Why Does Luke Add The Bit About Jesus Being Sent to Herod?

[Stephan Huller]

Luke 23:6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.

8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. 9 He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.

[Stephan Huller]

FWIW I can't help but see Tertullian's commentary on this section added the reference to this section was added later as it interrupts the continuity of the whole section:

So when they had led him to Pilate they began to accuse him of saying he was Christ a King, meaning no doubt the Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand. Surely they would have arraigned him under some other charge, being in doubt whether he had said he was the Son of God, if he had not by the statement Ye say it, indicated that he was what they said. Also when Pilate asked, Art thou the Christ? he answered again Thou sayest it, so that he might not seem, through fear of the authority, to have refused to answer.

[ADDED LATER/AFTER THE INVENTION OF LUKE] So the Lord is set in judgement, and has set in judgement his own people. The Lord himself is come into judgement with the ancients and the princes of his people,a as Isaiah has it. From then onwards he fulfilled all that is written of his passion. The heathen thereupon raged, and the peoples imagined vain things: the kings of the earth stood up, and their rulers gathered together into one, against the Lord and against his Christ. The heathen, the Romans who were with Pilate; the peoples, the tribes of Israel: the kings, in Herod: the rulers, in the high priests. Also when he was sent by Pilate as a gift to Herod he proved the truth of Hosea's words: for it was of Christ that he prophesied, And they shall bring him in bonds as a present to the king. So Herod was exceeding glad to see Jesus, yet he heard from him not a word:

for as a lamb before the shearer he opened not his mouth, because the Lord had given him the tongue of discipline, that he might know in what manner he ought to bring forth speech:e that tongue in fact which in the psalm clove to his throat, he now proved the truth of by not speaking. Barabbas, a man of most criminal conduct, is released as though a good man: while Christ, most righteous, is demanded for death as though a murderer. Also two malefactors are crucified along with him, that he might be numbered among the transgressors. Evidently the statement that his raiment was divided among the soldiers and partly assigned by lot, has been excised by Marcion ... [Adv Marc 42]

Part of the reason I think the emboldened section was added and that the scriptural citation applied to Jesus's answer to Pilate's question rather than (as the addition of Luke 23 would have it) Jesus's audience with Herod is that the former better suits the context of Isaiah 52 which reads (in full):

All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Indeed take a second look at the passage (and the scriptural citation of Isaiah 53) if the offending material is removed (to use one of Joe's phrases). I have highlighted all the allusions to Isaiah 53:

So when they had led him to Pilate they began to accuse him of saying he was Christ a King, meaning no doubt the Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand. Surely they would have arraigned him under some other charge, being in doubt whether he had said he was the Son of God, if he had not by the statement Ye say it, indicated that he was what they said. Also when Pilate asked, Art thou the Christ? he answered again Thou sayest it, so that he might not seem, through fear of the authority, to have refused to answer for as a lamb before the shearer he opened not his mouth (v. 9), because the Lord had given him the tongue of discipline, that he might know in what manner he ought to bring forth speech: that tongue in fact which in the psalm clove to his throat, he now proved the truth of by not speaking. Barabbas, a man of most criminal conduct, is released as though a good man: while Christ, most righteous, is demanded for death as though a murderer. Also two malefactors are crucified along with him, that he might be numbered among the transgressors (v. 12). Evidently the statement that his raiment was divided among the soldiers and partly assigned by lot, has been excised by Marcion,

[ADDED LATER/AFTER THE INVENTION OF LUKE] because he had in mind the prophecy of the psalm, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. So he will have to excise the Cross as well, for the same psalm is not silent about it: They pierced my hands and my feet. The whole of what followed is to be read there. Dogs are come about me, the council of the wicked hath laid siege against me: all they that saw me laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with their lips and wagged their heads <saying>, He trusted in God, let him deliver him. What now of the evidence of his garments? Have the benefit of your falsifying: Christ's garments are the whole psalm. See also how the powers of heaven are shaken: it was their Lord who was dying. I will clothe the heaven with darkness, says Isaiah. This also will be the day of which Amos speaks: And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that the sun shall go down at noon—you see also the significance of the sixth hour— and there shall be darkness over the land.k Also the veil of the temple was rent, by the breaking out of the angel, who deserted the daughter of Sion, leaving her as a watch-tower in a vineyard and a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.

