In the rush to (correctly) reclassify early “Christianity” as “Jewish,” scholars have made a
few dubious assumptions. On one hand, while vigorously defending the “Jewishness” of some
“Christianities” such as those found in the New Testament, scholars are just as quick to assume
others “Christianities,” such as Marcion and the Apocryphon of John, were not, nor ever could
have been “Jewish,” despite similarities to figures like Paul or texts such as John or Matthew.
Indeed, considering the rhetorical vitriol surrounding the scholarly claims of what was “Jewish”
and the lack of evidence that either Marcion or the Apocryphon of John held to any animosity
towards “Judaisms” it appears that the relative “pro-” and “anti-Jewishness” of a given discourse
is a cipher for more modern issues and concerns.
Therefore, by first looking at how Marcion was represented in antiquity, and later
reconstructed by scholars such as von Harnack, it will be argued that this early Christian
“heretic” was not “anti-Jewish,” (however this is problematically defined) but, because of the
vague similarities between his understanding of Jesus and the “Aryan Christ,” Marcion has easily
been marginalized by modern scholars as the “heretical” forerunner of the Christian
antisemitism.
Next, by examining how the Apocryphon of John supposedly misappropriates “Judaisms”
and as such can not be properly “Jewish,” (as opposed to Paul or John) it will be argued that this
is not as a reflection of the ideological options available to ancient Jews, but is simply a
convenient method of rebranding what used to be “heretical,” as that which is now “anti-Jewish.”
And finally—after taking into account that ancient “Judaisms” were hardly stable, self
evident or monothetic—it will be shown that, when both Marcion and the Apocryphon of John ii
are divorced from the “pro-” or “anti-Jewish” rhetoric of scholars, and then (re)considered in
parity with other contemporary “Jews” and “pro-Jewish Christians,” that they were not
“antisemitic heretics,” but were simply two possible ways in which the authority of “Nostalgic
Israel” was preserved in antiquity for those who identified in someway with its mythic narrative
and claims.
For example, Nils Dahl, Alan Segal and
Pheme Perkins have all argued that this “ridicule” of the Creator is a religious
polemic aimed at “orthodox” Jews by their “heterodox” cousins. These heterodox
Jews were apparently concerned with preserving the transcendence of God in
light of the anthropomorphisms in Jewish scriptures (see also Quispel and
Fossum). When their more “orthodox” Jewish contemporaries criticized them for
flirting with polytheism,286 these “gnostic” Jews began to treat the Demiurge not
as only a subordinate figure to the transcendent divine, but also as an object of
A similar stance has been promoted by Birger Pearson, who, while
claiming that many of the demiurgical speculations like the Apocryphon of John on the surface appear to be similar to Jewish midrashic passages, and that their
sources are Jewish, these kinds of discourse nonetheless cannot be Jewish.
Given the massive Jewish influence discoverable in Gnostic texts, how does one interpret the Gnostics’ attitude vis-à-vis their roots? It is obviously not enough to speak of “Jewish Gnosticism” for once the Gnostic hermeneutical shift has occurred one can no longer recognize the resultant point of view as “Jewish”. One finds, instead, an essentially non-Jewish, indeed anti-Jewish, attitude, and one must interpret this attitude on its own terms as a radically new hermeneutical program, giving birth to a radically new religious movement. . . .The Gnostic attitude to Judaism, in short, is one of alienation and revolt, and though the Gnostic hermeneutic can be characterised in general as a revolutionary attitude vis-à-vis established traditions, the attitude exemplified in Gnostic texts, taken together with the massive utilisation of Jewish traditions, can in my view only be interpreted historically as expressive of a movement of Jews away from their own traditions as part of a process of religious self-redefinition. The Gnostics, at least in the earliest stages of the history of the Gnostic movement, were people who can aptly be designated as “no longer Jews” (Pearson 1990, 125,130; see also Williams 1996, 218).
More specifically, Carl B. Smith II in No Longer Jews (2004) has claimed that, in
the wake of failed apocalyptic expectation after the Bar Kochba Revolt,287 part of
the Jewish community in Egypt “gnosticized” the mythical narrative of ancient
Israel, resulting in something that can no longer be properly considered Jewish.
That Jewish intellectuals experimenting with various hermeneutical methods, responding to Hellenistic challenges and perhaps incorporating religious and philosophical ideas from the intellectual averment of the ancient world is one thing; to say that these factors led them to abandon fundamental principles of their faith, particularly monotheism and a positive image of the creator and his creation, is quite another. It is difficult to imagine a Jewish intellectual not keeping speculations in check, unless of course, there were some mitigating circumstances that led to the abandonment of foundational presuppositions. . . What is advocated here, it must be remembered, is not that all Jews became Gnostic, but only that some did, and in so doing defined a new innovation in direct juxtaposition to the faith they once espoused in the disruptive historical context surrounding the Jewish revolt under Trajan (Smith II 2004, 43, 244, emphasis mine).
As noted above, underlying each scholarly reconstruction of a source or origin of
so-called “Gnosticism,” it is assumed a priori that the Gnostic speculations of a
demiurge—even if it can be found in a Jewish matrix—cannot be properly
Jewish. For scholars these represent either a critique of other, more
“orthodox” (i.e., authentic) Jews or signifies a reaction of “intellectuals” (i.e.
fringe) Jews reacting to a specific trauma (be it the destruction of Jerusalem or the
failure of Bar Kochba). In other words, the “Gnostics,” while perhaps starting out
“Jewish,” must no longer be Jews.
(p. 227-229, my underline)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
