Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

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DCHindley
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Re: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by DCHindley »

The problem with that kind of scenario, it seems to me, is it is hard to justify.

Sure, there were all sorts of real old-time gods that were assimilated by dominat cultures, and some might explain some of the Judean scriptures where there is tension between EL and YHWH, but from the time of the Maccabean revolt and especially the rise of the Hasmonean dynasty, the pressures placed on them by Syrian king Antioches IV (Epiphanes) had caused Judean culture to center on one kind of belief.

By the time the 1st century CE rolled along, they had been immersed in their unique nationalistic culture for almost 200 years, maybe more.

If any of the pan theism that may have been present in the Israelite religious universe persisted to the end of the 3rd or early 2d century BCE, I'd think there should be some archeological evidence for it, and there does not seem to be any. For the ancient traditions, we do have archeological evidence (inscriptions or even sacred texts) or we wouldn't have categorized then and subjected them to analysis.

All Josephus would have to do is say something like "These persons (combatants, village, etc.) were descendants of the tribe of (pick one) who had abandoned themselves to Baal (or whoever) and they still worshipped Baal along with the God of Israel" or something like that. "Ah hah!" we would exclaim, "There is evidence that pan theism survived into Josephus' time!"

But we don't.

DCH
arnoldo wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:20 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:12 am
Secret Alias wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 8:58 am. Nevertheless all reasonable scholars do not see Christianity as anything but a Jewish sect.
I would have liked truely this premise by you (so that you can have my respect), but you are not confining yourself simply to that premise. . .
It's also a premise April De Conick, whom you cite, supports.
The first Christians were Jews. They had no problem worshiping Jesus alongside the father god almost from the start. I think that this worship was pre-Pauline, and centered in Antioch, although I do not rule out Jerusalem (see my paper in the book Israel's God and Rebecca's Children, "How we talk about ChristologyMatters"). They thought that Jesus was God's great angel who came to earth as a human being and was exalted to the angelic status of the NAME angel at his resurrection. The Jews in the Second Temple period from Philo to Qumran to all the Jewish apocalyptic texts believed that God manifested himself as the NAME angel on earth. This NAME angel, because he was invested with God's NAME, was essentially GOD. The Samaritans had various sectarian movements in the first century that played on this theme. Simon the Samaritan taught that he was the manifestation of this POWER of God, and that he had been sent to earth from the father in order to save the lost soul. The Jewish gnostics in the first century were able to develop the demiurge myth because they relied on these same ideas - that God had a NAMED angel YAHWEH who was distinct from GOD yet was the GOD who created the world.
http://aprildeconick.com/

Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

Back to the OP

Tertullian Apology "was his body stolen by his disciples from its tomb?"

Trypho "you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilaean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven."
“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: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