but see how it continues

, even in the thirtieth psalm,

to present Christ in his own person he cries aloud to the Father, so as even in dying, with his last words, to fulfil the prophets: And having said thus, he gave up his spirit. Who did? Did the spirit give up itself, or the flesh give up the spirit? But the spirit cannot have given up itself: there is a difference between the one which gives up and the other which is given up. If the spirit is given up, it has to be given up by something else: whereas if the spirit had been by itself, the word used would have been 'depart' and not 'give up'. Who is it then that gives up the spirit, if not the flesh? For the flesh breathes while it has the spirit, and therefore when it loses it, gives it up. In short, if there was no flesh, but only a phantasm of flesh, and there was also a phantasm of spirit, and the spirit gave itself up, and by giving itself up departed, then no doubt the phantasm departed when the spirit, which was a phantasm, departed, and the phantasm along with the spirit ceased to be there. In that case, nothing remained on the cross, after he gave up his spirit nothing was hanging there, nothing was begged for from Pilate, nothing was taken down from that gallows, nothing was wrapped in linen, nothing was laid in a new sepulchre. And yet it was not nothing. What then was it? If a phantasm, then Christ was still within it. If Christ had gone away, then he had taken the phantasm with him. It only remains for heretical presumption to say that a phantasm of a phantasm remained there. Though if Joseph knew that that was a real body which he had treated with so great affection—that Joseph who had not consented with the Jews in their crime—Blessed is the man who hath not gone away in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the pestilences.

My suspicion is that the introduction of Jesus being sent to Herod is developed to 'correct' an original 'mistake' that was present in the original anti-Marcionite text. Even the author must have applied Isaiah 53 verse 12:

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

in a gnostic sense. In other words, now Jesus goes to Herod to get a 'real' spoil or robe from a king which is then 'really' present at the Passion instead of ... instead of ... the original understanding which was agreed by the author and likely Marcion that ... what? Was it that שָׁלָל֒ was crucified? Was it that Jesus gave his life or שָׁלָל֒ by means of the crucifixion? In any event the introduction of Herod is to change the narrative.

[Stephan Huller]

I probably should have cited the LXX version of Luke 53. The text is cited in Tertullian's Against the Jews (the parallel text to Adv Marc 3 only directed against 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,"230 and so forth. 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. [Adv Iud 10]

The parallel section in Adv Marcion 3 (now directed against Marcion not 'the Jews'). The same scriptures are first cited (Psalms 21 etc) as in Adv Marc 4 but now Tertullian admits the argument is pretty weak:

So now, if the heretic's obstinacy contemns and derides all these interpretations of mine, I shall 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. 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. [Adv Marc 3.19]

[Stephan Huller]

Here is the text:

1O Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

κύριε τίς ἐπίστευσεν τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν καὶ ὁ βραχίων κυρίου τίνι ἀπεκαλύφθη

2We brought a report as of a child before him; he is as a root in a thirsty land: he has no form nor comeliness; and we saw him, but he had no form nor beauty.

ἀνηγγείλαμεν ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ ὡς παιδίον ὡς ῥίζα ἐν γῇ διψώσῃ οὐκ ἔστιν εἶδος αὐτῷ οὐδὲ δόξα καὶ εἴδομεν αὐτόν καὶ οὐκ εἶχεν εἶδος οὐδὲ κάλλος

3But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men; he was a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of sickness, for his face is turned from us: he was dishonoured, and not esteemed.

ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἄτιμον ἐκλεῖπον παρὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἄνθρωπος ἐν πληγῇ ὢν καὶ εἰδὼς φέρειν μαλακίαν ὅτι ἀπέστραπται τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἠτιμάσθη καὶ οὐκ ἐλογίσθη

4He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction.

οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐλογισάμεθα αὐτὸν εἶναι ἐν πόνῳ καὶ ἐν πληγῇ καὶ ἐν κακώσει

5But he was wounded on account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed.

