The proto-catholics gave the names of Paul and of Saul to the original author of the epistles

[Giuseppe]

The argument is really strong, that who invented Saul of Tarsus invented also the name of Paul for the author of the epistles.

Even if I am obliged to concede this great point to Dubourg, I don't like to follow from this conclusion the his implication that the entire package "Paul + epistles" were invented by the same people who invented midrashically the name Paul from the Saul story in 1 Samuel.

It is evident to me that the people who invented midrashically the name Paul from the Saul story in 1 Samuel are the same people behind Acts of Apostles: merely proto-Catholics.

In other terms, epistles existed before, and only after "Paul" was added to the epistles by proto-Catholics just as the connection Paul/Saul (really, it is the same connection).

The epistles existing before fit better the scenario argued by Stuart: a set of various fragments collected from here and there, and connected forcibly to the name of some patron.

Now, Marcion couldn't adore Paul (the presumed author of this corpus of epistles) as 'Paul', since the entire Paul idea is midrash from the OT Saul, a late catholic invention.

Hence, three options, mutually exclusive:

• Marcion had Simon Magus as the fictitious author of the his (=of Marcion) collected 'epistles'

• Marcion had another name, both different from Simon Magus and different from Paul, as the fictitious author of the his (of Marcion) collected epistles.

• Marcion collected only various fragments from various anonymous (Gnostic) authors. The Catholics, not even Marcion, were the first to show them as the work of a single author, named Paul.

The third option appears to me more plausible, at the moment.

[Giuseppe]

The fact that Acts ignores that Paul wrote epistles would be expected under the hypothesis that, when Saul/Paul was invented by catholics in Acts, they had not still connected their recently invented (by Acts) Saul/Paul with the set of fragments collected by Marcion. And so also Marcion didn't know still the name of Paul for the author of his epistles, by the time Acts was written.

But then, if even the name of Paul of Acts served to catholicize/eclipse a previous disturbing figure, if this previous disturbing figure was not still called Paul, who was he?

I should abandon at all the idea that a "Paul" figure existed before the name of Paul was invented by Acts. I should abandon the idea that a disturbing figure had to be sanitized/eclipsed by calling him Paul. There was not a such figure.

In his place, there was every (anonymous) Christian apostle to which the following accusation could be addressed:

They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.

(Acts 21:21)

Marcion may pose as a such figure, but he was only one on a thousand.

Couchoud was the first to argue that the 'we passages' in Acts are really the voyages via sea of Marcion, not of Paul.

For Couchoud, Simon Magus himself is really a mere parody of Marcion.

Hence, the causal order of events is the following:

• Marcion et alia collected various fragments from different radical gentilizing sects, but without showing them in the form of epistles.

• The Catholics invented Saul/Paul in Acts to introduce, as model of ideal apostle of the gentiles, one who is accused falsely (cfr Acts 21:21) to work as Marcion, but who really worked as a pious Jew.

• Only in a second moment, the Catholics connected Saul/Paul in Acts with the set of fragments usurped by them from Marcion and debtly edited in the form of "epistles".