Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:08 am
In my humble opinion, the more suggestive passage from Irenaeus is the following:
For the Ebionites, who use Matthew's Gospel only, are confuted out of this very same, making false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains. Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm [Irenaeus'
Against Heresies III.2,7]
Now, Prof Vinzent notes a curious anomaly:
... Irenaeus...first refers to the Ebionites, who used Matthew 'exclusively' ... This group is mentioned here either because Irenaeus regarded them as the oldest of heretics or because, according to him, they were misusing the [supposedly] earliest of the four Gospels. Surprisingly, though, the Ebionites are followed not by the Cerinthians, who preferred Mark and who are not mentioned by name at this point, but by Marcion who, in the eyes of Irenaeus, circumcised Luke.
(Markus Vinzent,
Resetting the Origins of Christianity, p. 190-191, my bold)
Hence Irenaeus betrayes, with that anomaly, the view that Mark was written by separationists
after (and against) the Marcion's
Evangelion. It is an anomaly because Mark is
catholically the
second gospel, not the third.
In addition, there is always the dilemma about who comes before, between Marcion and the Ebionites. Remember that the Ebionites could be using the
Memories of the Apostles shared by Justin (a kind of remote proto-Matthew?).
I dunno if anything meaningful can be taken from either of these excerpts from Irenaeus or Vinzent.
The last sentence of the excerpt from Irenaeus -
Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.
- is hard to follow (& may even be a misrepresentation of the 'original').
But I think a potential key point which Irenaeus seems to be saying is:
- 'Those who separate Jesus from Christ would have their errors rectified if they read or even preferred the Gospel by Mark (and if they read Mark "with a love of truth").'
Note the context of that excerpt from Irenaeus: it's in a chapter trying to set down orthodox doctrine and cast aside the heretics.
The chapter,
Against Heresies III.
2, begins:
1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he [ie. John] might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not" [John 1:1], etc., ...
The next few sections mostly refer to pericopes from
G.John, with the odd pericope from 1 Cor 12, Matthew and Luke.
The section containing the above excerpt, s7, and the start of the subsequent s8 in full:
7. Such, then, are the first principles of the Gospel: that there is one God, the Maker of this universe; He who was also announced by the prophets, and who by Moses set forth the dispensation of the law — [principles] which proclaim the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ignore any other God or Father except Him. So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these [documents], each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine. For the Ebionites, who use Matthew's Gospel only, are confuted out of this very same, making false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains. Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified. Those, moreover, who follow Valentinus, making copious use of that according to John, to illustrate their conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in error by means of this very Gospel, as I have shown in the first book. Since, then, our opponents do bear testimony to us, and make use of these [documents], our proof derived from them is firm and true.
8. It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground"
[1 Timothy 3:15] of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sits upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.
...< . . paragraphed by me . . >
As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, You that sits between the cherubim, shine forth. For the cherubim, too, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For, [as the Scripture] says,
"The first living creature was like a lion" [Revelation 4:7], symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but
"the third had, as it were, the face as of a man" — an evident description of His advent as a human being;
"the fourth was like a flying eagle," pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [John 1:1]. Also, all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. For this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. But that according to Luke, taking up [His] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God
...
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm
I'm sceptical of the claims that these groups used specific canonical Gospels and " bear testimony to 'us' "
It seems like an exercise in rhetorical and to make the canonical Gospels front and centre of any debate/s