Gospel "according to" ___

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
yakovzutolmai
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Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by yakovzutolmai »

So I would rather like to say (like the Dutch philologist SA Naber) that all Pauline letters ‘ortas esse in Cerdonis vel Marcionitarum scholis’, that means: they had been written in Marcionite/Kerdo’s school and firstly collected by ‘schoolmaster’ Marcion.
In commenting on Eph. 5:19, Dr. (Woolsey) Bacon says: "In place of the bacchanalian orgies in which the gilded youth of Ephesus had their delight, he recommends the joyous choruses, not only of psalms and hymns, but also of those graceful and exhilarating Grecian melodies that may be joined in Christian wedlock with spiritual words and thoughts." This interpretation seems a fair one, especially if, as seems probable, the entire fifth chapter of the epistle is replete with allusions to the alluring and debasing observance of the Mysteries so prevalent in Ephesus and other parts of Asia Minor. This conclusion is
the more ineludible from the fact that the comparison of the Bacchic orgies with the worship of the true God was a familiar one at the time through the writing of Philo.' Perhaps a free paraphrase of the chapter, designed to bring out the allusions in question, may best present the argument.
(The Gospel and the Greek Mysteries, Rev. Augustine S. Carman)

Marcion is dubious as a historical figure to me, because I can't believe there was a Roman patriarchate in the mid-second-century. Cerdo is all the more dubious.

Cerdo is, in effect, the nickname for Demeter in her prophetic role with the Eleusinian mysteries. The Epistle to the Ephesians, per Rev. Carman, seems the most well correlated to Eleusinian motifs.

I will continue to assert my current theory that Tiberius Claudius Balbilus - Imperial Court Astrologer, war brother of Vespasian in Britain, Egyptian, and very likely candidate for the "Basilides" who anoints Vespasian as emperor at Mt. Carmel AND at the Serapeum of Alexandria, is the principal author of Paul.

The authentic epistles were written at Corinth, in 65, during Vespasian's exile there. It was in preparation of Vespasian's victory in the Jewish Revolt, in which the Jewish messianic star prophecy would be applied to him so that the East would recognize his legitimacy as emperor. There are obvious Jewish politics involved as well.

Balbilus retired as, effectively, the master of Ephesus. I would speculate that he picks up his pen as Paul there in a second phase, in which his purpose isn't political but rather more in service of his personal beliefs.

I would also speculate that the Basilidean school of Alexandria converts Judeo-Egyptian proto-Gnosticism into Gnosticism and is named in honor of the Basilides who anointed Vespasian.

Therefore, Cerdo is named as the forebear of Marcion in order to denigrate the movement as Gnostic and gentile. Recognizing in Paul even Eleusinian tropes, and so forth. It is purely polemic.
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Irish1975
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Re: The Title of Marcion's Gospel - was there one?

Post by Irish1975 »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:49 am
Irish1975 wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:55 am 3. It seems unlikely that the catholics would have invented the honorific title "The Gospel" for a text that they regarded as a mutilated forgery, if that title had not already attached to Marcion's text.
Is it not also hardly likely that the catholics would have embraced with modifications a text that they thought originated with Marcion?
What about the Gospel According to John? Colossians? Canonical Luke? Is there any question that the New Testament includes more than a few verses and themes taken over from Marcionite or gnostic or demiurgic circles?
Secret Alias
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Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Secret Alias »

What's the 'title' of the Torah? It doesn't have one. Things that are exclusive don't have names other than their function. 'The law' is the law. It isn't qualified by provenance or authorship. 'Good taste.' 'Reason.' 'Beauty.' 'Truth.' As soon as it becomes qualified by/as 'my truth' it is in effect being denied holiness.
Giuseppe
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Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

Interesting what Ferguson says about the use of "gospel" in Mark:

Mark’s story is a story of origins (see Mk:1:1: “The beginning [ἀρχή] of the gospel [τοῦ εὐαγγελίου] of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”), one which establishes continuity between the earthly life of Jesus, the contemporary situation of the Markan community, and the final ending of the world (see Mk 13). Between the life of Jesus and Mark’s historical moment, the evangelist knows that Paul is located, and I use “etiological” to refer to the fact that one of Mark’s primary literary goals is to create, within his narrative of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, historical precedent for the mission and teachings of Paul that occur subsequently to the conclusion of his narrative but prior to his composition of it. The evangelist’s goal is not to repeat that which Paul has said (that is, to lift Paul from his letters and throw him some thirty years back into the past) but, rather, to anticipate him. Mark seeks to seed the apostle and his teachings into his text.

(quoted from New Perspective on the Use of Paul in the Gospel of Mark)

The assumption is that, since the goal of Mark is to invent what comes before Paul, then his (of Mark) book is not strictu senso the gospel of Paul in the intentions of the same inventor.

Only later gospels confused the book of Mark with a "gospel". Marcion had a particular interest to identify Mark with the Gospel of Paul tout court, against the same Mark's intention to limit to describe the origins of the gospel of Paul.
Giuseppe
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Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

I think that this Marcion's ignorance about Mark being not the gospel of Paul but only the invented prequel of the gospel of Paul is the strongest argument for Mark's priority over the Marcion's Evangelion.
Giuseppe
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Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

En passant, I see that if Mark wanted to limit himself/herself to invent the origins of the gospel of Paul (the origins, hence: not the same gospel of Paul: for that, read directly the epistles), then he had to only know (1) when Paul lived and (2) read from Josephus the name of who ruled just before Paul: Pilate.
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