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But as it is, while modestly giving a reason why "the children of the bridegroom are unable to fast during the time the bridegroom is with them," but promising that "they should afterwards fast, when the bridegroom was taken away from them," He neither defended the disciples, (but rather excused them, as if they had not been blamed without some reason) [Adversus Marcionem 4.11.6]

He neither defended the disciples, but rather excused them

nec discipulos defendit, sed potius excusavit [Adversus Marcionem 4.11.6]

But because He did not directly defend His disciples, but excuses them

Sed quoniam discipulos non constanter tuebatur, sed excusat [Adversus Marcionem 4.12.8]

Concerning the Sabbath also I have this to premise, that this question could not have arisen, if Christ did not publicly proclaim the Lord of the Sabbath. Nor could there be any discussion about His destroying the Sabbath (destrueret sabbatum), if He had a right to destroy it (si destruere deberet). Moreover, He would have the right to destroy it (porro destruere deberet), if He belonged to the rival god; nor would it cause surprise to any one that He did what it was right for Him to do. Men's astonishment therefore arose from their opinion that it was improper for Him to proclaim the Creator to be God and yet to impugn His Sabbath. [2] Now, that we may decide these several points first, lest we should be renewing them at every turn to meet each argument of our adversary which rests on some novel institution of Christ, let this stand as a settled point, that discussion concerning the novel character of each institution ensued on this account, because as nothing was as yet advanced by Christ touching any new deity, so discussion thereon was inadmissible; nor could it be retorted, that from the very novelty of each several institution another deity was clearly enough demonstrated by Christ, inasmuch as it was plain that novelty was not in itself a characteristic to be wondered at in Christ, because it had been foretold by the Creator. And it would have been, of course, but right that a new god should first be expounded, and his discipline be introduced afterwards; because it would be the god that would impart authority to the discipline, and not the discipline to the god; except that (to be sure) it has happened that Marcion acquired his very perverse opinions not from a master, but his master from his opinion! [3] All other points respecting the Sabbath I thus rule. If Christ interfered with (intervertit) the Sabbath, He simply acted after the Creator's example; inasmuch as in the siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls of the ark of the covenant for eight days running, and therefore on a Sabbath-day, actually destroyed the Sabbath, by the Creator's command (ex praecepto creatoris sabbatum operatione destruxit)----according to the opinion of those who think this of Christ in this passage of St. Luke, in their ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated the Sabbath (ignorantes neque Christum sabbatum destruxisse neque creatorem), as we shall by and by show. And yet the Sabbath was actually then broken by Joshua, so that the present charge might be alleged also against Christ. [4] But even if, as being not the Christ of the Jews, He displayed a hatred against the Jews' most solemn day, He was only professedly following the Creator, as being His Christ, in this very hatred of the Sabbath; for He exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah: "Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth." Now, in whatever sense these words were spoken, we know that an abrupt defence must, in a subject of this sort, be used in answer to an abrupt challenge. [5] I shall now transfer the discussion to the very matter in which the teaching of Christ seemed to annul the Sabbath ( in qua visa est destruere sabbatum Christi disciplina).The disciples had been hungry; on that the Sabbath day they had plucked some ears and rubbed them in their hands; by thus preparing their food, they had violated the holy day. Christ excuses them, and became their accomplice in breaking the Sabbath. The Pharisees bring the charge against Him. Marcion sophistically interprets the stages of the controversy (if I may call in the aid of the truth of my Lord to ridicule his arts), both in the scriptural record and in Christ's purpose. For from the Creator's Scripture, and from the purpose of Christ, there is derived a colourable precedent ----as from the example of David, when he went into the temple on the Sabbath, and provided food by boldly breaking up the shew-bread. [6] Even he remembered that this privilege (I mean the dispensation from fasting) was allowed to the Sabbath from the very beginning, when the Sabbath-day itself was instituted. For although the Creator had forbidden that the manna should be gathered for two days, He yet permitted it on the one occasion only of the day before the Sabbath, in order that the yesterday's provision of food might free from fasting the feast of the following Sabbath-day.[7]Good reason, therefore, had the Lord for pursuing the same principle in the destruction of the Sabbath (Bene igitur quod et causam eandem secutus est dominus in sabbati, si ita volunt dici, destructione) since that is the word which men will use); good reason, too, for expressing the Creator's will, when He bestowed the privilege of not fasting on the Sabbath-day. In short, He would have then and there destroyed the Sabbath (denique tunc demum sabbatum destruxisset), nay, to the Creator Himself, if He had commanded His disciples to fast on the Sabbath-day, contrary to the intention of the Scripture and of the Creator's will. [8] But because He did not directly defend His disciples, but excuses them; because He interposes human want, as if deprecating censure; because He maintains the honour of the Sabbath as a day which is to be free from gloom rather than from work; because he puts David and his companions on a level with His own disciples in their fault and their extenuation; because He is pleased to endorse391 the Creator's indulgence: because He is Himself good according to His example----is He therefore alien from the Creator? [9] Then the Pharisees watch whether He would heal on the Sabbath-day, that they might accuse Him----surely as a violator of the Sabbath, not as the propounder of a new god; for perhaps I might be content with insisting on all occasions on this one point, that another Christ is nowhere proclaimed. The Pharisees, however, were in utter error concerning the law of the Sabbath, not observing that its terms were conditional, when it enjoined rest from labour, making certain distinctions of labour. For when it says of the Sabbath-day, "In it thou shalt not do any work of thine," by the word thine it restricts the prohibition to human work----which every one performs in his own employment or business----and not to divine work. [10] Now the work of healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to God. So again, in the law it says, "Thou shalt not do any manner of work in it,"except what is to be done for any soul, that is to say, in the matter of delivering the soul; because what is God's work may be done by human agency for the salvation of the soul. By God, however, would that be done which the man Christ was to do, for He was likewise God. Wishing, therefore, to initiate them into this meaning of the law by the restoration of the withered hand, He requires, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath-days to do good, or not? to save life, or to destroy it? " [11] In order that He might, whilst allowing that amount of work which He was about to perform for a soul, remind them what works the law of the Sabbath forbade----even human works; and what it enjoined----even divine works, which might be done for the benefit of any soul, He was called "Lord of the Sabbath," because He maintained the Sabbath as His own institution. Now, even if He had annulled the Sabbath, He would have had the right to do so (Quod etiam si destruxisset, merito) as being its Lord, (and) still more as He who instituted it. [12] But He did not utterly destroy it although its Lord (Sed non omnino destruxit qua dominus), in order that it might henceforth be plain that the Sabbath was not destroyed by the Creator (sabbatum a creatore destructum), even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho. For that was really God's work, which He commanded Himself, and which He had ordered for the sake of the lives of His servants when exposed to the perils of war. [13] Now, although He has in a certain place expressed an aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them your Sabbaths, reckoning them as men's Sabbaths, not His own, because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities,

