Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

"Irenaeus contemplated (iii. 12) a separate treatise against Marcion. There is no direct evidence of his having carried out this design, but as its proposed method is stated to have been the confutation of Marcion by means of his own gospel, and as this is precisely the method followed by Tertullian, who is elsewhere largely indebted to Irenaeus, the work of Irenaeus may have been then written and known to Tertullian." https://books.google.com/books?id=hm_YA ... an&f=false

Argument 2. 2 Cor 4.4 'unbelievers of the world' is common to both texts

Marcion was catching at this when he read, In whom the god of this age,2 so that by pointing to the Creator as the god of this age he might suggest
the idea of a different god of a different age. I however affirm that it must be punctuated like this: In whom God; and then, Hath blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age: In whom, meaning the unbelieving Jews, in whom was covered up—among some is still covered up—the gospel beneath Moses' veil. [Adv Marc 5.2]

2 On 'the god of this world', compare a similar argument at IV. 38. 5-8, and below, V. 17. 7-9. Tertullian's first suggestion (taken over from Irenaeus, A.H. iii. vii. 1) that the correct phrasing is 'the unbelievers of this world', cannot stand: the Greek will not allow it. His 'simpler answer' is preferable.

Irenaeus: As to their affirming that Paul said plainly in the Second [Epistle] to the Corinthians, "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not," and maintaining that there is indeed one god of this world, but another who is beyond all principality, and beginning, and power, we are not to blame if they, who give out that they do themselves know mysteries beyond God, know not how to read Paul. For if any one read the passage thus--according to Paul's custom, as I show elsewhere, and by many examples, that he uses transposition of words --"In whom God," then pointing it off, and making a slight interval, and at the same time read also the rest [of the sentence] in one [clause], "hath blinded the minds of them of this world that believe not," he shall find out the true [sense]; that it is contained in the expression, "God hath blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world." And this is shown by means of the little interval [between the clause]. For Paul does not say, "the God of this world," as if recognising any other beyond Him; but he confessed God as indeed God. And he says, "the unbelievers of this world," because they shall not inherit the future age of incorruption. I shall show from Paul himself, how it is that God has blinded the minds of them that believe not, in the course of this work, that we may not just at present distract our mind from the matter in hand, [by wandering] at large. [Irenaeus 3.7.1]

https://books.google.com/books?id=dXlhB ... ld&f=false

Argument 3 both cite the same variant citation of Galatians 2:5 in Tertullian and Irenaeus (= 'we DID submit to them for a while for the sake of the gospel")

Adv Marc 5.3.2 and Irenaeus 3.13.3

Argument 4 Irenaeus's unique citations of 1 John 4:2,3:


These are they against whom the Lord has cautioned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his Epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Take heed to them, that ye lose not what ye have wrought.” And again does he say in the Epistle: “Many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is not of God, but is of antichrist.” These words agree with what was said in the Gospel, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” [Irenaeus Against Heresies 3.14.8]

which is shared by Tertullian:

According indeed to our view, he is Antichrist; as it is taught us in both the ancient and the new prophecies, and especially by the Apostle John, who says that “already many false prophets are gone out into the world,” the fore-runners of Antichrist, who deny that Christ is come in the flesh and separate Jesus (solventes Jesum) [Tertullian Against Marcion 5.16]

Argument 5 Mary - Eve continuum

“the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.”

But Irenaeus wasn’t the only Father to point this out. Nor was he even the first. Twenty years earlier, in about 160 A.D., St. Justin Martyr wrote:


St. Justin Martyr
For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’ And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.

So add that to the list of parallels between the Fall and the Redemption. Eve was visited by a fallen angel who enticed her to disobedience from God. Mary was visited by an angel, and responded with total obedience. Note also the distinction Justin draws between “virgin” and “undefiled.” That is, Eve was both a virgin and freed from all sin, original and actual, prior to the Fall.
Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220 A.D.) also picks up on this theme, a few decades after Irenaeus:

Tertullian
For it was while Eve was yet a virgin, that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death. Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events conceived; for the devil’s word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast, and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil; while Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was one day to secure salvation to Israel, His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself. God therefore sent down into the virgin’s womb His Word, as the good Brother, who should blot out the memory of the evil brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man, in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:57 am Argument 5 Mary - Eve continuum

Tertullian
For it was while Eve was yet a virgin, that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death. Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events conceived; for the devil’s word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast, and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil; while Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was one day to secure salvation to Israel, His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself. God therefore sent down into the virgin’s womb His Word, as the good Brother, who should blot out the memory of the evil brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man, in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation.