αὐτὸς δὲ ἐτραυματίσθη διὰ τὰς ἀνομίας ἡμῶν καὶ μεμαλάκισται διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν παιδεία εἰρήνης ἡμῶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς ἰάθημεν

6All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins.

πάντες ὡς πρόβατα ἐπλανήθημεν ἄνθρωπος τῇ ὁδῷ αὐτοῦ ἐπλανήθη καὶ κύριος παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἡμῶν

7And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth.

καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ τὸ κεκακῶσθαι οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα ὡς πρόβατον ἐπὶ σφαγὴν ἤχθη καὶ ὡς ἀμνὸς ἐναντίον τοῦ κείροντος αὐτὸν ἄφωνος οὕτως οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ

8In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken away from the earth: because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death.

ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει ἡ κρίσις αὐτοῦ ἤρθη τὴν γενεὰν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται ὅτι αἴρεται ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἡ ζωὴ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνομιῶν τοῦ λαοῦ μου ἤχθη εἰς θάνατον

9And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth.

καὶ δώσω τοὺς πονηροὺς ἀντὶ τῆς ταφῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους ἀντὶ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ ὅτι ἀνομίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν οὐδὲ εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ

10The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If ye can give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed:

καὶ κύριος βούλεται καθαρίσαι αὐτὸν τῆς πληγῆς ἐὰν δῶτε περὶ ἁμαρτίας ἡ ψυχὴ ὑμῶν ὄψεται σπέρμα μακρόβιον καὶ βούλεται κύριος ἀφελεῖν

11the Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul, to shew him light, and to form him with understanding; to justify the just one who serves many well; and he shall bear their sins.

ἀπὸ τοῦ πόνου τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ δεῖξαι αὐτῷ φῶς καὶ πλάσαι τῇ συνέσει δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον εὖ δουλεύοντα πολλοῖς καὶ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν αὐτὸς ἀνοίσει

12Therefore he shall inherit many, and he shall divide the spoils of the mighty; because his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered because of their iniquities.

διὰ τοῦτο αὐτὸς κληρονομήσει πολλοὺς καὶ τῶν ἰσχυρῶν μεριεῖ σκῦλα ἀνθ᾽ ὧν παρεδόθη εἰς θάνατον ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀνόμοις ἐλογίσθη καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκεν καὶ διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη

[Stephan Huller]

Maybe this makes the heretical interpretation of Isa 53 a little clearer. From On the Resurrection of the Flesh (against translated and reworked by Tertullian but developed from a lost original source before him):

So then our inspection of the decree and of its contents, through our outright insistence that the terms mean what they say, must needs have the effect that, if our opponents cause trouble by the allegation of figures and enigmas, things more manifest in each case shall prevail, and things more certain lay down the law concerning the uncertain. For some people, taking hold upon a well-established usage of prophetic diction (which is frequently, though not always, allegorical and figurative) distort also the resurrection of the dead (though it is manifestly proclaimed) into an unreal signification, asserting that even death itself must be spiritually understood. For death, they say, is not really and truly this which is close to hand, the separation of flesh and soul, but ignorance of God, whereby man, being dead to God, lies low in error no less than in a tomb. So also, they add, the resurrection must be maintained to be that by which a man, having come to the truth, has been reanimated and revivified to God, and, the death of ignorance being dispelled, has as it were burst forth from the tomb of the old man (Eph. 4. 22; Col. 3. 9): because the Lord also likened the scribes and pharisees to whitened sepulchres. Thereafter then, having by faith obtained resurrection, they are, they say, with the Lord, whom they have put on in baptism.

In fact, by this device they are accustomed often enough to trick our people even in conversation, pretending that they too admit the resurrection of the flesh. 'Woe', they say, 'to him who has not risen again in this flesh', to avoid shocking them at the outset by a forthright repudiation of resurrection. But secretly, in their private thoughts, their meaning is, Woe to him who has not, while he is in this flesh, obtained knowledge of heretical secrets: for among them resurrection has this meaning. Also some, maintaining that the resurrection begins from the release of the soul, interpret ' come forth from the tomb' as 'escape from the world' (on the ground that the world is a habitation of dead men, that is, of men who know not God) or even 'escape from the body' (on the ground that the body, in the guise of a tomb, encloses and imprisons the soul in the death which is this world's life).

