Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

There are some... who acknowledge that He is Christ, while at the same time declaring that He was a man among men; I am not of this view.

Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 63.1-17: And all the Jews even now teach that the nameless God spake to Moses; whence the Spirit of prophecy, accusing them by Isaiah the prophet mentioned above, said "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know Me, and My people do not understand." And Jesus the Christ, because the Jews knew not what the Father was, and what the Son, in like manner accused them; and Himself said, "No one knows the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and they to whom the Son reveals Him." Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And He is called Angel and Apostle; for He declares whatever we ought to know, and is sent forth to declare whatever is revealed; as our Lord Himself says, "He that hears Me hears Him that sent Me." From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, "And the Angel of God spake to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of thy fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people." And if you wish to learn what follows, you can do so from the same writings; for it is impossible to relate the whole here. But so much is written for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race, He endured all the sufferings which the devils instigated the senseless Jews to inflict upon Him; who, though they have it expressly affirmed in the writings of Moses, "And the angel of God spake to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," yet maintain that He who said this was the Father and Creator of the universe. Whence also the Spirit of prophecy rebukes them, and says, "Israel doth not know Me, my people have not understood Me." And again, Jesus, as we have already shown, while He was with them, said, "No one knows the Father, but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him." The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him, He endured both to be set at naught and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. And that which was said out of the bush to Moses, "I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers," this signified that they, even though dead, are let in existence, and are men belonging to Christ Himself. For they were the first of all men to busy themselves in the search after God; Abraham being the father of Isaac, and Isaac of Jacob, as Moses wrote.

Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 23.1-3: And that this may now become evident to you — (firstly ) that whatever we assert in conformity with what has been taught us by Christ, and by the prophets who preceded Him, are alone true, and are older than all the writers who have existed; that we claim to be acknowledged, not because we say the same things as these writers said, but because we say true things: and (secondly) that Jesus Christ is the only proper Son who has been begotten by God, being His Word and first-begotten, and power; and, becoming man according to His will, He taught us these things for the conversion and restoration of the human race: and (thirdly) that before He became a man among men, some, influenced by the demons before mentioned, related beforehand, through the instrumentality of the poets, those circumstances as having really happened, which, having fictitiously devised, they narrated, in the same manner as they have caused to be fabricated the scandalous reports against us of infamous and impious actions, of which there is neither witness nor proof— we shall bring forward the following proof.

And Trypho said, "We have heard what you think of these matters. Resume the discourse where you left off, and bring it to an end. For some of it appears to me to be paradoxical, and wholly incapable of proof. For when you say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, then that He submitted to be born and become man, yet that He is not man of man, this[assertion] appears to me to be not merely paradoxical, but also foolish."

And I replied to this, "I know that the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of your race, who are ever unwilling to understand or to perform the[requirements] of God, but[ready to perform] those of your teachers, as God Himself declares. Now assuredly, Trypho," I continued,"[the proof] that this man is the Christ of God does not fail, though I be unable to prove that He existed formerly as Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and was born a man by the Virgin. But since I have certainly proved that this man is the Christ of God, whoever He be, even if I do not prove that He pre-existed, and submitted to be born a man of like passions with us, having a body, according to the Father's will; in this last matter alone is it just to say that I have erred, and not to deny that He is the Christ, though it should appear that He was born man of men, and[nothing more] is proved[than this], that He has become Christ by election. For there are some, my friends," I said, "of our race, who admit that He is Christ, while holding Him to be man of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most of those who have[now] the same opinions as myself should say so; since we were enjoined by Christ Himself to put no faith in human doctrines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed prophets and taught by Himself."

even though most of those who have[now] the same opinions as myself should say so;

And Trypho said, "Those who affirm him to have been a man, and to have been anointed by election, and then to have become Christ, appear to me to speak more plausibly than you who hold those opinions which you express. For we all expect that Christ will be a man[born] of men, and that Elijah when he comes will anoint him. But if this man appear to be Christ, he must certainly be known as man[born] of men; but from the circumstance that Elijah has not yet come, I infer that this man is not He[the Christ]."

Thanks Giuseppe for your comments and questions. Here my attempted answers:
1) do you find traces of 'separationism' in Mark? Yes, I think, despite the effort Mark is making in reconnecting Marcion's angelic Jesus with the Jewish lineage, he still adopted much of Marcion's spiritualised portray of Jesus. It starts with him calling his text - like Marcion - an 'eu-aggelion', hence the message, as Tertullian criticises, of an angel. When Mark then tries to underline the human side of Jesus, he ends up with a certain separational christology, as he did not want to remove Marcion's spiritual element.

2) If your response is yes, It's possible to consider Mark's separationism as a intermediate step between the marcionite docetic Jesus (of first Gospel) and the Jesus of 'true' flesh described in Luke and John?
This is, how I see it, although even in Luke and John we still find enough traces of Marcion's angelic and spiritual, if you like the more heresiological expression, docetic christology.

3) How do you find the mythicist theory as described from Couchoud/Doherty/Carrier ? I know that the mythicist P. L. Couchoud tought, too, that Marcion was the author of first Gospel. How do you consider his thesis pro myth? Are you open to the possibility that Jesus never existed as a historical man (even if you are historicist)?
This is a very complex question which I cannot answer in a short form. Marcion, as we can see from the way he put together sources like Paul's letters, is not a Shakespeare avant la lettre. He does not create his stories by using historical information. And yet, he is not a Josephus or Herodotus either, but is capable of putting Paul's letters, hence serious sources, into a geographical and biographical line - applying lots of creativity by using the spare historical information from those sources. In this way, he is a clever, but perhaps oversystematising historian. If he has done the same with his gospel material, then we can assume that he brought together reliable sources, but also applied a similarly creative way in putting them together, waving them into a neat biography and creating a narrative that is geographically (important for a naukleros) and biographically neat and coherent. Myth? The notion of myth, in my eyes, is not given, as Couchoud et al. thought with regards the material, sources or the narrative itself - but on a philosophical and theological level. It is Marcion's criticism of a categorical history which does not encompass and cannot grasp the transcendant God which reveals that what we call history is myth, while what we post-enlightened (as well as the antique people) called myth are more real than history. If you like, God's myth - his opening up and loving care for this strange creation and creatures - is true history.