Re: Where Marcion and the Orthodox Tradition Agree: John Wrote the Canonical Gospels
Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 2:37 pm
Here's the evidence as I see it:
1. Irenaeus/Tertullian certainly wants to make John a witness against Marcion (cf. Praescr 33). But John himself is a blur with Polycarp. Polycarp and John have virtually the same enemies and objectives. The author of Against Heresies and its core text Against the Valentinians lays out the whole spectrum of John's alleged adversaries which by his own time includes Gaius of Rome, the bishop of the gentiles and likely too the bishop of the bishops.
2. Gaius's opposition to the kataphrygian heresy seems to pit him against the Johannine tradition just as Victor originally opposed the Quartodeciman tradition. It would seem implicit that Gaius and Victor represented what we might call Roman tradition. Irenaeus's appeal to Anicetus and Polycarp 'agreeing to disagree' seems to support this hypothesis.
3. I would venture to guess that whoever took over from Victor established ecumenism in the community - viz. accepting the Johannine community and its literature. The story in Against Heresies about John opposing Cerinthus seems to be rooted in the identification of John's Apocalypse with Cerinthus.
4. The tradition that Cerinthus wrote the Apocalypse seems to hint at the non-existence of John. His Apocalypse was likely not written by John. It was as much John's creation as the Apocryphon found at Nag Hammadi. The gospel too is problematic. It was the prologue which was of special interest to the Valentinians. Why would the heretics who date from a very early age have developed an understanding of the various aeons if it wasn't true. The gospel was virtually unknown outside the heretical community?
5. The idea then that John gathered gospel material and divided it among the three synoptic gospels only to add a fourth gospel also has great significance. It again casts a later Church Father as 'John.' John has no real existence. The idea that John the apostle survived into the second century must have been developed to anchor the Catholic Church to an 'apostolic tradition.' The Roman Church had Peter. 'John' seems to have been originally a later figure - the elder - who became deliberately confused with the apostle of the same name to distinguish the tradition as apostolic.
6. If 'John' or the Church Father pretending to be John formed the three synoptics it would stand to reason that Peter's negative portrait might have been cultivated to raise the standing of John. 'Peter' is likely a later name. His original name was 'Simon' and it is possible to imagine a gospel without the negative references to the core eyewitness of Christianity. Clearly John's having John sit on Jesus's breast is the inverse of that rewriting - i.e. making John assume Peter's chair albeit in Asia Minor.
1. Irenaeus/Tertullian certainly wants to make John a witness against Marcion (cf. Praescr 33). But John himself is a blur with Polycarp. Polycarp and John have virtually the same enemies and objectives. The author of Against Heresies and its core text Against the Valentinians lays out the whole spectrum of John's alleged adversaries which by his own time includes Gaius of Rome, the bishop of the gentiles and likely too the bishop of the bishops.
2. Gaius's opposition to the kataphrygian heresy seems to pit him against the Johannine tradition just as Victor originally opposed the Quartodeciman tradition. It would seem implicit that Gaius and Victor represented what we might call Roman tradition. Irenaeus's appeal to Anicetus and Polycarp 'agreeing to disagree' seems to support this hypothesis.
3. I would venture to guess that whoever took over from Victor established ecumenism in the community - viz. accepting the Johannine community and its literature. The story in Against Heresies about John opposing Cerinthus seems to be rooted in the identification of John's Apocalypse with Cerinthus.
4. The tradition that Cerinthus wrote the Apocalypse seems to hint at the non-existence of John. His Apocalypse was likely not written by John. It was as much John's creation as the Apocryphon found at Nag Hammadi. The gospel too is problematic. It was the prologue which was of special interest to the Valentinians. Why would the heretics who date from a very early age have developed an understanding of the various aeons if it wasn't true. The gospel was virtually unknown outside the heretical community?
5. The idea then that John gathered gospel material and divided it among the three synoptic gospels only to add a fourth gospel also has great significance. It again casts a later Church Father as 'John.' John has no real existence. The idea that John the apostle survived into the second century must have been developed to anchor the Catholic Church to an 'apostolic tradition.' The Roman Church had Peter. 'John' seems to have been originally a later figure - the elder - who became deliberately confused with the apostle of the same name to distinguish the tradition as apostolic.
6. If 'John' or the Church Father pretending to be John formed the three synoptics it would stand to reason that Peter's negative portrait might have been cultivated to raise the standing of John. 'Peter' is likely a later name. His original name was 'Simon' and it is possible to imagine a gospel without the negative references to the core eyewitness of Christianity. Clearly John's having John sit on Jesus's breast is the inverse of that rewriting - i.e. making John assume Peter's chair albeit in Asia Minor.