Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The claim that Jerome had access to Marcion's writings:

S. Jerome, who had access to Marcion's commentaries on S. Paul, says distinctly that Marcion himself rejected it in his comment on Gal. vi 6, which goes to prove that Marcion found it already in existence. https://books.google.com/books?id=xTpKA ... 22&f=false

Vinzent claims "In Rome, Tertullian would have had direct access to Marcion's works" https://books.google.com/books?id=RffZU ... 22&f=false

While Lieu and others argue Tertullian did not have access to Marcion's canon at the early stages of Adversus Haereses:

Early in his work Tertullian had stated his intention of arguing from the Scriptures that Marcion used, although there is little evidence that at that stage he had had the opportunity to study them closely (AM I. 29.9). By the time he came to fulfil this plan he had already laid out in Books I to III the main framework and most of the detail of his interpretation of Marcion and of his refutation of him. Hence, in setting out his account of Marcion's scriptural texts Tertullian is clear as to the issue: 'I say my Gospel is true, Marcion his; I affirm Marcion's is corrupted (adulteratus), Marcion mine.'

Again the argument seems to be that both Tertullian and Epiphanius started out writing treatises or things against Marcion and his gospel and both only came to acquire the Marcionite canon later.

Secret Alias wrote:But Epiphanius explicitly says that he has the gospel in front of him; Tertullian does not.

So, I've been trying to follow this, but I'm not sure whether you are arguing that Tertullian & Epiphanius *did* or *did not* have a copy of Marcion's Gospel.

I would like to think that Epiphanius had a copy of the Antitheses available, which for him as good as laid out the key points of Marcion's Gospel. He thinks, of course, that his own treatise completely refutes his arguments in the Antitheses.

I suspect, tho', that Epiphanius had skewed his collection, or at least his presentation, of those key points of Marcion's Gospel in order to serve his own purposes, so there could well have been other points that would have been just as "key" if viewed by an impartial observer, that he leaves out.

Now I've said this before, but I am not sure whether M. ever wrote his own Gospel, or even his own 10 epistle Pauline canon. There was just his commentary, the Antitheses, with T. & E. making mountains out of a molehill (the commentary), artificially and carefully crafted for him a Gospel and a Pauline collection, essentially straw dogs set up to be knocked down.

DCH

DCH

Perhaps my methodology is different than people at the forum. I tend to throw ideas out there which - admittedly - start with my observations about a given topic. But then - often as a result of a lack of participation from other members of the forum - I try out how closely I can find academics to agree with the whole or part of what I suspect is true. Hence the citation of the various authors. The question is how close can I get someone to say what I want to say.

On the surface the case is much stronger for Epiphanius having the canon of Marcion in his possession just because the syntagma is arranged in such a way that it LOOKS like the report of someone who has gone through and listed all the readings from the gospel sitting in front of him. But Epiphanius is a liar and worse yet is stupid. He misunderstands Tertullian (or Irenaeus) in many key places (see other thread) and the frequency of citations which don't appear to be Lukan variants at all makes it pretty certain he simply got one of his lackeys to round up a bunch of 'strange readings' alleged in various anti-Marcionite reports. Tertullian is a different kettle of fish but again he didn't have access to the Marcionite canon. Just an old treatise of Justin which was 'jazzed up' by Irenaeus.

to Secret Alias,
About the title of your OP: Tertullian & Epiphanius Did Not Possess Marcion's Canon, I read that in Epiphanius' Panarion, book 1, section 42 (starting page 294) http://www.jacksonsnyder.com/yah/manusc ... alamis.pdf:
Pages 302-303

9,1 But I shall come to his writings, or rather, to his tamperings. This
man has only Luke as a Gospel, mutilated at the beginning because of the
Savior’s conception and his incarnation.
(2) But this person who harmed
himself < rather > than the Gospel did not cut just the beginning off. He
also cut off many words of the truth both at the end and in the middle,
and he has added other things besides, beyond what had been written. And
he uses only this (Gospel) canon, the Gospel according to Luke.
9,3 He also possesses ten Epistles of the holy apostle, the only ones he
uses, but not all that is written in them. He deletes some parts of them, and
has altered certain sections. He uses these two volumes (of the Bible) but
has composed other treatises himself for the persons he has deceived.
9,4 Here are what he calls Epistles: 1. Galatians. 2. Corinthians. 3. Sec-
ond Corinthians. 4. Romans. 5. Thessalonians. 6. Second Thessalonians.
7. Ephesians. 8. Colossians. 9. Philemon. 10. Philippians. He also has parts
of the so-called Epistle to the Laodiceans.
9,5 From the very canon that he retains, of the Gospel and the Pauline
Epistles I can show with God’s help that Marcion is a fraud and in error,
and can refute him very effectively. (6) For he will be refuted from the very
works which he acknowledges without dispute.