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” 19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

Secret Alias wrote:I always get suspicious in this text where I see words and phrases reappear after a large gap

11 [1] The publican who was chosen by the Lord, he (Marcion) adduces for a proof that he was chosen as a stranger to the law and uninitiated in Judaism, by one who was an adversary to the law ... He had nowhere read of Christ's being foretold as the light, and hope, and expectation of the Gentiles! He, however, rather spoke of the Jews in a favourable light, when he said, "The whole needed not a physician, but they that are sick." For since by "those that are sick" he meant that the heathens and publicans should be understood, whom he was choosing, he affirmed of the Jews that they were "whole" for whom he said that a physician was not necessary. This being the case, he makes a mistake in coming down to destroy the law, as if for the remedy of a diseased condition. because they who were living under it were "whole," and "not in want of a physician." How, moreover, does it happen that he proposed the similitude of a physician, if he did not verify it? For, just as nobody uses a physician for healthy persons, so will no one do so for strangers, in so far as he is man from Marcion's God (homo a deo Marcionis), having to himself both a creator and preserver, and a specially good physician, in his Christ ... But as it is, while modestly giving a reason why "the children of the bridegroom are unable to fast during the time the bridegroom is with them," but promising that "they should afterwards fast, when the bridegroom was taken away from them," He neither defended the disciples, but rather excused them, as if they had not been blamed without some reason, nor rejected the discipline of John, but rather allowed (concessit) it, referring it to the time of John, although destining it for His own time. Otherwise His purpose would have been to reject it (rejecturus alioquin), and to defend its opponents, if He had not Himself already belonged to it as then in force. I hold also that it is my Christ who is meant by the bridegroom, of whom the psalm says: "He is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His return is back to the end of it again."