I notice that there is a strange divergence between Against Marcion 3 and Against the Jews in a section of text which demonstrates they are dependent (as usual) on a common source. We read in Against Marcion 3.23:
Now since neither David nor any king of the Jews had to suffer that cross, you cannot think this a prophecy of the passion of anyone else, but only of him who alone was so notably crucified by that people. So now, if the heretic's obstinacy contemns and derides all these interpretations of mine, I shall <be prepared to> grant him that the Creator has given <in this psalm> no indication of any cross of Christ, in that even on this ground he will not prove that he who was crucified was any other <than the Creator's Christ>—unless perchance he succeeds in showing that his death in this form was prophesied by his own god, so that diversity of prophesyings may prove there was diversity of passions and, in consequence, diversity of persons. But as there was no prophecy of Marcion's Christ, far less of his cross, the prophecy of one death <and not two> is sufficient proof that the Christ who is meant is mine. From the fact that the manner of his death is not stated, it follows that it could have come about by a cross, and it could only have had reference to another if there had also been prophecy of another—unless perhaps he prefers that not even the death of my Christ was prophesied: in which case he is put to greater shame, while he tells of the death of his own Christ, whose birth he denies, but denies the death of my Christ, whose birth he admits. But I can prove both the death and the burial and the resurrection of my Christ by one word of Isaiah, who says, His sepulture hath been taken away out of the midst.g He could not have been buried without having died, nor could his sepulture have been taken away out of the midst except by resurrection. And so he added, Therefore shall he have many for an inheritance, and of many shall he divide the spoils, because his soul hath been delivered over unto death.h For in this is indicated the purpose of this grace, that it is to be a recompense for the insult of death. It is likewise indicated that he is to obtain these things after death, by virtue, that is, of resurrection ... He also in the fifty-eighth psalm demands of the Father their dispersion, Disperse them in thy strength. Again in Isaiah, ending his discourse of their being consumed with fire, he says, For my sake these things have been done to you, ye shall sleep in sorrow. Quite meaningless this, if they suffered these things not for his sake had openly stated that they would suffer them for his sake, but because of the Christ of some other god. Yes, you say (Marcion), it was the Christ of the other god who was brought to the cross, by the Creator's powers and principalities which were hostile to him. I reply that he is shown as being avenged by the Creator, And wicked men are given for his burying-place, those who affirmed that it had been robbed, and rich men for his death,k those who had paid money to Judas for his betrayal, and money to the soldiers for false witness that the dead body had been stolen away. It follows that, either these things did not happen to the Jews because of him—but on this you are confuted by the agreement of the sense of the scriptures with the course of events and the order of the times—or, if they did happen because of him, it is impossible for the Creator to have avenged any Christ but his own, since he would by preference have rewarded Judas if it had been an opponent of their Lord whom the Jews had put to death. Certainly, if the Creator's Christ has not yet come, the Christ on whose account it is prophesied that they are to suffer these things, it follows that when he does come they will suffer them. But where by that time will there be a daughter of Sion to be made desolate? Even today she is not. Where the cities to be burned with fire? They are already in ruinous heaps. Where the dispersion of that nation? It is already in exile. Give back to Judaea its polity, that the Creator's Christ may find it so: only so can you claim that he who has come is a different Christ. In any case how can the Creator have given passage through his own heaven to one whom, on his own earth, he was going to put to death, after the violation of the more noble and glorious region of his own kingdom, after the treading under foot of his own palace and citadel? Or perhaps this is what he was aiming at? Evidently a jealous God: yet he is the victor. Shame on you, who trust in a god who has been vanquished. What have you to hope for from him who was not strong enough to protect himself? Either it was through infirmity that he was overpowered by the Creator's angels and men, or it was through malice, while he desired by
tolerance to brand them with the guilt of so great a crime.

'Yes,' you object, 'but I do hope for something from him— and this itself amounts to a proof that there are two different Christs—I hope for the kingdom of God, with an eternal heavenly inheritance: whereas your Christ promises the Jews their former estate, after the restitution of their country, and, when life has run its course, refreshment with those beneath the earth, in Abraham's bosom. Such a very good God, if when calmed down he gives back what he took away when angry: your God, who both smites and heals, who creates evil and makes peace: a God whose mercy reaches even down to hell.'
This is a most puzzling passage. The author has - as is with the treatise as a whole attempted to negate or put in the negative a series of statements which were originally positive in the original text Against the Jews. But sometimes he confuses himself and says two different things in the same section. So let's pay close attention to what he is saying.

The author clearly says:
Yes, you say (Marcion), it was the Christ of the other god who was brought to the cross, by the Creator's powers and principalities which were hostile to him.
This is what the negation of the original argument in Against the Jews does at this point. But if we go back to the original argument it is clear that the original author makes the case that 'Christ' - the one crucified in the gospel - was the true messiah of the Jews:
Now, if the hardness of your heart shall persist in rejecting and deriding all these interpretations, we will prove that it may suffice that the death of the Christ had been prophesied, in order that, from the fact that the nature of the death had not been specified, it may be understood to have been affected by means of the cross and that the passion of the cross is not to be ascribed to any but Him whose death was constantly being predicted. For I desire to show, in one utterance of Isaiah, His death, and passion, and sepulture. "By the crimes," he says, "of my people was He led unto death; and I will give the evil for His sepulture, and the rich for His death, because He did not wickedness, nor was guile found in his mouth; and God willed to redeem His soul from death," and so forth. [16] He says again, moreover: "His sepulture hath been taken away from the midst." For neither was He buried except He were dead, nor was His sepulture removed from the midst except through His resurrection. Finally, he subjoins: "Therefore He shall have many for an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils: " who else (shall so do) but He who "was born," as we have above shown?--"in return for the fact that His soul was delivered unto death? "For, the cause of the favour accorded Him being shown,--in return, to wit, for the injury of a death which had to be recompensed,--it is likewise shown that He, destined to attain these rewards because of death, was to attain them after death--of course after resurrection. For that which happened at His passion, that mid-day grew dark, the prophet Amos announces, saying, "And it shall be," he says, "in that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall set at mid-day, and the day of light shall grow dark over the land: and I will convert your festive days into grief, and all your canticles into lamentation; and I will lay upon your loins sackcloth, and upon every head baldness; and I will make the grief like that for a beloved (son), and them that are with him like a day of mourning." For that you would do thus at the beginning of the first month of your new (years) even Moses prophesied, when he was foretelling that all the community of the sons of lsrael was234 to immolate at eventide a lamb, and were to eat235 this solemn sacrifice of this day (that is, of the passover of unleavened bread) with bitterness; "and added that "it was the passover of the Lord,"236 that is, the passion of Christ. Which prediction was thus also fulfilled, that "on the first day of unleavened bread"237 you slew Christ;238 [19] and (that the prophecies might be fulfilled) the day hasted to make an "eventide,"--that is, to cause darkness, which was made at mid-day; and thus "your festive days God converted into grief, and your canticles into lamentation." For after the passion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit.
So clearly the original argument simply was made TO THE JEWS and it was to the effect that "hey Jews, the one described in the gospel as being crucified was your messiah" and then all sorts of scriptural arguments are lined up to show that.