(2) Some years ago, to find what falsehood this Marcion had invented and what
his silly teaching was, I took up his very books which he had < mutilated >,
his so-called Gospel and Apostolic Canon. From these two books I made
a series of < extracts > and selections of the material which would serve
to refute him, and I wrote a sort of outline for a treatise, arranging the points in order, and numbering each saying one, two, three (and so on).
(3) And in this way I went through all of the passages in which it is apparent that, foolishly, he still retains against himself these leftover sayings of the Savior and the apostle.
10,4 For some of them had been falsely entered by himself, in an
altered form and unlike the authentic copy of the Gospel and the meaning
of the apostolic canon. (5) But others were exactly like both the Gospel
and Apostle, unchanged by Marcion but capable of completely demolish-
ing him.

How can it be said that Epiphanius did not possess Marcion's Canon, at least for a time?

Cordially, Bernard

I have repeatedly noted in my posts that Epiphanius says this.

Summary of Ehrman's argument that Epiphanius was dishonest about the Borborites - http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2013 ... ome-notes/ Dunn says that "Epiphanius was unreliable" https://books.google.com/books?id=CmauC ... gQ6AEIIzAA Zahn thought Epiphanius was unreliable https://books.google.com/books?id=vhkRA ... gQ6AEILzAC Westminster Handbook on Origen describes Epiphanius as 'highly unreliable' https://books.google.com/books?id=riEdr ... gQ6AEINDAD Strett Epiphanius was 'notoriously unreliable' https://books.google.com/books?id=A2XN2 ... gQ6AEIQjAG Conybeare Epiphanius too unreliable to trust about the existence of the Nazorai https://books.google.com/books?id=8lQwA ... gQ6AEISDAH Epiphanius too "biased and unreliable" for reliable information about the Elchasites https://books.google.com/books?id=w6GvD ... hDoAQgoMAE Joan Taylor Epiphanius "give unreliable evidence for population groups in third-century Diocaesarea and Tiberias" https://books.google.com/books?id=KWAXb ... hDoAQgyMAM Stern: "Epiphanius' unreliability in historical and chronological matters is, in any case, notorious." https://books.google.com/books?id=XsoTD ... hDoAQhMMAg "Epiphanius is notoriously unreliable as an historian is in itself sufficient to treat this text with extreme caution" https://books.google.com/books?id=eSUvA ... BDoAQgnMAE Epiphanius is "now notorious for his unreliability" https://books.google.com/books?id=dE1WG ... 4Q6AEISDAG "Epiphanius is unreliable when he can be checked in his account of other heresies (e.g., F. L. Horton, The Melchixedek Tradition: a Critical Examination of the Sources to the 5th century A.D. [Cambridge, 1976], Chap. 4)." https://books.google.com/books?id=YHkMA ... wQ6AEIKTAA Epiphanius's " inaccuracy as a writer is proverbial" https://books.google.com/books?id=EoA9A ... hDoAQguMAI " Robinson cites Epiphanius the Unreliable and Confused as a witness to John's being banished under Claudius." https://books.google.com/books?id=V9MzA ... BDoAQhLMAg Clabeaux "the testimony of Dial. Adam, is to be accepted over the testimony of Epiphanius" https://books.google.com/books?id=dHQRA ... BDoAQgiMAA "Recent investigators have concluded that Epiphamus has made a mistake in his chronological indication ... If Epiphanius means anything at all .. [h]e has in my opinion quite gratuitously added to his statement other items derived from an unreliable memory, and inserted them in this passage without regard to chronological fitness ... But for all his ineptitudes Epiphanius seems to have had at his disposal a reliable source,' and it is a question whether we have the right entirely to ignore his statements. Nevertheless the manifest absurdities of the notice under consideration have led most modern investigators, with the important exception of ... to regard the passage as unusable." https://books.google.com/books?id=Fq01A ... BDoAQgqMAI Plooij: "Epiphanius ought to be the last witness we should trust uncontrolled, especially in his testimonies on heretics and heretical writings. He combines all kinds of notices, rumours, and calumnies into abracadabra often completely incomprehensible." https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... 