Marcionite apocalypticism cannot fail

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Marcionite apocalypticism cannot fail

Post by Giuseppe »

I see a curious fact.

Both Neil and Secret Alias pointed to a curious fact independently one from other.

So Vridar:
There is nothing new about noticing that the prophecy of the “last days” that Jesus delivered to his inner disciples in Mark 13 contains allusions to events in the ensuing narrative Christ’s suffering and crucifixion.
http://vridar.org/2014/04/19/jesus-cruc ... jerusalem/

So Secret Alias:
In Aramaic the Greek term took on an antinomian character.

http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/showjastrow.php?page=708

To be a Marcionite is to be a lestes.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 (Matthew 24:44)
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2203&start=20#p49126

They both corroborate each other: in particular, the fact that Jesus was crucified between two thieves (λῃσταί) during a solar eclipse fulfilled his prophecies and/or parables about the coming of the Son of man ''as a thief in the night''.

What if all the ''predictions of the end'' were not those of the Parousia that the early Christians were expecting, but the predictions of the crucifixion itself? The act itself that determines what is expected eschatologically? This negative world can still continue to survive (the important thing being that a breach had been opened finally to the unknown God by the death of Jesus on the cross) under the rule of the archons for eternity. His fate is indifferent.

Simple logical inference:

I'm curious to know how it outlines the apocalypticism in Marcion. He was not interested in the fate of this world, right? So he would be not imported about the destruction nor the redemption of this world, right? So for him the whole ''Parousia'' affair didn't matter at all, but only the crucifixion, since the rest of transcendence will happen in the totally beyond, right? Pace the Demiurge and his faithful.

For Marcion, apocalypticism all exhausted itself in the crucifixion of Jesus. Marcion didn't need at all of a Second Coming.

A contradiction arises in the narrative when the apocalyptic prophecies of Jesus can be made relative not to his death on the cross (as it was in the first gospel), but to his Second Coming.

It is a 'fact' that Jesus died on the cross (his predictions were right), at least according to the gospel.

It is a fact that the Second Coming did not arrive (the same predictions above become virtually not right if referred to Parousia).

Under the mythicist paradigm, I find it more likely that the first gospel is the one that does not allow the attribution to Jesus of mistaken prophecies.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Marcionite apocalypticism cannot fail

Post by Secret Alias »

But remember the pieces only fit if you assume a Diatessaronic 'super' gospel existed before the synoptic texts 'broke it all up.' Important note. Irenaeus says each one of the canonical gospels demonstrate it's compatibility with the OT. But did the original 'super gospel'? That's the million dollar question.

All other approaches are a waste of time for understanding what happened before Irenaeus.
“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
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Marcionite apocalypticism cannot fail

Post by Giuseppe »

As PK said, I am a simple man. I assume that what you call 'diaterassonic super gospel' is the gospel used and invented by Marcion.
Irenaeus says each one of the canonical gospels demonstrate it's compatibility with the OT. But did the original 'super gospel'?
I am interested to answer these my questions:

1) were all the prophecies/parables so-called 'apocalyptic' really alluding only to the crucifixion, with at least the destruction of Jerusalem used only as antithesis in an anti-Daniel function, in the first Gospel?

2) was the marcionite Jesus less or more violent than the proto-catholic Jesus? And if equally violent at least in a point, was he so because basically in continuity with the OT (I assume that the OT are a very violent scripture, docet Avalos)? And therefore confuting a priori Vinzent's thesis that Marcion invented it?

If the answer is yes in both the questions above, then my personal research in the Marcionite field may be said to be finished. :)

Maybe the point 2 is, mutatis mutandis, the same question you are asking in your comment, too.

Unfortunately, I should wait some year before to answer these questions. :wtf:
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply