Only Fantastically Amazing People Think We Have The Ur-Canon

[Stephan Huller]

69 the Marcionite gospel had material from John

Marcus the Marcionite: He does not call the world nor its creatures good. He says "If you were of this world the world would love its own." (John 15:19) [De Recta in Deum Fide p. 106]

[Bernard Muller]

to Huller,

After this he [Celsus] says, that certain of the Christian believers, like persons who in a fit of drunkenness lay violent hands upon themselves, have corrupted the first book/text the Gospel (τῆς πρώτης γραφῆς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον), to a threefold (τριχῇ), and fourfold (καὶ τετραχῇ), and many-fold degree (καὶ πολλαχῇ), and have remodeled it (καὶ μεταπλάττειν), so that they might be able to answer objections. [2:27]

It is almost certain that any community who accepted only one gospel would say that gospel was the first one to have been written. Marcion and Marcionites most likely were saying that for gMarcion. The ones working from a Diatessaron were also saying their Diatessaron was the first gospel ever written and the other gospels were later derived from it.
That's human nature and logic.
What interest me about that is what Celsus was reported to have written here (in 177 CE): other gospels (actually many of them) existed then, probably for some times, that is before Irenaeus' times.

For I promised at the end of the first Book, which I composed and published concerning their origin,38 that I would demonstrate this thesis by countless proofs, by citing time-honoured customs, laws and institutions which they preserve down to my time just as they received them from their ancestors

What make you think that "first book" refers to the initial gospel and not to a book that Dionysius "composed and published concerning their origin [of the Jews, most likely]"?

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

For, some say this, that the passage in Scripture that speaks of "sitting at the Savior's right and left" (Mk 10:38) applies to Paul and Marcion: Paul sits at his right hand and Marcion at his left.

And where did you read that passage was in gMarcion?
However, that might show that some later Marcionites were using other gospels to make points in their favor, something which I never disputed.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

69 the Marcionite gospel had material from John
Marcus the Marcionite: He does not call the world nor its creatures good. He says "If you were of this world the world would love its own." (John 15:19) [De Recta in Deum Fide p. 106]

Marcus the Marcionite is a fictitious character featured in fictitious dialogues written by an orthodox Christians (some say Origen). We are far far away from that John's saying being in gMarcion.

Cordially, Bernard

[Stephan Huller]

The Marcionites were like the Samaritans. It had to be in the holy writing. That's the whole point of the rejection of other people's scriptures. Otherwise they'd be like Papias.

[Stephan Huller]

Marcus the Marcionite is a fictitious character featured in fictitious dialogues written by an orthodox Christians (some say Origen). We are far far away from that John's sayings being in gMarcion.

Even if they were completely fictitious the pattern of citations nevertheless agrees with what we learn from other sources. It is not as if this was 'made up from scratch' or invented by Constantine in a factory a la mountainman. If it was a fiction it is a fiction like Irenaeus (i.e. developed from sources like Papias etc). If it were just De Recta in Deum Fide vs Irenaeus it would be two heavily embellished accounts set against one another and cancelling one another out. But there is more than just De Recta in Deum Fide on the one side of the ledger and just Irenaeus telling the world that the Marcionite corrupted Luke to make their gospel. Tertullian is an adaptation of something originally written or edited by Irenaeus (a la Against the Valentinians, Prescriptione etc).

[Stephan Huller]

What make you think that "first book" refers to the initial gospel and not to a book that Dionysius "composed and published concerning their origin [of the Jews, most likely]"?

Isn't that the most natural reading of the statement? Others have to make 'gospel' into a plural in order to claim (with Origen) that the fourfold gospel is assumed to be original. Celsus's point is that there was an original narrative, it was stupid (see previous statement) or gave an embarrassing account of Jesus being captured and then the narrative was repeatedly changed to correct these embarrassing statements. Clearly this is logical. There must have been an original gospel narrative. Most of us assume that was Mark in some form or another and Matthew and Luke were essentially forgeries of Mark. But Irenaeus incredible - like a con man - tries to pretend that the parallels between the three aren't to be account for by this process of 'remodeling' from an original source. This is an incredible claim which should raise even more doubts about Irenaeus as a source. It wasn't as if ancient witnesses were dense. Celsus assumed a single gospel corrupted many times. The Marcionites did too. The modern scholar (after years of dogmatic prohibitions) agrees with the ancient dissenters. But Irenaeus is a huckster. The claim about the four being independent composition confirms that and this is taken to the next level when he lies about Papias.

Consider also that the Marcionites clearly agree with logic when they assert that there was one text behind all the subsequent corruptions. Even if you don't think the Marcionite text is the first, even if Celsus denied this possibility their basic paradigm agrees with reason. The fact that Irenaeus created a scenario where there were four 'primal gospels' all corrupted (or misinterpreted) in four different places by four different heresies presumably, demonstrates he can't be trusted as a source. It is something only a liar could claim looking at the evidence.

[Bernard Muller]

to Huller,

What make you think that "first book" refers to the initial gospel and not to a book that Dionysius "composed and published concerning their origin [of the Jews, most likely]"?

Isn't that the most natural reading of the statement? Others have to make 'gospel' into a plural in order to claim (with Origen) that the fourfold gospel is meant to original.

Are you saying Dionysius composed and published the initial gospel (and admitted doing so)?

Cordially, Bernard

[Stephan Huller]

Sorry Bernard 'Dionysius' is the author of the Roman Antiquities, the text which was used by Josephus to model the Jewish Antiquities. Haste makes waste. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was using it as an example of the specific terminology in Greek not as a citation that Dionysius knew anything about the gospel. I thought it might be helpful for the forum.

[Stephan Huller]

70 Marcion's gospel had the introduction from John's gospel

"John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part, when he says, "He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [things], and His own [people] received Him not." But according to Marcion, and those like him, neither was the world made by Him; nor did He come to His own things, but to those of another" (Adv. haer. 3.11.2) may indicate Marcion's opposition to the Fourth Gospel [Harnack Das Evangelium von frenden Gott 1996 p. 251].

Harnack suggested that the Irenaean passage (Adv. haer. 3.11.2) may indicate Marcion's opposition to the Fourth Gospel [Tuomas Rasimus the Legacy of John p. 154]