4k8ekV0D0g Volkmar: "the evidence of Tertullian and Epiphanius is not to be relied upon" https://books.google.com/books?id=72YyA ... hy&f=false Swete: Epiphanius is "narrow-minded and untrustworthy; prejudice, temper, and an unhappy inability to recognise the responsibilities of authorship, deduct largely from the value of the services which he has rendered to learning" https://books.google.com/books?id=IPsko ... sQ6AEIIzAA “No patristic source is filled with more invective and distortion,” Bart Ehrman recently wrote, in arguing that one of the most famous incidents in the Panarion (Panarion 26, on the Phibionites) was invented out of whole cloth. "Epiphanius frequently makes connections between historical events that we otherwise know are unrelated, and he expressly claims to write horrific accounts precisely in order to repulse his readers from the heresies he describes" https://books.google.com/books?id=-pTy8 ... YQ6AEIJzAA " the name Iessaioi is unique to Epiphanius. It is never a variorum reading for Essaioi and must be considered pure invention" https://books.google.com/books?id=vh84A ... oQ6AEIIzAA Lardner: the story of Marcion raping a woman "it was the invention of Epiphanius" https://books.google.com/books?id=Kmo_A ... us&f=false "It would appear, for example, that Epiphanius invented whole cloth groups that never existed, such as the Stratiotics and Socratites. Not only are these groups mentioned nowhere else in ancient literature, but his presentation of eighty heresies to match the profligacy of Solomon's concubines suggests creative hermeneutics rather than careful sociological description." https://books.google.com/books?id=P9lwX ... hDoAQgiMAA " On these grounds I would propose that Epiphanius made up the account of the Greater Questions of Mary." "But it appears that Epiphanius made up his accounts of the lascivious Phibionites, possibly creating bizarre ritual activities based on what he knew of their theological beliefs." https://books.google.com/books?id=-pTy8 ... AQ6AEIKTAB "This is what Epiphanius says, but anyone can see that it cannot be accepted without the greatest hesitation, and is largely made up of idle Jewish and Christian fictions." https://books.google.com/books?id=Q7osA ... cQ6AEIIzAA On Epiphanius reporting seeing a book of the Ebionites "whereas Epiphanius seems to me to understand the word figuratively, as it were steps in teaching, instructions: but it is not at all clear that he had ever seen the book himself, so that he may easily have misunderstood the title. Now it is likely enough that its contents were either largely or wholly fictitious." https://books.google.com/books?id=8-pCv ... MQ6AEIJzAA "This letter implies a belief on the part of St Epiphanius that Palladius was in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem at the time he wrote ... it seems impossible to remove the difficulty created by the statement in Epiphanius' letter ... Another possibility has to be borne in mind, namely that St Epiphanius may have been misinformed as to Palladius' presence in Jerusalem in 393-4. Such mistakes do occur in letters in every age" https://books.google.com/books?id=0qMMA ... 0Q6AEIJzAA On the details of the recent Creed of Seleucia "Epiphanius is either misinformed, or tendentious, at this point." https://books.google.com/books?id=brxgN ... ed&f=false Shaye Cohen "Epiphanius, that learned purveyor of information and misinformation" https://books.google.com/books?id=mmj4R ... ed&f=false "The most hostile description comes from the pen of Epiphanius, who appears to have had least contact with the sect and who had the liveliest interest in condemning it as a dangerous heresy. We might reasonably suspect him of malice ..." https://books.google.com/books?id=S3QV8 ... EQ6AEIJzAA "Here Epiphanius hopelessly mixes up the two distinct occasions into one narrative" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... VqPgNUFtow , Zahn "Epiphanius' notorious inaptness in all matters requiring discrimination" https://books.google.com/books?id=9JgNA ... 8Q6AEIKzAB fee: "Epiphanius' work is 'notoriously slovenly,'" https://books.google.com/books?id=fyjRw ... 22&f=false Ehrman: "Osburn (”The Text of 1 Corinthians 10:9,” 203-05) has effectively discounted Epiphanius's claim that the text was corrupted by Marcion" https://books.google.com/books?id=xwkUt ... 