Can We At Least Agree that the Marcionites Did Not Call Jesus "Christ"?

[Joseph D. L.]

Why must it be assumed Marcion revered Luke? Why must this always be a starting point?

Prior to Irenaeus this Lucan connection never came up.

Justin: Luke? Never heard of him.
Papias: Luke? Who's that?
Polycarp: Luke? Look at what?
Hegesippus: Luke? I think my friend Theophilus knows him.

No one knows of this Luke character before Irenaeus.

Add to this Marcion's tenuous connection to Polycarp and the Papian tradition that has him as a hearer of John and the Lucan connection falls apart.


Marcion (left),with the Apostle John, to whom he "brought scriptures from the Pontic brethren..." (10th century miniature from the archives of the Cathedral St.Bravo in Ghent)

When will we stop playing by the rules set up to make the orthodoxy win?

I apologize for the sarcasm but this point has to be dropped if we are to make any progress beyond Marcion.

[Secret Alias]

You're falling into his trap. Shut up. I just said the same Church Fathers who said the bit about Luke imply the Marcionites avoided the term Christ which is confirmed ny the Deir Ali inscription.

[StephenGoranson]

Church Fathers who were later and had motive to denigrate Marcionites.

[davidmartin]

If Titus is an example of Marcionism it is pure Hellenism. No scripture quotes nothing Jewish or Samaritan. All I see with Marcion is a rejection of Judaism as superstition. That is the general attitude. That's not Samaritan, it's Hellenism. I think Samaritan influences could be in the mix but not to explaining all of Marcionism. You argue the massive weight of Hellenism that produced Philo couldn't influence Christianity like it was immune, when the church fathers are like Christian Philo's

[Secret Alias]

If if if if. Let's deal with what is. The Marcionites did not call Jesus "Christ." They were the ones singled out by "John" with respect to those who denied that Jesus was the Christ.

Proof 1: Irenaeus Book 3.16:

Therefore did the Lord also say to His disciples after the resurrection, O thoughtless ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? Luke 24:25 And again does He say to them: These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding, that they should understand the Scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, and that repentance for the remission of sins be preached in His name among all nations. Luke 24:44, etc. Now this is He who was born of Mary; for He says: The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected, and crucified, and on the third day rise again. The Gospel, therefore, knew no other son of man but Him who was of Mary, who also suffered; and no Christ who flew away from Jesus before the passion; but Him who was born it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that this same suffered and rose again, as John, the disciple of the Lord, verifies, saying: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have eternal life in His name, John 20:31 — foreseeing these blasphemous systems which divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power, saying that He was formed of two different substances. For this reason also he has thus testified to us in his Epistle: Little children, it is the last time; and as you have heard that Antichrist does come, now have many antichrists appeared; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but [they departed], that they might be made manifest that they are not of us. Know therefore, that every lie is from without, and is not of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist.

Irenaeus started the lie that John wrote these words and that he wrote them against the Marcionites who by implication (or explication) denied that Jesus was the Christ.

[Secret Alias]

There is no doubt that Marcion did not call Jesus "the Christ" i.e. the figure invented by the Jews out of the Writings (as opposed to the returning expectation of the original Israelite tradition perpetuated by the Samaritans and likely certain Jewish sects - the Sadducees?) who would conquer the world mostly based on certain prophesies written after the Pentateuch.

[Secret Alias]

There is no doubt that Marcion did not call Jesus "the Christ" i.e. the figure invented by the Jews out of the Writings (as opposed to the returning Moses expectation of the original Israelite tradition perpetuated by the Samaritans and likely certain Jewish sects - the Sadducees?) who would conquer the world mostly based on certain prophesies written after the Pentateuch.

[Secret Alias]

There almost literally a mound of evidence that the Marcionites denied any connection between Jesus and "THE Christ" prophesies of the so-called "Old Testament." What can that mean? That the Marcionites shared the habit of orthodox Christians for bad philology? Really? The Marcionites "went along" with this bizarre effort of the orthodox to "admit" (against the Samaritans) that "all Old Testament prophesies" pointed to "THE Christ." Why is this right answer? Because it exposes how stupid the Christian belief is, that's my answer. Not all "Bible believers" in the first century thought that "the prophesies" pointed to "THE Messiah." But we don't want to admit that or we don't want to connect the Marcionites to the Samaritans because suddenly the Marcionite belief don't seem so easily dismissed.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Why must it be assumed Marcion revered Luke? Why must this always be a starting point?

Joseph, this is really ridiculous.

Every day several Marcion threads are opened in this forum, the starting point of which is exactly the opposite. This forum has now become the Marcionite Speculations Forum. Sinouhe is right: some people here are really obsessed with Marcion.

[Secret Alias]

some people here are really obsessed with Marcion.

Some people are obsessed with the Ordnung that accepting the fourfold canon and the tradition associated with it brings. Marcion is freedom. That's the bottom line. Can freedom be abused? Of course. But I always felt in the same way as the Samaritans were ignored, so too are the Marcionites ignored. Religion attracts people who like order. Acknowledging the influence of a "separate Judaism" as it were which only expected Moses to return, had no interest in The Messiah, an anointed warrior, is too complex for dogmatic people. They like to live life "within the lines" and like to "think within the lines" too. I don't care much for people at the forum who constantly like to think outside the lines either. But sometimes, as with the case of "Jesus Christ" the lines were made up in the late second century.