The Prologues to the Pauline Letters, like those other
Prologues to the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John (one to Matthew is
not known), mentioned before, have been preserved in a number of Latin Bible
codices, and have generated a good amount of scholarship, since Donatien de
Bruyne drew our attention to them in 1907 and claimed that the ones to Gal., 1Cor., Rom., 1Thess., Laod., Col., Phil. and Philem. are Marcionite by origin and did not belong to Jerome, to
whom they are often attributed in the manuscripts, or to Pelagius as in the Book of Armagh.
Only two years later, Peter Corssen advanced the same idea, independent of de
Bruyne.
While initially most scholars believed the Prologues to be of Marcionite origin
(if not by Marcion himself)
and rejected Wilhelm Mundle’s criticism,
over the past years, scholarly opinion has shifted.
Today, following the judgement of Nils A. Dahl,
the Prologues to the Pauline Letters are regarded as the single witness (outside
of Marcion) to testify for the existence of a pre-Marcion collection of Pauline
Letters ‘of the same content and arrangement as the marcionite edition’,
a similar shift like that following the work of Jürgen Regul who regarded the Gospel Prologues no longer as anti-marcionite. And yet, as we have seen
above, a careful reading of the Prologue to John
makes one doubt the new consensus on both the Gospel Prologues and the
Prologues to Paul’s Letters. As we will see here, another close look at the Prologues
to the Pauline Letters, supported by the ‘pedantic’ notes of Karl Th. Schäfer, makes one become even more sceptical
of Dahl’s position. Already the assumption is problematic that according to Dahl
we are faced with a single witness not only for a collection of Paul’s letters
(to the mention of such a collection one could add 2Peter 3:15-7), but even for one which, because of the nature of
these Prologues, is believed to have included the same letters as Marcion’s
edition. As can be seen from Romans the
two collection would have had Romans of
precisely the same length, only including Rom.
1-14. In addition, as shown by K.Th. Schäfer they would have had the same arrangement and order. Building
on de Bruyne Schäfer
listed the prerequisites that the collection of the prefaced letters must have
had:
1.
Heb. was certainly
missing.
2.
It is unclear whether 2Cor.,
2Thess., 1-2Tim., Tit., Philem. were part of the collection
3.
Gal. came before 1Cor.
4.
Col. came before Phil.
5.
1Thess. came
before Phil.
6.
Either the prologue to Eph.
or to Col. does not come from the pen
of the author.
7.
The prologue of Col.
can only be understood, if it was preceded by a prologue to an Epistle to the Laodicenes.
Schäfer, then, added that from what we know from Marcion’s
collection, it fitted all the above features:
1.
Heb. was missing.
2.
1-2Tim. and Tit. were not part of the collection
3.
First came Gal.,
then 1-2Cor.
4.
Col. came before Phil.
5.
1-2Thess. came
before Phil.
6.
There was no prologue to Eph.
7.
Eph. was called Epistle to the Laodicenes.
Of course, such a
parallel, or, as U. Schmid argues, a pre-Marcion collection of Pauline Letters could
have existed, but the question remains, whether it can be deduced from these
Prologues, and these prologues alone. Already Nils A. Dahl was cautious, as he
admitted that ‘a Marcionite origin for the ancient Latin prologues carry more
weight than the opponents of the theory have been willing to concede’, but he
concluded that their Marcionite character was ‘both unnecessary and
improbable’, only because of their ‘attestation and history of the
transmission’.
Dahl’s counter-argument, however, rests on the assumption that a Marcionite
collection, endorsed with Marcionite Prologues, could not have been so widely
received in the West because of Marcion’s heretical nature. This argument is
similar to the parallel one – to which U. Schmid even alludes – that, because so many
Western textual variants in NT witnesses are Marcionite, Marcion cannot be the
author of the underlying text, but that Marcion himself must have been drawing
on an older orthodox textual basis. Both of these lines of thinking assume,
however, that in Marcion’s time we are dealing already with a separation
between orthodoxy and an arch-heresy of Marcion and that orthodoxy has to
predate heresy. Once such antithesis is revealed as being anachronistic, as it
was only gradually achieved in response to Marcion’s antithetical position that
conceptualized ‘Christianity’ in contrast to ‘Judaism’, Dahl’s improbability is
removed and ‘the striking similarities between Marcion’s Apostolikon and the original prologues’, as he states, need further
investigation.
