More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

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Secret Alias
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More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

Post by Secret Alias »

Is it just me or does chapter 35 sound like a retelling or represent missing information from chapter
The law concerning lepers has a profound meaning, in respect of the various forms of that disease and of the high priest's inspection of it. This it will be our task to ascertain, while it falls to Marcion to set against it the strict meaning of the law, so as in this case too to maintain that Christ is in opposition to it. For Christ dispenses with the strict rules of the law here too in the healing of ten lepers, whom he merely told to go and show themselves to the priests, and cleansed them as they went, with no contact and no word of command, but by silent power and unaided will. And surely when it has once been put on record that Christ is the healer of sicknesses and disabilities, and when he has been proved so by facts accomplished, we have no need for any discussion of the form and manner of those healings, or for the Creator in Christ to be challenged before the law if he has himself performed some action otherwise than he laid down in the law. For in fact the Lord does his works in one way by himself or by his Son, in another way by the prophets his servants, especially those works which are evidences of his might and power: for these, being his own works, are more excellent in glory and power, and therefore may rightly be different from those done by agents. But things like this have already been said elsewhere in my previous evidence. Now although he has said before this that there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet and that none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian, the matter of number will be no indication of a difference of gods, to the diminution of the Creator who heals only one, and the advancement of him who cleansed ten. For who can doubt that many more could have been cured by him who had already cured one, rather than the ten by him who had never in the past cured even one? But he is chiefly concerned in this statement to attack Israel's Unbelief or pride, in that though there were among them many lepers, and a prophet was not unavailable, even when proof had been given, no one made speed to God who was at work in the prophets. So then, since he himself was with primary and plenary authority the high priest of God the Father, he did examine them in accordance with the secret meaning of the law, which indicates that Christ is the true examiner and remover of the defilements of men. But he also gave them the order which was in the surface meaning of the law: Go, shew yourselves to the priests. Why so, if his intention was to cleanse them first? Was it perhaps as one casting scorn on the law, so as to let them see, as they were healed on the way, that the law was nothing to them, nor the priests either? Any man must himself answer for it, who thinks Christ so tied to rule as this. No, we need worthier interpretations, more conformable to faith: that the cause of their healing was that when commanded to make their way to the priests, according to the law, they did as they were told. For it is beyond belief, that observers of the law should have won their healing from a destroyer of the law. But why did he give no such order to the original leper? Because neither did Elisha to Naaman the Syrian: but that does not mean he was not the Creator's prophet. I have given a fair answer: yet he who has believed understands also something deeper. Hear then what the reasons were. The act took place in the parts of Samaria, from which in fact one of the lepers had come. But Samaria had revolted from Israel, deriving that schism from the nine tribes torn away by Ahijah the prophet, which Jeroboam had settled about Samaria.

35. 1 Who this original leper was, is not clear: certainly not the leper at Luke 5: 12-16, for he did receive such an order, which Marcion had not
excised.



Now in other ways too the Samaritans were always pleased with themselves, about mountains, and ancestral wells; as in the gospel of John that
Samaritan woman in conversation with our Lord at the well, Art thou greater, and so on: and again, Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem men ought to worship.h So now he who by Amos had said Woe to them that shall trust in the mountain of Samaria,i now vouchsafes to restore even it, and of set purpose commands it to show itself to the priests—because there were no priests except where there was a temple—thus making the Samaritan subject to the Jew, because salvation is of the Jews, although the Samaritans also are Israelites. For the whole of the promise to the tribe of Judah was Christ himself: so that they might know that at Jerusalem were both priests and temple and the matrix of religion and the fountain, not a <mere> well, of salvation. And so, when he saw that they had acknowledged that the law must be fulfilled at Jerusalem, as they were now fit to be justified by faith without the observance of the law, he gave them healing. So again when he marvelled that that one alone of the ten, a Samaritan, on his release remembered to give thanks to God, he did not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already offered a sufficient sacrifice by giving glory to God—and it is in this way that our Lord wishes the law to be interpreted. Yet to which god did the Samaritan return thanks, when not even an Israelite had until then heard of any god but one? Surely to the same God to whom all those previously healed by Christ. And so he was told, Thy faith hath made thee whole, because he had understood it was his duty to offer a true oblation to Almighty God, which is the giving of thanks, in his true Temple, in the presence of Christ his true High Priest.
I am convinced that this is more material from the original beginning of Against Marcion now relegated to the later sections of Against Marcion and which - owing to the process I've already mentioned elsewhere - came to define the production of the Gospel of Luke i.e. that Luke and its structure was determined by the order of the third edition of Against Marcion.
Secret Alias
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Re: More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

