Marcion and the Philosophers (split from: κολοβοδάκτυλος)

[MrMacSon]

I can't believe that no one has suggested this before.

κολοβοδάκτυλος means "truncated-length" (or "short-measured")

κολοβός = cut [curtailed, docked, truncated, undersized, short]
δάκτυλος = [a] measure [a finger-width; as well as a finger (or toe) per se]

The measures of Herodotus are almost all drawn either from portions of the human body, or from bodily actions easily performable. His smallest measure is the δάκτυλος , or " finger's breadth, " four of which go to the palm or hand's breadth ... https://books.google.com/books?id=tnE-A ... 22&f=false

οὔτε Μάρκος ὁ κολοβοδάκτυλος ἀνήγγειλαν - [nor does] Mark the cut-lengthed announce [these teachings]- is clearly identified as the equivalent of "τούτων γὰρ οὐδὲν ἐν τῷ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίῳ γέγραπται" - [for not one of] the[se] things [are] written in the (εὐαγγελίῳ) according to Mark.

Yes, a good find.

... Let's look at the context, 'Hippolytus', Refut.7.30.1 :

"When, therefore, Marcion, or any of his dogs, shall bay against the Demiurge, bringing forward arguments from the comparison of good and evil, they should be told that neither the apostle Paul nor 'short-measure' Mark reported these things — for none of them is written in the gospel according to Mark*."

---

Ἐπειδὰν οὖν Μαρκίων ἢ τῶν ἐκείνου κυνῶν τις ὑλακτῇ κατὰ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ [dēmiourgôu], τοὺς ἐκ τῆς ἀντιπαραθέσεως ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ προφέρων λόγους, δεῖ αὐτοῖ(ς) λέγειν ὅτι τούτους οὔτε Παῦλος ὁ ἀπόστολος οὔτε Μάρκος ὁ κολοβοδάκτυλος ἀνήγγειλαν —τούτων γὰρ οὐδε<ὶς> ἐν τῷ <κατὰ> Μάρκον εὐαγγελίῳ γέγραπται

The writer seems to be making a rather laboured joke on the theme of abbreviation, playing both upon Μαρκιων as a diminutive of Μαρκος, and on Marcion's reputation as the abbreviator of a gospel. The sense is that Marcionite doctrines are an importation of Empedocles' system, which has no textual basis in the Marcionite canon, the Apostolos and the Evangelion. The gospel of Mark is juxtaposed to point up the joke.

* yeah, Refut. 7.30.1 continues

Their source, rather, is Empedocles son of Meton from the city of Akragas. Despoiling him, Markion concealed up until the present time the fact that he purloined the structure of his entire heresy from Sicily and transferred it word for word to the Gospel accounts.

then 7.30.2

2. Come now, Markion, just as you have constructed an antithesis between good and evil, so today I will make my own antithesis, closely attending to your purloined dogmas! You say that the Demiurge of this world is evil [cf. Iren., Haer. 3.12.12]. Do you not then veil the theories of Empedocles as you instruct the church? 3. You call the God who destroys the products of the Demiurge “good.” Do you not openly proclaim to your pupils the gospel of Empedocles’s Love parading as “the good God”? ... Do you then conceal the fact that you teach the Purifications of Empedocles? 4. You truly follow Empedocles in every respect when you teach your disciples to abstain from foods so as not to eat a corpse, the remains of a soul punished by the Demiurge. Following the doctrines of Empedocles, you dissolve marriages joined by God so that the work of Love might be preserved for you one and undivided. (For marriage, according to Empedocles, divides the one and makes many, as I have shown.)

[Peter Kirby]

I've been trying to puzzles this one out. Here are some of my first notes.

Looking at the wider context isn't that helpful it seems, except to say that there is no clear indication of the meaning here from the wider context. That wider context is claiming that Marcion had a philosophical system of two opposing principles at creation (good vs evil), following Empedocles, which I find a little hard to believe personally. I do notice a disagreement with Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics: "From the same source came Marcion's better god, with all his tranquillity; he came of the Stoics." And both of these disagree with Against Marcion, Book 5, implying a double debt to Epicurus (an indifferent God) and the Stoics (matter), "But (once for all) let Marcion know that the principle term of his creed comes from the school of Epicurus, implying that the Lord is stupid and indifferent; wherefore he refuses to say that He is an object to be feared. Moreover, from the porch of the Stoics he brings out matter, and places it on a par with the Divine Creator." Note also earlier Against Marcion, Book 4, "I suppose, however, that by this time he had ceased to be the absolutely good god; he had now sojourned a considerable while even with the Creator, and was no longer (like) the god of Epicurus purely and simply." Against Marcion, Book 2, "We are taught God by the prophets, and by Christ, not by the philosophers nor by Epicurus." Against Marcion, Book 1, "If (Marcion) chose to take any one of the school of Epicurus, and entitle him God in the name of Christ, on the ground that what is happy and incorruptible can bring no trouble either on itself or anything else (for Marcion, while poring over this opinion of the divine indifference, has removed from him all the severity and energy of the judicial character), it was his duty to have developed his conceptions into some imperturbable and listless god (and then what could he have had in common with Christ, who occasioned trouble both to the Jews by what He taught, and to Himself by what He felt?), or else to have admitted that he was possessed of the same emotions as others (and in such case what would he have had to do with Epicurus, who was no friend to either him or Christians?)." And yet again in Against Heresies, Book 3, we find Irenaeus referring to the good god - evil god dualism that is also found here in the Refutation of All Heresies: "And, indeed, the followers of Marcion do directly blaspheme the Creator, alleging him to be the creator of evils, [but] holding a more tolerable theory as to his origin, [and] maintaining that there are two beings, gods by nature, differing from each other,-the one being good, but the other evil." I haven't located a place in Justin or Irenaeus saying that Marcion belonged to a Greek philosophical school of the Stoics, of Epicurus, or of Empedocles, as we find above.

