Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Giuseppe wrote:Ok, but after I read a quote from Tertullian:

This interpretation of ours will derive confirmation, when, on your supposing that Christ is in any passage called a warrior, from the mention of certain arms and expressions of that sort, you weigh well the analogy of their other meanings, and draw your conclusions accordingly. "Gird on Thy sword," says David, "upon Thy thigh" ... He conquered death by His resurrection ... Thus is the Creator's Christ mighty in war, and a bearer of arms; thus also does He now take the spoils, not of Samaria alone, but of all nations. Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have learned that His arms are allegorical. Since, therefore, both the Lord speaks and His apostle writes such things in a figurative style, we are not rash in using His interpretations, the records of which even our adversaries admit; and thus in so far will it be Isaiah's Christ who has come, in as far as He was not a warrior, because it is not of such a character that He is described by Isaiah.

(my bold)


And then Secret quotes Josephus:

Since I have developed the understanding that the Passion and the attack on the Samaritan messiah at the end of Pilate’s reign were one and the same historical event, it is important to note how the latter figure also claims to have “found the vessels” expected of the Samaritan messiah. In Josephus’ account we read that this figure wanted them to:

go in a body with him to Mount Gerizim, which in their belief is the most sacred of mountains. He assured them that on their arrival he would show them the sacred vessels which were buried there, where Moses had deposited them. His hearers, viewing this tale as plausible, appeared in arms … and, as they planned to climb the mountain in a great multitude, they welcomed to their ranks the new arrivals who kept coming. But before they could ascend, Pilate blocked their projected route up the mountain with a detachment of cavalry and heavily armed infantry, who in an encounter with the first comers in the village slew some in a pitched battle and put the others to flight.

(my bold)

David, can you explain differently from Secret Alias the Tertullian's reference to a literalist marcionite reading of a Christ's feature as ''man of war'', in a context where ''Samaria'' is mentioned ?

Thank you if you can do a similar thing. Now I am very curious...

3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

For the first step is to look at the demonstration of His age, to see whether the age there indicated can possibly exhibit the Christ as already a man, not to say a general. Forsooth, by His babyish cry the infant would summon men to arms, and would give the signal of war not with clarion, but with rattle, and point out the foe, not from His charger's back or from a rampart, but from the back or neck of His suckler and nurse, and thus subdue Damascus and Samaria in place of the breast. [6] (It is another matter if, among you, infants rush out into battle,--oiled first, I suppose, to dry in the sun, and then armed with satchels and rationed on butter,--who are to know how to lance sooner than how to lacerate the bosom!)133 Certainly, if nature nowhere allows this,--(namely, ) to serve as a soldier before developing into manhood, to take "the power of Damascus" before knowing your father,--it follows that the pronouncement is visibly figurative.

MEG. Daniel says, "I saw, and behold, a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the image and made it like a cloud of dust, and it was blown away by the wind" The stone was the Kingdom of God, appearing in glory, and the statue was the kingdom on earth. It is proven, then, through the Law and the Prophets, that Christ has not yet come, for if He had there would not be another kingdom on earth as Daniel declared. That all the kingdoms do exist shows that the Christ announced through the Law has not yet arrived.

For when Daniel speaks of 'one like unto the Son of man' who received the everlasting kingdom, does he not hint at this very thing? For he declares that, in saying 'like unto the Son of man,' He appeared, and was man, but not of human seed. And the same thing he proclaimed in mystery when he speaks of this stone which was cut out without hands. For the expression 'it was cut out without hands' signified that it is not a work of man, but[a work] of the will of the Father and God of all things, who brought Him forth. And when Isaiah says, 'Who shall declare His generation?' he meant that His descent could not be declared.

Daniel also says particularly, that the end of the fourth kingdom consists in the toes of the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, upon which came the stone cut out without hands; and as he does himself say: "The feet were indeed the one part iron, the other part clay, until the stone was cut out without hands, and struck the image upon the iron and clay feet, and dashed them into pieces, even to the end." Then afterwards, when interpreting this, he says: "And as thou sawest the feet and the toes, partly indeed of clay, and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, and there shall be in it a root of iron, as thou sawest iron mixed with baked clay. And the toes were indeed the one part iron, but the other part clay." The ten toes, therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the kingdom shall be partitioned, of whom some indeed shall be strong and active, or energetic; others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and shall not agree; as also Daniel says: "Some part of the kingdom shall be strong, and part shall be broken from it. As thou sawest the iron mixed with the baked clay, there shall be minglings among the human race, but no cohesion one with the other, just as iron cannot be welded on to pottery ware." And since an end shall take place, he says: "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven raise up a kingdom which shall never decay, and His kingdom shall not be left to another people. It shall break in pieces and shatter all kingdoms, and shall itself be exalted for ever. As thou sawest that the stone was cut without hands from the mountain, and brake in pieces the baked clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, God has pointed out to the king what shall come to pass after these things; and the dream is true, and the interpretation trustworthy."

2. If therefore the great God showed future things by Daniel, and confirmed them by His Son; and if Christ is the stone which is cut out without hands, who shall destroy temporal kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one, which is the resurrection of the just; as he declares, "The God of heaven shall raise up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed,"-let those thus confuted come to their senses, who reject the Creator (Demiurgum), and do not agree that the prophets were sent beforehand from the same Father from whom also the Lord came, but who assert that prophecies originated from diverse powers. For those things which have been predicted by the Creator alike through all the prophets has Christ fulfilled in the end, ministering to His Father's will, and completing His dispensations with regard to the human race. Let those persons, therefore, who blaspheme the Creator, either by openly expressed words, such as the disciples of Marcion, or by a perversion of the sense [of Scripture], as those of Valentinus and all the Gnostics falsely so called, be recognised as agents of Satan by all those who worship God; through whose agency Satan now, and not before, has been seen to speak against God, even Him who has prepared eternal fire for every kind of apostasy.

Secret Alias wrote:Let's look at Megethius the Marcionite's positive citation of Daniel 2.34 - 35 and see what it means:

MEG. Daniel says, "I saw, and behold, a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the image and made it like a cloud of dust, and it was blown away by the wind" The stone was the Kingdom of God, appearing in glory, and the statue was the kingdom on earth. It is proven, then, through the Law and the Prophets, that Christ has not yet come, for if He had there would not be another kingdom on earth as Daniel declared. That all the kingdoms do exist shows that the Christ announced through the Law has not yet arrived.

On the surface it appears to have two disjointed statements. The first is that Daniel 2.34 - 35 meant 'the kingdom of God appearing in glory' destroys the earthly kingdoms. The next is that since the kingdoms have not been utterly destroyed this Christ must be yet to come.

Secret Alias wrote: Of course when you really think of it Irenaeus's interpretation has the same difficulties as the objections raised by the Marcionites. For how can Christ be understood to have 'come' when the Roman Empire is still (or was still) standing at the time of Irenaeus's writing these words. Very odd.

Secret Alias wrote:The key is to think about the implication of SOMEONE ELSE'S POV especially ancient sources who had access to texts, information and knowledge which we no longer possess rather than just seeing things in terms of 'agreeing/disagreeing' with your agenda. It is curious that there is a nexus of interpretations which reinforce an understanding at odds with reality. Why would Justin, Irenaeus and likely Marcion all interpret the 'lithos' in Daniel with the Christ when - in the context of Daniel - Christ only comes with the end of the secular kingdom?