Post by Secret Alias »

My suspicion is that there was an original Marcionite leper healing narrative that lay somewhere between what is now in Luke chapter 4 and Luke chapter 17 where, in the original account, 10 lepers are healed Jesus says the thing about "Go show yourselves to the priests" (both Luke 4 and Luke 17) but only one, a Samaritan, turns around and realizes who healed them (i.e. Jesus). There is an "antinomian" undercurrent to this reconstituted ur-passage mix between Luke 4 and Luke 17:
Luke 17:11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Luke 4:27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
Luke 5:12 a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Epiphanius:
48. When the ten lepers met him. Marcion excised a great deal and wrote, “He sent them away, saying, Show yourselves unto the priests”; and he substituted different words for others and said, “Many lepers were in the day of Elisha the prophet, and none was cleansed, saving Naaman
the Syrian.”80

Scholion 48. When the ten lepers met him. Marcion cut a great deal out and wrote, “He sent them away, saying, Show yourselves unto the priests,”
and yet he made a substitution and said, “Many lepers were in the days of Elisha the prophet, and none was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”

Elenchus 48. Here too the Lord calls Elisha a prophet, and says that he himself is accomplishing the things which, equally, had been done before him by Elisha—in refutation of Marcion and all who make light of God’s prophets.
Zahn writes:
Marcion hat das auf die Heiltätigkeit Jesu bezügliche Sprichwort Lc 4 , 236 stehen lassen und durch Verschmelzung von Lc 4 , 27 mit Lc 17 , 14 seinen Lesern zum Bewußtsein bringen wollen, daß Jesus unvergleichlich viel mehr Kranken zur leiblichen Gesundheit verholfen habe, als die Propheten des Judengottes cf GK 11, 457. 481 f.

Marcion left the proverb Lc 4, 236 relating to the healing activity of Jesus and, by merging Lc 4, 27 with Lc 17, 14, wanted to make his readers aware that Jesus helped incomparably many more sick people to physical health than the prophets of the Jewish God cf GK 11, 457. 481 f.
Marcion soulignait notamment les faits suivants : que le Christ avait guéri dix lépreux alors qu'Élisée n'avait guéri que Naaman ( cf. Lc 4 , 27 que l'évangile marcionite déplaçait et restituait après Lc 17,14 ; cf. HARNACK , p 233) qu'elisee s'etait servi d'eau, et par sept fois, tandis que le Christ n'avait eu besoin que de sa parole. Il voyait en outre une repudiation de la Loi dans le fait que le Christ touchait le lepreux.

Marcion particularly underlined the following facts: that Christ had healed ten lepers while Elisha had healed only Naaman (cf. Lk 4, 27 that the Marcionite gospel moved and restored after Lk 17,14; cf. HARNACK, p 233) that Elisha used water seven times, while Christ needed only his word. He further saw a repudiation of the Law in Christ touching the leper.
Klinghardt Vor dem Hintergrund von Tertullians Diskussion bleibt die Erklärung, warum Marcion Lk 4,27 von der Nazarethperikope in die Erzählung von der Heilung der zehn Lepräsen verschoben haben sollte, völlig unverständlich. Tsutsui erklärt nicht den durch Marcion angeblich redigierten Text, sondern versucht (mit zweifelhaftem Erfolg), den kanonischen (!) Text in das Gesamtbild der marcionitischen Theologie zu integrieren. Unter der Voraussetzung der *Ev-Priorität ist die Verschiebung des Logions von *17,18 nach 4,27 dagegen gut verständlich, weil Lk hier zu Beginn des öffentlichen Wirkens Jesu eine programmatische Szene gestaltet, die alle Autorität der Schrift beansprucht, um deutlich zu machen, dass die Gabe des Geistes die Voraussetzung für die »Reinigung« von Heiden wie dem Syrer Naëman bzw. der sidonischen Witwe ist. Nach dem Kriterium der höheren redaktionellen Plausibilität liegt es nahe, dass *Ev die Pharisäer als Gesprächspartner Jesu nannte und Tertullian zutreffend referiert. Das bedeutet, dass bereits Mk 11,27 die »Pharisäer« in *Ev durch »die Hohenpriester und die Schriftgelehrten und die Ältesten« ersetzt hat. Diese Ersetzung ist plausibel, weil Mk ja zusammen mit der Tempelreinigung auch die Jerusalemer »Tempel«-Autoritäten in die Erzählung eingeführt hat (Mk 11,1519). Im Umkehrschluss bedeutet dies, dass Mcn beim Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem und bei der ersten von ihm geschilderten Aktivität im Tempel die Pharisäer als Jesu Gegner enthielt.