Oddly enough when the same text was adapted to combat Marcion (for what reasons no one has ever made sense of) another layer or actually many layers are added to the text. The argument becomes:

1. a new argument - i.e. the Marcionites say that there are two Christs, one of the Creator another of their god
2. the old argument against the Jews - namely that the crucified Christ in the gospel was the expected Jewish messiah - now spun with an additional you deny this Marcion.
“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: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

So apparently no surviving reference to Daniel 9:26 in Hebrew - i.e. the messiah will be killed and disappear - remains in the text. However the original author cites the Greek text of Isaiah 57:2:
See how the just man has perished, and no one lays it to heart: and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers: for the righteous has been removed out of the way of injustice. His burial shall be in peace: he has been removed out of the way (ἔσται ἐν εἰρήνῃ ἡ ταφὴ αὐτοῦ ἦρται ἐκ τοῦ μέσου)
Clearly this is an argument for the empty tomb being prophesied in scripture. In Against the Jews it is sandwiched in the middle of the citation of LXX Psalm 53:
AGAINST THE JEWS

which cross neither David himself suffered, nor any of the kings of the Jews: that you may not think the passion of some other particular man is here prophesied than His who alone was so signally crucified by the People. Now, if the hardness of your heart shall persist in rejecting and deriding all these interpretations, we will prove that it may suffice that the death of the Christ had been prophesied, in order that, from the fact that the nature of the death had not been specified, it may be understood to have been affected by means of the cross229 and that the passion of the cross is not to be ascribed to any but Him whose death was constantly being predicted. [15] For I desire to show, in one utterance of Isaiah, His death, and passion, and sepulture. "By the crimes," he says, "of my people was He led unto death; and I will give the evil for His sepulture, and the rich for His death, because He did not wickedness, nor was guile found in his mouth; and God willed to redeem His soul from death,"230 and so forth. [16] He says again, moreover: "His sepulture hath been taken away from the midst."231 For neither was He buried except He were dead, nor was His sepulture removed from the midst except through His resurrection. Finally, he subjoins: "Therefore He shall have many for an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils:232 " who else (shall so do) but He who "was born," as we have above shown?--"in return for the fact that His soul was delivered unto death? "For, the cause of the favour accorded Him being shown,--in return, to wit, for the injury of a death which had to be recompensed,--it is likewise shown that He, destined to attain these rewards because of death, was to attain them after death--of course after resurrection.

Quam crucem nec ipse David passus est nec ullus regum Iudaeorum, ne putetis alterius alicuius prophetari passionem quam eius qui solus a populo tam insigniter crucifixus est. Nunc si omnes istas interpretationes respuerit et inriserit duritia cordis vestri, probabimus sufficere posse mortem Christi prophetatam, ut ex hoc quod non esset edicta qualis mors intellegatur per crucem evenisse nec alii deputandam fuisse passionem crucis quam cuius mors praedicabatur. [15] Nam mortem eius et passionem et sepulturam una voce Esaiae volo ostendere: A facinoribus, inquit, populi mei perductus est ad mortem et dabo malos pro sepultura eius et divites pro morte eius, quia scelus non fecit nec dolus in ore eius inventus est; et deus voluit eximere a morte animam eius et cetera. [16] Dicit etiam adhuc: Sepultura eius sublata est e medio. Nec sepultus enim est nisi mortuus nec sepultura eius sublata est e medio nisi per resurrectionem[/b] eius. Denique subiungit: Propterea ipse multos in hereditatem habebit et multorum dividet spolia -- quis alius nisi qui + natus + est, ut supra ostendimus ? -- pro eo quod tradita est in mortem anima eius. Ostensa enim causa gratiae eius, pro iniuria scilicet mortis repensandae, pariter ostensum est haec illum propter mortem consecuturum post mortem, utique post resurrectionem, consecuturum.
AGAINST MARCION 3