Sounds sort weird.
(Gen)3:20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Crazy. Not birds flying out of toasters but crazy. Here's some more.

Although he draws on Irenaeus for much of his information about Marcion, Tertullian provides us with a fuller treatment, devoting the entirety of five books to him and his followers. [Tyson, p 29]

Tertullian used Irenaeus for the Adversus Marcionem and for Adversus Valentinianos.[Gamble p. 292]

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:45 amIs George Salmon the Closest We Get In Terms of a Scholar Acknowledging Adv Marc Goes Back to Irenaeus?

"Irenaeus contemplated (iii. 12) a separate treatise against Marcion. There is no direct evidence of his having carried out this design, but as its proposed method is stated to have been the confutation of Marcion by means of his own gospel, and as this is precisely the method followed by Tertullian, who is elsewhere largely indebted to Irenaeus, the work of Irenaeus may have been then written and known to Tertullian." https://books.google.com/books?id=hm_YA ... an&f=false

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:53 amHere's some more.

Although he draws on Irenaeus for much of his information about Marcion, Tertullian provides us with a fuller treatment, devoting the entirety of five books to him and his followers. [Tyson, p 29]

Tertullian used Irenaeus for the Adversus Marcionem and for Adversus Valentinianos.[Gamble p. 292]

Yes, I was wondering about your title; I had not thought the position to be so very rare. How many scholars have actually gone on record against the idea that Tertullian relied upon Irenaeus' lost treatise for Against Marcion? (Not a rhetorical question; I do not know the answer.)

The thing is that let's suppose there are 250 rabid Jesus mythicists in the world who will do anything to uphold what is essentially little more than a negation of Jesus historicity, there are like 25 rabid Marcionophiles in the world who attack anything that dilutes any other position than (a) Tertullian was an excellent source who (b) had before him the Marcionite canon and provided us with absolutely accurate information about the canon. You wouldn't believe the number of people who get angry at even the suggestion that Tertullian derived most of his information from Irenaeus. I think it is a perfectly tenable position to suggest that our Against Marcion is Justin's Against Marcion altered by Irenaeus (to make it Luke friendly) and then translated loosely into Latin by Tertullian. But of course this idea has been swimming in my head for so long I no longer have complete objectivity any more.

This will be the paper of my life, my life's achievement. I think there is something to the specific context of the Marcionite 'antitheses' which means that the original author took aim at Matthew chapter 5:17 to the end or an equivalent which appears in the Marcionite canon. But the first step in writing this paper is to indeed question to what degree previous generations of scholarship had acknowledged Tertullian relied upon Irenaeus.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:53 am
... I think it is a perfectly tenable position to suggest that our 'Against Marcion' is Justin's 'Against Marcion' altered by Irenaeus (to make it Luke friendly) and then translated loosely into Latin by Tertullian ...

... I think there is something to the specific context of the Marcionite 'antitheses' which means that the original author took aim at Matthew chapter 5:17 to the end or an equivalent which appears in the Marcionite canon. But the first step in writing this paper is to indeed question to what degree previous generations of scholarship had acknowledged Tertullian relied upon Irenaeus.

One thing I wonder about is: was there are one definitive work by one of these characters? Perhaps Justin, maybe more likely Irenaeus, or even an as yet unknown person, and later redactors have 'put words in other's mouths' inadvertently; or deliberately, to give the allusion of a trail; and perhaps Tertullian was one such person. The other thing I find intriguing is we have in these three characters - Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, & Tertullian - a vast spatial spread, with Martyr possibly in Rome or possibly further east, Irenaeus supposedly in what is now Gaul in France (though it is remotely possible he was in Galatia in Asia Minor), and Tertuallian in Carthage in what is now Tunisia. I wonder about deliberate spatial deployment of these characters to negate the lack of a clear sequential chronological tradition in 'the church' in what one would expect to be one location.