In addition, several arguments that Schäfer advanced had not been taken into
account by Dahl
and Schmid, although some of them were related to the reception of these
Prologues (for example in Marius Victorinus and Ambrosiaster), another to the relation to Acts. In addition, according to the Prologues Paul is seen as being
incarcerated while writing Col., Phil. and Philem., as if he had been in chains during his journey via Ephesus
to Rome. No reader of Acts – a text
not recognized by Marcion, but, if Irenaeus is correct, written against him in
defence of Luke – could have accepted this view of Paul’s journey, a strong
argument in favour of a Marcionite origin of the Prologues. To Schäfer’s
arguments I’d like to add a few more which have not been seen in the past, the
most important of which makes it very likely that in these Prologues we have
the rediscovered and recovered work of Marcion himself. Tertullian does
not only clearly states that the ordering of the letters was an important
argument in Marcion, but, what has been
overlooked, he himself knows of and refers to these Prologues in the opening
sections where in Adversus Marcionem he
discusses each of Paul’s Letters as given by Marcion.
According
to Tertullian, and supported by Epiphanius and the so-called Syriac Canon Sinaiticus, Marcion’s collection
comprised the following Pauline Letters in the given order:
Although our sources differ
towards the end, the opening of the collection with Gal., 1-2Cor., Rom., followed by, as it seems from
Tert./Epiph., 1-2Thess. and Laod. and Col. is likely. The position of Phil.
and Philem. is less certain, and
apparently, as can be seen from the Can.
Sin. pseudo-Pauline letters like Hebr.
and the Pastoral Letters have been
included only later.
The Prologues follow, based on the critical edition of de
Bruyne (with slight alterations, as indicated in the apparatus) who used the
following manuscripts:
A = Amiatinus at Florence, 8th c. (716
AD)
C = Colmar 38, 8th c.
D = Dublin, Book
of Armagh, 9th c. (812)
E = Engelberg 5, 12th c.
E2 = Engelberg 245, 15th c.
(1456)
F = Fuldensis, 6th c. (546)
M = Marcianus 1247, Venice, 11th (1079)
R = Regin. 9, Vatican, 7th-8th
c.
V = Vallicellianus B 6, 9th c.
W = Würzburg M th. F. 12, 8th-9th c.
r = fragments of the Itala, preserved at Freisingen and
Munich, a hand of the 6th c. has added Prologes to Phil. And 1Thess.
Prologue to the Epistle to the Galatians:
|
1
|
Galatae sunt Graeci. hi verbum veritatis primum ab
apostolo acceperunt, sed post discessum eius temptati sunt a falsis
apostolis, ut in legem et circumcisionem verterentur. hos apostolus revocat
ad fidem veritatis scribens eis ab Epheso.
|
|
|
1 primum] om.
W, primus A* prius A** primo WalStrab;
2 legem] lege E2, F, R,
C*; et] om. C*, add. in D, M, W; circumcisionem]
circumcisione F, R, C*, E2; 3
apostolus] apostolos C*; fidem] viam E2; veritatis om. F; eis om. F; ab Epheso] add.
Per Titum F,R
|
The Galatians are Greeks. At first, they accepted the word of truth
from the Apostle, but after his departure they were tempted by false Apostles,
so that they converted to the law and circumcision. These the apostle calls
back to the faith of truth, writing to them from Ephesus.
Prologue to the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
|
1
|
Corinthi sunt Achaici. et hi similiter ab apostolo
audierunt verbum veritatis et subversi multifarie a falsis apostolis, quidam
a philosophiae verbosa eloquentia, alii a secta legis Iudaicae inducti sunt.
hos revocat apostolus ad veram et evangelicam sapientiam scribens eis ab
Epheso per Timotheum.
|
|
|
1 Achaei] Acai F, Achai D, C, Achaii B, Achaei A, Achaiae R,W;
et] om. D; apostolo] apostolos F,
apostolis R, A, V, M, W; 2
subversi] subsi F, add. Sunt V,E2;
multifarie] add. quidam D;
apostolis] fratribus V; verbosa] verbo F; a philosophiae ... eloquentia] ad
philosophiae verbosam eloquentiam M**, W; 3 alii a] alias C*, alii ad C**, M, W, alia F; secta] sectam C**,
M, W; sunt] om. F, A, C, V, fuerant
A2, E; apostolus] apostolos F; et] om.
F; 4 sapientiam] fidem veram et
evangelicam sapientiam W; Timotheum] add.
discipulum suum V, M, E, E2, add.
cohortans et corripiens ut salvi fiant in Christo Iesu Domino nostro D, W
|
The Corinthians are Achaeans. Similarly, also they heard from the
apostle the word of truth, but in many ways were subverted by false apostles,
some led away by the verbose eloquence of philosophy, others misled by a sect
of the Jewish law. These the apostle calls back to the true and evangelical
wisdom, writing to them from Ephesus through Timothy.
