A Marcionite Reading of Zechariah 11:13
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:02 am
It was a stunning confirmation of scripture when Cyril read the Passion narrative and saw it went back to Zechariah:
But then he noticed a discrepancy in Matthew:Listen also for the thirty pieces of silver. And I will say to them, If it be good in your sight, give me my price, or refuse Zechariah 11:12, and the rest. One price is owing to Me from you for My healing the blind and lame, and I receive another; for thanksgiving, dishonour, and for worship, insult. Do you see how the Scripture foresaw these things? And they weighed for My price thirty pieces of silver. Ib How exact the prophecy! How great and unerring the wisdom of the Holy Ghost! For he said, not ten, nor twenty, but thirty, exactly as many as there were. Tell also what becomes of this price, O Prophet! Does he who received it keep it? Or does he give it back? And after he has given it back, what becomes of it? The Prophet says then, And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them into the house of the Lord, into the foundry. Compare the Gospel with the Prophecy: Judas, it says, repented himself, and cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed.
Yes Cyril has rightly noted that the LXX substitutes "furnace" for the original "potter" of the Hebrew. So the gospel account is developed from the Hebrew text of Zechariah where we read:11. But now I have to seek the exact solution of this seeming discrepancy. For they who make light of the prophets, allege that the Prophet says on the one hand, And I cast them into the house of the Lord, into the foundry, but the Gospel on the other hand, And they gave them for the potter's field. Hear then how they are both true. For those conscientious Jews forsooth, the high-priests of that time, when they saw that Judas repented and said, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood, reply, What is that to us, see thou to that. Is it then nothing to you, the crucifiers? But shall he who received and restored the price of murder see to it, and shall you the murderers not see to it? Then they say among themselves, It is not lawful to cast them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. Out of your own mouths is your condemnation; if the price is polluted, the deed is polluted also: but if you are fulfilling righteousness in crucifying Christ, why do you not receive the price of it? But the point of iniquity is this: how is there no disagreement, if the Gospel says, the potter's field, and the Prophet, the foundry? Nay, but not only people who are goldsmiths, or brass-founders, have a foundry, but potters also have foundries for their clay. For they sift off the fine and rich and useful earth from the gravel, and separate from it the mass of the refuse matter, and temper the clay first with water, that they may work it with ease into the forms intended. Why then do you wonder that the Gospel says plainly the potter's field, whereas the Prophet spoke his prophecy like an enigma, since prophecy is in many places enigmatical?
Of course Matthew's account of the money going to buy a potter's field is a (bad) attempt to reconcile the gospel text to Zechariah. But I wonder whether the Marcionites read Zechariah's 'potter' as the δημιουργός = "artisan" or "craftsman." Already Tertullian describes the Demiurge as a potter. I wonder whether Judas's act of giving 'thirty' to the Demiurge symbolically 'purchased' the Creator's 'goods'? This passage and Zechariah was key to understanding Marcionite redemption and Judas's role in it.Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations. It was revoked on that day, and so the oppressed of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the Lord. I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord. Then I broke my second staff called Union, breaking the family bond between Judah and Israel.