[Peter Kirby]

Cleaning up the presentation of my notes on (probably false) tracing Marcion to philosophies with nice bullet points:

• Justin mentions Marcion after mentioning Simon Magus but doesn't explicitly connect them
• Justin mentions Marcion's "some other god greater than the Creator" (First Apology)
• Irenaeus more explicitly connects Marcion with Cerdo and with Simonians
• Against Heresies, Book 3. "And, indeed, the followers of Marcion do directly blaspheme the Creator, alleging him to be the creator of evils, [but] holding a more tolerable theory as to his origin, [and] maintaining that there are two beings, gods by nature, differing from each other,-the one being good, but the other evil."
• Refutation 7.19. "The principal heresy of Marcion, and (the one of his) which is most free from admixture (with other heresies), is that which has its system formed out of the theory concerning the good and bad (God). Now this, it has been manifested by us, belongs to Empedocles."
• Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics: "From the same source came Marcion's better god, with all his tranquillity; he came of the Stoics."
• Against Marcion, Book 5, implying a double debt to Epicurus (an indifferent God) and the Stoics (eternal existence of matter), "But (once for all) let Marcion know that the principle term of his creed comes from the school of Epicurus, implying that the Lord is stupid and indifferent; wherefore he refuses to say that He is an object to be feared. Moreover, from the porch of the Stoics he brings out matter, and places it on a par with the Divine Creator." (disagrees on where the tranquil / indifferent God comes from)
• Against Marcion, Book 4, "I suppose, however, that by this time he had ceased to be the absolutely good god; he had now sojourned a considerable while even with the Creator, and was no longer (like) the god of Epicurus purely and simply." Against Marcion, Book 2, "We are taught God by the prophets, and by Christ, not by the philosophers nor by Epicurus."
• Against Marcion, Book 1, "If (Marcion) chose to take any one of the school of Epicurus, and entitle him God in the name of Christ, on the ground that what is happy and incorruptible can bring no trouble either on itself or anything else (for Marcion, while poring over this opinion of the divine indifference, has removed from him all the severity and energy of the judicial character), it was his duty to have developed his conceptions into some imperturbable and listless god (and then what could he have had in common with Christ, who occasioned trouble both to the Jews by what He taught, and to Himself by what He felt?), or else to have admitted that he was possessed of the same emotions as others (and in such case what would he have had to do with Epicurus, who was no friend to either him or Christians?)."

Of course, my point was that this isn't that helpful, so back to what is more helpful next.

[MrMacSon]

That wider context [is the author of Refutation] is claiming that Marcion had a philosophical system of two opposing principles at creation (good vs evil), following Empedocles, which I find a little hard to believe personally

It could be a claim to discredit Marcion [as, for example, not having a novel theology "after all," among other possible philosophical reasons to discredit and poison-the-well wrt him].

FWIW, from Wikipedia:

Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the four classical elements. He also proposed forces he called Love and Strife which would mix and separate the elements, respectively.

Empedocles challenged the practice of animal sacrifice and killing animals for food. He developed a distinctive doctrine of reincarnation ... Some of his work survives, more than is the case for any other pre-Socratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles

Myths about his fate represented him as having been removed from the Earth, whereas others had him throwing himself into the flames of Mount Etna for various reasons, eg., to prove to his disciples that he was immortal; that he would come back as a god after being consumed by the fire.

The second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata, in a comedic dialogue, Icaro-Menippus, has Empedocles carried up into the heavens by a volcanic eruption and, although singed by the ordeal, surviving and continuing his life on the Moon, surviving by feeding on dew.

So there certainly was interest in Empedocles just before the time of the author the Refutation of All Heresies.

It is said that it was Empedocles' who established the doctrine by which four ultimate elements — fire, air, water, earth — were thought to make [up] all the structures in the world: said to have been the standard dogma for the next two thousand years [to the 1500s AD/CE].

The four elements were said to be both eternally brought into union and parted from one another by two divine powers, Love and Strife (Philotes, φιλότης, and Neikos, νεῖκος). Love was said to be responsible for the attraction of different forms of what we now call matter, and Strife was said to be the cause of their separation: Love and Strife — attractive and repulsive forces, respectively — explained the variation and harmony among the four elements. Love and Strife, observable in human behavior, pervaded the universe. The two forces wax and wane in their dominance, but neither force ever wholly escapes the imposition of the other.

