Memoirs of the Apostles in Justin's Trypho Dialogue

[MrMacSon]

Tertullian likely didn't write many of his most important treatises. Just look. Against the Valentinians is a reworking of (the treatise behind) Irenaeus's first 12 chapters of Adv Haer (but in a jumbled order!). Against Hermogenes is a reworking of Theophilus's lost treatise of the same name. Against Praxeas is an adaptation of another lost treatise. The list goes on and on. Let's acknowledge the overall pattern before examining the minutia.

Also Adv Marc 4 takes pains to transcribe the Greek of the original treatise before him - Marcion's "fellow sufferer." Betrays its origin beyond Tertullian

Once we establish that Tertullian was a clearing house of forgery, adapting older treatises, we discover that in fact we have preserved for us in his literary corpus countless mid to late second century works from various Church Fathers. While it isn't a perfect science, many of these works come from authors he describes as pillars of the Church in one treatise. The list includes Justin, Miltiades Irenaeus, and Proclus. These are also the likely sources for much of the literary corpus of Tertullian

The reworking could also have been done after Tertullian (160-220 AD/CE) (and Irenaeus (130-202 AD/CE)).

[Stuart]

I think the entire section from Adv Marc reads better without the reference to material from Justin. So why was it added? Look at how the section ends in chapter 9 (before the Justin material):

But if as in Adam we are all brought to death, and in Christ are all brought to life, since in Adam we are brought to death in the body it follows of necessity that in Christ we are brought to life in the body. Otherwise the parallel does not hold, if our bringing to life in Christ does not take effect in the same substance in which we are brought to death in Adam. But he has added here another reference to Christ, which for the sake of the present discussion must not be overlooked: for there will be even more cogent proof of the resurrection of the flesh, the more I show that Christ belongs to that God in whose presence the resurrection of the flesh is an object of belief.

and then continues after the Justin material in chapter 10:

For after the defence of the resurrection, which was under denial, his next step was to discuss those attributes of the body, which were not open to view. But concerning these we have to join issue with other opponents: for since Marcion entirely refuses to admit the resurrection of the flesh, promising salvation to the soul alone, he makes this a question not of attributes but of substance. For all that, he is most evidently discredited by the things the apostle says with reference to the attributes of the body for the benefit of those who do ask, How will the dead rise again, and with what body will they come ? For he has already declared that the body will rise again, by having discussed the body's attributes. Again if he proposes the examples
of the grain of wheat, or something of that sort, things to which God gives a body, as it shall please him, and if he says that to every seed there is its own particular body, as there is one kind of flesh of men, and another of beasts and birds, and bodies celestial and terrestrial, and one glory of the sun and another of the moon and another of the stars, does he not indicate that this is a carnal and corporeal resurrection, which he commends by carnal and corporeal examples? And is he not giving assurance of it on behalf of that God from whom come the examples he adduces? So also, he says, is the resurrection. How so? Like the grain of wheat, as a body it is sown, as a body it rises again. Thus he has described the dissolution of the body into earth as the sowing of a seed, because it is sown in corruption, <in dishonour, in weakness, but is raised to incorruption>, to honour, to power. The process followed at the resurrection is the act of that same <God> whose was the course taken at the dissolution—-just like the grain.

It's very puzzling why anyone would just plop in a discussion of Justin's regarding the Jewish interpretation of the Psalms into the middle of what is obviously a pre-existent discussion of the resurrection using passages of Paul against the Marcionites. But it happened. And I don't think we can use the argument that Paul's text of 1 Corinthians is the 'cause' of the difficulty in the strictest sense.

Either 1 Corinthians 15:25, 27 didn't appear in the text of 1 Corinthians originally or ...

Thanks, very interesting. You may well have identified an interpolation here. I had considerable problems with this section of AM when building my reproduction of the Marcionite 1 Corinthians (which I am currently reviewing for publishing the corpus).

I had long ago independently concluded that 1 Corinthians 15:23-24 and 15:27-28 were not present. In my original reproduction I left 15:26 in despite my own notes stating it was derived from 2 Timothy 1:10, and that clearly is post-Marcionite. That leaves only verse 15:25 and that cannot stand alone. So you are probably right about the interpolation into Tertullian here.

My notes also suggest that the entire passage was was added to 1 Corinthians to clarify that Christ would be subject to God the father, something never addressed by Marcion (e.g., every attested Marcionite passage suggests Christ had the power to raise himself from the dead, with no need of paternal assistance).

My notes also mention that the passage from Tertullian above seems to address issues surrounding the Arian debate. That would suggest an interpolation in the 4th century to Tertullian's text, still five hundred years before the first manuscript we have was written.

[Secret Alias]

MrMacson Unlikely given the weight of evidence. The simplest answer is before

[Secret Alias]

Stuart

Like a lot of the patchwork texts (Advance Haer

[Secret Alias]

Stuart

Like a lot of the patchwork texts (Adv Haer for example) the difficulty is why add the interpolation. My line of reasoning is a little different than yours. I am led to the conclusion (or at least working hypothesis) that we have two different treatises here. Treatise A is about matter or substance (a very anti-Marconite fixation ) as it pertains to the resurrection. It is interrupted by Treatise B which deals with the Jewish interpretation of the psalms. Why the ----- would you write a commentary on 1 Corinthians this way? Why fuse together two other texts that aren't actually commentaries on the text under scrutiny?

