Markan Marcion: A Contrarian Synopsis

[StephenGoranson]

If anyone is interested, two paragraphs from my dissertation on Epiphanius:

"Epiphanius, a native of Judaea who wrote circa 375 C.E. while bishop in Cyprus, has obtained a reputation as both tendentious and difficult to understand. But his boundless theological certainty enabled him to present abundant information about his opponents, as he was confident he could refute them." (from the Abstract)

"As examples of valuable information already recognized in Panarion consider that it includes: extracts of the gospel of Marcion (Heresy 42.11); the letter of Ptolemy the gnostic (Heresy 33.3-8); Montanist oracles (Heresy 48); writings by Marcellus and his opponent Basil (Heresy 72); long quotations of Methodius writing on resurrection against Origen (Heresy 64); titles of many gnostic books (e.g., Heresy 26.8.1). This list could easily be extended, and further examples will be discussed in the course of this study." (from p. 16)

The Joseph of Tiberias Episode in Epiphanius: Studies in Jewish and Christian Relations (1990)
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Josep ... berias.pdf

[Secret Alias]

Great. Didn't know you had written this.

[DCHindley]

If anyone is interested, ... from my dissertation on Epiphanius:

"Epiphanius, a native of Judaea who wrote circa 375 C.E. while bishop in Cyprus, has obtained a reputation as both tendentious and difficult to understand. But his boundless theological certainty enabled him to present abundant information about his opponents, as he was confident he could refute them." (from the Abstract)

...

The Joseph of Tiberias Episode in Epiphanius: Studies in Jewish and Christian Relations (1990)
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Josep ... berias.pdf

Yes, I found that article very interesting when I first came across it. You have some really good articles out there.

My interest was simply because the story includes references to an institution where the patriarchate authorized certain persons to receive and transport fairly large sums of money offered by diaspora Jews for the poor of Judaea (& I guess Galilee). Many call this an "apostolate" in the sense that the ones so authorized represented the patriarch, apparently with Roman authorization to do so. DCH

[Peter Kirby]

Epiphanius, after copying his earlier work (on the Gospel and the Apostle) entirely and inserting it here, presents it another time with notes:

11,15 But there is a third < work > of my scholarship: the compilation of whatever material he and we have in common, and whose meaning is the Savior’s incarnation and his testimony to the agreement of the New Testament with the Old—and the acknowledgment in the Gospel, by the Son of God, that God is the maker of heaven and earth and the same God who spoke in the Law and the prophets, and that this God is his own Father. (16) And here is the brief arrangement of that work of mine, transcribed word for word by myself from copies of Marcion in the form of scholia with exegetical comments, to serve as an outline. (17) But so that the difficult things in it will not be obscure to some and fail to be understood, I shall in turn explain of the several entries in order—I mean the first entry, the second, the third (and so on)—the reason why each saying was selected and transferred here. I begin as follows.

His earlier work had extracts that could be useful to a debate with Marcionites without also presenting their implied context. Now he presents some of that context, separately. The evident effort to make this kind of distinction between his earlier work and his current interpretation of it makes it all the more likely that we can recover words of the gospel in use by Marcionites from the quotes and references in Panarion. The numerous occasions in which a complete quotation or a generously described omission is presented here provide the kind of substance that is often wanting elsewhere, along with evidence of that substance. The exactness of the work add to the explicit statements regarding the approach taken and the careful recapitulation in the commentary here to show that this list was produced by first-hand contact with the texts.

[Peter Kirby]

So we have sufficient reason to regard the list from Epiphanius as having been produced by a direct comparison of the Marcionites' gospel with his own. We also can compare the text of Epiphanius to the text of Tertullian and realize that, where Epiphanius is often precise, Tertullian is often confused and presenting a sometimes-garbled account of earlier statements regarding differences. This confirms two things:

(a) Tertullian and Epiphanius were not using the same immediate source when making comparisons between the Marcionites' gospel and Luke.
(b) Therefore, since Epiphanius was using the the text of the Gospel itself for comparison, Tertullian was not.

What we have already established from reading Tertullian alone, we thereby confirm with the evidence from Epiphanius.

We have already noted that Epiphanius exclaims in no uncertain terms about the many abrogations of sequence found in the gospel of the Marcionites. Tertullian makes many statements on the subject of divine "order" but doesn't show himself to be explicitly aware of different sequences in the text of the gospel used by Marcionites. Epiphanius attacks the sequence of the Marcionites' gospel and says that he has arranged quotes in order. By way of contrast, Tertullian doesn't even claim that the Marcionites' gospel differs in textual sequence, even though it would help his case to do so, and even in the one instance (at the beginning of his work) he has allowed the order of his presentation not to match the order of Luke. Instead of this giving rise to an accusation against Marcion for falsifying the sequence of the text of Luke, Tertullian offers an unconvincing explanation for having on this occasion (and this alone) gone outside the order of Luke for his own reasons.

