Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

[Secret Alias]

All of "Marcionite studies" = this or that Church Father writing X, Y or Z. Not historical. Not worth very much.

[Peter Kirby]

So what do you imagine Marcionism looked like?

[Peter Kirby]

There are others who are said to have been in synagogues (Panarion 30.18):

Ebionites have elders and heads of synagogues, and they call their church a synagogue, not a church; and they take pride in Christ’s name only.

The description of a Torah-based tradition seems right up your alley (Panarion 30.18):

They acknowledge Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron—and Joshua the son of Nun simply as Moses’ successor, though he is of no importance. But after these they acknowledge no more of the prophets, but even anathematize David and Solomon and make fun of them. Similarly they disregard Isaiah and Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel, Elijah and Elisha; for they pay them no heed and blaspheme their prophecies, but accept only the Gospel. They say, however, that Christ is the prophet of truth and the Christ; < but > is Son of God by promotion, and by union with the elevation on high which has come to him. They say that the prophets are prophets of < their own > understanding, not of truth. (6) Christ alone, they would have it, is prophet, man, Son of God, and Christ—and as I said before he is a mere man who has come to be called Son of God owing to the virtue of his life.

18,7 Nor do they accept Moses’ Pentateuch in its entirety; they reject certain sayings.49 When you say to them, of eating meat, “Why did Abraham serve the angels the calf and the milk? Why did Noah eat meat, and why was he told to by God, who said, ‘Slay and eat?’ Why did Isaac and Jacob sacrifi ce to God—Moses too, in the wilderness?” he will disbelieve those things and will say, “What need for me to read what is in the Law, when the Gospel has come?”

18,8 “Well, how do you know about Moses and Abraham? I know you admit that they exist, and that you put them down as righteous, and your own ancestors.”

18,9 Then he will answer, “Christ has revealed this to me,” and will blaspheme most of the legislation, and Samson, David, Elijah, Samuel, Elisha and the rest.

Apart from a bit of christology (possessionism / adoptionism), there are a lot of affinities here.

(Yeah, sorry, I don't know what I'd do if we couldn't quote sources. Contact the spirits maybe. Give up and become a monk and meditate. IDK.)

[Secret Alias]

I kind of think the Ebionites and Marcionites were related. Really no one knows anything other than the memorization or ability to recall things said by the Church Fathers. Very little research leads to anything in this field. We're all eunuchs trying to conceive. When you read a good paper, you admire the little things. The citations, the connection between references. But really how many brilliant papers have ever been written in this field? 10? 20? 100? Think of all the dead trees that fallen for those handful of papers. How many blah or awful papers have been written? Hundreds of thousands.

[Secret Alias]

More synagogues of heretics:

Epiphanius Borborites:

And I am afraid that I may be revealing the whole of this potent poison, like the face of some serpent’s basilisk, to the harm of the readers rather than to their correction. Truly it pollutes the ears—the blasphemous synagogue (βλάσφημος συναγωγὴ) of great audacity, the gathering and the interpretation of its dirt, the mucky (βορβορώδης) perversity of the scummy obscenity (1.279)

Epiphanius Ebionites

But since he is midway between all the sects, as one might say, he amounts to nothing. The words of scripture, “I was almost in all evil, in the midst of the church and synagogue,” «παρ' ὀλίγον ἐγενόμην ἐν παντὶ κακῷ, μέσον ἐκκλησίας καὶ συναγωγῆς» are applicable to him.

Ebionites have elders and heads of synagogues, and they call their church a synagogue, not a church; and they take pride in Christ’s name only. [ ἐξ ἐπιτροπῆς δῆθεν τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς διδασκάλων πρεσβυτέρους γὰρ οὗτοι ἔχουσι καὶ ἀρχισυναγώγους, συναγωγὴν δὲ καλοῦσι τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ οὐχὶ ἐκκλησίαν, τῷ Χριστοῦ δὲ ὀνόματι μόνον σεμνύνονται

Epiphanius Heracleon:

One Heracleon, the founder of the so-called Heracleonites, is Colorbasus’ successor; he is no less versed in the < foolery > of their nonsense.
(2) Whatever they say, he declares too; naturally, since he began as one of them and copied his poison from them. But he wants to surpass them by supposedly devising something further, on his own account, for the sake of gathering his own body of dupes (ἵνα καὶ ἑαυτῷ συναγωγὴν ποιήσηται τῶν ἠπατημένων)

[Secret Alias]

Clement Stromata 6:

You see how the Lord's voice, the Word, without shape, the power of the Word, the luminous word of the Lord, the truth from heaven, from above, coming to the assembly of the Church (ἐπὶ τὴν συναγωγὴν τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀφιγμένη), wrought by the luminous immediate ministry.

