"the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

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gryan
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"the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by gryan »

According to the Carlson's Critical Text of Galatians, "the God and Christ" should be read instead of "the Son of God" in Gal 2:19b-20

Carlson's critical text with notes:
ἐγὼ γὰρ διὰ νόμου νόμῳ ἀπέθανον, ἵνα θεῷ ζήσω. Χριστῷ
συνεσταύρωμαι · 20 ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός · ὃ δὲ νῦν
ζῶ ἐν σαρκί, ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με
καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ.

Western branch
τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ D* F G d P46 B
? Marcion

Eastern branch
τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ×vg 01 33 A C 1241S 1739 Ψ Chrys 1611 Byz


---------------------

This post concerns "the Son of God" attested to some degree as present in the Marcionite text, according to BeDuhn in green italics.:

Gal 2: 20 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [Marcion: redeemed] me, and gave himself up for me.

I'm wondering if I may have found evidence to suggest that Tertullian (and Marcion) presumed "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God".

The possible evidence is in Tertullian's comments on Gal 2:6:

[6] Si haec quoque intellegi ex hoc postulant, id quoque nemo dubitabit, eius
dei et Christi praedicatorem Paulum cuius legem quamvis excludens, interim tamen pro temporibus admiserat, statim amoliendam si novum deum protulisset.

Tr. Chat Gpt
[6] If these things also demand to be understood from this context,
no one will doubt that Paul, the proclaimer of this
God and Christ, whose law he had temporarily admitted despite excluding it, would immediately reject it if someone introduced a new god.

The phrase dei et Christi is the word-for-word textual variant found in Victorinus' (Western branch) Latin text of Gal 2:20, which can be translated as "But as I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of God and Christ."
Last edited by gryan on Wed May 17, 2023 10:12 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by MrMacSon »

One presumes you're referring to

The Text of Galatians and Its History
by Stephen C. Carlson · 2015 · Mohr Siebeck

Stephen C. Carlson investigates the text of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and analyses how that text changed over the course of its transmission in manuscript copies over several centuries. For this study, he collated ninety-two textual witnesses of Galatians and arranged them into a genealogical family tree called a stemma codicum, with assistance from a computer-implemented method used in computational biology known as cladistics. Using this global stemma, he establishes a critical text for the epistle and assesses the nature of the textual variations that occurred throughout the text's history of transmission in over 250 significant variant readings, paying particular attention to possible theological motivations. This is the first study to produce a global stemma of any kind for a New Testament book, an accomplishment that was previously thought to be unfeasible.

https://www.google.com.au/books/edition ... 3YUC?hl=en


Based on the author's doctoral dissertation. This volume investigates the text of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and its history, how it changed over time. This work performs a stemmatic analysis of 92 witnesses to the text of Galatians, using cladistic methods developed by computational biologists, to construct an unoriented stemma of the textual tradition. The stemma is then oriented based on the internal evidence of textual variants

https://archive.org/details/textofgalatiansi0000carl

Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

gryan wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 1:48 pmAccording to the Carlson's Critical Text of Galatians, "the God and Christ" should be read instead of "the Son of God" in Gal 2:19b-20
Hi Greg, I'm not aware of Carlson's reasoning, which is probably based primarily on the Western text, but the reading "τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ" is attested by Adamantius for Marcion's version.
Adamantius.jpg
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gryan
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by gryan »

Hi Kunigunde!

Thanks for this. From a google search, I learned that "Adamantius" was one of the names associated with the writings of Origen. So, I suppose he was in the Eastern text stream and I'm guessing that influenced his interpretation of Marcion's text.

