Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

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hakeem
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by hakeem »

The Dialogues of Adamantius is evidence that there were no books written by Marcion known as the Evangelium, Apostolikon or Antithesis.

In the Dialogues, Adamantius directly referred to Gospels named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and also mentioned by name Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Colossians however Megethius a supposed Marcionite did not refer to any writing or book of Marcion named Evangelium, Apostolikon or Antithesis.

In fact, Megethius arguments are against what is written in the four Gospels and the Epistles.

Dialogues of Adamantius.

Meg. ( These things are inferred out of tricky arguments. But I prefer to prove what I say from the scriptures of the Gospel) But first I will show that the gospels, that you read, are false.

Ad. From whence can this be proven?

Meg. I shall prove from out of these very gospels that they are false.

Ad. Then will you also permit me to prove from these same gospels that they are not false?]

Meg. I shall permit it, if it can be exhibited by you. Still earlier it was proclaimed, of who composed the gospels.

Ad. The disciples of Christ are those who had written them, which are John, Matthew, Mark and Luke.

As it is clearly seen, neither the judge Eutrophius or Adamantius asked for the presentation of Marcion's supposed Evangelium, the Apostolikon or the Antithesis but was presented only with books in the NT.

It is extremely important that to note that Megethius, the supposed Marcionite, did not claim that any NT book was written by Marcion.

There was no writing of Marcion identified and exhibited before the jugde Eutrophius in the Dialogues.

As I have stated before the existing Tertullian's "Against Marcion" is not credible but is a forgery filled with bogus information about Marcion.
Stuart
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Stuart »

Now let's start to evaluate the section I've identified from 5:21-48 containing the structured formula. This section actually begins prior to the structures with an announcement of it's intended purpose in verses 5:17-20, an introductory prologue of sorts:

Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The first question we should ask is who is it that is telling Matthew's audience that Jesus, who is speaking here, has come to abolish the law and the prophets? [1] It is of course the Marcionites who preach that Jesus came to destroy the law and the prophets. This verse even elicited a direct and bitter response from which found it's way into Dialogue Adamantius 2.5, stated by the Marcionite champion Marcus: [2]
The Judaizers wrote this, “I did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it,” (Matthew 5:17)
but Christ did not speak this way. He says, “I did not come to fulfill the Law but to destroy it.”

Tertullian explains the purpose of Antithesis in AM 4.6.1, was precisely to separate Christ from the law
For it is certain that the whole aim at which he has strenuously labored even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centers in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this other god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.

Matthew 5:17 is a broadside shot at Marcionite theology and more specifically the cornerstone principle of the Antithesis, that Jesus came to destroy the law and prophets and the works of the creator god, aka "the god of genesis." But it doesn't end there. In the Marcionite gospel we find Luke 16:17 is slightly different, reading λογόι μου instead of τοῦ νόμου
"More easily, therefore, may heaven and earth pass away ... than that one iota of the Lord's words should fail." (Luke 16:17 Marcionite form, slightly paraphrased, Tertullian AM 4.33.9)

Luke 16:17, as part of Luke's central section, was drawn by the Marcionite author from the Time of the Parousia parable of the common synoptic source (Luke 21:32-33, Mark 13:30-32, Matthew 24:34-36 [3]) which reads "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." That it was Marcionite, and was in view of the author of Matthew 5:18 can be seen by it's proximity to the parable of serving two masters (Luke 16:13), [4] the saying that the law and the prophets ended with John (Luke 16:16), and the Marcionite absolute prohibition on divorce (Luke 16:18). As we shall see these verse in Luke were all in focus of the author of chapter five in Matthew.

Matthew 5:18 is saying that Torah law is still in place, not abolished, as the Marcionites claim,[5] and in fact it cannot be abolished yet, as Christ has yet to accomplish all things. This is also implied in Matthew's (and Mark's) comment about the Parousia, that nobody knows when it will come, not even Jesus the son, only God. [6]

Wee see further in Matthew 5:19 that not only is the Torah not abrogated, but that it is even more strictly enforced, down to every commandment and small ordinance. This is a position in direct opposition to the Marcionites. [7] This is abundantly clear that Matthew is looking at the reference to John in 16:13, as he shows by lifting "the least in the heaven, and the greatest in the heaven" from Luke 7:28, the in the other passage about John in the Marcionite gospel. It is a polemic, taking the absolute opposite position of the Marcionites. Then Matthew doubles down on upholding the Torah, by saying in 5:20 that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees --the Jewish clerics-- to be able to enter the kingdom of the heavens.

