MrMacSon wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 12:05 am
Literatur als Kunst | Literature as art |
| Die Markionitische Ausgabe ist keine anonyme Ausgabe. Da sie neben dem Evan gelium auch zehn Paulusbriefe enthält, wird Paulus als Herausgeber impliziert. Im Galaterbrief und im 1. Korintherbrief nimmt der literarische Paulus Bezug auf das eine Evangelium, das ihm überliefert wurde. Paulus ist nicht Autor des Evange liums, er ist Herausgeber. Wenn man dieses markionitische Evangelium mit den anderen christlichen Publikationen des zweiten Jahrhunderts vergleicht, so liegt der Schluss nahe, dass die Jesus-Geschichten frei erfunden sein könnten. Ihre Relevanz für Leserinnen und Leser des zweiten Jahrhunderts erklären zehn fiktive Briefe eines »kleinen« (»paulus«) Apostels, der, wie die Leserinnen und Leser, Jesus niemals gesehen hat. Die Rahmenhandlung der markionitischen Briefsammlung ist der Streit zwischen Petrus und Paulus, der im einleitenden Galaterbrief erzählt und in den folgenden Briefen nie beigelegt wird. Dieser Konflikt steht narrativ für das Versagen der ersten Nachfolger Jesu, die die zentrale Botschaft des Gottessoh nes nicht verstehen, und verleiht der Überzeugung Ausdruck, dass nicht die Lehre Jesu, sondern die Erfahrung des Geistes Christi Erlösung vom körperlichen Tod und damit ewiges Leben im Geiste verspricht. Das Christentum ist geboren, das Jesustum überwunden. | The Markionite edition is not an anonymous edition. Since it contains ten Pauline epistles in addition to the Evangelium, Paul is implied as the editor. In Galatians and 1 Corinthians, the literary Paul refers to the one gospel that was handed down to him. Paul is not the author of the Evangelium, he is the editor. If one compares this Marcionite gospel with the other Christian publications of the second century, it is reasonable to conclude that the Jesus stories could be fictitious. Their relevance for readers of the second century is explained by ten fictitious letters from a "little" ("Paul") apostle who, like the readers, never saw Jesus. The framework plot of the Marcionite collection of letters is the dispute between Peter and Paul, which is told in the introductory letter to the Galatians and is never settled in the following letters. This conflict represents the narrative failure of Jesus' first followers, who do not understand the central message of God's message, and expresses the conviction that it is not the teaching of Jesus, but the experience of the Spirit of Christ that promises salvation from physical death and thus eternal life in the spirit. Christianity is born, ‘Jesusism’ has been overcome. |
As always, Mac, I appreciate the careful citation
The Markionite edition is not an anonymous edition.
I read this and thought he was going to say that the name “Marcion” itself is the non-anonymous factor. Why is the classical Greek tradition so sure that “Homer” wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey? There is never any uncertainty, at least in Irenaeus and Tertullian, that Marcion’s name attached to these scriptures. His name reverberates in the titles of so many lost 2nd century treatises. But it need not have been used within the text, as “Paul” is.
Since it contains ten Pauline epistles in addition to the Evangelium, Paul is implied as the editor.
It’s a reasonable hypothesis, but the only one? One thing I have not found in the witnesses (but please show me if I’m wrong) is any specific indication that there really was such a “canon” of Marcion. A ten-letter collection, certainly. But that it was packaged with the one Gospel, all at once and forever?
I never tire of complaining that the canon concept is ridiculously overplayed—and I learned that from Trobisch himself. The NT scholarship world is desperate to sustain the empty notion of a non-political, pre-Constantine concept of “the canon of the New Testament,” as though such a thing were inevitable even without the monotheistic imperialism that came later. As I recall, the translator of the Panarion Frank Williams inserts the word “canon” over and over into Epiphanius’ text, whereas both the word and the concept are missing in the original (at least in certain parts.)
Can we rule out that there were two separate books? We have the two separate titles, Evangelion and Apostolikon. How common would it be in the 2nd century book market to combine two separately titled parts into a “single” work?
In Galatians and 1 Corinthians, the literary Paul refers to the one gospel that was handed down to him.
I don’t understand the leap from the “literary” Paul, the narrative personality of the epistles, to the concept of Paul as “editor.”
Paul is not the author of the Evangelium, he is the editor.
If the Pauline corpus was the work of someone who took the LXX prophets as a model, as per Tarazi or Brodie for example, then it would be hasty to impose a Greco-Roman distinction of author vs editor. That would be terribly un-Hebrew.
The oracular concept of prophecy permeates the Pauline Corpus. Paul speaks as the flawed human Paul, but also “as Christ” and “in the spirit”; or rather, as the human Paul who can remind his flock that at various times he “went outside of himself” (2 Cor). If the hypothetical pristine ancient reader imagined that Paul had written down the Evangelium (“received”), wouldn’t it simply be Christ who was speaking through him? There is no human narrator of the Evangelion, which at least three of the canonical evangelists understood to be an error to be corrected. The author of Mark, for example, does not consistently pretend to be an omniscient narrator, with his asides “let the reader understand,” and the reference to Alexander and Rufus, and maybe too the comedic bit about the scantily clad boy who flees Gethsemene. But I don’t recall any such authorial voice in the Marcionite Gospel (such as we have it). Luke needs to assert himself in his prologue, since the Marcionite bulk of his plagiarized Gospel has no authorial personality. Maybe only Matthew of the canonicals has no human narrative voice, but there is at least the self-allusive verse about the diligent resourceful scribe.