Prologue to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians:
|
1
|
Post actam paenitentiam consolatorias scribit eis a Troade
et conlaudans eos hortatur ad meliora.
|
|
|
1 actam] acceptam R, C, W; hanc V, acta F, add. a Corintheis M, ab eisdem Cor. D; consolatorias] consulatoria W,
consulatoriam D, M, consolatoriam A, C (add.
epistulam) E2, V, add.
per Tychicum E2, W**, per Titum M, V; scribit] scripsit et add. epistulam apostolus D, M, W,
scribens F; eis] om. F, C; Troade]
Macedonia D, E2 add. per
Titum A**; et] om. F; 2 meliora] add. contristatos quidem eos sed emendatos ostendens m, V, add. per Tychicum D
|
After penitence was made, he writes consolatory words to them from
Troas, and also praising them he exhorts them on to better things.
Prologue to the Epistle to the Romans:
|
1
|
Romani sunt in partibus Italiae. hi praeventi sunt a
falsis apostolis et sub nomine domini nostri Iesu Christi in legem et
prophetas erant inducti. hos revocat apostolus ad veram evangelicam fidem
scribens eis a Corintho.
|
|
|
1 in partibus] in partes R; 2 legem] lege R; 3 add. et R; evangelicam] evangelicamque
A**
|
The Romans live in the regions of Italy. They had been reached by false
apostles and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ they were misled into the Law
and the Prophets. These the apostle calls back to the true evangelical faith,
writing to them from Corinth.
Prologue to the First Epistle to the Thessalonians:
|
1
|
Thessalonicenses sunt Macedones in Christo Iesu. hi
accepto verbo veritatis perstiterunt in fide etiam in persecutione civium
suorum; praeterea nec receperunt ea quae a falsis apostolis dicebantur. hos
conlaudat apostolus scribens eis ab Athenis.
|
|
|
1 in Christo Iesu] om.
de Bruyne, sed scripsit ‘Presque tous
les mis. Ajoutent les mots in Christo Iesu; FACVMW les mettent après
Macedones, Vall. A 2 B 7, Vat. après
Mac. qui, les autres après
veritatis; r E 2 A** les omettent’;
hi M, W] qui omn. mss.; veritatis]
caritatis D; 2 praetera] propterea
D; nec] non C; 3 dicebantur] add. refutantes D, add. nec receperunt falsos apostolos
nec ea quae a falsis apostolis dicebantur E, V; 4 Athenis] add. per
Timotheum diaconum F, C, per Tychicum E, per Tychicum et Onesimum V, E2,
per Tychicum diaconum et Onesimum Acolitum D, M, W
|
The Thessalonians are Macedonians in Christ Jesus who, after the word of
truth was accepted, persisted in the faith even during the persecution by their
fellow city; furthermore, they did not receive those things which were said by
the false apostles. These the apostle praises, writing to them from Athens.
Prologue to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians:
|
1
|
Ad Thessalonicenses scribit et notum facit eis de
temporibus novissimis et de adversarii detectione. scribit ab Athenis.
|
|
|
1 Ad] om. ad R; Thessalonicenses]
Thessalonicensibus D; add. secunda
F, secundam de Bruyne; scribit] scripsit D, W, add. epistulam A, D, D, E, E2, M, W, add. apostolus M, W, E2;
facit] fecit F; 2 detectione]
deiectione R, E2, deceptione D, M, W; scribit] hanc aliam
epistolam scribit E2, scripsit W, scribens et add. eis D, add.
hanc epistulam A, C, (autem h. Ep.) E, (et h. Ep.) M, W; Athenis] add. per Tychicum diaconum et Onesimum
acolitum R, D, M, W, E2, per Titum diaconum et Onesimum acolitum V
|
To the Thessalonians he writes and makes note to them concerning the very
novel times and of the detection of the adversary. He writes from Athens.
Prologue to the Epistle to the Laodiceans
|
1
|
Laodicensis sunt Asiani. Hos conlaudat beatus apostolus
Paulus quod semel accepta fidem evangelicam perstiterunt in verbo veritatis
scribens eis.
|
|
|
1 Laodicenses] laudicensis Einsiedeln 371, de Bruyne;
sunt] sut Einsiedeln 371; hos] hs Einsiedeln 371; 2 accepta] accept Einsiedeln 371; perstiterunt] pstite Einsiedeln
371; scribens] scrbens Einsiedeln 371
|
The Laodiceans are Asians. These, the apostle Paul also praises that,
once they had accepted the evangelical belief, they persisted in the word of
truth when he wrote to them.