Matthew's Jesus thus puts himself up in comparison to the Marcionite Jesus, saying that he upholds every command and minor ordinance, while we know the Marcionite Jesus says he abolished the commands and ordinances. We have a clear framing of the introduction to the formatted sayings which follow, and a clear picture of which sect is the intended target of these rebukes to follow.


Next up three Decalogue saying "pairs"

Notes:
[1] "the law" refers to the books of Moses (Pentateuch or Torah), while "the prophets" to the rest of the OT, not just the books of the prophets, but also the other writings (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ruth, et al). Law and prophets is thus short hand for the entire Hebrew bible.
[2] there are too many references to this point in the Patristic writings. One example, Irenaeus AH 1.27.2 state's that Marcion's Jesus came into Judea "manifested in the form of a man" (see Philippians 2:7) so "abolishing the prophets and the law."
[3] Matthew and Mark have add the line "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." This suggests a later composition date than the Luke/Marcionite version, as this addition is a response to the delayed Parousia problem.
[4] Serving of two masters is closely associated with the sound and unsound tree parable, as we see Megethius tie together in DA 1.28
'Christ distinctly says, “No [one] can serve two masters.” ... Christ said: “an unsound tree cannot bear good fruit, neither can a sound tree bear bad fruit.”

Tertullian AM 1.2.1 suggests the antithesis began on comparison of Luke 6:43 against Isaiah 45:7 "I am He that created evil," to claim there were two gods, i.e., two masters, one good, the other the creator of evil, which the Marcionites taught.
[5] Marcionites cite Romans 10:4, Epeshians 2:15 and Luke 16:16
[6] This is another important distinction between Matthew's presentation, where Jesus the son is subordinate to the God the father, and that of the Marcionites and also that of the gospel of John, where Jesus has his own powers, in essence equal with the father. (see John 5:18, 10:17-18; see also Galatians 1:1 Marcionite wording "Jesus Christ ... who raised himself from the dead"). This is one element the eventual Catholicism blended in from the heretical movements, that Jesus was also God, and equal part of the trinity. But it was not the position of the early proto-Orthodox.
[7] see Galatians 5:2-4, Epeshians 2:15, among others for the Marcionite position on following the entire Torah
Last edited by Stuart on Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
Stuart
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:09 pm But Adamantius doesn't mention the existence of "Antitheses" per se. Do you see how they crazy your argument is? You are saying the concept that is the focus of Against Marcion is really found in Adamantius. That's a Giuseppe argument. Why not cite Harry Potter to define the Antitheses? Or a Victoria Secret catalog.
That is correct, he does not identify his source. But then again neither does Acts of the Apostles nor do the pseudo Clement Homolies and Recognitions, nor does Acta Archelai, nor does Justin. None of the dialogues and travelogues do. We have to examine them to determine if we can find a source.

Dialogue Adamantius uses antithesis comparisons, but places them in the mouth of Megethius. That is his technique, to have a Marcionite champion read the lines of his critique so that the Catholic champion can refute them, and do so in the decisive setting of a "fair" debate. But the very structured format indicate they came from a document, and only minor adjustment for presentation format, in most cases simply quoting them, is done to present them in debate form. That a couple of them are identical to points and even sayings Tertullians examines and counters making the same points as the comparisons in the five books of Adversus Marcionem, suggests they may be an identity with the Marcionite antithesis document.

BTW, Terullian never says he will tell you the antithesis, only that he will present his own anti-antithesis to "prove" that Marcion is wrong. Essentially he gives a counter exegesis of both OT and NT, in what you could say is the first use of scholasticism before it even had a name, to show that opposites are in fact in harmony.

As for pseudo Hegemonius Acta Archelai as witness my argument is a proximity one. It is merely a supporting document, not a primary source. But chapter forty in the disputation with Mani the evidence is good that it is the antithesis the Manichean is using. The debate starts with by arguing Matthew 5:17 that Jesus Christ said of himself, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.” The Manichean champion replies that this is not true that 'He (Jesus) did abrogate that same law.' We start with the core Marcionite tenant. The Catholic champion states states: "Then he began to cite a great variety of passages from the law, and also many from the Gospel and from the Apostle Paul, which have the appearance of contradicting each other." This is exactly what the Antithesis is. Archelus suspects as much stating,"I verily believe he has that serpent as his helper, who is ever our adversary." This serpent is of course Marcion. What follows are some of the same antithesis pairs (eye for eye tooth for tooth vs. offer the other cheek). What is curious are a few specific wordings found here that match the Antithesis. As I said it's a secondary witness, offering no new material, but it does show that the Antithesis distribution reached beyond the Marcionites.
davidmartin
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by davidmartin »

