Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I've updated 70 with the original quote from Harnack

And rightly so. For he began by building up credence for a fact incredible, by stating the reason, that it was intended for a sign. Therefore, it
says, the Lord shall give you a sign, Behold a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son.1,b Now a sign from God, unless it were
some preternatural novelty, would in no sense have been a sign. Consequently whenever the Jews, in the hope of disconcerting us, have the effrontery to utter their lie that it is contained in scripture that a young woman, not a virgin, is to conceive and bear, they are confuted by this fact, that evidently no sign is involved in an everyday occurrence, the pregnancy and child-bearing of a young woman. Therefore a virgin mother, ordained for a sign, naturally carries credence: an infant warrior by no means so.

So Marcion might have reacted to gJohn, or not. It's OK by me.

"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]

75 Marcion's gospel contained narratives from Matthew

Peter Head says Matt 19:3 - 7 comes up as a Marcionite passage:

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Here is the passage in Tertullian Against Marcion 4:34 cited by Head:

Christ forbids divorce: his words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth one that is sent away by her husband, is no less an adulterer. So as to forbid divorce on this side as well, he makes unlawful the marriage of a divorced woman. Moses however permits divorce, in Deuteronomy: If any man hath taken a wife, and hath dwelt with her, and it come to pass that she find not favour with him because some unseemly thing hath been found in her, he shall write a bill of divorcement and give it into her hand and send her away from his house.a You notice the contrast between law and gospel, between Moses and Christ? To be sure I do. For you have not accepted that other gospel, of equal truth, and of the same Christ, in which while forbidding divorce he answers a particular question concerning it: Moses because of the hardness of your heart commanded to give a bill of divorcement, but from the beginning it was not so—because in fact he who made them male and female had said The two of them shall become one flesh.c What therefore God has joined together shall a man presume to put asunder? So by this answer he did two things: he set a guard upon Moses' regulation, as his own, and set in its proper context the Creator's ordinance, being the Creator's Christ. But seeing I have undertaken to confute you from those documents which you have accepted, I will meet you on this ground, as though <this> Christ were mine. When he forbids divorce, while yet claiming as his father him who has joined together the male and the female, must he not rather have defended than abolished Moses' regulation? But now, let us suppose that this Christ is yours, giving opposite teaching to Moses and the Creator—provided that if I prove it was not opposite, I may claim him as mine. I maintain that he has here issued his prohibition of divorce under a certain condition—if any man sends away his wife with the intention of taking another. His words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife and marrieth another hath committed adultery, and whosoever marrieth one sent away by her husband is no less an adulterer—<marrying> a woman sent away <is forbidden> for the same reason for which her husband is not allowed to send her away, so that another may be taken: marrying a woman unlawfully sent away is like marrying one not sent away, and the man who does this is an adulterer. So the marriage not properly dissolved remains a marriage: and for her to marry while the marriage remains, is adultery. Thus if it was under these conditions that he prohibited sending away a wife, this was not a total prohibition: and this that he has not totally prohibited he has permitted under other conditions, where the reason for the prohibition is absent. Thus his teaching is not in opposition to Moses, for he in some form retains his regulation—I do not yet say he confirms it. If however you deny that divorce is in any way permitted by Christ, how comes it that you yourself make separation between married people? For you neither allow the conjunction of male and female, nor do you admit to the sacrament of baptism and the eucharist persons married elsewhere, unless they have made conspiracy between themselves against the fruit of matrimony, and so against the Creator himself. In any case, what in your view does a husband do if his wife has committed adultery? Will he keep her? But, you know, your own apostle does not permit the members of Christ to be joined to a harlot.d It appears then that divorce, when justified, has Christ's authority.

Head seems to be arguing that - despite Marcion's appeal to Matthew 19:3 - 7 - their argument is invalidated because they are supposed to only use Luke. But despite Irenaeus's claims to the contrary, the Marcionites appealed not only to 'Matthew' (it was just a passage in their gospel) but also to Genesis 1 which appears in the gospel narrative.

This is very interesting because Crouzel hints also that this section of text may not have been written by Tertullian because it contradicts his known position on marriage:

Tertullien refuse d'accepter contre Marcion ce qui est une évidence, ressortant de Mt 19, 3-12 : l'attitude de Jésus envers la répudiation est différente de celle que Moïse a concédée à la dureté de cœur du peuple ancien. L'opiniâtreté du docteur africain à soutenir une thèse impossible n'aboutit qu'à obscurcir le raisonnement et semble prêter à Tertullien une thèse opposée à celle qu'il professe partout ailleurs. [Henri Crouzel L'Église primitive face au divorce p. 104]

Notice that no 'Paraclete' references appear throughout Against Marcion (contradicting Tertullian's beliefs) but here the attitude toward marriage is contradicted. The point seems to be - Marcionites you are contradicting yourselves because you are appealing to Matthew but you should only stay with Luke. The question though is, who is making up the rules? Is he a fair referee or part of the dispute? And is this a rigged game?

1. "Such persons do not comprehend what was said by the Savior. For a house or city divided against itself cannot stand [Matt 12:25], declared our Savior. Furthermore, the apostle says that creation of the world is due to him, for Everything was made through him and apart from him nothing was made. [John 1:3] Thus he takes away in advance the baseless wisdom of the false accusers, and shows that the creation is not due to a God who corrupts but to the one who is just and hates evil."

I think the entire passage is read incorrectly. Ptolemy was simply a pre-Irenaean Roman presbyter who cited from the gospel of the Marcionites.

'As regards Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV, 34,' it seems 'very probable that Marcion, when dealing with Lk. 16:18, also considered and rejected Matt. 19:3- 8.' Here Harnack calls on the support of Zahn, op. cit. I, p. 670. [Formation of the Christian Canon p. 159]

Peter Head gives these list of Marcionite references from other gospels:

Marcion refers to additional passages: Mt. 19:12ff.—cited by Origen, Comm. on Matt. XV.1 on 19:12; Mt. 1:23 etc.—discussed by Tertullian, Adv. Marc.III.12f.; Mt. 19:3-8 discussed by Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV.34.1f.] and Blackman (Marcion, 48f.; he refers to further passages: Mt. 5:17 revised: Οὐκ ἤλθον πληρῶσαι τὸν νόμον ἀλλὰ καταλῦσαι(Adamantius, Dialogue 2:15); Mt. 20:20ff. (or Mk. 10:35ff.) alluded to (Origen reports that theMarcionites believed that Paul sat on the right hand of God and Marcionon the left Comm. on Luke 25); Mt. 23:8 (according to Ephraem, Song 24)]. [Peter Head The Foreign God p. 317]

I don't know if I have discussed the emboldened text.