The Problem of Paul and Marcionism

[lclapshaw]

PS, ebion, I again ask, for what group have you claimed to speak?

Satan is in the details!

I have never claimed to speak for anyone; Satan is in the details.

ebion, I wasn't responding to that quote from SG but rather the one above it.

[StephenGoranson]

ebion, above, in part:
"I have never claimed to speak for [underlined "for"] anyone."

Well, I am not the only one to notice that you have used "we" often, which implies speaking for others along with yourself.

And, again, you brought up a group you are associated with, though it is not clear if this explains the usage of "we":

"ebion," Sun Jan 14, 2024 12:02 pm, in part:
"....there is an established Christian group/church founded in the18th c. I have had a lot of dealings with over 4 decades,...."

Name of that group?
Do they approve of your assertions?

ps 18th century or 1800s?
*****
Did you refer to the Hebrew Christian Alliance of Great Britain, renamed as the British Messianic Jewish Alliance?
I am not saying there is anything wrong having "dealings" with a like-minded group;
rather, I ask for an explanation of what you mean by "we."

[StephenGoranson]

Or, by "we," ebion, do you mean to speak for (your view of) early Christianity (among others more recent?)?

(I know that that poster has written that he does not read my posts. But it may be that that poster has responded before.)

[StephenGoranson]

In any case, for ebion to comment anonymously (as this forum allows) is one thing,
but to claim to be speaking (with "we") for an anonymous group is another.

[lclapshaw]

ebion, above, in part:
"I have never claimed to speak for [underlined "for"] anyone."

Well, I am not the only one to notice that you have used "we" often, which implies speaking for others along with yourself.

And, again, you brought up a group you are associated with, though it is not clear if this explains the usage of "we":

"ebion," Sun Jan 14, 2024 12:02 pm, in part:
"....there is an established Christian group/church founded in the18th c. I have had a lot of dealings with over 4 decades,...."

Name of that group?
Do they approve of your assertions?

ps 18th century or 1800s?
*****
Did you refer to the Hebrew Christian Alliance of Great Britain, renamed as the British Messianic Jewish Alliance?
I am not saying there is anything wrong having "dealings" with a like-minded group;
rather, I ask for an explanation of what you mean by "we."

Just out of curiosity, why do you care?

[ebion]

Are you familiar with The Way, a sect that started by Victor Paul Wierwille, an ordained Evangelical and Reformed Church minister with a ThD degree (1941) from Princeton Theological Seminary?...

The reason I mention The Way, is that your beliefs closely resemble theirs, particularly the Aramaic NT, and they had an association with Llamsa, who had spent some time at The Way HQ while working in his edition of the Peshitta.
www.theway.org/

Thanks very much for that pointer: I knew of The Way because they publish one of the best translations of the Aramaic NT PeshittO. I didn't know they were a sect, and I didn't know of their relationship with Lamsa. I work with another student of Lamsa, who was a man who really moved Aramaic NT scholarship forward in the US, although I find he took liberties with his NT translation. I don't have a copy of The Way's (TWI) NT because it is based on the UBS Western compilation rather than the earlier Eastern PeshittA used by the Apostolic Churches of the East. AFAIK they never put out an electronic version of their PeshittO.

The big difference between The Way and The Early Ebionaen Church (TM:-,) is that the Ebionaens rejected Paul's teachings, not largely but outright. I looked quickly on the IA: there's something like 600 audios of theirs on there. At a quick glance their theology looks similar to the Ebionaen but the rejection of the Faulines is a big difference. And i think the addition of Gospel of Thomas and perhaps the Gospel of Philip and Gospel of Truth will make it more open to the mystical side.

[ebion]

This is a A BestOfThread from Paul's letters all derived from Marcion?. It was a lengthy discussion concludes that the Faulines were written by MarcionOrLater.

