Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

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Secret Alias
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

The Greek text of Against Marcion 4 that this Latin derives from was likely written c. 180 CE. There is no earlier witness to this material. After 30 years of studying this stuff I believe - FWIW - that Galatians was developed against Marcion. Right out front, the Catholic canon put Galatians as a way of showing Paul as a sniveling weakling in order to deny him the status of a god-man which was prevalent in the Marcionite community.
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

Ƿ45 has the negative version (οἷς οὐδὲ).
Important.
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

But Ƿ45 = 3rd century. Irenaeus wrote earlier than that and he considers his text to be authoritative. No interpolations. He has the pristine text (though it is curious that when he speaks of the manuscripts in the possession of the Roman Church he stops short of claiming they have autographs). Instead they have copies he readily admits.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:46 pm But Ƿ45 = 3rd century. Irenaeus wrote earlier than that and he considers his text to be authoritative. No interpolations. He has the pristine text (though it is curious that when he speaks of the manuscripts in the possession of the Roman Church he stops short of claiming they have autographs). Instead they have copies he readily admits.
I am pretty sure that the Eastern and Western texts (or, as Yuri Kuchinsky would have put it, the Central and Peripheral texts) were already diverging before Irenaeus. In this case the Eastern text preserved the original reading while the Western text made a change against Marcion.

I am not sure what you mean by Irenaeus having the pristine text. I do not think any pristine text was still in existence by then; if it was, it was languishing in some dark corner somewhere, destined for the rubbish heap.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

I am saying that Irenaeus's grandiosity had an effect on the next 300 years of Christianity. I think Clement had a pristine text of a version of Mark and even he says, confesses that Mark made mystical additions to Irenaeus's text essentially - so powerful was Irenaeus. Irenaeus simply has the authority to be unapologetic, to be bombastic and promulgate the big lie. His canon BECOMES the true text by virtue of his proclamation. He never speaks of accepted textual variants (like Clement and Origen). Irenaeus established the true text in the late second century. I think his Pastoral epistles were pristine. He made his gospels pristine by virtue of the force of his personality. He made canonical Matthew the text known to Papias. Mark was the text Mark wrote for Peter at Rome etc. I think this is all bull but it became truth in the manner the victors write history.
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

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The Galatians apostolic narrative was not in the Marcionite recension. It was invented to subordinate Paul
For we should demand the production of that gospel also which Paul found <in existence>, that to which he gave his assent, that with which shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: for his intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the apostles, was lest perchance he had run in vain a—that is, lest perchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preaching the gospel in their manner. At length, when he had conferred with the original <apostles>, and there was agreement concerning the rule of the faith, they joined the right hands <of fellowship>, and from thenceforth divided their spheres of preaching, so that the others should go to the Jews, but Paul to Jews and gentiles
To this end we have to think differently about the problem. The more "reasonable reading" is not necessarily the proper one historically. The whole narrative is false and secondary.

Notice also that the author and in the previous citation assumes a written gospel is referred to here
Why? Because earlier in the same epistle he warns against turning from his gospel. It was already established by the Marcionites that Paul wrote the ur-gospel. The story about submission mediates this against the apostolic gospel story of Justin. The next step was to harmonize four gospels. In other words, Galatians didn't solve the problem.

The Marcionites still insisted Paul wrote first and was the only apostle. His enemies didn't buy that he went to Jerusalem and only wrote his gospel to accord with the apostolic gospel. It wasn't easy to find harmony. I think a set of Matthew, Mark and John gave way to a fourfold set with Luke added. Marcion corrupting Luke and Paul never authoring a written gospel was the final solution.
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Ethan »

The problem is that Marcion, Irenaeus, St Paul, St Peter are fictional characters invented by scribes, opinions that are backdated, creating all these fictional people conversing the meaning of the New Testament in the 1st century, creating the allusion of history.

