I see that Roger raises two objections:
1) there is no simplicity in the letters;
2) is a school necessary to publish? Implicit: there was none Marcion's school.
It doesn't seem to me that the letters show 'living' mysticism, especially when it is all forged. A spiritual genius is not necessary to invite to unity, to attack the Judaizers, to use stick and carrot, etc. And if some portion (in primis 1 Cor 2:6-8) sounds more mystical than others, Valentinus (proposed by Bruno Bauer and Arthur Droge) is a better candidate than Simon Magus.
Roger continues:
And I note also NL’s three key points:
But I’m not sure if a school would be needed just in order to publish. Would he have needed one for his source material? Not if the early heresy hunters were correct in identifying him as a disciple of the Simonian Cerdo:
(“Against All Heresies”, Ch. 6).
I am more inclined to see a school needed in the case of the proto-orthodox. Not only to sanitize what Marcion had published, but also to produce a New Testament in response to his.
Livesey dispels the Parvus's doubts by pointing out how even Cicero needed a "school-like setting" to publish his works. She refers to Letters to Friends, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, 3 vols, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), I.2.
I am not sure if the following is the quote being meant from that book, but it is very useful (only read it to realize it):
(my bold)
Did Simon Magus have the equivalent of "an unusually large staff of literary slaves" employed in "multiplying copies" of letters under the false name of 'Paul'?![:?:]( "Question")
Very improbable! ![:!:]( "Exclamation")
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But Marcion had surely a school-setting. He had money. Even according to Irenaeus.
So Livesey is fully justified in claiming:
(Nina Livesey, The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship, p. 132, my bold)
The next reference by Livesey is: Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, p. 157:
(my bold)
That explains why now the more astute scholars (for example: Trobisch) who want to defend the authenticity of the Paul's letters are obliged to say that the same person who wrote the letters coincides with the same person who published the letters. Cicero couldn't publish nothing without the school-like setting offered to him (or to his slave Tiro, after the death of Cicero) gratuitously by the money of Atticus.
Hence even the Cicero's case is evidence against Simon Magus's paternity of the letters: if Simon Magus was not even able to publish them, then even less so he was able to write them.
Idem for Paul. (But Roger Parvus has already conceded that a Paul's school never existed).
1) there is no simplicity in the letters;
2) is a school necessary to publish? Implicit: there was none Marcion's school.
I notice NL’s quote from Balas: “Marcion’s doctrines are marked by a certain simplicity, not to say single- and simple-mindedness …” That right there would rule out Marcion as being the author of the Pauline letters. There is nothing single and simple-minded about the Paulines. They contain a mysticism that is way over Marcion’s head.
It doesn't seem to me that the letters show 'living' mysticism, especially when it is all forged. A spiritual genius is not necessary to invite to unity, to attack the Judaizers, to use stick and carrot, etc. And if some portion (in primis 1 Cor 2:6-8) sounds more mystical than others, Valentinus (proposed by Bruno Bauer and Arthur Droge) is a better candidate than Simon Magus.
Roger continues:
And I note also NL’s three key points:
• Marcion was a publisher
• He published the first New Testament (a gospel similar to our Gospel of Luke and the ten letter collection of Paul)
• He published Antitheses, apparently an explanation of his philosophical principles and commentary on his gospel, a list of oppositions between the Law and Prophets on the one hand and the gospel on the other.
• He published the first New Testament (a gospel similar to our Gospel of Luke and the ten letter collection of Paul)
• He published Antitheses, apparently an explanation of his philosophical principles and commentary on his gospel, a list of oppositions between the Law and Prophets on the one hand and the gospel on the other.
But I’m not sure if a school would be needed just in order to publish. Would he have needed one for his source material? Not if the early heresy hunters were correct in identifying him as a disciple of the Simonian Cerdo:
“To this is added one Cerdo. He introduces two first causes, that is, two Gods — one good, the other cruel: the good being the superior; the latter, the cruel one, being the creator of the world. He repudiates the prophecies and the Law; renounces God the Creator; maintains that Christ who came was the Son of the superior God; affirms that He was not in the substance of flesh; states Him to have been only in a phantasmal shape, to have not really suffered, but undergone a quasipassion, and not to have been born of a virgin, nay, really not to have been born at all. A resurrection of the soul merely does he approve, denying that of the body. The gospel of Luke alone, and that not entire, does he receive. Of the Apostle Paul takes neither all the epistles, nor in their integrity. The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse he rejects as false.
After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus … “
After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus … “
(“Against All Heresies”, Ch. 6).
I am more inclined to see a school needed in the case of the proto-orthodox. Not only to sanitize what Marcion had published, but also to produce a New Testament in response to his.
Livesey dispels the Parvus's doubts by pointing out how even Cicero needed a "school-like setting" to publish his works. She refers to Letters to Friends, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, 3 vols, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), I.2.
I am not sure if the following is the quote being meant from that book, but it is very useful (only read it to realize it):
Later he [Atticus] became in a certain sense Cicero’s publisher. That is to say, having an unusually large staff of literary slaves, he would employ them in multiplying copies of Cicero’s works for general circulation. His extensive library was at Cicero’s disposal on request.
(my bold)
Did Simon Magus have the equivalent of "an unusually large staff of literary slaves" employed in "multiplying copies" of letters under the false name of 'Paul'?
Very improbable! 
But Marcion had surely a school-setting. He had money. Even according to Irenaeus.
So Livesey is fully justified in claiming:
This theory, however, relies on a school-like setting for Paul, a place that could function for the collection and production of letters. There is no evidence of a school of Paul.
(Nina Livesey, The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship, p. 132, my bold)
The next reference by Livesey is: Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, p. 157:
Why Cicero should be dealt with in a chapter on literary letters and not, for example, under private correspondence may be explained by an entry in a dictionary of literary studies, which claims that Cicero was the first to “make letter writing a potential literary genre, even if unwittingly and unwillingly” (Schmidt 152). Yet even apart from this judgment, it cannot be without significance that one of the greatest writers and orators of the Latin language was also a great letter writer. This is not to deny that the main value of most of his letters today is as unadulterated personal testimonies and first-class historical documents. But the very fact that people collected these letters from the beginning already points beyond their immediate occasion of writing.
(my bold)
That explains why now the more astute scholars (for example: Trobisch) who want to defend the authenticity of the Paul's letters are obliged to say that the same person who wrote the letters coincides with the same person who published the letters. Cicero couldn't publish nothing without the school-like setting offered to him (or to his slave Tiro, after the death of Cicero) gratuitously by the money of Atticus.
Hence even the Cicero's case is evidence against Simon Magus's paternity of the letters: if Simon Magus was not even able to publish them, then even less so he was able to write them.
Idem for Paul. (But Roger Parvus has already conceded that a Paul's school never existed).
Statistics: Posted by Giuseppe — Thu Jan 30, 2025 10:05 am