As against this kind of guesswork I shall push down their primary scaffoldwork, that by which they claim that the prophets did all their preaching by means of pictures: for, if this had been the case, not even the pictures would have been recognizable, unless the verities had been first preached from which the pictures might be sketched out. And in fact, if all things are figures, what can that be of which they are figures? How can you hold out a mirror, if there is nowhere a face? But to such a degree were all things not pictures, but truths as well, nor all things shadows, but bodies as well, that in regard to the Lord himself all the more outstanding facts were preached more clearly than light.

For it was not in a figure that the Virgin conceived in the womb, nor was it indirectly that she bore Emmanuel, God with us:1 and if it was indirectly that he was to receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,2 yet openly was he to come into judgement with the elders and princes of the people.3 So too the heathen raged, in the person of Pilate, and the peoples imagined vain things, in the person of Israel: the kings of the earth stood up, Herod, and the rulers were gathered together, Annas and Caiaphas, against the Lord and against his Christ.4 He was also brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer, Herod in fact; and was voiceless - so he opened not his mouth - while he gave his back to smitings and his cheeks to the palms of hands, and turned not his face from
missiles of spittings. Also he was numbered among the transgressors, was pierced in the hands and the feet, suffered the casting of lots upon his vesture, and bitter things to drink,8 and the wagging of the heads of those that mocked,9 when he had been priced at thirty pieces of silver by the traitor.10

Are there any figures here in Isaiah, any pictures in David, any enigmas in Jeremiah? And these also prophesied of his miracles, again not by parables. Or were the
eyes of the blind not made open, did not the tongue of the dumb speak plain, did withered hands and feeble knees not become strong again, did not lame men leap as an hart?11 For although we are wont to interpret these things spiritually as well, equating them with the diseases of the soul which the Lord healed, yet since they
were also fulfilled in fleshly sort they show that the prophets preached in both forms, saving this, that most of their expressions can be claimed as bare and simple and clear of every mist of allegory, as when they cry aloud of the deaths of nations and cities, Tyre and Egypt and Babylon and Edom and the ships of Carthage, and when they make orations on Israel's own plagues and pardons, captivities and restorations, and the death of the final dispersion.1 Is anyone disposed to interpret these, and not rather acknowledge them? Facts are contained in the writings: the writings are read in the facts. Thus the form of prophetic discourse is allegorical neither always nor in all places, but sometimes and in some places.

Well then, you ask, if 'sometimes and in some places', why are they not to be spiritually understood in the edict of the resurrection? Because, in fact, there is a high degree of difference ...

[Stephan Huller]

I think there is a connection between the way that the same Psalm is used in the two passages in Tertullian - viz. to distract or explain away the heretical interpretation of how the 'spoils' or 'prey' of Jesus was divided at the Passion:

and if it was indirectly that he was to receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, yet openly was he to come into judgement with the elders and princes of the people. So too the heathen raged, in the person of Pilate, and the peoples imagined vain things, in the person of Israel: the kings of the earth stood up, Herod, and the rulers were gathered together, Annas and Caiaphas, against the Lord and against his Christ.4 He was also brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer, Herod in fact; and was voiceless - so he opened not his mouth - while he gave his back to smitings and his cheeks to the palms of hands, and turned not his face from missiles of spittings. Also he was numbered among the transgressors, was pierced in the hands and the feet, suffered the casting of lots upon his vesture,

The same word here - שְׁלַ֣ל or selal - is used in both Isaiah 8:4 (cited here first) and Isa 53:12 (not explicitly mentioned in Resurrection of the Flesh but hinted at by means of the citation of Isa 8:4. Compare with the section we identified as an addition in Adv Marc 4:

