Justin versus Marcion: who reflects more the fabrication of the Earliest Gospel?

[Giuseppe]

I hope that the Vinzent's book, expected for next thursday, will answer to this dilemma:

Who reflects more the fabrication of the Earliest Gospel? Justin, with his 'memories of Jesus', probably general rehearsal for the fabrication of the canonical gospels (written after Justin), or Marcion, with his idea of a new deity for recent times.

The game is not entirely honest, since when Vinzent plays the role of the historicist, he seems to be inclined to see Marcion as a reporter who preserves phantasmal oral traditions, and not rather as someone who is based on a previous written gospel (so giving implicitly reason to who thinks that he shared something as the Justin's memories of Jesus, not a historical account about Jesus).

[MrMacSon]

I hope that the Vinzent's book, expected for next Thursday, will answer to this dilemma:

Who reflects more the fabrication of the Earliest Gospel? Justin, with his 'memories of Jesus', probably general rehearsal for the fabrication of the canonical gospels (written after Justin), or Marcion, with his idea of a new deity for recent times[?]

... when Vinzent plays the role of the historicist, he seems to be inclined to see Marcion as a reporter who preserves phantasmal oral traditions ...

I don't understand why you use the term, 'memories of Jesus' (as you've done before), to refer to what Justin termed 'memoirs of the apostles'.

Yes, in his new book, Resetting the Origins of Christianity, Vinzent has described Marcion as preserving oral traditions.


I don't get what you mean by this:

and not rather as 'someone who is based on a previous written gospel' (so giving implicitly reason to [those] who thinks that he shared something [like] Justin's memories of Jesus, not a historical account about Jesus).

1. Who is the 'someone' you say "is based on a previous written gospel"?
   • the implication of your mangled syntax is that that someone is Marcion, but I doubt that's who you mean.
2. I presume when you say "he shared something" you mean 'Marcion 'shared' something' (?)
   .
3. The suffix, "not a historical account of Jesus," seems out of context ie. unrelated to the previous 'premise'. What do you mean by it??

[MrMacSon]

... when Vinzent plays the role of the historicist, he seems to be inclined to see Marcion as a reporter who preserves phantasmal oral traditions ...

Yes, in his new book, Resetting the Origins of Christianity, Vinzent has described Marcion as preserving oral traditions.

Well, not as much as I first thought. And he only obliquely refers to Marcion as doing so:

Irenaeus himself admits[/claims] that those against whom he directed his Conversion and Rejection of the Falsely So-Called Gnosis or, as we know the work, his Adversus haereses, were speaking of oral traditions rather than written texts. His opponents were [said to be] particularly critical of the Christian writings that he was championing because they felt they were ‘not correct, nor of authority, and that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition’. We may recall, however, that, though less drastic in his criticism of Scripture, Tertullian, like Irenaeus’ opponents, placed tradition above Scripture, and that even Eusebius referred primarily to writings other than the New Testament in his description of the beginnings of Christianity, albeit in a manner quite different from that of Irenaeus and Tertullian. Irenaeus, too, reproaches his opponents for referencing not only tradition but also those Christian texts that he himself accepted.

Vinzent, Markus. Resetting the Origins of Christianity (p. 155). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

• The following points are, imo, worth noting & emphasising separately:
  
  
  "...Tertullian, like Irenaeus’ opponents, placed tradition above Scripture, and that even Eusebius referred primarily to writings other than the New Testament in his description of the beginnings of Christianity, albeit in a manner quite different from that of Irenaeus and Tertullian."
  
  and
  
  ."Irenaeus, too, reproaches his opponents for referencing not only tradition but also those Christian texts that he himself accepted."
  
  

And, after citing Irenaeus' Adv. haer. III 11,7

For the Ebionites, who use Matthew’s Gospel only, are confuted out of this very same, making false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains. Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified. Those, moreover, who follow Valentinus, making copious use of that according to John, to illustrate their conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in error by means of this very Gospel, as I have shown in the first book. Since, then, our opponents do bear testimony to us, and make use of these [documents], our proof derived from them is firm and true.