Mark and Matthew are different because they are not the same book, one must first prove that St Paul existed then make the assumption he wrote anything, Christians seem to believe that fictional characters write the books they are in, hence cognitive dissonance

Deuteronomy 34:5 - Moses died

Fictional and dead people write books, that is the logic here.
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Re: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

The situation within Marcionism necessitates that we make inferences from statements in the hostile writers transmitting the information to us. Although no single Patristic source concedes that the Marcionites said Paul wrote their gospel it is plainly evident from the totality of statements in the anti-Marcionite writings. A sample:
For we should demand the production of that gospel also which Paul found (Exigeretur enim id quoque evangelium quod Paulus invenit), that to which he gave his assent, that with which shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree
The understanding here is that Paul 'found' (lit. came upon or into) a gospel and modeled his own gospel on the Jerusalem gospel. Invenio would be strange to connect with a loose 'oral teaching.' This is especially true given that he has said from the beginning of the epistle that his gospel came not from men but God. The only way to reconcile this situation is to assume that the narrative that follows is invented solely to integrate Paul into the apostolic college.

The same summary of Galatians 2 is offered up in Book 5. Again after telling his hearers that they should only adhere to his gospel, Against Marcion claims Paul:
writes that after fourteen years he went up to Jerusalem, to seek the support of Peter and the rest of the apostles, to confer with them concerning the content of his gospel, for fear lest for all those years he had run, or was still running, in vain—meaning, if he was preaching the gospel in any form inconsistent with theirs.
The harmonizing effort is utterly laughable. Paul stood alone, had his revelation in private and never tried to accommodate himself to anyone or anyone's teaching. This is plain from chapter 1.

The author clearly understands this to be written gospels because he immediately goes on to say this in what follows:
so that they were perverting the gospel, not by any such interpolation of scripture (interpolatione scripturae) as to suggest that Christ belonged to the Creator, but by such a retention of the old rule of conduct as not to repudiate the Creator's law
How could the author be responding to anything author than the Marcionite understanding that Paul wrote a written gospel which was later interpolated by Judaizers?

But - and here is the part most people ignore - the Marcionites cannot have had this story where Paul goes to Jerusalem and comes across a written gospel already composed by the leaders of the Church there. All of chapter 2:1 - 15 is a massive interpolation which could not have formed part of the Marcionite understanding. The Marcionite understanding was plainly - Paul wrote the first gospel and then Judaizers (stole it?) and added to that text. Nothing more, nothing less.
“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: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

In Book 1 of Against Marcion an argument which is more in line with Irenaeus Book 3.
But if it was after the apostolic age that the truth suffered adulteration as regards the rule of <faith in> God, it follows that in its own time the apostolic tradition suffered no adulteration as regards God's rule of faith, and we shall be called upon to recognize as apostolic no other tradition than that which is today set forth in the apostolic churches. But you will find no church of apostolic origin whose Christianity repudiates the Creator. Or else, if these churches are taken to have been corrupt from the beginning, can any churches be sound? Shall they be those hostile to the Creator? Put in evidence a single one of your churches which is of apostolic origin, and you will have me convinced.
So Irenaeus is clearly the author here and - once again the use of Galatians 2 as a means of pinning the Marcionites to accept the idea that Paul subordinated himself to the 'Jewish Church.' What we have to remember that for Irenaeus's contemporaries the Church of Rome was founded upon the twin pillars of 'Peter and Paul.' This is explicit in Hegesippus's original episcopal succession list. One might even assume that Clement and Linus originally followed (cf. Prescription 38 "Clement was ordained thereto by Peter") and then very little else is clear (Sixtus might have arisen from some reference to 'the sixth' or not). Corruption has been introduced into the transmission.

The important thing to see is that Against Marcion is clearly an Irenaean composition or parts of it go back to one. But I can't shake the feeling that Gaius's reference to two different churches - one associated with Peter and the other Paul
“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: Ancient notices of the differences between Matthew and Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

Variants in Galatians from Origen Commentary on Romans - "Yet Paul also says "My gospel which I proclaim among the Gentiles."
“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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