So the Lord is set in judgement, and has set in judgement his own people. The Lord himself is come into judgement with the ancients and the princes of his people,a as Isaiah has it. From then onwards he fulfilled all that is written of his passion. The heathen thereupon raged, and the peoples imagined vain things: the kings of the earth stood up, and their rulers gathered together into one, against the Lord and against his Christ. The heathen, the Romans who were with Pilate; the peoples, the tribes of Israel: the kings, in Herod: the rulers, in the high priests. Also when he was sent by Pilate as a gift to Herod he proved the truth of Hosea's words: for it was of Christ that he prophesied, And they shall bring him in bonds as a present to the king. So Herod was exceeding glad to see Jesus, yet he heard from him not a word:

Interestingly Resurrection of the Flesh only crystalizes the editorial perspective in Adv Marc 4. In other words, when Tertullian says in Latin "etsi oblique accepturam virtutemDamasci et spolia Samariae" he is admitting that the 'spoils' are not to be taken literally. Indeed this is repeated over and over again in Adv Marc.

Thus is the Creator's Christ mighty in war, and a bearer of arms; thus also does He now take the spoils, not of Samaria alone, but of all nations. Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have learned that His arms are allegorical. Since, therefore, both the Lord speaks and His apostle writes such things208 in a figurative style, we are not rash in using His interpretations, the records209 of which even our adversaries admit; and thus in so far will it be Isaiah's Christ who has come, in as far as He was not a warrior, because it is not of such a character that He is described by Isaiah.

I can't shake the idea that the heretics thought Judas was the 'spoil' in Isa 53.12 and then a substitution took place (and the captors were ultimately mistaken). The man who was captured and put on trial and crucified is the 'spoil' or war booty of the soldiers. But it will take more work to figure this out.

[DCHindley]

I probably should have cited the LXX version of Luke 53.

I assume you meant Isaiah 53?

DCH (out sick with hives, boss)

[Stephan Huller]

Yes of course. Sorry to hear you are sick. Always love to converse with one of the few smart people at the forum. Get better.

Now back to the discussion. There are a number of odd things about this section of text. We'll start with the obvious.

There seems to have been two distinct early Christian interpretations of the Passion and its relationship with the prophetic writings. On the one hand, our analysis (or my analysis) shows that there was a POV - perhaps identified tentatively with 'Marcion' that said 'yes' to the Passion being reflective of 'future' apocalyptic/messianic scenario painted by Isaiah 53 and 'no' to the addition of Psalms 22:18. I know that sounds crazy. We have been led to believe that the Marcionites denied the prophets as such. But it is well established by Williams and others that when you actually go through Tertullian's Adv Marc especially Book 5 which deals with the Pauline corpus at least some of the allusions to the prophetic writings and Isaiah in particular are 'retained' (the other way to look at it - my way of looking at it - is that the selective use of prophetic scriptures was massively expanded in the Catholic canon to include many if not most of the present allusions to various scriptural writings much like we see with the expansion of the Ignatian corpus from the Syriac 'short' letters to the longer Greek and then to the longest (universally acknowledge 'forged' or adulterated) 'long' text of the Greek.

For those who aren't familiar with Tertullian's attack against Marcion along these lines from Adv Marc 5 let me give one famous example cited by Williams dealing with the 'end' of Romans and its 'retention' of Isaiah:

Hence then the exclamation, O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, the God whose treasures were now laid open. That is Isaiah's: and what follows is from that same prophet's indenture: For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Who hath offered a gift to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again ?g When you took away so much from the scriptures, why did you retain this, as though this too were not the Creator's? [Adv Marc 5.14]

So as Williams as other noted, Tertullian's original charge that Marcion 'erased' things to separate the Law and the Gospel is more complex than usually acknowledged. Apparently at least some of the references to Isaiah 'stayed put' - i.e. that the apostle frequently or at least sometimes alluded to Isaiah even in the Marcionite canon. Most of the other references to OT scripture was not there. So you had from the Marcionite perspective, a New Testament canon entirely written by Paul and Paul making allusions only to Isaiah (or perhaps a small number of other prophets but I don't think so - I only think it was Isaiah and only some of the Isaiah references that currently stand) and the orthodox position epitomized by Tertullian who says elsewhere in the same text that the Marcionites left in 'some' allusions to the OT in order to confuse the orthodox!