1

I think it'd be worth considering (critically of course)

Robert M Price's 2012 The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul, eg., -

The Pauline epistles began, most of them, as fragments by Simon (part of Romans), Marcion (the third through sixth chapters of Galatians and the basic draft of Ephesians), and Valentinian Gnostics (Colossians, parts of 1 Corinthians, at least). Some few began as Catholic documents, while nearly all were interpolated by Polycarp, the ecclesiastical redactor who domesticated John (as Bultmann saw it), Luke (as per John Knox), and 1 Peter, then composed Titus and 2 Timothy. The result is that in the end we stand, almost uncomprehendingly, before a pile of literary scraps. (Kindle Locations 11693-11701)

Previously, Price wrote

Somewhere between 100 and 150 CE, Paulinism as a theological system arose out of a mystical and speculative circle. Van Manen speaks of the Paulinist movement and Gnosticism arising from the same circles ... Tertullian called Paul “the apostle of Marcion and the apostle of the heretics,” and both Irenaeus and Tertullian noted how much 'the heretics' cherished Paul’s writings. The first commentators on the epistles were the Gnostics Valentinus¹, Heracleon^?, and Basilides² [c. 100 - c. 139 e.v.].

Price, The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (Kindle Locations 937-942)

1. Theudas is said to have imparted to Valentinus the secret wisdom that Paul had taught privately to his inner circle, including his visionary encounter with the risen Christ (we may only 'know' that from Clement of Alexandria Stromateis bk 7, chap 27).
2. Basilides is supposed to have been vested with secret revelations from Paul through his “interpreter” named Glaucius; by others from the disciple Matthias; by others from the now unknown and possibly fictitious prophets Barcoph and Barcabbas (He also wrote 24 commentaries on 'the Gospels', called Exegetica; there are fragments) https://hermetic.com/sabazius/basilides

Other scholars who have looked closely at Pauline authorship to consider reviewing are Edgar J. Goodspeed and Norman Perrin, though finding or getting access to their works may prove tricky.

As would be the case for the written arguments of the Dutch Radicals starting with Allard Pierson, who denied Pauline authorship of Galatians. He was fiercely attacked by his colleague Abraham Dirk Loman, but two years later Loman had also abandoned the historicity of Paul. Similarly, Willem Christiaan van Manen, who had written a doctoral thesis defending the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians, wrote in 1889 that he had come to the same conclusions as Loman.

2

However in the majority of cases where Clabeaux claims the reading is secondary on internal evidence appear IMO sound. A list of these follows.
Andrew Criddle

Andrew, do you have a citation for what work this list is quoted from?

It is a list of cases where I think Clabeaux is convincing. I.E. It is based on Clabeaux but leaves out the examples which IMO are unconvincing.

Could you also give me feedback on my assertion that (1 Cor. 15:29) is demonstrably Marcionite (from Detering).

Our earliest evidence that Marcionites carried out a ritual of baptism for the dead seems to be Chrysostom in the late 4th century. The apparent basis for this practice is concern about Catechumens who die unbaptized. It seems unclear that this is a practice introduced by Marcion as distinct from a pre-Marcionite practice later dropped by the orthodox or a post-Marcionite development. The absence of any clear reference to such a Marcionite practice in Tertullian Against Marcion may suggest that it is a post-Marcionite development.

EDITED TO ADD
a/ There is a passage in Epiphanius similar to Chrysostom and of roughly the same date.

b/ Some scholars do regard Tertullian as referring to a Marcionite practice of vicarious baptism but IMO this is interpreting Tertullian on the basis of later (4th century) writers. For the Latin see https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/tertull ... nem5.shtml and for a more recent English translation https://www.tertullian.org/articles/eva ... k5_eng.htm .

c/ What may be the earliest surviving interpretation of this passage is Theodotus according to Clement Excerpta

And when the Apostle said, “Else what shall they do who are baptised for the dead?” . . . For, he says, the angels of whom we are portions were baptised for us. But we are dead, who are deadened by this existence, but the males are alive who did not participate in this existence.

“If the dead rise not why, then, are we baptised?” Therefore we are raised up “equal to angels,” and restored to unity with the males, member for member. Now they say “those who are baptised for us, the dead,” are the angels who are baptised for us, in order that when we, too, have the Name, we may not be hindered and kept back by the Limit and the Cross from entering the Pleroma. Wherefore, at the laying on of hands they say at the end, “for the angelic redemption” that is, for the one which the angels also have, in order that the person who has received the redemption may, be baptised in the same Name in which his angel had been baptised before him. Now the angels were baptised in the beginning, in the redemption of the Name which descended upon Jesus in the dove and redeemed him. And redemption was necessary even for Jesus, in order that, approaching through Wisdom, he might not be detained by the Notion of the Deficiency in which he was inserted, as Theodotus says.

3

[So I'll restate my question:

Could you also give me feedback on my assertion that (1 Cor. 15:29) is demonstrably Marcionite or later (from Detering).

I'll state the heart of my assertion here:

There is absolutely no way proxy baptism could be in a pre-60 AD story line, no matter when it was written.​
NO WAY. The Jamesian church was less than 30 years old, and they were all​ deep Hebrew believers (except the Apostate SPaul).​

I'm only hoping to show that 1Cor. has prima-facia proof that it was not wriiten pre-63 AD, and hence I can tar the Detering's First4 (Hauptbreiefe), and maybe all of them, with the False brush and call them Faulines.

And throw them out of my canon.

My aim here is to justify the Ebionaen rejection of Paul, which I am interpreting to be a rejection of the >=Marcionite Faulines and its Crowleyist theology.

EDITED TO ADD

Thanks for those valuable references I had not detected.

My argument is that that verse sets the earliest date for 1Cor. and by implication Detering's First4 Faulines (Hauptbreiefe), so personally I wouldn't argue "absence of any clear reference to such a Marcionite practice in Tertullian" with respect to the date of the First4, as I'll hapilly concede that to be >= 144 AD. I might use it to argue nobody did the monstrous practice anyway, but that would be a digression here.

4

I agree with you, and go further as I see it just as a quote by Tertullian of 1Cor. 15 because of the "he asks,". My question is more: what historical evidence is there, before ~142 AD, against me labelling proxy baptism a MarcioniteOrLater ritual, to stop me from labelling 1Cor. a Marcionite writing because of that verse. That's the argument in that JHC paper by Detering I link to. Detering also does a good demolition of the authenticity of the Ignatian letters (all "recensions") that might be used to claim that Paul's letters were extant before Marcion.

I think it's a strong theological argument. I think I could also make the argument that Romans 7 is pure Marcionite theology: dead Gods. (I'm sure others already have; I'm an amateur at this).

QED: I can tar the Faulines with the brush of MarcionOrLater, and throw them out of the Ebionaen Canon.

5

Bernard D. Muller. "#73 Two arguments in favour of proving Marcion's Pauline epistles were written after the "canonical" ones". historical-jesus.info. 14 Nov 2013. Archived from the original on September 20, 2015. by "Wayback Machine". Wikipedia.

6

Maybe even if there were earlier versions in the nascent orthodoxy they'd find it hard to impose what was being circulated around and used, this is what emerged. If it derived from Marcion's edition it makes the Paul corner of the church seem not 'in charge'. Cause there's plenty of early writings around that don't know anything Pauline, would be good to collect them up to see how they stack up against each other

EG The Preaching of Peter

in the Preaching of Peter the Lord says: I chose out you twelve, judging you to be disciples worthy of me, whom the Lord willed, and thinking you faithful apostles; sending you unto the world to preach the Gospel to men throughout the world, that they should know that there is one God

Paul - missing, the 12 preach to the gentiles
Acts - don't know the epistles
Gospels - don't line up too well with the epistles
Revelation / James - seem anti-Pauline
Shepherd of Hermas - doesn't know Paul and this is big
Justin - seems not to know him

7

I'm following Detering in the reference I cited, and you provide nothing to contradict him:

Proxy baptism for the dead has not been confirmed earlier than among the Marcionites in the second century.

What Detering said is not evidence, the 2nd century Marcionites may have had such a practice but the earliest unambiguous evidence is much later.

What you say is not evidence, but what you're saying meets my description of MarcionOrLater.

Would you agree to rephrasing Detering:

Proxy baptism for the dead has not been confirmed earlier than among the Marcionites in the second century, but the earliest unambiguous evidence is much later, i.e. the date of Marcion Or Later.

That's sufficient to my purposes: "Paul could not have written 1Cor., and it dates to MarcionOrLater."

BTW, what would you point to as the "much later unambiguous evidence"?

For my purposes, all that matters is that I am ascribing it to someone other than Paul, and hence ascribing the authorship of the Paulines to someone other than Paul. I ascribe them to Faul: False Paul aka MarcionOrLater.
(I don't care who wrote it/them as long as it's not Paul, and is later.)

8

it seems to me that the most reasonable explanation for his views is that his views came from the writings that he read,

That doesn't seem reasonable at all to me unless you can point to the writings that he read, before him (pre-144 AD) that contained proxy baptism.