As for Carlson's reasoning, he writes: "As the two oldest readings are evenly split between the Western and Eastern branches with their respective allies, internal evidence must decide this variation unit....
...the intrinsic probabilities suggest that “God and Christ” fits the context better than “Son of God,” and the transcriptional probabilities also favor the “God and Christ” reading. For these reasons, the “God and Christ” reading, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ, ought to be adopted for a critical text of Galatians."
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/b ... _11426.pdf
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

gryan wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 5:22 am As for Carlson's reasoning, he writes: "As the two oldest readings are evenly split between the Western and Eastern branches with their respective allies, internal evidence must decide this variation unit....
...the intrinsic probabilities suggest that “God and Christ” fits the context better than “Son of God,” and the transcriptional probabilities also favor the “God and Christ” reading. For these reasons, the “God and Christ” reading, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ, ought to be adopted for a critical text of Galatians."
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/b ... _11426.pdf
So the question is not what the Marcionite reading was, but the original reading. Interesting.

Many years ago there was a good post (and discussion in the comments) over at Evangelical Textual Criticism (If the theological meanings of different readings are rather unimportant, you can more or less trust them!)

Galatians 2.20: 'I live by faith in God and Christ ...' by Peter M. Head

It's interesting that the Western text witnesses are divided, with P46 and Vaticanus even two strong Alexandrians have the minor variant, but not the Syrians and Copts. That looks unusual.

from laparola
υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ - ‭א A C D2 K L P Ψ 075 0150 0278 6 33 81 88 104 181 256 263 326 365 424 436 451 459 614 629 630 1175 1241 1319 1573 1739 1852 1877 1881 1912 1962 1984 2127 2200 2464 2492 2495 Byz Lect itar itdem itf itr itt itx itz vg syrp syrh copsa copbo goth arm eth geo slav Marcionaccording to Adamantius Clement Ambrosiaster Didymusdub Chrysostom Severian Pelagius Jerome Theodorelat Augustine Cyril Euthalius Varimadum Theodoret John-Damascus ς WH

θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ - p46 B D* F G (itb) itd ite itg Victorinus-Rome Marius Mercator

θεοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ - 1985

θεοῦ - 330

Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 8:05 am from laparola
θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ - p46 B D* F G (itb) itd ite itg Victorinus-Rome Marius Mercator

It seems that Victorinus had "Quod autem nunc vivo in carne, in fide vivo filii Dei et Christi" - "son of God and Christ"
gryan
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by gryan »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 8:59 am
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 8:05 am from laparola
θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ - p46 B D* F G (itb) itd ite itg Victorinus-Rome Marius Mercator

It seems that Victorinus had "Quod autem nunc vivo in carne, in fide vivo filii Dei et Christi" - "son of God and Christ"
Thank you for sharing this information. It appears that there may have been some confusion between Victorinus and another individual named 'Claudius Marius Victor' ('In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas, Saeculo IV, editio: Migne 1844).

It is interesting to note that the text attributed to 'Claudius Marius Victor' had a different wording in his text of Galatians 2:20, using 'son of God and Christ' instead of 'God and Christ.' However, there is no 'filii' (son) in Stephen Andrew Cooper's critical text of the Vetus Latina of Galatians used by Victorinus.

The phrase used by Victorinus was '...in carne, in fide vivo dei et Christi...' which translates to 'in the flesh, I live in the faith of God and Christ.'
gryan
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by gryan »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 8:05 am
gryan wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 5:22 am As for Carlson's reasoning, he writes: "As the two oldest readings are evenly split between the Western and Eastern branches with their respective allies, internal evidence must decide this variation unit....
...the intrinsic probabilities suggest that “God and Christ” fits the context better than “Son of God,” and the transcriptional probabilities also favor the “God and Christ” reading. For these reasons, the “God and Christ” reading, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ, ought to be adopted for a critical text of Galatians."
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/b ... _11426.pdf
So the question is not what the Marcionite reading was, but the original reading. Interesting.

Many years ago there was a good post (and discussion in the comments) over at Evangelical Textual Criticism (If the theological meanings of different readings are rather unimportant, you can more or less trust them!)

Galatians 2.20: 'I live by faith in God and Christ ...' by Peter M. Head
RE: "So the question is not what the Marcionite reading was, but the original reading."