Obviously Tertullian's argument is stupid. There was a version of the New Testament which either only made reference to Isaiah (and then only a small number of references) which was later identified as 'Marcionite.' For some reason Isaiah was 'cool' according to the Marcionites. But why?

Let's stop for a moment and consider the absurdity of the Catholic position. Tertullian and Irenaeus before him say that there was only one 'Jewish god' (not a number of different powers in heaven) and they all spoke to the 'Jewish prophets' together as some sort of 'prophetic assembly' throughout time. These 'Jewish prophets' (i.e. Moses through to John the Baptist) were all 'for' the Creator, i.e. the Jewish god and the Marcionite position is absurd because it argued that Jesus was hostile to the temple, wanted it destroyed and with it the sacrificial religion of Israel which it 'hated.'

The idea here is 'monarchical.' In other words, there was one God and he spoke with one voice to one 'prophetic body' to one people (= Israel). But surely no one can be so stupid as to argue that Moses was 'for' the temple. Nowhere in the Torah is it argued that a physical building (i.e. with a roof) is necessary to stand in God's favor. Moses's position is that you set up a temporary tabernacle which moves around in the desert until presumably the Israelites get to Gerizim where they would presumably set up a similar tent.

Now here is where it gets interesting. Isaiah is well recognized in the literature as being a prophet hoping that the first temple would be destroyed. He is the mouthpiece of various antinomian statements in the literature related to the Ascension of Isaiah. So the idea that the Marcionites might have 'liked' Isaiah isn't all that crazy and in fact is confirmed by the presence of Isaiah in their exclusively Pauline canon.

So now we return to our original discussion about the identification of the Passion 'conforming' to the vision laid out by Isaiah in chapter 53. Could this too have been a Marcionite position? I think so. If Isaiah appeared approvingly in Paul's letters then it would stand to reason that the Marcionites could well have acknowledged that Isaiah knew or at least gave an imperfect outline of what would happen at the Passion.

So here is where things get interesting again. The only thing that Tertullian consistently states is that the Marcionites argued that Psalm 22:18 was an addition to the 'true gospel' Passion narrative which we have just seen could plausibly have 'mirrored' Isaiah chapter 53 - even for the Marcionites. So now immediately we see that our idea of a later addition to Adv Marc chapter 4's discussion of Passion - one which features Jesus being sent by Pilate to Herod - is quite significant.

There are in fact two different discussions going on within the existing narrative. As I have outlined above, the original text had both the author (not Tertullian but his source) about the implications of a mutually agreed upon borrowing or mirroring of Isaiah 53. Now the original author said (by fusing the arguments in this section with those in Adv Iud 10 and Adv Marc 3.19) that every aspect of the narrative was there. The existence of a 'war captive' (= Christ), his suffering, that his life was given for many, the empty tomb and most importantly verse 12 which speaks about his soul or spirit being divided among the people. There is an underlying sense too that those who judged the suffering servant would be judged.

All of this the Marcionites and their critic agreed. There were clearly different ways of interpreting this general understanding but the big issue seems to have been the addition of Psalm 22:18 (explicitly in Matthew and John) and implicitly 'And they divided up his clothes by casting lots' in Luke and Mark. The Marcionite gospel clearly did not have any reference to Jesus 'really' having clothes which were divided by the soldiers, no reference to Psalm 22.18.

This idea is supported by examining the strange way that Mark and Luke disagree with one another. In Mark, the soldiers put the robe on Jesus to make him look like a mock king in Luke Jesus gets the robe from his visit to Herod (strengthening the kingly allusion because he gets the garment from a king). But these are all mere set ups for the presence of 'clothes' which can be divided up by the soldiers to fulfill Psalm 22.18 (even if it wasn't mentioned explicitly).