Vinzent says:

Here it becomes clear not only that Irenaeus’ opponents [supposedly] deemed Christian writings controversial but also that Irenaeus did not use them as points of reference for demonstrating the authority of his own teachings. Like him, his opponents made use of both tradition and Scripture, favouring oral tradition over the written texts. For Irenaeus, the Scriptural argument did not offer immediate or convincing insights that solidly revealed the truth. Instead, he employs roundabout arguments showing that his opponents, too, refer to Paul and the four gospels as authoritative sources. His criticism focuses on his opponents’ choice of gospel; they did not use all four but only those they accepted as authentic. As he points out, some even came up with their own gospel, such as the Valentinians’ Gospel of Truth, or reworked one of the gospels into their own version, as Marcion [supposedly] did with Luke’s text. By censuring his adversaries, Irenaeus attempts to establish the authority of the four gospels that he wishes to promote and to highlight their consistency with the Church’s teaching. This also explains why he, like Tertullian after him, refers not only to Scripture but also to ecclesiastical tradition and feels compelled to explain why he, unlike some of his opponents, wishes to use not one but all four gospels.

Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity (pp. 156-157).

Later, when discussing the Epistula Apostoloruma (EpAp, aka the Epistle of the Apostles), Vinzent says:

Like Acts, the EpAp can be read as a text that is both influenced by Marcion and striving to distance itself from him. However, the extent to which the EpAp already presupposes a written tradition can be seen in the opening of the letter, in which the EpAp emphasizes several times in a single sentence that Christ’s revelation is no longer based on oral tradition but has become literature and is available in a single book:

The book which Jesus Christ revealed to his disciples. [It is there described] how Jesus Christ revealed the book, namely, that of the assembly of the apostles, the disciples of Jesus Christ, which is addressed to all men. (EpAp 1)

Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity (p. 232)

a which Vinzent notes was "originally written in Greek, is unfortunately preserved only in an incomplete Coptic translation from the late fourth or early fifth century, a Latin palimpsest and a complete Ethiopian text from the eighteenth century (consisting of fourteen currently known manuscripts, none older than the fifteenth century)." [Resetting, pp. 230-231]

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

The following points are, imo, worth noting & emphasising separately

"...Tertullian, like Irenaeus’ opponents, placed tradition above Scripture, and that even Eusebius referred primarily to writings other than the New Testament in his description of the beginnings of Christianity, albeit in a manner quite different from that of Irenaeus and Tertullian."

and

."Irenaeus, too, reproaches his opponents for referencing not only tradition but also those Christian texts that he himself accepted."

And, after citing Irenaeus' Adv. haer. III 11,7

For the Ebionites, who use Matthew’s Gospel only, are confuted out of this very same, making false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains. Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified. Those, moreover, who follow Valentinus, making copious use of that according to John, to illustrate their conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in error by means of this very Gospel, as I have shown in the first book. Since, then, our opponents do bear testimony to us, and make use of these [documents], our proof derived from them is firm and true.

Vinzent says:

Here it becomes clear not only that Irenaeus’ opponents [supposedly] deemed Christian writings controversial but also that Irenaeus did not use them as points of reference for demonstrating the authority of his own teachings. Like him, his opponents made use of both tradition and Scripture, favouring oral tradition over the written texts.
...
Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity (pp. 156-157).

I don't find Irenaeus saying anything about the use of oral tradition by his opponents. Did I miss something? imho Irenaeus says exactly the opposite, namely that his opponents make their theological claims out of the blue and use the canonical gospels to illustrate them.

[MrMacSon]

I don't find Irenaeus saying anything about the use of oral tradition by his opponents. Did I miss something? imho Irenaeus says exactly the opposite, namely that his opponents make their theological claims out of the blue and use the canonical gospels to illustrate them.

I first wrote -

... in his new book, Resetting the Origins of Christianity, Vinzent has described Marcion as preserving oral traditions.

- based on a first reading of parts of it.

