The forgotten third Christian movement
Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:10 pm
Much attention has been given to "proto-orthodox" Christianity as it is shaped by engagement with Marcionism. But Justin speaks of followers of Simon Magus as another significant rival to what he presents as sound doctrine (Typho, 26, 56 -- yes, there are still more rivals, but let's focus on just this one additional player for now.)
My impression is that we may be focusing so much on Marcion's influence on the shaping of the NT because that's where much of the scholarly publications have focussed, so it's easy mining for choice nuggets of data to work with.
But I'd like to put in another plug for Roger Parvus's thesis that builds on both Turmel and Loisy: Paul's letters, as known to those responsible for our canonical Luke-Acts, may rather have been shaped by Saturnilians, a second-generation(?) follower of Simon Magus. This opens up another question: Were the letters of Paul in Marcion's hands derived from Saturnilians and was Marcion responsible for editing them by removing what he judged to be Saturnilian additions?
Was the production of our canonical Luke-Acts a response not only to Marcionism but also to the Saturnilians?
Parvus's view can be found in four posts linked in the box with the red heading "Second Thoughts: Revising the “Simonian Origin for Christianity” hypothesis" here.
Related to this question of origins, I copy here a question in another thread (Was Judas an Afterthought?) that appears to have been overlooked and not yet responded to. See the bolded point below. It was originally directed to rgprice but I'm happy for anyone to respond.
My impression is that we may be focusing so much on Marcion's influence on the shaping of the NT because that's where much of the scholarly publications have focussed, so it's easy mining for choice nuggets of data to work with.
But I'd like to put in another plug for Roger Parvus's thesis that builds on both Turmel and Loisy: Paul's letters, as known to those responsible for our canonical Luke-Acts, may rather have been shaped by Saturnilians, a second-generation(?) follower of Simon Magus. This opens up another question: Were the letters of Paul in Marcion's hands derived from Saturnilians and was Marcion responsible for editing them by removing what he judged to be Saturnilian additions?
Was the production of our canonical Luke-Acts a response not only to Marcionism but also to the Saturnilians?
Parvus's view can be found in four posts linked in the box with the red heading "Second Thoughts: Revising the “Simonian Origin for Christianity” hypothesis" here.
Related to this question of origins, I copy here a question in another thread (Was Judas an Afterthought?) that appears to have been overlooked and not yet responded to. See the bolded point below. It was originally directed to rgprice but I'm happy for anyone to respond.
(It is my rethinking of the question as a result of rg's insights that have led me to bring in the Simon Magus/Saturnilian factor.)neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue Nov 23, 2021 8:00 pmThanks for the detailed response, RG. I must take more time to rethink some points.rgprice wrote: ↑Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:23 am. . .
I'm not saying that every detail of thought between the NT and Justin matches. The NT was created from existing material. That existing material already had various agendas and perspectives. I'm saying that the revisions to the material change it in the same direction as Justin. If you compare Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's letters vs Luke and the Catholic letters, then the change between the two is in the same direction as Justin's framework. And of course, if the NT was not created by Justin himself (which I'm not suggesting), then of course whatever did the editing may have been informed by Justin, but not of exactly the same mind as Justin.
But as for the case that Justin used Paul instead of Paul having been interpolated with Justin's arguments, I don't think the case is nearly so clear as you suggest. . . ..
Meantime, given your scenario -- forgive me if I missed it -- where did Marcion, or Paul, come from? Was it a Jewish base that either or both were responding to? Was there anything Jewish about Paul's letters?