Now the Marcionites denied both Mark's reconstruction and Matthew's addition of the Psalm:

Evidently the statement that his raiment was divided among the soldiers and partly assigned by lot, has been excised by Marcion, because he had in mind the prophecy of the psalm, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.g So he will have to excise the Cross as well, for the same psalm is not silent about it: They pierced my hands and my feet.[Adv Mark 4.42]

But clearly the tone of Tertullian's attack confirms that they acknowledged an underlying indebtedness or mirroring of Isaiah 53. But we shouldn't lose sight of the most important thing. Luke could only have had the editorial liberty to reconstruct an alternative origin for the presence of clothing which the solider divided if it knew of an earlier gospel - the Marcionite gospel - which had absolutely no reference to the dividing of clothing. In other words, Luke was not entirely dependent on Mark but on ur-Mark that is the Marcionite gospel which stood behind Mark and Luke's separate reconstructions of the giving of clothing to Jesus to accord with scripture.

Notice also that the cited gospel in Adv Marc differs on the question asked by Pilate too - Pilate's question was 'Art thou the King of the Jews?': the chief priests
asked, 'Art thou the Christ?'—Luke 22: 66. In the gospel debated by Tertullian's source and the Marcionites we read:

So when they had led him to Pilate they began to accuse him of saying he was Christ a king, meaning no doubt the Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand. Surely they would have arraigned him under some other charge, being in doubt whether he had said he was the Son of God, if he had not by the statement Ye say it, indicated that he was what they said. Also when Pilate asked, Art thou the Christ? he answered again Thou sayest it, so that he might not seem, through fear of the authority, to have refused to answer

In other words the Marcionites said Jesus was the Son of God, not the Messiah. In Luke he specifically asks Jesus “Are you the king of the Jews?” to which Jesus gives his oblique reply “You have said so." But in the gospel of Tertullian's source and the Marcionites presumably he obliquely avoids acknowledging himself as the Christ? Why?

I think 'king of the Jews' = king Judas. The Catholic editor wants this idea to be stamped out not his association with the Christ.

[Stephan Huller]

It is interesting to notice that the question 'are you the Christ' now comes from the high priest. In Mark:

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

But in Matthew:

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Clearly Tertullian's source has this passage in mind albeit with the question being asked by Pilate. Why so? Well at least one implication is certainly that the high priest - and thus the Jews - are no longer responsible for ignoring the 'truth' that Jesus was their awaited messiah. The Marcionites adamantly denied this proposition. Jesus was not the Jewish messiah but the Son of God. So the 'blood guilt' argument was not present in Marcionitism. This was deliberately developed by Catholics.

But consider also the idea that the representative of Caesar is portrayed as ignorant and more importantly the representative of the Christians - i.e. Jesus - lies or gives a crypto-truthful answer to the authority representing Caesar. This is certainly why things were changed. It was teaching Christians to be dishonest with their 'legitimate' rulers.

Also Tertullian's source seems to be acknowledging that the Marcionites 'removed' the reference to 'the Son of God' after 'Christ.' We read:

So when they had led him to Pilate they began to accuse him of saying he was Christ a king, meaning no doubt the Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand. Surely they would have arraigned him under some other charge, being in doubt whether he had said he was the Son of God, if he had not by the statement Ye say it, indicated that he was what they said. Also when Pilate asked, Art thou the Christ? he answered again Thou sayest it, so that he might not seem, through fear of the authority, to have refused to answer

In other words, as is always the case the author is saying 'even if it doesn't appear in your text the sense is the same even without 'the Son of God' present. Notice also that like Matthew just having Jesus say 'you say so' makes it difficulty to connect Jesus's second (future) advent with Daniel chapter 8. You have to have Jesus stop at 'you say so' and destroy the mutually acknowledged 'silence' that Jesus displays in the passage (read on in Mark):

We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” ... Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.

So Mark completely destroys the sense of the original - i.e. saying 'yes and furthermore ...' going on to Daniel 8. Matthew has to make him start and stop to go on to Daniel 8. But originally as we see from Tertullian in the gospel behind canonical Mark, Matthew and Luke Jesus says nothing to any of the questions posed by Pilate save for 'Are you the Christ.'

[Stephan Huller]

Some other questions. John must have known about Mark's development of Psalm 22.18 into the narrative:

“Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did.

But how could John have 'naturally' taken only the development of the soldiers taking Jesus's clothes but not the rest?