Concerning the Sabbath also I have this to premise, that this question could not have arisen, if Christ did not publicly proclaim the Lord of the Sabbath. Nor could there be any discussion about His annulling the Sabbath, if He had a right to annul it. Moreover, He would have the right, if He belonged to the rival god; nor would it cause surprise to any one that He did what it was right for Him to do. Men's astonishment therefore arose from their opinion that it was improper for Him to proclaim the Creator to be God and yet to impugn His Sabbath ... If Christ interfered with (intervertit) the Sabbath, He simply acted after the Creator's example; inasmuch as in the siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls of the ark of the covenant for eight days running, and therefore on a Sabbath-day, actually annulled the Sabbath, by the Creator's command----according to the opinion of those who think this of Christ in this passage of St. Luke, in their ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated the Sabbath, as we shall by and by show. And yet the Sabbath was actually then broken by Joshua, so that the present charge might be alleged also against Christ. But even if, as being not the Christ of the Jews, He displayed a hatred against the Jews' most solemn day, He was only professedly following the Creator, as being His Christ, in this very hatred of the Sabbath; for He exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah: "Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth." Now, in whatever sense these words were spoken, we know that an abrupt defence must, in a subject of this sort, be used in answer to an abrupt challenge ... Even he remembered that this privilege (I mean the dispensation from fasting) was allowed to the Sabbath from the very beginning, when the Sabbath-day itself was instituted. For although the Creator had forbidden that the manna should be gathered for two days, He yet permitted it on the one occasion only of the day before the Sabbath, in order that the yesterday's provision of food might free from fasting the feast of the following Sabbath-day. Good reason, therefore, had the Lord for pursuing the same principle in the annulling of the Sabbath (since that is the word which men will use); good reason, too, for expressing the Creator's will,386 when He bestowed the privilege of not fasting on the Sabbath-day. In short, He would have then and there put an end to the Sabbath, nay, to the Creator Himself, if He had commanded His disciples to fast on the Sabbath-day, contrary to the intention of the Scripture and of the Creator's will. [8] But because He did not directly defend His disciples, but excuses them ... The Pharisees, however, were in utter error concerning the law of the Sabbath, not observing that its terms were conditional, when it enjoined rest from labour, making certain distinctions of labour. For when it says of the Sabbath-day, "In it thou shalt not do any work of thine," by the word thine it restricts the prohibition to human work----which every one performs in his own employment or business----and not to divine work. Now the work of healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to God. So again, in the law it says, "Thou shalt not do any manner of work in it," except what is to be done for any soul, that is to say, in the matter of delivering the soul; because what is God's work may be done by human agency for the salvation of the soul. By God, however, would that be done which the man Christ was to do, for He was likewise God ... He was called "Lord of the Sabbath," because He maintained the Sabbath as His own institution. Now, even if He had annulled the Sabbath, He would have had the right to do so,406 as being its Lord, (and) still more as He who instituted it. But He did not utterly destroy it, although its Lord, in order that it might henceforth be plain that the Sabbath was not broken by the Creator, even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho. For that was really God's work, which He commanded Himself, and which He had ordered for the sake of the lives of His servants when exposed to the perils of war. Now, although He has in a certain place expressed an aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them your Sabbaths reckoning them as men's Sabbaths, not His own, because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities, and loving God "with the lip, not the heart," He has yet put His own Sabbaths (those, that is, which were kept according to His prescription) in a different position; for by the same prophet, in a later passage, He declared them to be "true, and delightful, and inviolable." Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: He kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a work which was beneficial to the life of His disciples, for He indulged them with the relief of food when they were hungry, and in the present instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating by facts, "I came not to destroy, the law, but to fulfil it," although Marcion has gagged His mouth by this word.

Our familiar Shabbat has so much to do with eating and drinking that we might well feel bewildered to hear that many ancient writers believed that Jews celebrated their holy day by abstaining from food.

According to the first-century Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, Moses instituted the Sabbath as a fast day in order to commemorate the Israelites' seven days of deprivation when they trekked through the Arabian desert on their way to Mount Sinai. Augustus Caesar once wrote to Tiberius "Not even a Jew fasts so scrupulously on his Sabbaths as I have today."