This is one element the eventual Catholicism blended in from the heretical movements, that Jesus was also God, and equal part of the trinity. But itwas not the position of the early proto-Orthodox.
that is an interesting question
but it may be not that the proto-orthodox blended from the heretical movements
rather instead the proto-orthodox were outsiders to begin with and not first or original, they 'emerged' later like many others
if earlier movements were before them, then how can they be heretical?
they can only be heretical later on, when proto-orthodoxy is defined well enough to call anything that isn't itself heretical

once the history of Acts is seen as a romantic retelling/idealised history there's no reason to suppose either a direct link from proto-orthodoxy to the first phase, or that the portrayal of the pillars as virtually Judaisers is how it went down at all.
Paul love him or hate him does seem to represent the earlier movement that did have a divine son of God (in some way, shape or form) maybe the proto-orthodox took this more literally, i notice that Catholics take it very, very literally right down to his flesh being divine (hence why Mary is so important) and Protestants basically see the flesh as a vessel
Stuart
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:52 pm The strongest argument for the Antitheses = Matthew 5:

I come next to those customary judgements (ad ordinarias sententias eius) by which he builds up his own special doctrine (per quas proprietatem doctrinae suae inducit), what I may call the magisterial edict of Christ (but which the Marcionites apparently called the Antitheses). (4.15)
You really like to try and force things into straw men arguments by deliberating misinterpreting what is said. The argument was, and is that chapter 5 of Matthew used as one of it's sources the antithesis. It also used the Marcionite gospel, and also the sectarian literature of Matthew's own sect.

What you have attempted to do is convert that argument into a false dichotomy, saying that Matthew chapter 5 using parts the antithesis means that the antithesis is Matthew chapter 5. That conclusion doesn't follow.

It's easy enough to demonstrate that Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is an expansion on the Marcionite/Luke Sermon. Take for example the golden rule, Matthew 7:12, which is taken from Marcionite/Luke 6:31 but with the added phrase "for this is the Law and the Prophets." This is a small expansion but with the clear purpose of showing Christ in agreement with the OT, thus taking a direct swipe at the Marcionites. Matthew's modification of the Divorce prohibition (verse 5:32, compare Luke 16:18) to prohibit "except on the grounds of adultery" is probably not so much a swipe at the Marcionites as it is a reflection of an evolutionary difference in church leadership position, perhaps generational change over, as the church is older and more cases have been brought before it. (Note, many of the differences I found between the Catholic and Marcionite texts of 1 Corinthians reflect generational changes more than theological; hierarchies are more defined and more complex family relationships are addressed, indicating a more establish and longer standing movement than the earlier layers.) Back to the differences, one can easily sit side by side the beatitudes and it's apparent that Matthew's is a development upon those of Marcion/Luke, and the same for the Lord's prayer (Matthew emphasizes God is in heaven in 6:9-10, adds the "deliver us from evil" that resembles like 2 Thess 3.2-3, and then the reciprocity of God in 6:14-15 if you don't forgive you wont be forgiven).

The question remains, given the clear anti-Marcionite polemics found within the Sermon, are parts of the Sermon drawn from the antithesis itself? Specifically the pairs in 5:38-40 and 5:43-44, which are found in AD 1.15 (also Acta Archelai 40) and DA 1.12 respectively, with some possible references in Tertullian?

I have proposed that the antithesis contained two sections, one with pairs of OT and NT paraphrases side by side as comparisons, and the other OT passages picked out --also sometimes paraphrased (e.g., Isaiah 45.7 "I created evil")--, with possibly brief points of commentary emphasis, designed to show the nature of the Jewish God, Law Giver and Creator, was by nature not Good, and thus not the father of Christ. AD chapter 1 mostly addressed the former part, Tertullian mostly the latter. The structure of comparisons is given by Tertullian and importantly as "comparisons" (i.e., OT passage against NT passage) by Hippolytus, which fits the structure we see in AD 1.

AM 1.19.4
Marcion's special and principal work is the separation of the law and the gospel; and his disciples will not deny that in this point they have their very best pretext for initiating and confirming themselves in his heresy. These are Marcion's Antitheses, or contradictory propositions, which aim at committing the gospel to a variance with the law, in order that from the diversity of the two documents which contain them, they may contend for a diversity of gods also.

AM 4.6.1
For it is certain that the whole aim at which he has strenuously labored even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centers in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this other god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.

Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 7.25
Cerdon ... affirms that the God preached by Moses and the prophets was not Father of Jesus Christ. For (he contends) that this (Father) had been known, whereas that the Father of Christ was unknown, and that the former was just, but the latter good. And Marcion corroborated the tenet of this (heretic) in the work which he attempted to write, and which he styled Antitheses.[1] And he was in the habit, (in this book,) of uttering whatever slanders suggested themselves to his mind against the Creator of the universe

[1] ἀντιθέσεις. This is the emendation proposed by the Abbe Cruice. The textual reading is ἀντιπαραθέσεις (comparisons).

Note, it is also my view that the document was living, and tacked on some more sayings over the two or three centuries that it was actively used. My view is it was not a large document but only a folio leaf or two, easily carried about by itinerant preachers from the Marcionite and later a few other sects such as the Manicheans and probably some Gnostic successor sects to the Marcionites in the early middle ages. What is striking is in his five books Tertullian addresses only about two dozen OT passages used in antithesis. In addition we know about fifteen comparison pairs from DA and Tertullian. This implies a small document. And that is what I am arguing was one of the sources that went into Matthew chapter 5.
hakeem
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by hakeem »

Stuart wrote: That is correct, he does not identify his source. But then again neither does Acts of the Apostles nor do the pseudo Clement Homolies and Recognitions, nor does Acta Archelai, nor does Justin. None of the dialogues and travelogues do. We have to examine them to determine if we can find a source.
It is not true that Justin does not identify his sources. In fact, Justin identified his sources by name over a hundred times.
Stuart wrote:Dialogue Adamantius uses antithesis comparisons, but places them in the mouth of Megethius. That is his technique, to have a Marcionite champion read the lines of his critique so that the Catholic champion can refute them, and do so in the decisive setting of a "fair" debate. But the very structured format indicate they came from a document, and only minor adjustment for presentation format, in most cases simply quoting them, is done to present them in debate form. That a couple of them are identical to points and even sayings Tertullians examines and counters making the same points as the comparisons in the five books of Adversus Marcionem, suggests they may be an identity with the Marcionite antithesis document.
No documents from Marcion called the Antithesis, the Evangelium or the Apostolikon were presented in the Dialogues. Only the NT Gospels and the Epistles which confirms that Tertullian's "Against Marcion" is full of mistakes.

Justin Martyr the contemporary of Marcion made no claim whatsoever that Marcion wrote any books or attended any Christian Church.

Up to the start of the 5th century, no Christian writer used Tertullian's "Against Marcion" when arguing against the Marcionites.
Stuart
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Stuart »

Hakeem,

The writings bearing the name Justin are pseudonymous, and I would argue from 100 to 200 years after his death. Both are from genres that were not popular and in the case of the apology not possible before that time. If there was a real writing from Justin, if he even existed, these two works are not it.

Patristic writings in general are often given an easy pass on authenticity, and have for the most part not been subjected to the same scrutiny as the New Testament. Almost all are composite works, and heavily edited over time. The trick to examining them is not to declare one authentic and therefore reliable and another fraudulent and therefore unreliable to the point of uselessness, but rather to examine the information contained atomically. Tertullian and Epiphanius and even Adamantius, allowing for change over time and variance in local sources (Adamantius is for example almost entirely built on prior works rather than direct source) reveal a strong pattern within the passages attested to the Marcionite canon. These are backed up by multiple vocabulary studies and even some textual criticism that shows many readings aligning with more ancient manuscripts than what was commonly accepted for centuries. That pattern of consistency is what gives weight to the evidence, not the identity of the writer or whether it is a first edition or a 3rd or 5th edition we are looking at.

If you hold an ideologically fast position than you will stuck there. And I'm sorry for you that you seem to be.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Ken Olson »

Stuart wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:11 pm It's easy enough to demonstrate that Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is an expansion on the Marcionite/Luke Sermon ..

Back to the differences, one can easily sit side by side the beatitudes and it's apparent that Matthew's is a development upon those of Marcion/Luke, and the same for the Lord's prayer (Matthew emphasizes God is in heaven in 6:9-10, adds the "deliver us from evil" that resembles like 2 Thess 3.2-3, and then the reciprocity of God in 6:14-15 if you don't forgive you wont be forgiven).
Stuart,

I realize you brought up the Lord's Prayer only secondarily to back up your major point here, but I do not think it's apparent to everyone that Matthew's version of the LP is a development of Luke's. It's certainly not apparent to me. I think it's apparent mostly to those who hold a different (non-Farrer) source theory on other grounds (i.e., not from the internal evidence of the Lord's Prayer itself). I find the theory that Luke's shortened Matthew's prayer quite plausible, and have written a paper examining the arguments for the opposing case, especially those of the IQP, and do not find any of those arguments to be strong. (Please note that I'm saying Luke's abbreviation of Matthew's prayer is quite plausible and none of the arguments for the opposing case are strong; I am not claiming that I have established that Luke's version is necessarily earlier, only that it is plausibly earlier and that the greater plausibility of the opposing case has not been established].