Because I am insane I can't help think that Treatise A has nothing to do with 1 Corinthians at all. That it existed in its original form before the 15th chapter of Corinthians was ever fabricated and it became in essence it's rough template. Why? Because something had to be done about 1 Corinthians 15:50 (however it was originally understood and contextualize within the Pauling corpus). Treatise A was treasured because it argued for a certain interpretation of the resurrection in a way that was "anti-Marcionite" and this treatise (or perhaps bits and pieces of this original treatise) made reference to that troublesome passage 1 Cor 15:50 became it's new home or literary context.

[MrMacSon]

MrMacson Unlikely given the weight of evidence. The simplest answer is before

before? = during Tertullian's time?

or perhaps both -ie. during Tertullian's time and after (?)

[MrMacSon]

.
Your hypothesis that Treatise A' existed before 1 Cor 15 is interesting -

... I am led to the conclusion (or at least working hypothesis) that we have two different treatises here. Treatise A is about matter or substance (a very anti-Marconite fixation ) as it pertains to the resurrection. It is interrupted by Treatise B which deals with the Jewish interpretation of the psalms. Why the ----- would you write a commentary on 1 Corinthians this way? Why fuse together two other texts that aren't actually commentaries on the text under scrutiny?

Because I am insane I can't help think that Treatise A has nothing to do with 1 Corinthians at all. That it existed in its original form before the 15th chapter of Corinthians was ever fabricated and it became in essence it's rough template. Why? Because something had to be done about 1 Corinthians 15:50 (however it was originally understood and contextualize within the Pauling corpus). Treatise A was treasured because it argued for a certain interpretation of the resurrection in a way that was "anti-Marcionite" and this treatise (or perhaps bits and pieces of this original treatise) made reference to that troublesome passage 1 Cor 15:50 became its new home or literary context.

• so became its new home or literary context?

[Secret Alias]

More for Stuart

The fact that the latter portions of 1 Corinthians 15 were appropriated from this antithetical argument (i.e. that Treatise A was it's original source ) by backwards inference made chapters 9 and 10 of Adversus Marcion appear to perfectly explain the chapter. The Marcionite "Apostolikon" didn't have a chapter 15 of a "first letter to the Corinthians. "

The only other solution I can come up with is that the latter portions of chapter 15 were the Marcionite antitheses. That idea came from Danny Mahar. But it doesn't explain how Treatise A was created or why 1 Corinthians 15:21 does not appear at all dualistic viz "man" (= Jesus) dies, "man" (= Jesus) is resurrected. But maybe these aren't serious objections

[Secret Alias]

Yes MrMacson. Take a close look (or buy) Pretty's De Recta in Deum Fide and see in the later portions Maximos's On Matter becomes seemlessly incorporated into the discussion. It happened. The same hybrid text became reshaped yet again by Methodius. Things were out of control back then. I wish I could find a parallel plagiarism tradition outside of the Patristic tradition

[Stuart]

And its worth reminding the readers here that the Galatians-first canon referenced in the report of Tertullian and Epiphanius and attributed (in directly in the older example and explicitly in Epiphanius) to the Marcionite community likely belonged to the author of the original report.

I put zero weight in ecclesiastical history, and their accounts of various fathers. It's all fiction. We have (as scholars) done a horrendous job at sorting and placing the texts in their correct eras. Eusubian history infects far too many accounts and timelines.

For mechanical reasons however the reports are probably correct about Galatians first. I like the saying the last shall be first to explain this. The original Marcionite/Heretical Pauline collection lacked Galatians. 1 Corinthians led it, to the extent it was a single bundled collection.Galatians I suggest was written after the 2nd Gospel appeared, which I believe was Matthew (Mark may have been just as early but it is not in view of Galatians and Church Fathers took some time before they mentioned it ... it was off in a cul-de-sac I guess). This is the perverted Gospel (I am writing a paper on that now) mentioned in Galatians. The tool of the proto-Orthodox ("Jewish") Christians who wished to replace the Spirit Christ with the Fleh Christ and return to the Law. The entire point of Galatians was to establish the authority of Paul which was now challenged. So of course it headed the collection as it was a defense of Paul, his authority, and the authority of the (Marcionite) Gospel. This was the last Marcionite Pauline Epistle, so it was first in their collection.

Romans was probably the last of the reworked Catholic collection, and it's original opening, which looked nearly identical to Ephesians (see Clabeaux's analysis of Ephesians with respect to Romans), was expanded to give the proto-Orthodox position on Paul and Christ, where Jesus is declared the son of David in the flesh, foretold by the OT Scriptures. This is the Catholic declaration of authority and it was placed first in the collection for the same reason Galatians was in the Marcionite. It should be noted the exact order seems to have been unsettled for some time as we find collections in varying order (there are at least two sub orders of the Catholic Pauline texts which occur frequently besides the Canonical order we have today)

Anyway that is the reason I accept that order with Galatians first in the Marcionite collection, not simply because some church fathers say so. The Latin prologues also help establish the Marcionite order for 10 letters.

And yes I agree the Patristic writings are a mess. Interpolated repeatedly over centuries, so that you are never 100% sure of whose work you are reading paragraph to paragraph.