Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

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Giuseppe
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Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by Giuseppe »

In my humble opinion, the more suggestive passage from Irenaeus is the following:

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.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm

Now, prof Vinzent notes a curious anomaly:

Moreover, according to Irenaeus, the Valentinians were not the only ones who failed to use the collection of the four Gospels correctly. He first refers to the Ebionites, who used Matthew 'exclusively' and would have also misinterpreted this text. This group is mentioned here either because Irenaeus regarded them as the oldest of heretics or because, according to him, they were misusing the earliest of the four Gospels. Surprisingly, though, the Ebionites are followed not by the Cerinthians, who preferred Mark and who are not mentioned by name at this point, but by Marcion who, in the eyes of Irenaeus, circumcised Luke.

(Markus Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity, p. 190-191, my bold)

Hence Irenaeus betrayes, with that anomaly, the view that Mark was written by separationists after (and against) the Marcion's Evangelion. It is an anomaly because Mark is catholically the second gospel, not the third.

In addition, there is always the dilemma about who comes before, between Marcion and the Ebionites. Remember that the Ebionites could be using the Memories of the Apostles shared by Justin (a kind of remote proto-Matthew?).
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mlinssen
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by mlinssen »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:08 am
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. [b]Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark,[/b] if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm
Wait w00t WTF?!

Is Irenaeus here attesting to a dispute regarding IS versus XS?

And that Mark supposedly supports or at least shares that view?
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by Giuseppe »

Vinzent is not new on the connection of Mark with separationism. Please read here:

Thanks Giuseppe for your comments and questions. Here my attempted answers:
1) do you find traces of 'separationism' in Mark? Yes, I think, despite the effort Mark is making in reconnecting Marcion's angelic Jesus with the Jewish lineage, he still adopted much of Marcion's spiritualised portray of Jesus. It starts with him calling his text - like Marcion - an 'eu-aggelion', hence the message, as Tertullian criticises, of an angel. When Mark then tries to underline the human side of Jesus, he ends up with a certain separational christology, as he did not want to remove Marcion's spiritual element.

2) If your response is yes, It's possible to consider Mark's separationism as a intermediate step between the marcionite docetic Jesus (of first Gospel) and the Jesus of 'true' flesh described in Luke and John?
This is, how I see it, although even in Luke and John we still find enough traces of Marcion's angelic and spiritual, if you like the more heresiological expression, docetic christology.

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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by FollowerOfMessiah »

This basically confirms (but slightly modifies) what I had said here about intra-textual evidence of a late, post-John Luke:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10363

Marcionism would follow what I describe to be "Misunderstandings" of John due to its heavy spiritualism/mysticism allowing people like Marcion to read into it Gnosticism/Anti-Judaism. In the post I suggested the order Matthew-Mark--John--Luke, because Luke was responding to misconceptions from Johannine communities about Jesus that had developed decades after (and likely thousands of kilometres away from where) Matthew was written. But if Mark is a response to John to re-Judaize Jesus after Marcion had de-Judaized him, with the suggestion that Marcion mutilates Luke, then we are led to a very late Mark date, and that Mark and Luke INDEPENDENTLY use Matthew, with both having a Johannine community in mind ("Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us"). Very likely, these are also the same "deviant" communities (e.g. in Anatolia, Greece and Rome) to which Paul is addressing.
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by Giuseppe »

FollowerOfMessiah wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:55 am with the suggestion that Marcion mutilates Luke
a false suggestion, sorry. The true challenge is between the Marcion's priority and the Mark's priority, which is the reason I have quoted Vinzent on Mark. I am not interested about Matthew, since it is clear that all the mentions of a birth and/or a genealogy are sure evidence of anti-marcionism, and Matthew has one.

I don't like to talk about "misunderstandings": that is the propagandistic language of a Irenaeus.
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by Giuseppe »

Mark is separationist not only because of the baptism, but also because the angel reveals that the women search for a man (=Jesus Nazarene) when they should search for the deity (=Christ).
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MrMacSon
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by MrMacSon »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:08 am In my humble opinion, the more suggestive passage from Irenaeus is the following:

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.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm [Irenaeus' Against Heresies III.2,7]

Now, Prof Vinzent notes a curious anomaly:

... Irenaeus...first refers to the Ebionites, who used Matthew 'exclusively' ... This group is mentioned here either because Irenaeus regarded them as the oldest of heretics or because, according to him, they were misusing the [supposedly] earliest of the four Gospels. Surprisingly, though, the Ebionites are followed not by the Cerinthians, who preferred Mark and who are not mentioned by name at this point, but by Marcion who, in the eyes of Irenaeus, circumcised Luke.

(Markus Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity, p. 190-191, my bold)

Hence Irenaeus betrayes, with that anomaly, the view that Mark was written by separationists after (and against) the Marcion's Evangelion. It is an anomaly because Mark is catholically the second gospel, not the third.

In addition, there is always the dilemma about who comes before, between Marcion and the Ebionites. Remember that the Ebionites could be using the Memories of the Apostles shared by Justin (a kind of remote proto-Matthew?).

I dunno if anything meaningful can be taken from either of these excerpts from Irenaeus or Vinzent.

