Working on Marcion's
version of the Pauline text of First Corinthians, I noticed that according to both
Tertullian and Epiphanius, Marcion's Paul had already the passage about the
silencing of women, 1Cor. 14:34.
This, of course, is a counterargument to Harnack and others who saw this as a
later gloss [Harnack, Mission und
Ausbreitung, 590-91, cf. B. Nongbri, ‘Pauline Letter Manuscripts’, in M.
Harding and A. Nobbs (eds), All Things to
All Cultures: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (Grand Rapids and
Cambridge, 2013) 84-102 at 96; P.H. Payne, ‘Vaticanus Distigme-Obelos Symbols
Marking Added Text, Including 1 Corinthians 14.34-35’, NTS 63 (2017) 604-25], unless that gloss had entered the Pauline text at a rather early
stage - pretty hypothetical.
However, contrary to
our textus receptus of Paul today, Marcion's Paul must have pointed out with
his explicit reference to the Law that this teaching about the silencing and subjugating
of women derives from the Law and, therefore, only showed the 'disorderly nature'
of the Law (so explicit in the commentary of Epiphanius, somehow also in
Tertullian). Hence, instead of a later gloss, I would presume that the Pauline
text had been altered later so that the critical note (1Cor. 14:33: 'For God is not characterized by disorder, but by
peace') could be misinterpreted. It seems that Marcion's Paul intended by 1Cor.
14:34 to point out the subjugation of women and their silencing in the church
was a kind of disorder that was inconsistent with the God of Jesus Christ. This
then explains the strong dissent with the earlier statement that women in the congregations
are allowed to prophecy.
Not in English?
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