"Like Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the transmigration of the soul or metempsychosis, that souls can be reincarnated between humans, animals and even plants. According to him, all humans, or maybe only a selected few among them, were originally long-lived daimons who dwelt in a state of bliss until committing an unspecified crime, possibly bloodshed or perjury. As a consequence, they fell to Earth, where they would forced to spend 30,000 cycles of metempsychosis through different bodies before being able to return to the sphere of divinity."

Empedocles is credited with the first comprehensive theory of light and vision, noting that light takes time to pass from one point to another.

His philosophical theories excited great interest in his successors. Plato regularly refers to him by name, and in the Symposium he puts in the mouth of the comic poet Aristophanes a re-worked version of the origin of the human that lampoons Empedoclean Love and Strife and Empedocles’ interpretation of the evolutionary development of the human species: a former spherical unity is split into two and then only comes together through the influence of erotic Love. Aristotle was similarly influenced by him; he mentions no philosopher with greater frequency except Plato. His critiques range from Empedocles’ treatment of the generation of elements (R 8a), to the problems of Love and Strife as motive principles (A 42 = R 12 and 13), to the motionlessness of the earth (R 14), to the growth of plants and animals (A 70 = R 17), to the generation of animal organisms (R 19). [via https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empedocles/]

[Secret Alias]

Could you remove these references to Empedocles

[Peter Kirby]

Could you remove these references to Empedocles

Sure.

This thread has been split from: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11611

[MrMacSon]

Could you remove these references to Empedocles

Maybe don't be so fast to dismiss the significance of Empedocles to your measure[ment] point/s

 

In the middle of the fifth century BCE, Empedocles formulated a philosophical program in hexameter verse that pioneered the influential four-part theory of roots (air, water, earth, and fire) along with two active principles of Love and Strife, which influenced later philosophy, medicine, mysticism, cosmology, and religion. The philosophical system responded to Parmenides’ rejection of change while embracing religious injunctions and magical practices. As a result, Empedocles has occupied a significant position in the history of Presocratic philosophy as a figure moving between mythos and logos, religion and science.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empedocles/

Hexameter is a line of verse containing six 'feet,' usually dactyls. Dactylic hexameter is the oldest known form of Greek poetry and is the preeminent metre of narrative and didactic poetry in Greek and Latin. A hexameter verse consists of six metrical feet, each of which contains either a long syllable followed by two short syllables (a dactyl) or two long syllables (a spondee). The last (sixth) foot in the line can almost always be treated as a spondee, and the last syllable is in the line usually counts as long.

• { this from Microsoft Big's Co-Pilot AI (from a simple search for 'hexameter,' which it said was based on
  
  1. https://www.britannica.com/art/hexameter; and
  2. https://hexameter.co/how-to-scan <- worth a read }

In Greek (as well as in Latin), a "foot" describes various combinations of syllables (and is not an accent or 'pulse' in a sentence, as it is in English).

Now,

δάκτυλος• (dáktulos) m (genitive δάκτυλου); second declension

1. finger
   1. toe
2. measure of length, the breadth of a finger, about 7/10 of an inch
   1. dactyl, a metrical foot
   2. (in the plural) a dance

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/δάκτυλος

• 
  
  
  dactyl (plural dactyls)
  

  1. A metrical foot of three syllables (— ⏑ ⏑), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented.

  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dactyl#English
  
  [also] Etymology
  
  ... from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “a finger”), three bones of the finger corresponding to three syllables.
  
  
  
  

Classical Hexameter

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In classical hexameter, the six feet follow these rules:

• A foot can be made up of two long syllables (– –), a spondee; or a long and two short syllables, a dactyl (– υ υ).
• The first four feet can contain either one of them.
• The fifth is almost always a dactyl, and last must be a spondee/trochee (together forming an adonic). Exceptions can occur when a polysyllabic (especially Greek) name ends a verse.

A short syllable (υ) is a syllable with a short vowel and no consonant at the end. A long syllable (–) is a syllable that either has a long vowel, one or more consonants at the end (or a long consonant), or both. Spaces between words are not counted in syllabification, so for instance "cat" is a long syllable in isolation, but "cat attack" would be syllabified as short-short-long: "ca", "ta", "tack" (υ υ –).

Variations of the sequence from line to line, as well as the use of caesura (logical full stops within the line) are essential in avoiding what may otherwise be a monotonous sing-song effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexameter ... _Hexameter

So, wtf am I getting at?

• I wonder if the author of the Refutation was, in some of these passages therein, simply being cryptic: referring to Marcion as "following the doctrines of Empedocles," "teach the Purifications of Empedocles,' and "dividing the one and making many," cryptically in terms of supposedly shortening 'things' (even though he may, in fact, not have); ie., our author may not have really thought that Marcion had followed Empedocles overall philosophy or even being influenced by it.

[MrMacSon]

https://hexameter.co/how-to-scan <- worth a read }

From that webpage: