Re: SBL 2022 presentation titles and abstracts
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2022 12:53 pm
But this does bring up an interesting question (I hope). When Epiphanius was dictating the Panarion to his secretary he has at least some books ready at hand. He seems to pick up Hegesippus during his account of the Carpocratians. I accept that. But if you look carefully at the Marcionite account, it's been written and rewritten. There is a clear sense that he brings secondary and tertiary information layered on top of an original dictation. The Marcionite document that contains all the citations of the gospel and letters of Paul comes after the original dictation. The point is that he adds to the original dictation. It isn't simply a one and done dictation. So Williams "At some time he gathered a collection of extracts from Marcion’s canon which could be used to refute Marcion’s thesis; he publishes these, together with his comments on them, in the long Panarion 42."
I think Epiphanius was bored of dictating this work and went off on a crazy tangent. Already at 2.1 you can see his reluctance:
I think Epiphanius was bored of dictating this work and went off on a crazy tangent. Already at 2.1 you can see his reluctance:
I see this as a confession of sorts that - because there is no 'gnostic' sect per se - he's about to make up shit. He brings up the double meaning of qabba. He goes on to repeat information he already read in his account of Basilides earlier:It is just my miserable luck to be telling you of all the blindness of their ignorance. For it would take me a great deal of time if I should wish go into detail here in the treatise I am writing about them and describe one by one the outrageous teachings of their falsely termed “knowledge”
The point is he isn't working from any 'account' per se. He's just winging this information. Barkabbas is from the Basildes account as if the reference to "365 names" and so on. The whole gnostic section is just something he didn't want to do (because he didn't have a pre-existent 'account' in any of his sources) and so he's just winging it.Others of them, who in their turn are differently affl cted, and blind their own eyes and (so) are blinded, introduce a Barkabbas as another
prophet—one worthy of just that name!