22&f=false Schmidtke holds that Epiphanius shows a “completely uncritical arbitrariness in the utilization of previously known material,” and detects several incongruencies. https://books.google.com/books?id=fyjRw ... YQ6AEIJzAA "According to Jerome,79 Epiphanius' works were “eagerly read by the learned on account of their subject matter, and also by the plain people on account of their language.”80 Holl81 observes Epiphanius' language to be an “elevated Koine.Of his works, Quasten82 notes, “Their style is careless, verbose and according to Photius (Bibl. cod. 122) 'like that of one who is unfamiliar with Attic elegance.'” This is not surprising, in that Epiphanius was suspicious of all Hellenistic learning" https://books.google.com/books?id=fyjRw ... wQ6AEIJzAA "Epiphanius is notorious for his tendency to transfer heretical theologoumena from sect to sect; this one he has obviously taken from his tract on the Ebionites." https://books.google.com/books?id=0xAQA ... wQ6AEIIzAA "Epiphanius' lack of critical care in citing scripture is well known" https://books.google.com/books?id=fyjRw ... 0Q6AEIJzAA " his inaccuracy as a writer is proverbial." https://books.google.com/books?id=49ZUu ... BDoAQgmMAA Lardner: "What Epiphanius says of the Gnostics is not true." https://books.google.com/books?id=DSUyA ... sQ6AEIJzAA "Usually regarded as the most unscrupulous of heresiologists, Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 310/320–ca. 405 CE) piledrove his antiheretical message into the Panarion," https://books.google.com/books?id=2nRiC ... wQ6AEIIzAA "An opening had been provided for unscrupulous men such as Epiphanius to exploit to the confusion and upset of all. " https://books.google.com/books?id=vG8jC ... wQ6AEINjAD "the account of its [marking in the Hexapla] use given by Epiphanius, is evidently erroneous." https://books.google.com/books?id=iepOA ... us&f=false Epiphanius's "description of the person of [Arius] the Alexandrian heretic may be pronounced a bold caricature, or an unscrupulous fiction.' https://books.google.com/books?id=J4g3A ... us&f=false "Epiphanius's information on the Cyrenaics [contains] characteristic distortions." https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&h ... distortion Clabeaux "It is apparent from the outset that Epiphanius's treatment of the Marcionite Bible is very different from that of Tertullian." https://books.google.com/books?id=dHQRA ... cQ6AEIJTAA "The writings of Epiphanius are valued for their preservation of historical material from sources now lost in the original. On the other hand, the works of Epiphanius are widely criticised for being superficial, verbose, and often inaccurate" https://books.google.com/books?id=GU8gA ... wQ6AEILDAC Epiphanius writes “in his old age, when he had spent ninety years of life, after his return from Patmos, which took place in the reign of the Emperor Claudius.” How Epiphanius was led into his mistake, whether by that general inaccuracy and want of critical acumen for which he is noted, or by some misapprehension connected with the words of Acts 18:2, it is impossible to say; but that there is error either on his part or on the part of those who copied him there can be hardly a moment’s doubt. https://books.google.com/books?id=cvAOA ... wQ6AEINzAE "inaccuracy not uncommon with him" https://books.google.com/books?id=jIsoA ... wQ6AEIQzAG "Epiphanius is notorious for his inaccuracies" https://books.google.com/books?id=67aA7 ... hDoAQhSMAk Mosheim on the Panarion "it is full of inaccuracies and errors and discovers almost on every page the ignorance of its author." https://books.google.com/books?id=7xFAA ... cy&f=false "A large part of Epiphanius' writing is based on his memory and on rumor. This explains his constant inaccuracy, particularly in chronology. His denunciations are the weakest feature of his work, largely because he had absolutely no sense of history." https://books.google.com/books?id=xu8kA ... hDoAQhTMAk "The value of his statements, however, is materially diminished by his extraordinary inaccuracy, which makes it necessary to use the greatest caution and, wherever possible, to test every statement he makes before relying upon it" http://gemology.se/gill-library/gemjewe ... s_1934.pdf "the polemic that Epiphanius directed against those Christians he considered heretical, [is] recognized within scholarship as largely hyperbole if not outright fiction" https://books.google.com/books?id=5Rx0o ... us&f=false

to secret Alias,
Inaccuracy, bias, errors, suspected inventions are not something which is rare into historical or religious/historical writings during that period. More so when almost any secular historian in ancient times can be blamed for that. Furthermore in these days, it was difficult for any writers to have easy access to accurate data, more so, as in the case of Epiphanius, they had to cover a period of several centuries.
Despite all that, I do not see why his main comments on Marcionites' beliefs and Marcion's canon, and the fact he read Marcion's work, should be put in the trash can.

Cordially, Bernard