The satirist Petronius speculated about the dire fates in store for uncircumcised Jews who, as he wryly put it, would be exiled by their intolerant coreligionists to Greek cities where they would be unable to observe their Sabbath fasts. And Martial tried to insult a correspondent by accusing him of having a breath that smelled "worse than one of those Sabbath-fasting Jewish women."

Our first reaction is to marvel at how so many writers, including some of the most respected names in Greek and Latin letters, could have gotten their facts so absurdly wrong. If anything, Shabbat is a day of overeating, during which it is mandatory to partake of at least three meals. Except in very rare cases, fasting is strictly prohibited.

Many scholars dismissed this stubborn inaccuracy as yet another ignorant stereotype about Jews that was copied indiscriminately from author to author in spite of the fact that it had no basis in reality.

However, if we examine the talmudic sources more carefully, we discover that the attitudes of the ancient Jewish sages towards eating on the Sabbath were more ambivalent than might be suggested by our current practice.

Take for example the case of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus who insisted on drawing out his classes for the entire day, and expressed disdain at the faint-hearted students who snuck away to join their family repasts.

Rabbi Yosé ben Zimra went so far as to declare that Jews who fasted on Shabbat were assured of the cancellation of any negative decrees that had been issued against them by the heavenly court.

It would appear therefore that, alongside the mainstream view that regarded Shabbat as a day of physical as well as spiritual delight, there existed a significant minority of sages who wanted it to be a day of exclusively spiritual contemplation, on which physical desires should be minimized or suppressed.

It is likely that at the root of this ancient dispute lay divergent interpretations of the story of the giving of the manna in Exodus 16. According to the biblical narrative, the Israelites were informed that they would be issued a double ration on Friday because no manna would descend on the Sabbath.

The usual way or understanding this episode is that the double ration would suffice for meals on both Friday and Saturday.

It is conceivable, however, that some interpreters read the story as a mandate for eating double quantities on Friday in order to allow the people to refrain from nourishment on the following day, in a manner analogous to the "concluding meal" that precedes Yom Kippur.

In fact, the Torah's designation of the Day of Atonement as a "Sabbath of Sabbaths" could be read as implying that the weekly day of rest should be equated in all respects to Yom Kippur, and therefore should be observed also as a fast

Talmudic tradition insisted that the requirement to eat three meals is rooted in the words of the Torah. However, the proof text that is adduced for the practice is rather contrived, to say the least. It is based on the fact that the word "day" appears three times in the verse (Exodus 16:25): "And Moses said, Eat that [i.e., the manna] today; for the day is a sabbath unto the Lord; this day ye shall not find it in the field."

Even if we are not convinced by the midrashic attempt to squeeze three meals out of the verse, it might nonetheless be conceded that the scriptural text contains an explicit association between eating and the Sabbath.

We must imagine that the advocates of Shabbat fasting read the words as if they said "eat the manna today [i.e., Friday] because tomorrow will be the Sabbath day, when you will be unable to do so."

There are several passages in the Talmud that extol the virtues of eating three meals on Shabbat, and consider it an expression of extraordinary piety. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi stated in the name of Bar Kappara that those who partook of all the required meals would be spared the torments of the "birth-pangs of the Messiah," the judgment of Gehenna and the apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog. Other teachers promised unlimited boundaries, or immunity from subjection to foreign nations.

If eating three meals on Shabbat were a clear-cut precept from the Torah, it is difficult to imagine why so many of the sages described it as an act of unusual devotion that warranted special pride, or even supernatural rewards. For this reason, Rabbi Jacob Tam deduced in the Tosafot that the practice of eating three meals must not have been well entrenched during the talmudic era.

The prophet Isaiah's injunction to "call the sabbath a delight" does not strike us initially as congruent with total abstention from eating. However, we must acknowledge that different people find delight in different activities. Though conventional Jewish tradition equated delight with eating and drinking, there have always been individuals whose preference is for more spiritual or intellectual gratification.

Indeed, to judge from the accounts by the first-century Jewish writers Philo Judaeus of Alexandria and Josephus Flavius, the Jewish populace spent the seventh day assembled in the synagogues for meditation and philosophical instruction.

