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  • From: "Fabrizio Palestini" <fabrizio.palestini AT tin.it>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: The Priority of Marcion 2
  • Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 12:37:49 +0200

...
 
B) Gal 1:4,5: the section is not mentioned in the lectures on the marcionite Apostolikon.
 
The question of the original text
 
The section doesn't appear, on formal, linguistic-stylistic as well as theological grounds, to belong to the original text:
 
1) Context
 
The enhancement of greeting to the blessing-formula caris umin ktl. is singular: cf. Rom 1,7; 1Cor 1,3; 2Cor 1,2; Eph 1,2; Phil 1,2; Col 1,2; 1Thess 1,1; 2Thess 1,2; Philm 1,3; cf. in addition BENGEL z.St.: »Gratiae et apprecationi nusquam alibi Paulus talem periphrasin addit«.
A direct reference partly on the concrete contents of Gal (e.g.. in the senses of a theme or a particular situation of the community), that could explain the deviation, leaves itself not to recognize but only to artificially establish (against SCHLIER, 31; OSTEN-SACKEN, 121), to that see below.
 
 
2) Linguistic and formal special features
 
a) About the _expression_ exelhtai (Conj. Aor. Med. of exairew), it appears to be an hapaxlegomenon of the whole Corpus Paulinum. The _expression_ is present 4 times in Acts (7,10. 34; 12,11; 23,27; 26,17) and 3 times in 1Clem (39,9; 52,3; 56,8 = Citations from the LXX) that assign its parentage to the Septuanginta. As a matter of fact exairew as translation of hebr. lcn (in the sense of »keep, tear out«), is there an exceedingly frequent concept (altogether 155 times, of which 16 times in the psalms).
 
b) 1,5 contains a Doxology – the sole Doxology in Galatians and the sole Doxology within the Corpus Paulinum that ends an incipit. SCHLIER, 35: » Such praise to God, that ends the incipit, is not present in the other letters of the apostle «; SCHLIER explains that with the absence of the thanksgiving in Galatians, which is to be compensated through the Doxology, but this remains a conjecture.
Within the Corpus Paulinum we find Doxologies only in Rom 1,25; 9,5; 11,36; 2Cor 11,32; Eph 3,21; Phil 4,20; 1Tim 1,17; II Tim 4,18 (Hebr 13,21).
All Doxologies come from the feather of catholicizing arranger (naturally with the exception of the three last mentioned places).
With Gal 1,5 he acts as well as with Rom 16,27, w h doxa eis tous aiwnas amhn, through a »fully jewish piece« (SCHMITHALS, Römerbrief, 416f). In this he betrays – how already in the word exairew– the jewish-synagogale origin of the section; cf. LXX: 4 Macc 18,24 (literally: w h doxa eis tous aiwnas twn aiwnwn amhn).
 
3) Theological tensions
 
According to BULTMANN, Theology, 297, in Gal 1,4 it seems that Paul is appropriating of the description of Salvator Christ – close to others, e.g. the Jewish expiative-thought or the motive of vicariously sacrifice – for the ransom-motive in the _expression_. [My note: this passage offers me many problems!]
His explanation — »the enestws aiwn is the Aeon standing under the law, that as such also stands under the force of the sin and of the death « — goes certainly beyond the actual wording of Gal 1,4, as exairew in mediale signification means »to tear out, from etv. to liberate«, not »to redeem« (see above), wherefore in the Pauline letters is always used agorazw or exagorazw (Gal 2,20 MRec; 3,13; 4,5; ICor 6,20; 7,23; [Eph 5,16; Col 4,5]). SCHOEPS, Paul, 249, stands the setting against it rightly in the expiative-context  and detects that giving himself » the death for our sins « is » very like the expiative Abraham «.
The Redemptive-theology, that appears in 1,4, stands in contrast to christological and soteriological flux of thoughts. Two different christological and soteriological thoughts, that are not compatible without further addition, run side by side here:
 
Gal 1,4
 
1. Christ gave himself for our sins    tou dontos eauton uper twn amartiwn hmwn
 
2. In order to "tear out" us from the present evil age – opws exelhtai hmas ek tou aiwnos tou
 
 
Gal 3,13 - 4,5.6
 
1. Christ redeemed us from the law – Cristos hmas exhgorasen ek ths kataras tou nomou genomenos uper hmwn katara
 
2. So that we might receive adoption as sons – ina tous upo nomon exagorash ina thn uiothesian apolabwmen enestwtos ponhrou kata to thelhma tou theou kai patros hmwn
 
3. With the gift of the Spirit – exapesteilen o theos to pneuma tou uiou autou eivs tas kardias hmwn
 
One should not automatically try to harmonize this different concepts, that we find so often in Pauline Epistles interlacing with each other or in different layers one upon the other, but first of all try to disentangle them.
 
Cf. VAN MANEN, 506: »Indeed he [the author] speaks in 2,20 that Christ paradontos eauton uper emou, but not of him as ou dontos eauton uper twn amartiwn hmon. The goal of his Christ was not to 'tear out us from the present evil age', but 'to redeem us from the curse of Law', 3,13 (cf. 4,4), after which we become able to receive primary 'the blessing of the Spirit through the belief', 3,14, but equally the fruit of its death on the Cross, so that we, no longer alive under the law, as children of Freedom, can be from now on as sons, ... 3,26; 4,5; 6,21-31; 5,1«.
 
 
Result: the redactor brings in the text, in this place, the keystones of jewish-christian-catholic soteriology and eschatology against Marcion: the futuristic eschatology as messianic-apocalyptic expectation of the deliverance from the present aeon is opposed to the marcionite-gnostic present eschatology associated with it; equally the jewish-christian expiative-thought (Christ's death as remission for the sins) with the marcionite-gnostic redemption-thought (Christ's death as ransom from the dominion of the law); cf. BULTMANN, Theology, 295ff.
The antimarcionite tendency discloses itself still once in the formulation kata to thelhma tou theou kai patros hmwn: the theos pathr of 1,3 has now become the theos kai pathr; with it should be clear that the O.T.'s God and the »father« of christians are really not distincts, but the same one (VAN MANEN, 506). The kata to thelhma tou theou without the specificative (from antimarcionite polemic standpoint) kai patros hmwn meets again in I Petr 4,19 and 1 Esr 8,16.
 
Cont...


  • The Priority of Marcion 2, Fabrizio Palestini, 08/26/2001

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