Homeric Allusions in Against Marcion

[Secret Alias]

We know very little about the original author of Against Marcion. But there is a clue that he was an educated Greek speaker:

So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying with equal effort to the one side or the other (Funis ergo ducendus est contentionis, pari hinc inde nisu fluctuante). I say that mine is true: Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion's is falsified: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide between us? [4.2]

The allusion - which puzzled Erasmus (he says it is a Latin phrase he's never seen before except in one other place) - is also at the beginning of Against the Jews:

It happened very recently a dispute was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. Alternately with contentious cable they each spun out the day until evening (Alternis vicibus contentioso fune uterque diem in vesperam traxerunt)

The allusion is from Homer:

As Dawn prepared to spread her saffron mantle over the land, Zeus the Thunderer gathered the gods to the highest peak of many-ridged Olympus, and spoke to them while all listened: ‘Hear me, gods and goddesses, while I say what my heart prompts. Let none of you try to defy me: all must assent, so I may swiftly achieve my aim. Whomever I find inclined to help the Greeks or Trojans, shall suffer the lightning stroke and be sent back ignominiously to Olympus, or be seized and hurled into dark Tartarus, into the furthest, deepest gulf beneath the earth, with iron gates and threshold of bronze, as far below Hades as earth is from heaven. Then you will see how much mightier I am than you immortals. Go on: attempt it, and see. If you tied a chain of gold to the sky, and all of you, gods and goddesses, took hold, you could not drag Zeus the High Counsellor to earth with all your efforts. But if I determined to pull with a will, I could haul up land and sea then loop the chain round a peak of Olympus, and leave them dangling in space. By that much am I greater than gods and men.’

[Secret Alias]

Another allusion to Greek learning occurs in Irenaeus's Against Heresies where the mimicked author is Plutarch - https://books.google.com/books?id=CMt-D ... us&f=false

[Secret Alias]

I found another allusion in Tertullians On Purity:

It is not proper any longer, however, where there is question of scriptural authority, to pull alternately in opposite directions on a rope of contention such as this so that the latter texts seem to tighten the reins of discipline while the former loosen them as if it were something uncertain, the former prostituting the remedy of penance through leniency, the latter excluding it completely through severity.

The original Greek expression is "rope of great strife" (ὁμοιΐου πτολέμοιο πεῖραρ) or war:

So the two gripped the rope of war and tugged away over both armies with strong pulls, never breaking or loosing it while they loosed the knees of many a man (Illiad 13.358)

[Joseph D. L.]

I'm not a fan of MacDonald's theory about a Homeric origin for the Synoptics, but I do think it can apply easier to Marcion (his name and profession, for example, as well as his ability to fit in where ever he is like Odysseus). Maybe Tertullian thought so as well?

[MrMacSon]

I'm not a fan of MacDonald's theory about a Homeric origin for the Synoptics ...

MacDonald's theory is for the Homer epics as an influence, not as an origin.

[Joseph D. L.]

I'm not a fan of MacDonald's theory about a Homeric origin for the Synoptics ...

MacDonald's theory is for the Homer epics as an influence, not as an origin.

Yeah, I really got my words mixed up. That's on me. Sorry about that.

[Secret Alias]

What I think this is all about is figuring out the POV of the author. Is this an example of someone 'translating' a Greek idiom into Latin or is this evidence of translation of a text written in Greek into Latin? The word translated as 'rope' also means 'end' https://www.academia.edu/1709997/Lat_or ... rk._peirar

[Secret Alias]

Another one in Resurrection of the Flesh:

But once more, either we accept the soul's immortality, so that its perdition may be believed to issue not in destruction but in chastisement, which means hell----and if that is so, then salvation will have in view not the soul, it being of its own nature safe through immortality, but rather the flesh, which all agree is destructible----or else, if the soul also is destructible (that is, not immortal) as the flesh is, that standing rule that the Lord is to save that which is perishing will in equity have to apply to the flesh which is certainly mortal and destructible. I have no mind at present to play tug-of-war [contentioso fune] as to whether perdition lays claim to man on this side or on that, so long as on both sides salvation points his way, equally balanced towards both his substances. [34]

[Secret Alias]

Even on the one occasion Jerome uses the phrase he mentions Tertullian a few lines earlier - reinforcing that it was a Latin expression unique to Tertullian. I've double checked all the references in Tertullian. They are:

Against Marcion 4.4 - Funis ergo ducendus est contentionis, pari hinc inde nisu fluctuante. Ego meum dico verum, Marcion suum.
Against the Jews 1.1 - Proxime accidit: disputatio habita est Christiano et proselyto Iudaeo. Alternis vicibus contentioso fune uterque diem in vesperam traxerunt.
On Purity 2 - Sed non decet ultra de auctoritate scripturarum eiusmodi funem contentiosum alterno ductu in diuersa distendere, ut haec restringere frenos disciplinae, illa laxare uideantur, quasi incertae et paenitentiae subsidium illa prosternere per lenitatem, haec negare per austeritatem
Resurrection of the Flesh 34 - Nolo nunc contentioso fune deducere hac an illac hominem perditio depostulet, dum utrimque eum salus destinet in ambas substantias peraequata.

Given the uniqueness of the phrase - is it enough to conclude that the original material was written in Greek? Against Marcion 4 has clear signs it was written in Greek. For instance:

Praestruximus quidem adversus Antitheses nihil proficere proposito Marcionis quam putat diversitatem legis et evangelii, ut et hanc a creatore dispositam, denique praedicatam in repromissione novae legis et novi sermonis et novi testamenti. Sed quoniam attentius argumentatur apud illum suum nescio quem συνταλαίπωρον, id est commiseronem, et συμμισουμενον, id est coodibilem, in leprosi purgationem, non pigebit ei occurrere et inprimis figuratae legis vim ostendere, quae in exemplo leprosi non contingendi, immo ab omni commercio submovendi, communicationem prohibebat hominis delictis commaculati, cum qualibus et apostolus cibum quoque vetat sumere; participari enim stigmata delictorum, quasi ex contagione, si qui se cum peccatore miscuerit. [4.9]

It shows up later in the same treatise without reference to the Greek original:

Age, Marcion, omnesque iam commiserones et coodibiles eius haeretici, quid audebitis dicere? [4.36]

Yet let's take up the question as to whether the phrase comes from Marcion or the original Greek author of Against Marcion 4. The original passage:

Come now, Marcion, and all you companions in the misery and sharers in the offensiveness (commiserones et coodibiles) of that heretic ...

This is clearly not from Marcion but from the author of Against Marcion. Let's look at the first example:

It is quite another thing if he [Jesus] made a pretence of choosing them from the Association of Shipmasters, because he was sometime going to have as his apostle Marcion the navigator. Now I have already postulated, in opposition to the Antitheses, that Marcion's purpose is in no sense served by what he supposes to be an opposition between the law and the gospel, because this too was ordained by the Creator, and in fact was foretold by that promise of a new law and a new word and a new testament. But seeing that he argues with unusual insistence in the presence of one whom he calls a kind of συνταλαίπωρον, companion in misery, and συμμισουμενον, companion in hatred, regarding the cleansing of the leper, I shall not think it amiss to meet him, and first to show him the force of that figurative law: for by the example of the leprous person who must not be touched but must even be excluded from all communication with others, it forbade association with any man defiled by sins—with whom the apostle too says we must not even eat:b for the stains of sins are passed from one to another, as by contagion, if anyone makes contact with a sinner.

Here it would appear the original author is citing something he has read or heard the Marcionites say about the leper. It can be argued that the Latin author can read Greek but there are other signs too.

[Secret Alias]

What I also find interesting about this invented Latin phrase the 'rope of contention' is that the original Homeric concept implies the struggle between two powers - https://books.google.com/books?id=LpWhC ... 22&f=false. This is interesting of course because it is an unusual metaphor to use to argue against Marcion's alleged interest in two powers. Erasmus shows the way on this having been influenced by Plato's allegorical use of the Homeric idea:

Homer's conceit of a tug of war between Zeus and the subaltern gods posits a hostile cosmos ruled by contrary forces. But the dominant sixteenthcentury interpretation of the passage, indebted to Plato's Theaetetus and to many subsequent to many subsequent Homeric allegorists and commentators, treats the golden chain as a master metaphor for the harmonious concatenation of a divinely ordered cosmos. Even Erasmus's Folly perpetuates this reading, calling the “golden chain” [torquem auream] a symbol of the “concord between all the virtues” [omnium virtutum cohaerentium consensum], a reading adapted to various ends by later writers

Of course Marcionites were Platonists as Clement notes over and over again. So were the various heresies. To this end, the question arises why choose the notion which for Platonists demonstrated that the universe hung on a tension from two opposite purposes? It's very peculiar given that the purpose is to deny that the universe is run by a pair of opposites.

To wit, the central argument that develops in Against Marcion 4 is a choice between two polar opposite claims:

Or if that is to be the true one, if that is the apostles', which Marcion alone possesses, then how is it that that which is not of the apostles, but is ascribed to Luke, is in agreement with ours? Or if that which Marcion has in use is not at once to be attributed to Luke because it does agree with ours—though they allege ours is falsified in respect of its title—then it does belong to the apostles [viz. apostolikon]. And in that case ours too, which is in agreement with that other, no less belongs to the apostles, even if it too is falsified in its title. So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying with equal effort to the one side or the other. I say that mine is true: Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion's is falsified: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide between us?

In Against the Jews the 'rope of contention' swings between the Jewish and Christian participants in the debate (probably taken from a version of Justin vs Trypho). In Against Marcion 4 (which Andrew and I have assumed goes back to Justin) there is a 'rope of contention' between the Marcionite gospel and his own. Interestingly Justin wrote a treatise on the Resurrection http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0131.htm so there may have been other treatises floating around in antiquity. Could the core of Resurrection of the Flesh have went back to Justin as well? This would make the 'rope of contention' references all not only written in Greek but back to Justin.