The last sentence of the excerpt from Irenaeus -

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.

- is hard to follow (& may even be a misrepresentation of the 'original').

But I think a potential key point which Irenaeus seems to be saying is:
  • 'Those who separate Jesus from Christ would have their errors rectified if they read or even preferred the Gospel by Mark (and if they read Mark "with a love of truth").'

Note the context of that excerpt from Irenaeus: it's in a chapter trying to set down orthodox doctrine and cast aside the heretics.

The chapter, Against Heresies III.2, begins:

1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he [ie. John] might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not" [John 1:1], etc., ...

The next few sections mostly refer to pericopes from G.John, with the odd pericope from 1 Cor 12, Matthew and Luke.

The section containing the above excerpt, s7, and the start of the subsequent s8 in full:


7. Such, then, are the first principles of the Gospel: that there is one God, the Maker of this universe; He who was also announced by the prophets, and who by Moses set forth the dispensation of the law — [principles] which proclaim the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ignore any other God or Father except Him. So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these [documents], each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine. 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.

8. It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" [1 Timothy 3:15] of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sits upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.
...< . . paragraphed by me . . >
As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, You that sits between the cherubim, shine forth. For the cherubim, too, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For, [as the Scripture] says, "The first living creature was like a lion" [Revelation 4:7], symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but "the third had, as it were, the face as of a man" — an evident description of His advent as a human being; "the fourth was like a flying eagle," pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [John 1:1]. Also, all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. For this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. But that according to Luke, taking up [His] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God ...

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm


I'm sceptical of the claims that these groups used specific canonical Gospels and " bear testimony to 'us' "

It seems like an exercise in rhetorical and to make the canonical Gospels front and centre of any debate/s
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 3:21 pm
The chapter, Against Heresies III.2, begins:

1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he [ie. John] might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable.

This is all we need really

The father is all there is from Thomas until John: the father, the father, the father, the father, the father, the father, the father.
They didn't give a damn about a creator, a YHWH, there was none but the father. All the gossip by the FF only serves their own cause: there was no antithesis of anything, there was only a gaping void of nothing - next to the father

And then they talk about Jesus alone: Thomas has nothing else but IS and IHS, and perhaps it's all Mark's fault indeed that he had XRS descend upon IS during baptism, just as the Chrestians of Philip became XRS after baptism

Mono-genes? One-origin, dunno. Was that something that was used to refute John with his Logos? Dunno

The Christos in *Ev, if even present, is pivotal. Did *Ev invent the XRS as Spirit, or did John do so? John doesn't have John B baptise IS, such is for sure, and I doubt that it's original. But again, if we look at the NHL with as birds eye view, we see pneuma on top of it all:

viewtopic.php?p=149451#p149451

Image

Pneuma is the all, IS is the agent, XRS perhaps his alias, and SWTHR his role: salvation
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MrMacSon
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:44 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 3:21 pm
The chapter, Against Heresies III.2, begins:

1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he [ie. John] might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable.

This is all we need really

The father is all there is from Thomas until John: the Father, the Father, the Father, Father, Father, Father, the Father.
They didn't give a damn about a Creator, [a Demiurge], a YHWH, there was none but the Father. All the gossip by the FF only serves their own cause: there was no antithesis of anything, there was only a gaping void of nothing - next to the father
.
Yep. I've come to the conclusion that, with all this, and the likelihood -following Russell Gmirkin and others- that Judaism's Genesis accounts of Creation arose out of Platonism which had been was being discussed endlessly: for centuries ...

The people needed saving from that endless, circular contemplation: a fleshed-out Jesus was the ultimate salvation from it

mlinssen wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:44 pm
And then they talk about Jesus alone: Thomas has nothing else but IS and IHS, and perhaps it's all Mark's fault indeed that he had XRS descend upon IS during baptism, just as the Chrestians of Philip became XRS after baptism

Mono-genes? One-origin, dunno. Was that something that was used to refute John with his Logos? Dunno

The Christos in *Ev, if even present, is pivotal. Did *Ev invent the XRS as Spirit, or did John do so? John doesn't have John B baptise IS, such is for sure, and I doubt that it's original. But again, if we look at the NHL with as birds eye view, we see pneuma on top of it all:

viewtopic.php?p=149451#p149451

Image

Pneuma is the all, IS is the agent, XRS perhaps his alias, and SWTHR his role: salvation

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mlinssen
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Re: Marcion and the ebionites and the cerinthians

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:07 pm Yep. I've come to the conclusion that, with all this, and the likelihood -following Russell Gmirkin and others- that Judaism's Genesis accounts of Creation arose out of Platonism which had been was being discussed endlessly: for centuries ...

The people needed saving from that endless, circular contemplation: a fleshed-out Jesus was the ultimate salvation from it
Be that as it may, no Judaic would have been allowed to either Chrestianity or Christianity.
This religion eschewed Judaics from the very start, and will always do so - there is karma to everything

But, as Philip states, his gang started from hebrews: this was a gentile religion above all, first and foremost

And yes, Russell has done miraculous work with the Tanakh!
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