I then wrote, in the post you have quoted,

Well, not as much as I first thought. And he only obliquely refers to Marcion as doing so:

Irenaeus himself admits[/claims] that those against whom he directed his Conversion and Rejection of the Falsely So-Called Gnosis...[aka] Adversus haereses, were 'speaking of' oral traditions rather than written texts. His opponents were [said to be] particularly critical of the Christian writings that he was championing because they felt they were ‘not correct, nor of authority, and that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition’. We may recall, however, that, though less drastic in his criticism of Scripture, Tertullian, like Irenaeus’ opponents, placed tradition above Scripture ... Irenaeus, too, reproaches his opponents for referencing not only 'tradition' but also those Christian texts that he himself accepted.

Vinzent, Markus. Resetting the Origins of Christianity (p. 155). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

And, in another excerpt:

Vinzent [also said]:

Here it becomes clear not only that Irenaeus’ opponents [supposedly] deemed Christian writings controversial but also that Irenaeus did not use them as points of reference for demonstrating the authority of his own teachings. Like him, his opponents made use of both tradition and Scripture, favouring oral tradition over the written texts.
...
Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity (pp. 156-157).

[MrMacSon]

Perhaps inspired by them, or perhaps prompted by an already existing affiliation with a Jewish community in which Jesus was a teaching authority, [Marcion] set about collecting the oral traditions concerning Jesus of Nazareth in the context of the emerging Christian identity in Bithynia and further prompted by the Christian martyrs in the Bar Kokhba War. Unlike Paul, whom he identifies as the author of the Epistles, the Jesus traditions do not seem to have been available to him in written form. That is why he brought them together in the anonymously authored work he called the ‘Euangelion’, the ‘good news of an angel’, since, according to him, they contained the revelation of God’s angel or messenger to mankind.

Vinzent, Markus. Resetting the Origins of Christianity (p. 332). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Did I miss something?

I first wrote -

- based on a first reading of parts of it.

I then wrote, in the post you have quoted,

And, in another excerpt:

Sorry MrMac, I was so perplexed by Vinzent's claim that I didn't even get into what you had already written about it.

Perhaps inspired by them, or perhaps prompted by an already existing affiliation with a Jewish community in which Jesus was a teaching authority, [Marcion] set about collecting the oral traditions concerning Jesus of Nazareth in the context of the emerging Christian identity in Bithynia and further prompted by the Christian martyrs in the Bar Kokhba War. Unlike Paul, whom he identifies as the author of the Epistles, the Jesus traditions do not seem to have been available to him in written form. That is why he brought them together in the anonymously authored work he called the ‘Euangelion’, the ‘good news of an angel’, since, according to him, they contained the revelation of God’s angel or messenger to mankind.

Vinzent, Markus. Resetting the Origins of Christianity (p. 332). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

So this is the scholar-hero of those who call Carrier a pseudo-myther

[Giuseppe]

Unlike Paul, whom he identifies as the author of the Epistles, the Jesus traditions do not seem to have been available to him in written form.

this resembles partially the Couchoud's view, that Jesus was historicized (and connected with Pilate) even before Marcion, by the Pagan world. Obviously, for Vinzent, those traditions date back to ocular witnesses of a historical Jesus, but why didn't Marcion mention their name, while Justin titled them "memories of the apostles" (never more generic name was given to a "tradition")? I see an inconsistency, here. But what is happening is easily recognizable:

• The "memories of the apostles" existed before Marcion, but weren't called with that name;

• Marcion wrote the Evangelion;

• Justin was the first who called them "memories of the apostles", desiring to appeal to an authority who preceded Marcion.

If Justin had been not preserved, we would have no evidence about the "memories of the apostles" and about the way of their fabrication (==midrash).

[andrewcriddle]

The general opinion is that tradition in Irenaeus and his contemporary opponents means mainly material that enables one to interpret and understand the written documents such as Paul's epistles and the written Gospels. The crude facts are largely obtained from the written texts but they can only be rightly interpreted and understood by the use of oral traditions.

Andrew Criddle