Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I have to get my actual hard copy of De Recta in Deum Fide but there is a second follow up citation that I think cements the deal. Here is the original French translation of Eznik's De Deo (Maries and Merciers in Patrologia Orientalis Tome XXVIII Fascicule 3 p. 669):

Mais cette autre chose encore qu'ils disent est plus impie que tout, savoir "Quand vit le Bon, qui au troisième ciel siegéait, telle quantité d'âmes - les âmes de vingt-neuf générations! - en proie aux supplices dans la géhenne, ému de pitié pour elles, il envoya Jésus, son fils, pour aller prendre ressemblance d'esclave, et, sous forme humaine, se produire.[IV vii 375]

and my rough translation would be:

But this other thing they say is even more wicked than all the rest, ie "When the Good God, who sat in the third heaven, saw so many souls - the souls of twenty nine generations - saw them suffering torments in hell, he was moved with pity for them, it happened that he sent Jesus his son to go to resemblance of a slave, in human form.

The part that interests me of course is the identification on the part of the 'Marcionite' that Jesus died just before the year 6000 (29 x 20 = 5880).

And I guess if you really think about it 'generation' as a marker has a 1 - 20 year range so the 30th generation would be anything over 6000 and 29th everything upto 6000. The Marcionite understanding is increasingly resembling Origen's.

Secret Alias wrote: The part that interests me of course is the identification on the part of the 'Marcionite' that Jesus died just before the year 6000 (29 x 20 = 5880).

Still not sure where you're getting that though.

Secret Alias wrote:AD. When did he descend to save humankind?
MK. As it says in the Gospel: in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, at the time of Pilate
AD. He descended in the six thousandth year after the Creator God had fashioned man ... [De Recta in Deum Fide https://books.google.com/books?id=KI6Bu ... MQ6AEIIzAA]

I thought I would respond to this OP from your other thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3080 here because my response has more to do with this topic than that one.

Here it seems Origen identifies the year of either Jesus' birth or conception (his descent in orthodoxy) with the 6000th year. The Marcionite has Jesus descent (i.e. from heaven presumably to Capernaum) at a later time (as the footnote points out, under Tiberius rather than Augustus). So how do you get that the Marcionite has Jesus die before 6000? Notice that he has him descend after 6000 so how can he die before 6000 unless he dies before descending?

Eznik is a separate work. Still waiting to get home and dig up De Recta in Deum Fide. But it would seem that the Marcionites agreed with Origen.

"When the Good God, who sat in the third heaven, saw so many souls - the souls of twenty nine generations - saw them suffering torments in hell, he was moved with pity for them, it happened that he sent Jesus his son to go to resemblance of a slave, in human form."

Presumably he saw the situation in the 29th generation AND THEN immediately sent Jesus. Hard to read this and imagine he saw, went back to watching reruns of Happy Days, and then later decided to send Jesus.