Against the background of Tertullian's discussion, the explanation why Marcion should have moved Lk 4.27 from the Nazareth pericope to the story of the healing of the ten lepers remains completely incomprehensible. Tsutsui does not explain the text allegedly edited by Marcion, but tries (with dubious success) to integrate the canonical (!) text into the overall picture of Marcionite theology. On the other hand, given the presupposition of *Ev priority, the shifting of the logion from *17.18 to 4.27 is easy to understand because Luke creates a programmatic scene here at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, which claims all the authority of Scripture in order to clearly make that the gift of the Spirit is the prerequisite for the "purification" of pagans like the Syrian Naëman or the Sidonian widow. According to the criterion of higher editorial plausibility, it is obvious that *Ev named the Pharisees as Jesus' interlocutors and Tertullian correctly reports. This means that Mark 11.27 already replaced the "Pharisees" in *Ev by "the chief priests and the scribes and the elders". This substitution is plausible because Mark introduced the Jerusalem 'temple' authorities into the narrative together with the cleansing of the temple (Mark 11.1519). Conversely, this means that Mcn contained the Pharisees as Jesus' opponents when Jesus entered Jerusalem and during the first activity he described in the temple.
But in my mind again this is only part of the story. Clearly the Marcionite gospel has a pericope which fused together elements from all three bits here i.e. (a) 10 lepers (b) the "go show yourself to the priests" to all ten lepers rather than just one (c) 9 go to carry out the commandment (d) the bit about Jesus being superior to Elisha and (e) only the Samaritan figures out it was Jesus who healed them.
Secret Alias
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Re: More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

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My point is, if Luke 4:27 was mixed with Luke 17, why not Luke 5 also? Luke 5 and Luke 17 are clearly related to one another. Notice that the exegesis is the same in both sections of Against Marcion for both pericopes:
Against Marcion chapter 9 Nor can he be supposed to have held in contempt that defilement which he had no ground for: nor for that matter to have destroyed the law, since he had escaped defilement through the good fortune of the phantasm and not by any display of power. But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansed no more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were all those many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christ was in some sense different, as though he were in this respect superior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper, whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse (Si autem Helisaeus prophetes creatoris unicum leprosum Naaman Syrum ex tot leprosis Israelitis emundavit, nec hoc ad diversitatem facit Christi, quasi hoc modo melioris dum Israeliten leprosum emundat extraneus, quem suus dominus emundare non valuerat). because the Syrian was more easily cleansed as a sign throughout the gentiles of their cleansing in Christ the light of the gentiles, who were marked with those seven stains of capital sins, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, adultery, fornication, false witness, fraud (Syro facilius emundato, significato per nationes emundationis in Christo lumine earum, quae septem maculis capitalium delictorum inhorrerent, idololatria, blasphemia, homicidio, adulterio, stupro, falso testimonio, fraude). Therefore seven times over, as though once under each heading, did he wash in Jordan, both with intent to prophesy the purging of the whole seven, and because the force and fullness of one single washing was reserved for Christ alone, who was to make upon earth not only a determined wordc but also a determined washing. Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elisha needed a material help, and made use of water, seven times at that, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it, immediately put the healing into effect ( Christum vero verbo solo et hoc semel functum curationem statim repraesentasse) —as though I were not bold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of the Creator's property. In any and every object the primary author has the better claim to it. You regard it perhaps as incredible that the Creator's power should with a word have performed the healing of one single sickness, though that power did with a word produce at an instant this great fabric of the universe. How better may one discern the Christ of the Creator than by the power of his word? But perhaps he is another's Christ, because his action is other than Elisha's, because any master is more powerful than his own servant. By what right, Marcion, do you rule that servants' activities are exactly like their masters' ? Are you not afraid of it turning to your discredit if you claim that Christ is not the Creator's, on the ground that he had greater powers than the Creator's servant, when it is evident that he is greater by comparison with Elisha's littleness—if indeed he is greater? For the healing is the same, though the method of working is different. Has your Christ provided a greater gift than my Elisha gave? What indeed was that great effect of your Christ's word, which did just the same as the Creator's river had done?2 The rest of what he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoidance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned the observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to be followed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded. Knowing that the law was in the form of prophecy, he was safeguarding its figurative regulations even in his own mirrored images of them, which indicated that a man who has been a sinner, as soon as he is cleansed by the word of God, is bound to offer in the temple a sacrifice to God, which means prayer and giving of thanks in the church through Christ Jesus, the universal high priest of the Father. This is why he added, That it may be to you for a testimony—no doubt by which he testified that he did not destroy the law but fulfilled it, a testimony that it was he and no other of whom it was foretold that he would take upon him their diseases and sicknesses. This entirely adequate and necessary interpretation of that testimony Marcion, in subservience to his own Christ, seeks to discount under the pretence of consideration and gentleness.
chapter 35 The law concerning lepers has a profound meaning, in respect of the various forms of that disease and of the high priest's inspection of it.f This it will be our task to ascertain, while it falls to Marcion to set against it the strict meaning of the law, so as in this case too to maintain that Christ is in opposition to it. For Christ dispenses with the strict rules of the law here too in the healing of ten lepers, whom he merely told to go and show themselves to the priests, and cleansed them as they went, with no contact and no word of command, but by silent power and unaided will. And surely when it has once been put on record that Christ is the healer of sicknesses and disabilities, and when he has been proved so by facts accomplished, we have no need for any discussion of the form and manner of those healings, or for the Creator in Christ to be challenged before the law if he has himself performed some action otherwise than he laid down in the law. For in fact the Lord does his works in one way by himself or by his Son, in another way by the prophets his servants, especially those works which are evidences of his might and power: for these, being his own works, are more excellent in glory and power, and therefore may rightly be different from those done by agents. But things like this have already been said elsewhere in my previous evidence. Now although he has said before this that there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet and that none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian,g the matter of number will be no indication of a difference of gods, to the diminution of the Creator who heals only one, and the advancement of him who cleansed ten. For who can doubt that many more could have been cured by him who had already cured one, rather than the ten by him who had never in the past cured even one? But he is chiefly concerned in this statement to attack Israel's Unbelief or pride, in that though there were among them many lepers, and a prophet was not unavailable, even when proof had been given, no one made speed to God who was at work in the prophets. So then, since he himself was with primary and plenary authority the high priest of God the Father, he did examine them in accordance with the secret meaning of the law, which indicates that Christ is the true examiner and remover of the defilements of men. But he also gave them the order which was in the surface meaning of the law: Go, shew yourselves to the priests. Why so, if his intention was to cleanse them first? Was it perhaps as one casting scorn on the law, so as to let them see, as they were healed on the way, that the law was nothing to them, nor the priests either? Any man must himself answer for it, who thinks Christ so tied to rule as this. No, we need worthier interpretations, more conformable to faith: that the cause of their healing was that when commanded to make their way to the priests, according to the law, they did as they were told. For it is beyond belief, that observers of the law should have won their healing from a destroyer of the law. But why did he give no such order to the original leper?1 Because neither did Elisha to Naaman the Syrian: but that does not mean he was not the Creator's prophet.
Secret Alias
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Re: More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