Quam crucem nec ipse David passus est, nec ullus rex Iudaeorum, ne putes alterius alicuius prophetari passionem quam eius qui solus a populo tam insigniter crucifixus est. Nunc et si omnes istas interpretationes respuerit et irriserit haeretica duritia, concedam illi nullam Christi crucem significatam a creatore, quia nec ex hoc probabit alium esse qui crucifixus est: [7] nisi forte ostenderit hunc exitum eius a suo deo praedicatum, ut diversitas passionum, ac per hoc etiam personarum, ex diversitate praedicationum vindicetur. Ceterum nec ipso Christo eius praedicato, nedum cruce ipsius, sufficit in meum Christum solius mortis prophetia. Ex hoc enim quod non est edita qualitas mortis, potuit
et per crucem evenisse, tunc alii deputanda si in alium fuisset praedicatum. [8] Nisi si nec mortem volet Christi mei prophetatam, quo magis erubescat, si suum quidem Christum mortuum annuntiat, quem negat natum, meum vero mortalem negat, quem nascibilem confitetur. Et mortem autem et sepulturam et resurrectionem Christi mei una voce Esaiae volo ostendere dicentis, Sepultura eius sublata de medio est. [9] Nec sepultus enim esset nisi mortuus, nec sepultura eius sublata de medio nisi per resurrectionem. Denique subiecit, Propterea ipse multos haereditati habebit et multorum dividet spolia, pro eo quod tradita est anima eius in mortem. Ostensa est enim causa gratiae huius, pro iniuria scilicet mortis repensandae. Pariter ostensum est haec illum [propter mortem consecuturum, post mortem utique per resurrectionem consecuturum.

Now, David himself did not suffer this cross, nor did any other king of the Jews; so that you cannot suppose that this is the prophecy of any other's passion than His who alone was so notably crucified by the nation. Now should the heretics, in their obstinacy,273 reject and despise all these interpretations, I will grant to them that the Creator has given us no signs of the cross of His Christ; but they will not prove from this concession that He who was crucified was another (Christ), [7] unless they could somehow show that this death was predicted as His by their own god, so that from the diversity of predictions there might be maintained to be a diversity of sufferers,274 and thereby also a diversity of persons. But since there is no prophecy of even Marcion's Christ, much less of his cross, it is enough for my Christ that there is a prophecy merely of death. For, from the fact that the kind of death is not declared, it was possible for the death of the cross to have been still intended, which would then have to be assigned to another (Christ), if the prophecy had had reference to another. [8] Besides,275 if he should be unwilling to allow that the death of my Christ was predicted, his confusion must be the greater276 if he announces that his own Christ indeed died, whom he denies to have had a nativity, whilst denying that my Christ is mortal, though he allows Him to be capable of birth. However, I will show him the death, and burial, and resurrection of my Christ all277 indicated in a single sentence of Isaiah, who says, "His sepulture was removed from the midst of them." [9] Now there could have been no sepulture without death, and no removal of sepulture except by resurrection. Then, finally, he added: "Therefore He shall have many for his inheritance, and He shall divide the spoil of the many, because He poured out His soul unto death."278 For there is here set forth the cause of this favour to Him, even that it was to recompense Him for His suffering of death. It was equally shown that He was to obtain this recompense for His death, was certainly to obtain it after His death by means of the resurrection.
So the question becomes - did the original author argue to the Jews that the crucified Christ of the gospel was their awaited messiah? Yes. Here he clearly makes the case that the empty tomb of the gospel was the empty tomb predicted in Isaiah 53:2 LXX. This later becomes a convoluted argument in Against Marcion 19 to the effect that the Marcionites say there are two Christs, Jesus not known to the prophets and the messiah of the Jews who is known to the prophets - how could Jesus be unknown to the prophets when he is predicted as being crucified and disappearing in his tomb. But this doesn't say much about the original beliefs of the Marcionites per se.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
“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: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