Clement's use here is Marcionite or Ebionite https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

[Secret Alias]

Clement's use (like Irenaeus) of synagogues of the heresies:

Such are the sects which deserted the primitive Church. Now he who has fallen into heresy passes through an arid wilderness, abandoning the only true God, destitute of God, seeking waterless water, reaching an uninhabited and thirsty land, collecting sterility with his hands. And those destitute of prudence, that is, those involved in heresies, "I enjoin," remarks Wisdom, saying, "Touch sweetly stolen bread and the sweet water of theft;" the Scripture manifestly applying the terms bread and water to nothing else but to those heresies, which employ bread and water in the oblation, not according to the canon of the Church. For there are those who celebrate the Eucharist with mere water. "But begone, stay not in her place:" place is the synagogue (τόπον τὴν συναγωγήν), not the Church. He calls it by the equivocal name, place. Then He subjoins: "For so shalt thou pass through the water of another;" reckoning heretical baptism not proper and true water. "And thou shalt pass over another's river," that rushes along and sweeps down to the sea; into which he is cast who, having diverged from the stability which is according to truth, rushes back into the heathenish and tumultous waves of life. 1.19

[Peter Kirby]

Perhaps relevant here: they were taking it from both sides. The Tripartite Tractate associates heresies with the Jews:

Therefore, those who have listened to what they have said concerning this do not reject any of it, but have accepted the scriptures in an altered way. By interpreting them, they established many heresies which exist to the present among the Jews.

(1) Some say that God is one, who made a proclamation in the ancient scriptures.
(2) Others say that he is many.
(3) Some say that God is simple and was a single mind in nature.
(4) Others say that his activity is linked with the establishment of good and evil.
(5) Still others say that he is the creator of that which has come into being.
(6) Still others say that it was by the angels that he created.

[Secret Alias]

To answer your question from earlier. Moving on to what a Marcionite church looked like. Some clues - baptism of the dead, women giving the sacraments.

From Eznik, De Deo 427: And all the more that which as in the ear of Marcion and Mani he cries out, saying, "If the dead do not rise again, what will those ones accomplish, those who were baptized on behalf of the dead?" (1 Cor 15:29) "You," he says, "you say that bodies do not rise again because they are from Hyle." If the bodies, being mortal, do not rise again, as for the souls, living entities, why will they make a covenant in regard to those dead bodies? Or also, why would they baptize the mortal bodies along with those immortal souls, if, as you say, those mortal bodies will not rise again? In this way too should this word be understood, and not as that Marcion fantasizes: that it is necessary in turn for the living relative to be baptized for a dead child so that there it might be accounted to him - which in fact the Marcionites also practice.

From Eznik, De Deo 432: The resurrection of the body [Marcion] disdained. And baptism - not only did he give one, but even three after transgressions. And on behalf of dead children he constrained others to accept the seal. And he became so bold that he allowed women to give baptism, which none of the other sects dared to do - neither to give a double or triple seal, nor to put the women alongside priests.

[Secret Alias]

On 3 baptisms:

Panarion 3.42.3.6-10. The support for more than one baptism was found in Luke 12:50 and Mark 10:38, where Jesus after his baptism by John says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with." Most of the time, other than in the biblical quotations, Epiphanius uses λουτρόν, but once he says it is lawful to give three λουτρῶνs, that is, three βαπτισμῶνs for forgiveness of sins (3.8). He summed up his objections to Marcion's practices in regard to baptism as three: he administered two or three baptisms after lapses into sin; other Marcionites were baptized for catechumens who died; and he allowed women to baptize - Anacephalaeosis 3.42.3 (using βάπτισμα for the multiple baptisms and the baptism for the dead, but λουτρόν for baptism by women). Harnack, Marcion, pp. 175-176 (Eng., p. 112), rejects Epiphanius's report as only hearsay on the grounds that multiple baptisms would have been impossible for the biblicist Marcion and the report was due to a misunderstanding of repentance described as a baptism. e prohibition against rebaptism in the eodosian Code 16.6.1-7 is directed against Donatism, not Marcion (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ba ... frontcover)