Dr. Ehrman,

Below is a comment I posted today on R. Joseph Hoffmann’s blog (The New Oxonian) about Pauline conspiracy theories. Due to time constraints, he addressed it only briefly. He did say that he is nearing completion of a new book on Marcion that will address some of the issues I raised.

I would appreciate your reaction to my post. Was Marcion certifiably nuts for believing what he did about the Paulines? Should I worry about my own sanity if I take Marcion seriously?

Roger

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It should be kept in mind, though, that Pauline conspiracy theories are not a mythicist innovation. One was put forward by Marcion very early, at practically the same time that the extant record makes its first mention of a collection of Pauline letters. Marcion was the original Christian conspiracy theorist, claiming that the Gospel and Pauline letters had been interpolated by Judaizers: “They [the Marcionites] say that by separating the Law and the Gospel Marcion has not so much innovated the rule (of faith) but rather returned to the one previously adulterated. (Adv. Marc. I,20,1). About which Sebastian Moll says: “This fundamental conviction was at the very heart of the Marcionite movement, the idea of re-establishing what had been falsified. Marcion was convinced that there had been a great Judaising conspiracy going on in the world aimed at perverting the Gospel by pretending that Christ belonged to the Creator.” (The Arch-Heretic Marcion, p. 83)

And if we ask if Marcion’s word should be taken over that of the proto-orthodox, there do appear to be some good reasons to do so:

First, even aside from any consideration of the collection of ten Pauline letters, there is ample indication that proto-orthodox writers did have frequent recourse not only to interpolations, but also to forgeries, false attributions, fabrications, and plagiarisms. See Bart Ehrman’s Forged for many examples.

Marcion, on the other hand, comes across as quite aboveboard. His Antitheses has not survived but, to judge by comments made about it by the proto-orthodox, he appears to have straightforwardly argued for the fundamental incompatibility of the teaching of Jesus with that of the Hebrew Scriptures. And in his attempt to restore the Gospel and Pauline letters he largely adhered to his openly declared restoration program of trimming away what he considered to be the Judaizing interpolations. He is nowhere accused of forging gospels or letters or apocalypses to advance his program. “To Marcion’s credit be it said that he brought in no apocryphal material” (Blackman, Marcion and his Influence, p. 47). “The great majority of corrections consists of excisions… The number of additions made by Marcion is so very slight that one is skeptical about the few cases in which such must be assumed…” (Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God,p. 43).

Second, there are the many inconsistencies, self-contradictions, and the general choppiness of the Pauline letters. These characteristics which are widely acknowledged by scholars can be plausibly explained by Marcion’s conspiracy theory: the letters have been systematically reworked to turn their proto-gnostic author into a proto-orthodox one. The reworking was successful but left behind some rough spots. Now I realize that the sad state of the letters is usually blamed on Paul’s impulsiveness and his disregard for logic. He was a missionary—-not a theologian—-we are regularly reminded, so we shouldn’t expect logic or theological consistency from him. And/or, as you propose in your post , the choppiness in part may just be due to his quirky style: his writing “is full of periphrasis, half-thoughts, odd constructions and the sort of unpolished associations that for Paul amount to an argument.” Maybe so. But it is curious that the roughness largely occurs in passages that deal with items about which proto-gnostics differed from the proto-orthodox: the Law, sin, the flesh, the visible world and its maker(s). And since Marcion’s theory can account for that peculiarity, I think it too merits retention among the viable explanations.

Third, Marcion’s scenario that there was a proto-gnostic type Christian missionary present at Christianity’s first hour is basically conceded by the proto-orthodox. In your book on Marcion (Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity: An Essay on the Development of Radical Paulinist Theology in the Second Century) you call attention to the proclivity of the proto-orthodox to locate the times of their heretical opponents as late as possible. Yet there is a notable exception: Simon of Samaria and his followers. The proto-orthodox concede that Simon existed in apostolic times. Acts of the Apostles acknowledges that he received Christian baptism. Irenaeus too acknowledges that Simon was a Christian, albeit a phony one. And he was said to have preached among the Gentiles, ultimately making his way to Rome.

And the proto-orthodox description of Simon’s beliefs bears a quite definite resemblance to what Marcion claimed was present in the Paulines. Marcionism looks to be a simplifying development of Simonianism. Where Simon picks, chooses, and allegorizes certain Old Testament texts to justify his adherence to a Supreme God and his dismissal of the Jewish Creator and Law-giver God, Marcion goes further and just outright rejects that Scripture as irrelevant for Christian purposes. But their views of the Law, sin, the flesh, the world and its maker are otherwise pretty much the same.

And strangely, the proto-orthodox know more specifics about Simon’s succession than they do about that shadowy group usually referred to today as “the Pauline school.” They claim that Simon’s successor was Menander and that he too was from Samaria although he operated out of Antioch. And they claim that Basilides of Alexandria and Satornilus of Antioch were pupils of Menander. And they claim that Marcion was proto-orthodox in belief when “in the first flush of faith” (Adv. Marc.4,4) he made his donation to the Roman church, but that he was subsequently corrupted by the Simonian Cerdo who came to Rome from Antioch in the late 130s. To me this all seems to fit together rather well. We seem to have more real historical indications here than anything in the New Testament!

Finally, keep in mind other apparent anomalies in the early record. For example, Justin mentions Simon several times, but never Paul or his letters. Likewise, the document(s) underlying the pseudo-Clementines mentions Simon but not Paul. In the pseudo-Clementines Peter faces off with Simon, while in the New Testament Peter faces off with Paul at Antioch (and possibly at Corinth). But it is only in much later literature that the two apostles to the Gentiles, Paul and Simon, ever face off with each other. If A (Peter) faces off with B (Paul), and A (Peter) faces off with C (Simon, whose beliefs resemble those of the Marcionite Paul), one cannot help but wonder whether B and C are different versions of the the same person.

So I admit that I can’t help wondering: Are the Paulines proto-orthodox reworkings of Simonian materials? Is the Paul of Acts a proto-orthodox replacement for Simon? If these suspicions mean I can be dismissed as a paranoid conspiracy theorist, so be it.