Of course I would lean toward the Marcionites arguing that Christ was crucified on the cross and then disappeared as per Daniel 9:26 Hebrew and that Jesus escaped punishment and watched the Passion impassably as did the earliest Valentinians. The editor of Against Marcion doesn't want us to know that ... because it makes too much sense. Everything starts to make sense. All the lines intersect and the Marcionites had a gospel which resembled original Mark. The Philosophumena makes explicit that the Marcionites used a 'mystic' (i.e. Empedoclean) text of the Gospel of Mark. The Philosophemena as a whole has the structure of Irenaeus's Against Heresies. Many sections are reused and Irenaeus is explicitly mentioned during the discussion of the Marcosians (where he is referenced as the blessed presbyter from memory). Nevertheless the section on Marcion (chapter 27 in Against Heresies) couldn't have been available to the author as he chose to insert a completely different chapter on the Marcionites. Instead of Luke they are said to use Mark, instead of being rabid 'Zoroastrian' dualists they are more in the mold of traditional Judaism i.e. two powers of justice and mercy, war and love). The references to post-resurrectional sections of Luke in Against Marcion 4 can be explained away as the editor assuming Marcion used Luke and argues out of canonical Luke to disprove Marcion's theories. But the basic idea that the Marcionites denied that the Passion was predicted by the prophets is ludicrous given that the Passion itself seems 'tuned into' Psalm 53. It's a case that the author of Against Marcion Book 4 makes over and over again. Of course Psalm 53 just says that a chosen individual will die a horrible death. That this individual could be the messiah is alluded to in rabbinic writings. Nevertheless the Jews denied that he was Jesus and the Marcionites agreed. What gets in the way of Against Marcion 3 explicitly saying that the Christ and Jesus were two different individuals is the editors over-arching monarchianism. As a result he only alludes to the Marcionite understanding in roundabout ways, purposefully IMHO suppressing that the Marcionites read the text this way. For instance all Marcionite commentators acknowledge that Marcionites said that the sect believed there were two Christs - Jesus and someone else. They acknowledged moreover that the Jewish prophesies referred to this other Christ rather than Jesus - even those prophesies which were argued by Christians to refer to the crucified Christ.

It is true that all our surviving sources on the Marcionites tend to make the case the Marcionites argued that the prophesies relating to a Jewish messiah had yet to be fulfilled - i.e. they relate to a Jewish kingdom which had to come. However this seems to be more the result of the orthodox authors 'filling in the blanks' with information from their own age and the Jewish messianic belief reflect of their own later time i.e. third and fourth centuries. If Marcionism developed at the time of bar Kochba or earlier what do we imagine the Marcionites said to Jews? Did they agree with them that bar Kochba was their messiah? I don't think so. I think the idea that the Jewish messiah already came and was crucified but was not Jesus is a more powerful argument. First of all, there are signs that the Marcionites used Daniel. Their gospel moreover had Jesus making reference to the 70 weeks. How far out could the Marcionites have imagined the 70 weeks stretched? Moreover since we never hear the Marcionite argue against the legitimacy of the Jewish messianic predictions (i.e. we never hear them say that their messiah wasn't going to come) the Marcionites had to have argued that the Jewish messiah came and died rather than was still to come especially in the third and fourth centuries.
“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: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

And interesting as all signs point to Against the Jews deriving its origins (along with Against Marcion 4) with Justin, Justin uses the same passage in Isaiah to allude to the death of Christ:
And how it was predicted by the Spirit of prophecy that He and those who hoped in Him should be slain, hear what was said by Isaiah. These are the words: Behold now the righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart; and just men are taken away, and no man considers. From the presence of wickedness is the righteous man taken, and his burial shall be in peace: he is taken from our midst. [Apology 48]

Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him, and in Him who sent Him--God the Almighty and Maker of all things--cursing in your synagogues those that believe on Christ. For you have not the power to lay hands upon us, on account of those who now have the mastery. But as often as you could, you did so. Wherefore God, by Isaiah, calls to you, saying, 'Behold how the righteous man perished, and no one regards it. For the righteous man is taken away from before iniquity. His grave shall be in peace, he is taken away from the midst. Draw near hither, ye lawless children, seed of the adulterers, and children of the whore. Against whom have you sported yourselves, and against whom have you opened the mouth, and against whom have you loosened the tongue?' [Dialogue 16]