In my humble opinion, it is a both/and scenario. The reconstruction of Marcion's text requires a critical text of Galatians. With Carlson's critical text, I argue that: 1) the original authorial text of Galatians 2:20 contained the phrase 'God and Christ,' and 2) since Galatians 2:20 is present in Marcion's text, it is likely that Marcion's text also included 'God and Christ.' 3) Supporting evidence can be found in Tertullian's writings, where he mentions Paul preaching 'God and Christ' in a comment on Galatians 2:6, which is in close proximity to Galatians 2:20. 4) It is worth noting that Tertullian's Latin phrase quotes the Latin text of Galatians 2:20 that uses 'God and Christ,' as employed by Victorinus.
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by Stuart »

Part 5 of DA is not reliably Marcionite by any stretch of the imagination. Clabeaux rejected entirely a Marcionite origin for any of part 5, and I mostly concur. Clabeaux also pretty much demolished the notion of a Western text type, or any specific text type for that matter, being closely related to the Marcionite text. Marcionite readings, many of which are more likely reflect local textual variants than specific Marcionite readings (again per Clabeaux; the texts of the Marcionites varied as much as the Catholics). My personal opinion is that the Marcionite text is simply an earlier form of the Pauline letters, and that it predates the formation of text types. (My theory is that text types developed as a result of the Decian and Diocletian persecutions that saw most copies of NT text destroyed, and what came after were reproductions based on a random surviving texts, so instead of a spread spectrum of readings we see distinct points of origin representing those random survivors).

My own investigation into DA led me to the conclusion that only part 1 and part 2 contained Marcionite readings, and only when spoken by the Marcionite Champions Megethius or Markus. Adamantius appears to always use the Catholic text. I suspect this is due to the way DA was composed, combining Marcionite arguments from one set of sources, and developed (over time) Catholic responses from other sources formed into an artificial dialogue. I do accept two exceptions to this, one being an altered order of responses in one sequences between Adamantius and Megethius and one reading in part 2.10 where Adamantius quotes what looks to be an ancient reading of Luke 16:19-31), which I think reflects the Marcionite text partially.

Forgive me, I am in Turkey at the moment so do not have access to all my notes to explain everything, so I give an outline without in depth explanations. When I'm back in California in a couple weeks I'll give more detail.
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Re: "the God and Christ" instead of "the Son of God" in Marcion's text of Gal 2:20

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

gryan wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 11:31 am
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 8:05 am from laparola
θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ - p46 B D* F G (itb) itd ite itg Victorinus-Rome Marius Mercator

Thank you for sharing this information. It appears that there may have been some confusion between Victorinus and another individual named 'Claudius Marius Victor' ('In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas, Saeculo IV, editio: Migne 1844).
...
The phrase used by Victorinus was '...in carne, in fide vivo dei et Christi...' which translates to 'in the flesh, I live in the faith of God and Christ.'
Good to know. Thanks

gryan wrote: Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:54 amἸάκωβος καὶ Πέτρος P46
...
Πέτρος καὶ Ἰάκωβος Marc D F G d b
It seems that P46 has quite a number of similarities with the Western text and is not all that Alexandrian. In Galatians 2:5, for example, P46 has "Peter" instead of "Cephas", albeit in reverse order.

gryan wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 3:54 pmWith Carlson's critical text, I argue that: 1) the original authorial text of Galatians 2:20 contained the phrase 'God and Christ,' and 2) since Galatians 2:20 is present in Marcion's text, it is likely that Marcion's text also included 'God and Christ.' 3) Supporting evidence can be found in Tertullian's writings, where he mentions Paul preaching 'God and Christ' in a comment on Galatians 2:6, which is in close proximity to Galatians 2:20. 4) It is worth noting that Tertullian's Latin phrase quotes the Latin text of Galatians 2:20 that uses 'God and Christ,' as employed by Victorinus.
The problem is that Adamantius (and the Latin translation of Rufinus) is the only witness to Galatians 2:20 in Marcion's text.

imho either you accept the attested reading or you have to treat Gal 2:20 as unattested

Regardless of this, the interesting question about the original text remains :)
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