It is worth noting from the passage in Against Marcion 4, Justin repeated identifies his own gospel as 'apostolic hypomnemata' - meaning rough draft written by the apostles. The Marcionite gospel is 'the apostolic.' This, I believe is at the core of the debate. But if we assume that Clement's secret gospel of Mark is somehow related to the Marcionite gospel (note the repeated reference that no name is attached to their gospel). This is also true of Justin's gospel. Note also Clement's description of the relation between 'the gospel Mark wrote for Peter' and the gospel Mark wrote according to his own notes:

Τοῦ δὲ Πέτρου μαρτυρήσαντος παρῆλθεν εἰς Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ὁ Μάρκος κομίζων καὶ τα ταυτοῦ καὶ τὰ τοῦ Πέτρου ὑπομνήματα, ἐξ ὧν μεταφέρων εἰς τὸ πρῶτον αὐτοῦ βιβλίον τὰ τοῖς προκόπτουσι περὶ τὴν γνῶσιν κατάλληλα συνέταξε πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον εἰς τὴν τῶν τελειουμένων χρῆσιν

The use of hypomnemata roughly parallels the underlying debate - if we can imagine it - between Justin's ὑπομνήματα of the apostles and Marcion's gospel. The situation has been picked up by recent commentators on the gospel of Mark https://books.google.com/books?id=qVlIP ... B1&f=false Remember that perhaps the original account of Marcion in the Against Heresies tradition understands Marcion to have added mystical bits to the gospel of Mark:

When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets). For none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to Mark. But (the real author of the system) is Empedocles, son of Meto, a native of Agrigento. And (Marcion) despoiled this (philosopher), and imagined that up to the present would pass undetected his transference, under the same expressions, of the arrangement of his entire heresy from Sicily into the evangelical narratives. For bear with me, O Marcion: as you have instituted a comparison of what is good and evil, I also today will institute a comparison following up your own tenets, as you suppose them to be. You affirm that the Demiurge of the world is evil— why not hide your countenance in shame, (as thus) teaching to the Church the doctrines of Empedocles? You say that there is a good Deity who destroys the works of the Demiurge: then do not you plainly preach to your pupils, as the good Deity, the Friendship of Empedocles. You forbid marriage, the procreation of children, (and) the abstaining from meats which God has created for participation by the faithful, and those that know the truth. (Do you think, then,) that you can escape detection, (while thus) enjoining the purificatory rites of Empedocles? For in point of fact you follow in every respect this (philosopher of paganism), while you instruct your own disciples to refuse meats, in order not to eat any body (that might be) a remnant of a soul which has been punished by the Demiurge. You dissolve marriages that have been cemented by the Deity. And here again you conform to the tenets of Empedocles, in order that for you the work of Friendship may be perpetuated as one (and) indivisible. For, according to Empedocles, matrimony separates unity, and makes (out of it) plurality, as we have proved.

While the system is described as Empedoclean it could just as well have been an adaption of the Homeric 'golden rope' by Platonists:

The principal heresy of Marcion, and (the one of his) which is most free from admixture (with other heresies), is that which has its system formed out of the theory concerning the good and bad (God). Now this, it has been manifested by us, belongs to Empedocles. But since at present, in our times, a certain follower of Marcion, (namely) Prepon, an Assyrian, has endeavoured to introduce something more novel, and has given an account of his heresy in a work inscribed to Bardesanes, an Armenian, neither of this will I be silent. In alleging that what is just constitutes a third principle, and that it is placed intermediate between what is good and bad, Prepon of course is not able to avoid (the imputation of inculcating) the opinion of Empedocles. For Empedocles asserts that the world is managed by wicked Discord, and that the other (world) which (is managed) by Friendship, is cognisable by intellect. And (he asserts) that these are the two different principles of good and evil, and that intermediate between these diverse principles is impartial reason, in accordance with which are united the things that have been separated by Discord, (and which,) in accordance with the influence of Friendship, are accommodated to unity. The impartial reason itself, that which is an auxiliary to Friendship, Empedocles denominates Musa. And he himself likewise entreats her to assist him, and expresses himself somehow thus:—

For if on fleeting mortals, deathless Muse,
Your care it be that thoughts our mind engross,
Calliope, again befriend my present prayer,
As I disclose a pure account of happy gods.

Marcion, adopting these sentiments, rejected altogether the generation of our Saviour. He considered it to be absurd that tinder the (category of a) creature fashioned by destructive Discord should have been the Logos that was an auxiliary to Friendship — that is, the Good Deity. (His doctrine,) however, was that, independent of birth, (the Logos) Himself descended from above in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and that, as being intermediate between the good and bad Deity, He proceeded to give instruction in the synagogues.