Prologue to the Epistle to the Colossians:
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1
|
Colossenses et hi sicut Laodicenses sunt Asiani. et ipsi
praeventi erant a pseudoapostolis, nec ad hos accessit ipse apostolus, sed et
hos per epistulam recorrigit. audierant enim verbum ab Archippo qui et
ministerium in eos accepit. ergo apostolus iam ligatus scribit eis ab Epheso.
|
|
|
1 ipsi] add.
enim C; pseudoapostolis] falsis apostolis D; 2 epistulam] epistula F; 3
recorrigit] corrigit V; audierant] audierunt D, V, E2, M; ab]
ad D; accepit] accipit D, M, W; add.
quorum auditam fidem in principiis laudat deinde monet ne per philosophiam
vel legis ceremonias seducantur D, de Bruyne scripsit ‘cette glose est tirée du Pseudo-Primasius’; 4 ligatus] legatus F; Epheso] add. per Tychicum diaconum V, per
Tychicum diaconum et Onesimum acolitum C, D, M, W, E, E2
|
The Colossians, they too are Asians, just as the Laodiceans. And even
though they had been reached by pseudo-apostles, while the apostle himself had
not reached them, even these he corrects through an epistle. For they had heard
the word from Archippus, who also accepted the ministry to them. The apostle
therefore, already arrested, writes to them from Ephesus.
Prologue to the Epistle to the Philippians:
|
1
|
Philippenses sunt Macedones. hi accepto verbo veritatis
perstiterunt in fide, nec receperunt falsos apostolos. hos apostolus
conlaudat scribens eis a Roma de carcere per Epaphroditum.
|
|
|
1 in fide om.
D; 2 apostolus conlaudat]
conlaudat apostolus A, C, V; 3
carcere] om. R; per Epaphroditum] om. E2
|
The Philippians are Macedonians. Once they had accepted the word of
truth, they persisted in the faith, and did not receive false apostles. These
the apostle also praises, writing to them from Rome, from prison, through
Epaphroditus.
Prologue to the Epistle to Philemon:
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1
|
Philemoni familiares litteras facit pro Onesimo servo
eius. scribit autem ei a Roma de carcere.
|
|
|
1 facit] fecit W; scribit] scripsit W, scribens D;
autem] om. D, M, W; ei] om.
B; 2 carcere] add. per eumdem Onesimum R, per Onesimum acolitum A, D, W, per
suprascriptum Onesimum acolitum M
|
He composes familiar letters to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus his servant.
He writes to him, however, from Rome, from prison.
[Prologue to the First Epistle to Timothy:
|
1
|
Timotheum instruit et docet de ordinatione episcopatus et
diaconii et omnis ecclesiasticae disciplinae.
|
|
|
1 Timotheum] Timotheus F2; instruit F1,
instruet F2, instruxit D, M, W; episcopatus] episcopi D; et] add. de F1; diaconii]
diaconi C, E, D, M, W; 1-2 omnis
... disciplinae] omni ecclesiastica disciplina D, add. scribens F, A, scribens ei D, M, W, E, E2, A,
scribit C, scribit autem ei a (de F2, C, E) Laodicia F2,
C, W, E, a Macedonia A, D, ab urbe Roma E2; add. per Tychicum D, B (add.
diaconum)
|
He instructs Timothy and teaches him concerning the ordination to the
episcopate and to the diaconate and concerning all aspects of ecclesiastical
discipline.
Prologue to the Second Epistle to Timothy:
|
1
|
Item Timotheo scribit de exhortatione martyrii et omnis
regulae veritatis et quid futurum sit temporibus novissimis et de sua
passione.
|
|
|
1 Item] om.
R; scribit] scripsit D, M, W, add.
secundam W; omnis regulae] de omnes regulas F, de omni regula M, B; 2 futurum] fructum W; sua passione]
passione sua D, M, W, R; add. a
Roma de carcere C, E2, ab urbe Roma reliqui exc. A
|
Likewise he writes to Timothy concerning the exhortation to martyrdom
and all aspects of the rule of truth, and what will be in the last times, and
concerning his own passion.
Prologue to the Epistle to Titus:
|
1
|
Titum commonefacit et instruit de constitutione
presbyterii et de spiritali conversatione et hereticis vitandis qui Iudaicis fabulis
credunt.
|
|
|
1 Titum commonefacit] Argumentum ad Titum discipulum
suum discipulum quem monet D, communefact F, R; constitutione] add. maiorem natu W; 1-2 spiritali conversatione]
conversatione spiritali D, M, W; 2 et] dupl.
de Bruyne; vitandis] divitandis D, M, W; Iudaicis fabulis] in scripturis
iudaicis F, A, C, E, E2, V, B; traditionibus iudaicis D, M, W;
credunt] alios seducunt E2, add.
scribit ei ab Athenis D, W, scribit ei a Nicopoli F, E, a Nicopoli scribens
V, B, scripta a Laoditia E2
|
He warns and instructs Titus concerning the constitution of the
presbytery and concerning spiritual conversation and heretics to be avoided who
believe in the Jewish fables.]