Here's a (slightly modified) summary I've used elsewhere:

I published a paper advocating Goulder’s theory that Luke abbreviated Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer [Ken Olson, “Luke 11.2-4: The Lord’s Prayer (Abridged Edition)”, in Marcan Priority Without Q: Explorations in the Farrer Hypothesis, edited by John C. Poirier and Jeffrey Peterson (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015) 101-118]. I argue that the principle that liturgical texts become longer in transmission cannot be applied to the Lord’s Prayer, both because there are notable counterexamples (the Hebrew and Syriac versions of Apocryphal Psalm 151.1-2 is perhaps the clearest case) and also because Luke is not a copyist of a liturgical text; he is an author composing a narrative comprised of episodes in a sequence. Luke’s abbreviations can readily be explained on the basis of his redactional tendency to abbreviate his sources by eliminating repetition. He eliminates the further identification of the Father as the one in heaven, having already identified him as “Lord of Heaven and Earth” in Luke 10.21 (every subsequent address to the Father in Luke has simply “Father”). He omits “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” because it restates the content of “thy kingdom come” which immediately precedes it, and “deliver us from evil” because it restates positively what “lead us not into temptation” has said in the negative. Luke has omitted unnecessary repetitions but has retained each separate thought from Matthew’s prayer

.
I will add that the arguments you give here are inconclusive even if the premise that the elements to which you allude ("in heaven', "deliver us from evil," and forgive/forgiven) are Matthean redaction (I think they are). That would not preclude Matthew having composed the prayer first and Luke having omitted those elements.

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Fri Mar 19, 2021 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by Secret Alias »

Given my familiarity with the way the forum works and the cart often being put in front of the horse by members, my guess is that Stuart is compelled to make Luke's version the earliest surviving version of the Lord's prayer because of his assumptions regarding the priority of the Marcionite gospel and his 'buying into' the claims of Irenaeus that the gospel of Luke was the 'gospel Marcion falsified.'
hakeem
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Re: Marcionite agreements with Matthew against Luke?

Post by hakeem »

Stuart wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:47 pm Hakeem,

The writings bearing the name Justin are pseudonymous, and I would argue from 100 to 200 years after his death. Both are from genres that were not popular and in the case of the apology not possible before that time. If there was a real writing from Justin, if he even existed, these two works are not it.
What you say is of no real consequence since virtually every Christian writing may be pseudonymous.
Stuart wrote: Patristic writings in general are often given an easy pass on authenticity, and have for the most part not been subjected to the same scrutiny as the New Testament. Almost all are composite works, and heavily edited over time. The trick to examining them is not to declare one authentic and therefore reliable and another fraudulent and therefore unreliable to the point of uselessness, but rather to examine the information contained atomically.
Do you think that you are the only who knows the "trick" of examining writings? Others know the trick and after examining Christian writings have found many of them to be forgeries, falsely attributed, utter fiction or historically useless.

Stuart wrote: Tertullian and Epiphanius and even Adamantius, allowing for change over time and variance in local sources (Adamantius is for example almost entirely built on prior works rather than direct source) reveal a strong pattern within the passages attested to the Marcionite canon. These are backed up by multiple vocabulary studies and even some textual criticism that shows many readings aligning with more ancient manuscripts than what was commonly accepted for centuries. That pattern of consistency is what gives weight to the evidence, not the identity of the writer or whether it is a first edition or a 3rd or 5th edition we are looking at.

If you hold an ideologically fast position than you will stuck there. And I'm sorry for you that you seem to be.
What you say does not make sense since in "Against Marcion" attributed to very Tertullian it is claimed that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of "Against Marcion" are not the same. Some are filled with mistakes.

Preface to "Against Marcion"
Whatever in times past we have wrought in opposition to Marcion, is from the present moment no longer to be accounted of.

It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one. My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a brother, but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it.

The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise.

This present text, therefore, of my work — which is the third as superseding the second, but henceforward to be considered the first instead of the third — renders a preface necessary to this issue of the tract itself that no reader may be perplexed, if he should by chance fall in with the various forms of it which are scattered about.

Please, tell me which edition of "Against Marcion" was used by Epiphanius and Adamantius?

It should be obvious to you that if Epiphanius and Adamantius used the editions that were filled with mistakes then their supposed pattern of consistency would still be in complete error and what appeared to be evidence would not be evidence at all.
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