Marcion created a church, the biggest denomination of its time, that was definitely anti-monotheistic Christian, and big enough to come up with proxy baptism. And there's no trace of any writings before him (pre-144 AD) that contained proxy baptism, so it seems to me he gets the credit for it unless you can find another big leader before then. After all, it is a little unusual and not in anything Jesus taught.

...

If this is true, then it means Marcion's letters are the authentic ones, with the possible exception of Romans, and the orthodox letters are all revisions of Marcion's.

That's the way I see it, especially if we allow that some of the letters could be MarcionOrLater.

9

Chrysostom in the late 4th century and There is a passage in Epiphanius similar to Chrysostom and of roughly the same date.

Chrysostom is always fun to read, but again it's just a homily on 1Cor., that assumes 1Cor. is wriiten by Paul. The good bit is:

Or will you that I should first mention how they who are infected with the Marcionite heresy pervert this expression?

which to me says Chrysostom associates proxy baptism with the Marcions, before Detering.

On that I'll rest my case: Paul could not have written 1Cor., and it dates to MarcionOrLater.

[ebion]

I had been looking for a good introduction to Marcion and Andrew Criddle suggested Arch Heretic by Moll:

There is some ancient evidence for beginning Marcion's activity in the late 130's CE. See Arch Heretic by Moll. Harnack suggested that Marcion's activity was originally dated as beginning at the start of the reign of Antoninus Pius in 138 CE.

I found a succinct and pithy book review which is short enough to quote in its entirety:

Interesting to the point of almost being engrossing, which for a published dissertation is something. The prose did not sing, the obvious organization was sometimes lugubrious, but it kept on giving, if one skipped parts.

And now, a summary of what it said, with some of my own observations inadvertently included, in clumsy paragraph-clusters of information, in the style of scholarship:

1 Marcion was a ditheist: he posited two gods.

The Creator was the evil god. Marcion therefore despised the created order. The OT was this god’s contradictory revelation.

The Father of Jesus was the good god. Marcion was a docetist—Christ was an appearance. Not a gnostic, probably: no theory. He was a practical man and a Biblicist: not being consciously informed by other sources. Christ appeared against the evil god, to destroy and bring love.

2 Marcion recognized as all did authoritative texts, but he limited that collection: first idea of a canon.

He probably did not have all the NT. He selected from what he had, that which was contra the OT: Luke and ten Pauline epistles, all trimmed of most positive mention of the OT.

3 Marcion read the NT in light of the OT, rather than vice versa.

What controlled his NT canon was his view of the OT canon. He distorted his OT by his clear negative concept of the OT god.

Marcion, however, was a literalist: it made the OT god worse. He began by refusing to interpret the OT. His NT was the opposite of his OT. There was a strict discontinuity between OT and NT, therefore. His hermeneutical key was this absolute discontinuity.

4 Marcion believed a conspiracy theory: the message of Christ had been coopted. Only Paul kept it pure. Christ was an appearance the good god sent to affirm grace and love.

Marcion radically simplified the complexities of early Christian belief. His practice, however, was quite similar. Marcionite churches were like Christian in structure and practice. He used the same baptismal formula. His ethics were negative: fast on the Sabbath, against the creator; abstain from sexual intercourse since the creator enjoins it; abstain from eating meat.

Salvation: line up against the bad god, then you’ll be with the good god. Christ will save anybody who wants to from the evil god. Despise the evil god.

5 Marcion took from Christian churches to build his movement. That is why he had the conspiracy theory, and that is what Christians resented.

He was bishop of his movement, holding absolute authority. He was a good organizer; he had the money for it; he had the charisma and confidence. He ascended to heaven to sit at the left hand of Christ (Paul is on the right).

Moll's book is a publication of his 2009 doctoral thesis which I found on the University of Ediburgh's website. The author's preface can be found here.

[ebion]

The epistles do capture something of the earlier movement once the theologian's innovations are stripped away, I assume it was about bringing divinity into the mud-world. That's basically what Jesus does in the gospels?

I'm not so sure that the Faulines are about "about bringing divinity into the mud-world" rather than "about bringing divinities".

I read Romans 7 as refering to the Marcian death of the old God of the OT:

For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. (Romans 7:2 [KJV])

and Faul is advocating she accept the new second god of Faul and Marcion. That's basically the opposite what Jesus does in the gospels: his way is monotheism/the Shema/the Shahadia.

[ebion]

the gnostics appear denying the resurrection too

it could be that the Ebionaens denied the death part of the resurection too.