The first noticeable feature of the Prologues to
Gal., 1Cor., Rom., 1Thess., Laod., Col., Phil. (and to some extent Philem.) is their coherent
structure and terminology: They all give the region or place of the addressees,
their situation when they received the letters, the aim of the letter and the
background of the sender. Different in content and structure are the Prologues to 2Cor., 2Thess. and to the Pastoral
Letters, one of the reasons that de Bruyne regards them as ‘Catholic
Prologues’. Building on de Bruyne, Harnack has highlighted that these Prologues
(including Prol. 2Cor. and 2Thess., he made the exception of the Prologues to the Pastorals
only which he believed were of a different character) belong together. Harnack’s grouping of these Prologues will be confirmed in the light of
Tertullian’s testimony.
One of the main characteristics of the first set of Prologues is their highlighting
of the addressees’ regional and ethnic backgrounds. They are not just what they
are called in Paul’s letters, but these Prologues identify them, first, the
Galatians, probably pars pro toto, as
‘Greeks’ (Graeci), then they give
their addressees’ respective regions, the Corinthians as ‘Achaeans’, the Romans
as those living ‘in the regions of Italy’ (in
partibus Italiae), the Thessalonians and Philippians as ‘Macedonians’ (Macedones), the Colossians and
Laodiceans as ‘Asians’ (Asiani). As
such, the Prologues see the believers against the backgrounds of where they are
coming from, where they live, mentioning that these ways of life are impacted
by the Apostles’ ‘word of truth’. To highlight first and foremost the varying Hellenic-Asian
ethnic background of Paul’s addressees is set as a stark contra-distinction to
an all encompassing concept of not being of and not belonging to the Jewish
sect. Accordingly, these prologues see the believers threatened by those false
apostles who tried to convert them to become Jews. In contrast the Prologues
group the readers culturally regionalised, striving for one common good, the
one word of truth, a feature that resonates with Marcion who seems to have
understood the new religion as one that
from the very outset [was]
an eminently syncretistic and, for precisely that reason, from the very outset
also the catholic religion … adapted to the numerous and manifold demands of
the widest circles, diverse because of their different situations and varied
education. In the course of its development it could become more complicated
but not more multifaceted than it already was upon its entrance into the Roman
empire.
That the Apostle has
to call the audience back to the ‘belief of the truth’, is certainly not about
dogmatic truths and the removal of errors, but about a way of life which
according to the Prologues was perverted by false apostles who have been led
away from Paul’s way of life according to the ‘word of truth’ to that of Jewish
practice according to the Torah, ‘the Law and the Prophets’.
The Marcionite character of these Prologues were discovered, first, by the
order of the letters which was gained by internal evidence. The indication of ‘similiter’ in the beginning of the
Prologue on 1Cor. was seen by de
Bruyne as a references that presupposed a Prologue to a letter where also
mention must have been made to people who had ‘heard the word of truth’,
something which is only re-occurring in the Prologue to Gal. (different, for example, from this we read in the Prologues to
Eph., Phil., 1Thess. the
mentioning of having ‘accepted the word of truth’). The counter-argument to de
Bruyne, mounted by W. Mundle, namely that this ‘similarly’ of the Prologue to 1Cor. could also refer to the second part
of the opening of the Prologue to Rom.
(‘They had been reached by false apostles’), has, however, already been questioned
by Mundle himself.
In the Prologues, the readers had been introduced to the truth by ‘the
Apostle’ Paul (Laod.) alone, not by
the plurality of Apostles who always appear with the adjective ‘false’ (Gal., 1Cor., Rom., 1Thess., Phil.) or ‘pseudo’ (Col.).
As a result, Paul has a double task to call the believers back to wisdom, away
from the misleading verbose eloquence of philosophy to true wisdom, and away
from a Jewish Torah orientation to the wisdom of the Gospel.
This
insistance on the triple antithesis between philosophy and wisdom, the Torah
and the evangelical faith, ‘the
Apostle’ with his ‘word of truth’ on the one side, and on the other side the Jewish
sect (with their identity marker of circumcision and their sacred Scriptures),
fully matches what we have learned from other sources about Marcion’s views.
The Apostles’ task is to call back, to exhort or correct the believers (revocare: Prol. Gal., Prol. 1Cor., Prol.
