Are Marcion's letters of the apostle Paul
more
reliable than those we read in the New Testament?
It is not common knowledge amongst lay Christians that there are in
fact 2
different versions of the apostle Paul's letters - the
New Testament version, and a version used by Marcion and his
followers in the early second Century - Marcion's
Apostolikon.
The Church is well aware of the fact that there are 2 different
versions . They simply dismiss Marcion's
versions of St Paul's letters as 'redacted'.
Tertullian (Appendix.Against all heresies chapter 6) refered to this
'redacted' Paul as 'Marcion's apostle'
- He (Apelles) uses, too, one only apostle;
but that is Marcion's, that is, a mutilated one.
However there is a strong case for Marcion's version of
Paul's letters as far closer to the original letters than those
'enhanced' by the
Church.
The case for Marcion's version of Paul's
letters
Gilles Quispel in JSTOR:
Marcion and the Text of the New
Testament 1998 has a wonderful
discussion on the topic.
Quispel indicates that Marcion's text shared many variants with the
ancient Vetus Latina
the oldest orthodox Latin versions of the New
Testament texts in Rome prior to Jerome's Vulgate.
Having regard to the research of John Clabeaux and Ulrich Schmid,
Quispel states:
Marcions
text of the
New Testament must be the text known in Rome prior to 144.
This
means that the manuscript Marcion used is even older than what is
usually regarded as the "oldest" extant manuscript of Pauls writings
(200 from Egypt)
Quispel considered that during the Second Century the Roman Church
was responsible for the
great Redaction of 180 AD
"the
creation of an authoritative
redaction
of the scriptures in the "Western Text", a text which was specifically
pointed at her opponents".
These opponents being - the Gnostics
The First
Edition Of The Paulina by Paul-Louis Couchoud
–
1928 provides 2 core arguments for the pre-eminence of Marcion's
versions of Pauls letters.
- Timothy and Titus
- Simplicity of process
Timothy
and Titus - modern scholarship backs Marcion in
rejecting these epistles as not Pauline.
Couchold also points
out that Paul's letters should have been condemned by 2
Timothy 2 v 18
for preaching that the Christian is already raised. As
Couchold puts it "the
core of his (Paul's)doctrine is that the Christian,
through Christ, is, in point of fact, raised"
Couchold also points out that 1 Tim 6 v 20
actually
promulgates the condemnation of Marcion's Antitheses,
which was declared
in the year 144!
Simplicity
of process - it would have been a lot easier to make
changes from
Marcion's versions to the Church versions - Couchoud argues strongly
that the complexity of the task would have made it nigh on
impossible for some of the
differences to arise the other way around.
Three clinchers for him are Romans
1 v 17, Romans 3 v 21, Gal. 3 v 10 to 26, and Galatians 4 v 24
Do the differences in the 2
versions of
Paul's letters matter?
Very much so!
The Church apologists main argument for the dismissal of
Marcion's versions of Paul's letters is that they support
Marcion's
theology, and as Marcions theology is 'wrong' so must the letters be!
hmmm!
Clearly the Church Fathers argue against the Apostolikon.
It would be impossible for them to do otherwise. To
support the Apostolikon was to support a heretical position.
Have a look at Church apologist Peter Head's online article The
Foreign
God And The Sudden Christ: Theology And Christology In
Marcion’s Gospel Redaction - you
dont have to read between the lines too much to see the problems for
the church in accepting Marcions versions of Paul's letters!
Where can I read Marcion's Apostolikon?
Harnack and other scholars have done an epic job in reconstructing
Marcions Apostolikon- but its very hard to find the texts in English
(hmmm....)
You can read Marcion's
version of Galatians
online (van Manen) translated into English at the
Center for Marcionite Research
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