And Isaiah likewise mentions concerning Him the manner in which He would die, thus: 'I have spread out My hands unto a people disobedient, and gainsaying, that walk in a way which is not good.' And that He would rise again, Isaiah himself said: 'His burial has been taken away from the midst, and I will give the rich for His death.' And again, in other words, David in the twenty-first Psalm thus refers to the suffering and to the cross in a parable of mystery: 'They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones. They considered and gazed on me; they parted my garments among themselves, and cast lots upon my vesture.' For when they crucified Him, driving in the nails, they pierced His hands and feet; and those who crucified Him parted His garments among themselves, each casting lots for what he chose to have, and receiving according to the decision of the lot. And this very Psalm you maintain does not refer to Christ; for you are in all respects blind, and do not understand that no one in your nation who has been called King or Christ has ever had his hands or feet pierced while alive, or has died in this mysterious fashion--to wit, by the cross--save this Jesus alone. [Dialogue 97]

And when I had finished these words, I continued: "Now I am aware that your teachers, sirs, admit the whole of the words of this passage to refer to Christ; and I am likewise aware that they maintain He has not yet come; or if they say that He has come, they assert that it is not known who He is; but when He shall become manifest and glorious, then it shall be known who He is. And then, they say, the events mentioned in this passage shall happen, just as if there was no fruit as yet from the words of the prophecy. O unreasoning men! understanding not what has been proved by all these passages, that two advents of Christ have been announced: the one, in which He is set forth as suffering, inglorious, dishonoured, and crucified; but the other, in which He shall come from heaven with glory ...' Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus over all the world ... For the expression, 'He that is afflicted [and driven out],' i.e., from the world, [implies] that, so far as you and all other men have it in your power, each Christian has been driven out not only from his own property, but even from the whole world; for you permit no Christian to live. But you say that the same fate has befallen your own nation. Now, if you have been cast out after defeat in battle, you have suffered such treatment justly indeed, as all the Scriptures bear witness; but we, though we have done no such [evil acts] after we knew the truth of God, are testified to by God, that, together with the most righteous, and only spotless and sinless Christ, we are taken away out of the earth. For Isaiah cries, 'Behold how the righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no man considers it.'[Dialogue 110]

and the prophecy of Isaiah which says, 'His burial is taken away from the midst,' I have already said, referred to the future burying and rising again of Christ; and I have frequently remarked that this very Christ is the Judge of all the living and the dead. [Dial 117]
And from Justin it was passed to Irenaeus
And again the same prophet (says) thus concerning the sufferings of Christ: Behold how the righteous is destroyed, and no man layeth it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no man understandeth. For from the face of iniquity is the taking away of the righteous: peace shall be his burial, he hath been taken away from the midst.201 And who else is perfectly righteous, but the Son of God, who makes righteous and perfects them that believe on Him, who like unto Him are persecuted |133 and put to death? [Demonstration 72]
Irenaeus in turn influenced Cyril of Jerusalem who cites from him extensively:
That the Saviour then was buried, you have heard distinctly in the preceding discourse, as Isaiah says, His burial shall be in peace : for in His burial He made peace between heaven and earth, bringing sinners unto God: and, that the righteous is taken out of the way of unrighteousness : and, His burial shall be in peace: and, I will give the wicked for His burial.
Notice also that when Tertullian cites Isaiah 57 in Scorpiace he does so from the Hebrew text not the LXX as with the Justin-related material:
As saith Esaias, "See how the righteous man perisheth, and no one layeth it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considereth it: for from before the face of unrighteousness the righteous man perisheth, and he shall have honour at his burial."
This understanding in Scorpiace where Isaiah 57 references martyrs killed in the name of Christ rather than Christ's crucifixion seems influenced by the Didascalia:
Blessed therefore are the martyrs, and clear of all offences; for they have been removed and taken away from all iniquity: as He said in Isaiah of Christ and of His martyrs: Behold, the righteous (man) is perished, and there is none that understandeth; and godly men are taken away, and no man layeth it to heart. For the righteous is gathered up from the presence of evil: and his burial shall be in peace [Isa 57.1-2a]. [v. 9] Now these things are said of those who bear witness for the name of Christ.
I think this cements the idea that Tertullian did not write either Against the Jews or Against Marcion but that these works derive from Justin Martyr .
“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: Evidence for a Resurrectionless Christianity Developed from the Short Ending of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

Jerome definitely identifies Daniel 9:26 = the Passion (Comm. Daniel chapter 9)
“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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