Rom.; hortari: Prol. 2Cor., recorrigere: Prol. Col.),
but he is not judgemental, but praises people (conlaudare: Prol. 1Cor., Prol. 1Thess., Prol. Eph.). Even where mention is made of ‘penitence’ (paenitentia: Prol. 2Cor.), Paul’s consolation is made of a praisful exhortation
(‘conlaudans eos hortatur ad meliora’).
If there is one passage which Tertullian fully embraced in all its radicality,
then it is the commandment, not to judge (Luke
6:37). In his work De pudicitia
which, according to Karlmann Beyschlag had better been called ‘De impudicitia’,
Tertullian adopts Marcion’s own arguments: ‘God is good, the best, the merciful
… therefore, he does not want the death of sinners, but their penitence …
therefore, we too shall be sons of God, merciful, peaceful, forgiving each
other, as Christ forgave, without judgement, so that we will not be judged’. We cannot find any
criticism against Marcion in Tertullian about the radicality of this
commandment. Instead, he uses the passage to turn it into an argument in favour
of a God of rewards, stressing with Marcion the non-judgemental God who is not
condemning, but merciful, peaceful and forgiving.
The Prol.
Rom. brings another Marcionite feature, it is the claim that the false
apostles did not only mislead the Romans into the Law and the Prophets, but that
this happened ‘in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’. This is perhaps the
closest parallel description of what we read above when according to Tertullian
Marcion complained that his own Gospel was used, copied and linked back to the
Law and the Prophets. These false apostles did not only use the Law, but made
the Lord Jesus Christ himself showing the way to the sect of Judaism. Hence,
the Prologue’s statement is made that Paul had to call the Romans ‘back to the
true evangelical faith’, the faith expressed in the true Gospel. Unlike the
addressees of the previous letters, the Thessalonians ‘persisted in the faith’
and this despite being persecuted ‘by their fellow city’.
Moving from content to structure, we can follow de Bruyne and Harnack in
their observations which were even accepted by Dahls and Schmid that the
opening order of letters (Gal., 1-2Cor.), indeed, matches the one which we
have seen above to be that of Marcion’s collection. When Mundle infers that
this is also the order that some important witnesses of the Syrian Church like,
for example, the above listed Can. Sin. and
Ephrem display, he, again, admits that this sequence ‘somehow derives from
Marcionite influence’. In both cases, therefore,
while trying to argue against de Bruyne and Harnack, he is rather confirming
their position. In contrast, he thinks, to have a stronger case pointing to the
existence of Prologues to the Pastoral
Letters which according to our sources Tertullian and Epiphanius where not
part of Marcion’s Apostolicon. Before
we look at these Prologues, let us review the content of the other ones which
has not been fully explored in previous scholarship. As de Bruyne and Harnack
have already highlighted (and which has only been confirmed by Schäfer and Dahls), the Prologues display
important Marcionite features, not all of which, however, have been detected by
scholars in the past.
Before we look at details, I’d like to draw our attention to the order
of letters which provide us already with the first unrecognized Marcionite
element. U. Schmid has rightly worked out – on the basis of the information
that is given in the Prologues – that the letters are given in historical
order: Gal. and 1Cor. are written from Ephesus, 2Cor.
from Troas which is on the way from Ephesus to Corinth, from where Rom. is written. 1-2Thess. are written from nearby Athens. The next letters are all written
while Paul was a prisoner, although the location alters between Ephesus (Col.) and Rome (Phil., Philem.). And yet,
the only indications Paul gives from where he wrote letters are 1Cor. 16:8 (‘I will
stay in Ephesus until Pentecost’)
and 1Thess. 3:1 (‘we decided to stay on in Athens alone’). In addition, he added in Philem.
9 that he was ‘an old man and even now a prisoner’ which provided a good reason, for placing
this letter last in the collection. To what Schmid has seen as a historical
ordering, we have to add that the letters also emphasize geography on a line
between Ephesus and Rome, which, of course, reminds us of Papias’ mention of
Marcion’s acquaintance with John (in Ephesus) and the place where Marcion went
teaching, Rome. As the repetitive insistence at the end of each Prologue (which
only changes with the Prologues to the Pastoral
Letters) shows, the organisation
of the Pauline Letters not only
followed – as indicated by Tertullian – a theological agenda, but also a
geographico-historical one, and in this expresses the same feature as does the
opening of Marcion’s Gospel which begins with the Saviour’s coming down into
historical time and a political space (‘In the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Jesus who had come
down from above into
Capernaum, a city of Galilee, appeared
and began teaching in the synagogue’).
Our reading of these Prologues reveals important Marcionite features, the
most obvious being the difference between ‘the Apostle’, and ‘the false Apostles’.