Post by Secret Alias »

My question here is a common one throughout Against Marcion. Why doesn't Tertullian realize that he is using Luke 4:27 in conjunction with ALLEGEDLY TWO DIFFERENT LEPER HEALING NARRATIVES? How can one leper narrative AT THE BEGINNING at chapter 5 of Luke being using the same statement from Luke 4:27 as a very similar leper healing narrative from near the end of the gospel of Luke, one which has the same command to the lepers "go show yourself to the priests" and also the same explanation from Tertullian, namely that the passage(s) are used to show Jesus only needed a divine word to heal rather than baptism? This surely can't be coincidence.
Secret Alias
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Re: More Anomalies in Against Marcion: Chapter 35

Post by Secret Alias »

But here is in my mind the ultimate proof that what appears in chapter 36 of Adversus Marcionem regarding the healing of lepers was once part of the material originally found in the chapter 9. In chapter 36 we read:
Age, Marcion, omnesque iam commiserones et coodibiles eius haeretici, quid audebitis dicere? Resciditne Christus priora praecepta, non occidendi, non adulterandi, non furandi, non falsum testandi, diligendi patrem et matrem?
This certainly derives from a common Greek text held between it and chapter 9.3:
Praestruximus quidem adversus Antitheses nihil proficere proposito Marcionis quam putat diversitatem legis et evangelii, ut et hanc a creatore dispositam, denique praedicatam inrepromissione novae legis et novi sermonis et novi testamenti. Sed quoniam attentius argumentatur apud illum suum nescio quem συνταλαίπωρον, id est commiseronem, et συμμισούμενον, id est coodibilem, in leprosi purgationem, non pigebit ei occurrere et inprimis figuratae legis vim ostendere, quae in exemplo leprosi non contingendi, immo ab omni commercio submovendi, communicationem pro- hibebat hominis delictis commaculati, cum qualibus et apostolus cibum quoque vetat sumere; participari enim stigmata delictorum, quasi ex contagione, si qui se cum peccatore miscuerit.
as already recognized in medieval times - http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/COMMISERO
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