From all of this evidence emerges an ambiguous picture of the ideal Shabbat. The opposing positions were epitomized in the Jerusalem Talmud in the contrasting views of two third-century rabbis. One declared: "The festivals and Sabbaths were given to Israel purely for the sake of eating and drinking"; while the other insisted "The festivals and Sabbaths were given to Israel purely for the sake of Torah study."

For the most part, Jewish tradition strove to arrive at a middle ground between those extremes. Some sources made a distinction between the practices of scholars, who spent the week in study and therefore needed physical relaxation on the Sabbath, and normal working folk for whom the Sabbath provided the only opportunity to indulge their spiritual needs.

The most widespread compromise solution was to divide the day equally between physical and sacred pursuits, spending half a day in prayer and study, and the other half in eating and repose.

The advocates of the foodless day of rest have long since been swept to the margins of our tradition. Nevertheless, in our weight-conscious society there might yet be a market that will be attracted by the prospect of a non-fattening Sabbath.

Adversus Marcionem 4.8.1 - The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazerenes after Him. For we are they of whom it is written, "Her Nazarites were whiter than snow; " even they who were once defiled with the stains of sin, and darkened with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from the hiding-place of His infancy, for which He went down and dwelt at Nazareth, to escape from Archelaus the son of Herod. This fact I have not refrained from mentioning on this account, because it behoved Marcion's Christ to have forborne all connection whatever with the domestic localities of the Creator's Christ, when he had so many towns in Judaea which had not been by the prophets thus assigned to the Creator's Christ. But Christ will be (the Christ) of the prophets, wheresoever He is found in accordance with the prophets. And yet even at Nazareth He is not remarked as having preached anything new, whilst in another verse He is said to have been rejected by reason of a simple proverb. Here at once, when I observe that they laid their hands on Him, I cannot help drawing a conclusion respecting His bodily substance, which cannot be believed to have been a phantom, since it was capable of being touched and even violently handled, when He was seized and taken and led to the very brink of a precipice (plenum detentus et captus et ad praecipitium usque protractus admiserit). For although He escaped through the midst of them, He had already experienced their rough treatment, and afterwards went His way, no doubt because the crowd as usually happens gave way, or was even broken through; but not because it was eluded as by an impalpable disguise, which, if there had been such, would not at all have submitted to any touch. "Tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res," is even a sentence worthy of a place in the world's wisdom.

Adversus Marcionem 4.33

Christ knew "the baptism of John, whence it was." Then why did He ask them, as if He knew not? He knew that the Pharisees would not give Him an answer; then why did He ask in vain? Was it that He might judge them out of their own mouth, or their own heart? Suppose you refer these points to an excuse of the Creator, or to His comparison with Christ; then consider what would have happened if the Pharisees had replied to His question. Suppose their answer to have been, that John's baptism was "of men," they would have been immediately stoned to death. Some Marcion, in rivalry to Marcion, would have stood up and said: O most excellent God; how different are his ways from the Creator's! (Existeret aliqui Marcion adversus Marcionem, qui diceret, O deum optimum, o deum diversum a creatoris exemplis!) Knowing that men would rush down headlong over it, He placed them actually on the very precipice (sciens praeceps ituros homines ipse illos in praerupium imposuit). For thus do men treat of the Creator respecting His law of the tree. But John's baptism was "from heaven." "Why, therefore," asks Christ, "did ye not believe him? " He therefore who had wished men to believe John, purposing to censure them because they had not believed him, belonged to Him whose sacrament John was administering. But, at any rate, when He actually met their refusal to say what they thought, with such reprisals as, "Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things," He returned evil for evil! "Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." What will be "the things which are God's? "Such things as are like Caesar's denarius----that is to say, His image and similitude. That, therefore, which he commands to be "rendered unto God," the Creator, is man, who has been stamped with His image, likeness, name, and substance. Let Marcion's god look after his own mint. Christ bids the denarius of man's imprint to be rendered to His Caesar, (His Caesar I say, ) not the Caesar of a strange god.

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. 28 “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”

29 Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!”

31 They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

33 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

Moreover, by His not replying to those who said to Him, "By what power doest Thou this?" but by a question on His own side, put them to utter confusion; by His thus not replying, according to their interpretation, He showed the unutterable nature of the Father.

“By what power are you doing these things?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question ... John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of man? Tell me!” ...

So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”