Unlike most who analyze this, I went through Tertullian without having the text of Epiphanius in mind at all, leaving the text of Epiphanius to a later and separate stage of analysis. This wasn't entirely deliberate, but, in the process, I have ended up surfacing many of the cracks papered over by scholars when comparing the statements of Tertullian and Epiphanius. My interpretations of Tertullian may sometimes be mistaken, but they were never "contaminated" by knowledge of what Epiphanius says and an effort to harmonize the two sources. This provides an unusual opportunity to compare a "naive" reading of Tertullian to the obvious readings of Epiphanius and notice the contradictions or tensions in their statements. Scholars typically harmonize the two sources in favor of Epiphanius (which I will usually do also - for obvious reasons!) and in the process mute the voice of Tertullian, as if he were saying the same thing as Epiphanius all along.

These disagreements make perfect sense if you believe, as I do, that Tertullian had imperfect knowledge of the text of the Marcionites' gospel when writing Against Marcion, book 4, always mediated through another source that he encountered and not derived directly. Obviously this explains why Tertullian says things that are found to be inaccurate ways to describe the text itself, if the quotations of Epiphanius are accurate. The idea that Tertullian was always making a direct comparison becomes more difficult to accept, however, because it makes him out to be an unreliable narrator even if he (as it is claimed) was going through the text at the time.

Even so, I might ask, is an unreliable witness who may have sometimes bothered to check the text, haphazardly, that much better than someone who attempted to include information learned at second hand? In some ways, that could be worse, as it becomes more difficult to understand the method of the author. I have reconciled myself to the picture of Tertullian earnestly attempting to make use of what he knows to expand his work to include a tour of the gospel to refute the Antitheses in the order of the gospel that he believed Marcion selected, taking notes from Marcion's earlier critics. Much less material is mined from Tertullian with critical tools, but certainly more valuable stones are cut for the mosaic that is a portrayal of Marcion's gospel due to the rarer quality and clarity of the sources embedded therein.

To be continued.

[rgprice]

Very interesting. Thanks.

[Peter Kirby]

I've been reading through Roth's thesis. I've noticed that he argues against Epiphanius often, citing Tertullian and Luke. I think I need to address this briefly before going on.

An example here shows Roth's treatment of Epiphanius: "At the same time, however, the original hand of ℵ (corrected to οἱ δέ) and C also read καὶ οἱ revealing that Epiphanius’s reading is not completely beyond the realm of possibility." (pg. 311) Would it then be completely beyond the realm of possibility, as a reading of Marcion's text here, if it wasn't reflected in the manuscripts of Luke? This is the kind of approach frequently taken by Roth with respect to Epiphanius. If it differs from all manuscripts in wording, it's inaccurate. If it differs from Tertullian by omission, it's the omission of Epiphanius and not the gospel of Marcion. Roth often shows a higher regard for Tertullian, who often shows a greater conformity to the text of Luke. On the assumption that Tertullian was working directly from the gospel of the Marcionites (Roth's view), not even referring to a copy of Luke at the same time, this does make sense. On my view, it does not.

Accordingly, if we no longer hold that Tertullian had the text of Marcion's gospel in front of him, Epiphanius can be vindicated as a better witness to the text of Marcion's gospel than it has sometimes been thought.

To show that this is true, I will take a look at a single example that may be considered one of the very hardest to interpret as anything other than an omission by Epiphanius. Whereas Roth seems to find an opportunity to offer the hypothesis of an abbreviation by Epiphanius whenever possible, I am starting to wonder if the cases where a significant quote is presented, with material "missing" from the middle, are just actual quotes.

Consider Roth (pg. 321): "Epiphanius here provides a citation of the opening and final element of Luke 16:16. The elenchus reveals that he is primarily interested in the mentioning of 'the law and the prophets,' which likely explains his truncated reference."

This is not obvious. If it were true, why not just make the quote shorter? Or continue on with the next few words?

Here's the translation: “The Law and the prophets were until John, and every man presseth into it.” [Luke 16:16]

Here's Luke: "The law and the prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and every one enters it violently."

Here's Matthew 11:12-13: "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John..."

The first thing I notice is that both Luke and Matthew are very strange texts, which have caused much trouble for interpreters. Luke seems to be saying that the preaching of the kingdom has caused people to enter it violently -- not just be treated violently by others, but by the entrance into the kingdom itself. Matthew says that the kingdom of heaven suffered violence until John, i.e. during the law and the prophets. In cases like this, I wonder if they're both rearranging a source that was even more troubling.

I found this which explains that the verb here can be passive: https://www.mercyonall.org/posts/are-al ... al-passive

So the translation of Epiphanius could be: “The Law and the prophets were until John, and everyone is being forced into it.” (Hart's translation)

So what is it? Have we ever considered that "it" refers back to "the Law and the prophets"? That people are being forced into the law?

In favor of this reading, Matthew associates the violence or force with the time until John.

So what could have been the text, then?

"The law and the prophets were until John, and everyone is being forced into it. Since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached."

A simple contrast is presented, where the good news of the kingdom of God frees people from being forced into the law.

It seems more straightforward to me than either Matthew or Luke, and it allows that Epiphanius' quote is just that, a quote.

[rgprice]

@Peter This reading of the passage makes a lot of sense, but how exactly does this relate to Epiphanius vs Tertullian? I feel like I missed something.

[Secret Alias]

The real question is why does this material end up in chapter 16 of Luke when it clearly was one of the first things Jesus said according to Matthew and likely the Marcionites too.

[rgprice]

That's a good point too SA. Such a statement makes the most sense early in the narrative.