Paul is mentioned by name in Laod. The
‘word of truth’ and the ‘belief of truth’ reminds of Paul in Gal. 2:5.14 (hJ ajlhvqeia tou'
eujaggelivou) and Tertullian
reporting Marcion’s claim that his Gospel was the ‘true’ one, and also Papias’
discussion in the Prologue to John. The first Prologue on Galatians is explicit. The temptation
that befell the Galatians was not a more general one, to move away from Paul,
but a specific one, namely to move away from the ‘word of truth’ and to convert
towards ‘law and circumcision’ (lex et circumcisio) which, as
the next Prologue of 1Corinthians
specifies, was a conversion to the ‘sect
of the Jewish law’ (secta legis Iudaicae).
As has been noted –
and for a long time already been seen – these Prologues are referring to each
other, although they must not have been given in a list prefacing the entire
collection of the epistles – as their later transmission prefacing each of the letters proves.
Although Henry J. White played with the idea that they may derive from Marcion
himself,
Harnack rejected this suggestion with the argument that Tertullian would have brought
their nasty tendency to light if he had known of them, even if in his footnote he
partly withdraws from his counter-argument of them being not penned by Marcion,
as he sees the parallelism between the Antitheses
and these Prologues.
Harnack, however, and, following him, all subsequent scholars missed that
Tertullian, indeed, knew these Prologues and draws on them in each of the openings of his commentary
on Marcion’s version of Paul’s letters in Adversus
Marcionem V.
In his
commentary on Marcion’s version of Paul’s Galatians
Tertullian mentions first ‘the abolition of the ancient
law’, ‘the dismantling of the law, and the establishment of the gospel’, a first
hint that he had read the Prol. Gal.
together with Marcion’s version of Gal. This hint is supported
and confirmed by Tertullian’s discussion of the next epistles. In the opening
on 1Corinthians he begins by widely expounding
on ‘wisdom’ as a topic which is core to Prol.
1Cor.
The clearest
evidence of Tertullian’s use of the Prologues, however, derives from his
discussion of Romans. Here he himself
admits in his first sentence that he wishes to skip many topics, as they had
been dealt with by him already, but the one element that he concentrates on is
precisely what is hinted at in Prol. Rom.,
the antithesis between ‘law and prophets’ and the gospel.
The nearer this work draws to its end, the less need
there is for any but brief treatment of questions which arise a second time,
and good reason to pass over entirely some which we have often met with. It is
sheer boredom to argue again about the law.
I have again and again proved that its withdrawal provides no argument for a
different god in Christ, for it was prophesied
and promised in expectation of Christ
in the Creator's scriptures: so much so that this present epistle is seen for the
most part to put the law into abeyance. Also I have already more than once
proved that the substance of the apostle's preaching is of God as judge, and that
judge implies avenger, and avenger creator. And so again
here: when he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew and to the Greek,
because the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith unto faith, there
is no doubt he ascribes both gospel and salvation to a God not kind but just
Tertullian is tired, talking
again about the Jewish Scriptures, the law and what has been prophecied, but in
answering the Prol. Rom. which
specifically refers to the Scriptural basis of the Jewish sect, the ‘Law and the Prophets’
(lex et prophetae) in antithesis to
the ‘true evangelical faith’s, he sees
the need to deal with this topic again and even admits that ‘this present epistle is seen for the most part to put the law into
abeyance’, a view that not only conforms to
that of the Prologue, but is also referred to (‘is seen’) by Tertullian, hence
not originally his own view. In the opening on 1Thess. he, indeed, discusses persecution,
pointed out in the Prologue (Prol. 1Thess.; Adv. Marc. V 15). On Laod. Tertullian
discusses the address itself, as he makes the case that Marcion had altered it,
so that the letter was not addressed to the Ephesians, but the Laodiceans, an
information which he could have only gained from the Prologue, as the letter
itself does not specify to whom it was written. On Col. Tertullian mentions the historical order of orthodoxy and
heresy, and emphasises that the Colossians ‘had heard the word of the truth of
the gospel’, a topic inspired by the Prologues, but also necessary through the
Prologue on Colossians which mentions
the pseudo-apostles first, ‘while the apostle himself had not reached them’,
and the fact that the Colossians ‘heard the word from Archippus’ second (Prol. Col.; Adv. Marc. V 19). On Phil.
Tertullian talks about the ‘various fashions of preaching that some out of confidence in his bonds were more
boldly preaching the word, while some through envy and strife, certain of them
even of good will for the word, a certain number because of affection, not a
few from hostility, and some even from contentiousness, were preaching Christ’
which unfolds the distinction made between ‘the word of truth’ and the ‘false
apostles’ Prologue (Adv. Marc. V 20).
