What Would a Patripassian Gospel Look Like?

[Secret Alias]

Well not exactly. For me it's always stuck in deciding what we know and what we don't know - like an impotent man who is stuck in foreplay. What do we know for sure or almost for sure. Like Oprah I will say, 'these things we know for sure (or almost for sure) about Marcion:

1. Marcion was somehow associated with 'two powers' In other words something about his tradition emphasized or made it appear that they were 'more into' stressed to a greater degree that there were two powers.
2. All of our surviving texts about Marcion emphasize that Marcion posited the existence of one power of justice and another power of mercy where the merciful God was superior to the just god. Philo does the exact same thing.
3. The two powers had to conform to Son and Father Otherwise he'd be associated with four powers (mercy, judgment, Son, Father). The fact that the Church Fathers become suddenly incredibly vague when it comes to whether Son was mercy or Father judgment tells you there is something significant here. When you map on top of this the 'unknown/known' god continuum - namely that the Marcionites like other heretics emphasized one of the two as 'unknown' to the Jews it becomes quite easy to solve the jigsaw puzzle. The Son is always known (at least the Church Fathers make it seem that way). The Son created the world (remember Irenaeus's bad translation of Genesis 1:1 as 'in the Son' the world was created). The Son is obviously understood to be the Creator by the orthodox so the Father must have been the unknown god which we hear confirmed in various other heretical groups. If the Father is unknown and the Son known then the problem of assigning 'mercy' and 'justice' became much easier. For the Father must have been mercy and the Creator is just. It would seem then that the orthodox made manifest that Jesus was the Son who came to reveal the Father to the world. This doesn't seem to explain how the Father wasn't unknown (given that the orthodox repeatedly claim that the Jews had only one god). Since Jesus was not the Creator for the Marcionites and seemed to have been also unknown to the Jewish prophets (none of the prophesies applied) it would be hard to argue that the Marcionites held him to be the Creator. Another wrinkle is that messianic prophesies are usually understood to apply to human beings, the messiah (Christ). Jesus was clearly not a mortal man of the flesh for the Marcionites. As such it would seem to stand to reason to me at least that Daniel 7:13 was understood to apply in the manner of the earliest Jewish exegeses - i.e. that 'the Son of Man' was a divinized human being and the 'Ancient of Days' was a divine being even God.

[davidbrainerd]

Your 3rd point "The two powers had to conform to Son and Father " is where it falls apart. The Father and Son together are identified as the second power by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and arguably even Justin, for all assert that Marcion's second god is the Father of Jesus and distinct from the creator.

[perseusomega9]

Couldn't that imply the orthodox (along with jews) were conflating El Elyon with Yahweh and perhaps the Marcionites kept them separate?

[Secret Alias]

The Father and Son together are identified as the second power by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and arguably even Justin, for all assert that Marcion's second god is the Father of Jesus and distinct from the creator

Absolute nonsense.

[Secret Alias]

Couldn't that imply the orthodox (along with jews) were conflating El Elyon with Yahweh and perhaps the Marcionites kept them separate

Yes I am certain that happened

[lsayre]

The Father and Son together are identified as the second power by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and arguably even Justin, for all assert that Marcion's second god is the Father of Jesus and distinct from the creator

Absolute nonsense.

Is not Marcion's "Good God" separate from the Creator?

[Secret Alias]

Yes it would seem that way

[Secret Alias]

Very few references to Jesus as the 'Son of God' in Book 4. By far the majority of references to him as a 'son' pertain to the 'Son of Man.' An example of some of the few references is found in chapter 20:

But of which god did the legion testify that Jesus is the son? Surely, of that God whose torments and abyss they already knew and feared. For it does not seem that they can still have been unaware of what the power of that new and unknown god was accomplishing on earth, since it is not at all likely that the Creator was unaware of it. For even if he had at one time been unaware of another god over above himself, now at least he had become aware of him in action beneath the Creator's own heaven: and what their Lord had become aware of must by now have become known to his whole body of servants in that same world and within that same circuit of heaven in which that extraneous divinity was engaged. In as much then as both the Creator and everything that was his, would have known of that extraneous divinity if it had existed, by so much, seeing it did not exist, the demons were aware of no other Christ than the Christ of their own God. They do not request of that other god that which they must have remembered they had to request of the Creator, to be excused the Creator's abyss. Thus they obtained their request. And how did they earn it? Was it because they had lied, because they had made him out the son of the cruel God? Yet who can this have been, who granted a boon to liars, and bore with his own traducers? No, it was because they had not h'ed, because they had known him for the God of the abyss, their own God, that in this way he gave assurance that he was he whom the demons had acknowledged him to be, Jesus the judge, the son of God the avenger. [Adv Marc 4.20]

So the demons think Jesus is the Son of God. That's true. But is it really likely that the gospel author would have the demons know an unknown God? Even stranger is the existence of Jews who spoke of a 'Son of God.'

[davidbrainerd]

Very few references to Jesus as the 'Son of God' in Book 4. By far the majority of references to him as a 'son' pertain to the 'Son of Man.'

Because Luke was edited by the orthodox to create this "the son of man." Again, "the son of man" does not even occur in Daniel. Its "one like unto a son of man." Out of all the NT books the only one that makes the correct Daniel reference is Revelation. Consequently (and for other reasons also, having to do with the resurrection in Daniel being general and not so in Luke etc.) its the only one I believe the reference was not added by later editing. Having to be "counted worthy of the resurrection" does not fit Daniel's resurrection of just and unjust. Author of original Luke never heard of a book of Daniel or rejected its canonicity.

[davidbrainerd]

So the demons think Jesus is the Son of God. That's true. But is it really likely that the gospel author would have the demons know an unknown God? Even stranger is the existence of Jews who spoke of a 'Son of God.'

Marcion took the OT literally and there are no demons in the OT. I think Tertullian is afraid to tell us that all demon posession stories are missing in Mcn because we might find Mcn more rational than Lk as a result.