gospel. So too Tertullian Against Marcion 4 where Marcion's 'antitheses' are likely the antitheses of Matthew chapter 5 which make no sense in a work now modified to appear as a commentary on 'true' Luke. These matters are too complicated for making any firm conclusions about the text of the Marcionite gospel or the letters of Paul. It's like dating a whore and wondering about which guy she's thinking about when she says 'the way you do that reminds me of another guy.' Too many hands on her body and too many hands on the texts we use to reconstruct our 'knowledge' of Marcion.

The reason why prostitutes are not highly valued as marriage partners is the same reason why we can't use Tertullian, Adamantius, Epiphanius and Origen to reconstruct the Marcionite gospel. We should want virgins to marry and virgin texts to reconstruct history. Tertullian for one has been remade into a Luke vs Marcion commentary. That's not what it was originally because it makes no sense to reference 'the antitheses' (i.e. Matthew chapter 5) and Marcion's erasure of various parts of that section if the text was originally a Luke vs Marcion commentary. That means that you can't simply go through Tertullian's running commentary and say 'oh he referenced this line THEREFORE it's in Marcion ... he DIDN'T reference this line in Luke it isn't in Marcion.' He is or isn't referencing things has been rendered useless because there are at least three hands on the current edition of Against Marcion (so the introduction) and not every editor knew or referenced Marcion's gospel or letters of Paul. Similarly Adamantius's is so disjointed and ideas and concepts come in and out of the narrative in a manner which demonstrate quite clearly that we have a similarly edited text.

[Steven Avery]

The apparatus is based on what the early church writer texts say, not on your negative opinions of various 2nd to 4th century extant writings.

[Secret Alias]

The Church Fathers don't EXPLICITLY say for the most part 'X is part of the Marcionite canon' (except Epiphanius who is often a liar in other respects including his visit to an orgiastic 'heresy' ritual). Tertullian says at the beginning of Against Marcion 'hey, that book I once wrote against Marcion is now being written again after it fell into the hands of an apostate. Ignore all previous editions.' And then Evans and others have noted many places where the third editor's hand pops up especially in between Book 2 and 4 with Book 3 being wholly brought out of nowhere and repurposed from a treatise against the Jews. There is no point arguing with a guy who accepts many preposterous premises.

[Ben C. Smith]

Thanks, Ben, much appreciated. So the apparatus entry for Adamantius (but Marcion according to Adamanius is too conjectural) is reasonably valid, although alternately it might be much better to be in parenthesis due to ending at the point. Where does Adamantius go after the Romans 8:1a quote?

Bottom (very last lines) of page 234 of the 1901 edition: https://archive.org/details/derdialogde ... g/page/234, and continuing up to the top (very first lines) of page 236. He immediately launches into some reasoning concerning what he just quoted (this is just a quickie translation of my own, since I cannot quickly find an already existing English translation): "'...from the law of sin and of death' [= the end of the quotation, Romans 8.2a]. Now, if the mind is slave to the law of God, but the flesh that of sin, and [if] the law of the spirit of life liberated us in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death, then it is clear that the thing which was enslaved to the law of sin was liberated from sin; but it is not the mind which was enslaved to the law of sin, but rather the flesh. The flesh, therefore, was liberated from death."