When we compare Tertullian’s further
introductory remarks about Marcion’s versions of Pauline Letters with the respective
Prologues, we notice further drawings of him on the Prologues: On 2Corinthians he
first deals with God’s ‘mercy’ and, against Marcion, tries to show that God
must also be thought of as ‘judge’, which makes it likely that he also had read
Prol. 2Cor. which itself may
have picked upon 2Cor. 1:3-2:13 and
the discussion of penitence and consolation. According to this Prologue, Paul praises and exhorts the Corinthians without reprimanding them, a
Marcionite tenet. In the beginning on 2Thess. Tertullian brings up the topic of the eschaton, ‘the revelation of the Lord Jesus when he comes
from heaven’ which makes apparent ‘the son of perdition’, ‘the
antichrist’, the topic indicated in the Prologue (de temporibus novissimis et de adversarii detectione), a clear sign
that he had in front of him this text from the Prologue (Prol. 2Thess.; Adv. Marc. V 16). Tertullian also
mentions Philem. and ‘the letters
made out’ for him (litteras factas)
which literally quotes the Prologue (litteras
facit), a writing which ‘has
so profited by its brevity’.
Then, Tertullian adds his astonishment
that Marcion ‘has rejected two
written to Timothy and one to Titus about the church system’ (de ecclesiastico statu) which is precisely what
we find in the Prologues to these writings, indicates that he had also in front
of him the Prologues not only to Philemon,
but also the three to 1-2Tim. and Tit. If these last three Prologues have
also been read by Tertullian, while Tertullian clearly states that Marcion had
rejected the three letters, how do these Prologues relate to the previous ones?
Relations exist: The Prologue to Titus speaks in bold language about ‘heretics to be avoided who believe in the Jewish fables’, apparently,
as some other manuscripts have it, the Jewish Scriptures, a clear Marcionite
claim. If Marcion had not included these writings into his Apostolikon,
it may not have been – as suggested by Tertullian – because he had rejected
them, but perhaps because they had not been known to him. Hans von
Campenhausen, some time ago, had argued that the Pastoral Letters were
written against Marcion, but if so, they still convey some Marcionite
tendencies as can be seen from Tit. 1:10-4:
1:10
For there are many rebellious people, idle talkers, and deceivers, especially
those from the circumcission, 1:11 who must be silenced because they mislead whole households by teaching
for dishonest gain what ought not to be taught ...For this reason rebuke them
sharply that they may be healthy in the faith 1:14 and not pay attention to Jewish fables and commands of people who
reject the truth.
If these texts were critical of Marcion, they had
adopted Marcion’s criticism of the Jews, and the Prologues to these letters
highlighted such elements and made a direct connection both with the Prologues
of the other letters, but also with Marcion’s theological position. The
Prologue to 2Tim., for example, talks about ‘all aspects of the rule of
truth’ which reminds of what is said about the ‘word of truth’ or the ‘faith of
truth’ in the Prologues to Gal., 1Cor., 1Thess., Phil.,
or ‘the true evangelical faith’ in that to Rom. and similar to Laod.,
while its ‘exhortation to martyrdom’ hints at a core Marcionite emphasis of
martyrdo and the mentioned ‘last times’ corresponds with the Prologue to 2Thess.
And and yet, as de Bruyne has rightly stressed, their emphasis on moral topics (see.
However also 2Cor.), on church leadership and discipline and their
structure with the missing location from which the letters are written make
these Prologues differ from the first set. Moreover, as Tertullian explains,
the fact that these three letters were not part of Marcion’s Apostolikon
astonished him, perhaps, because he could see some of the similarities between
their content and that of the other Pauline letters, highlighted by the various
Prologues. Given the Marcionite character of the Prologues to the first set of
letters, recognized by Marcion, and some Marcionite features in the Prologues
to the Pastoral Letters, it seems that Marcion’s collecting of Pauline
Letters and prefacing them carried on after him, and that the then added Pastoral
Letters – partly written to distance from Marcion’s reading of Paul,
partly, however in recognition of some of his theological view – also were
given short prefaces. Tertullian must have known that Marcion’s Apostolicon did
not differ in the Prologues from his own collection of Paul’s letters with the
exception of the Prologue to Ephesians which in Marcion was a Prologue
to the Laodiceans, and the missing of the Pastoral Letters
including their Prologues. The complex relationship between the Pastoral
Letters and Marcion, highlighted by the parallels in the Prologues is
supporting evidence that the post-Marcionite time was still far from being a
situation of entirely separate communities. Tertullian would not have taken up
such a huge task of refuting Marcion, if what Marcion had given was alien to
his own fellows.
