The Witnesses: 2. The Dialogues of Adamantius

2. The Dialogues of Adamantius.

Zahn has laid down the following principles regarding the use of the five dialogues of “Adamantius” for the text of Marcion’s Apostolikon¹:

1. The dialogues, composed shortly after the beginning of the fourth century, are far better preserved in Rufinus’s Latin translation than in the Greek original², since the latter reflects a thoroughgoing reworking of the original text from the years 330–337.

2. They make use of older polemical writings; for not only does Methodius’s work on free will [p. 55*] get copied out page by page verbatim, but a comparison with Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen also shows that they are based, at the very least, on a still older anti-Marcionite work, whose author knew Marcion’s writings³.

3. It is very probable, even if it cannot be proven, that “Adamantius” also drew, alongside this, directly from the writings of Marcion and the Marcionites, in particular the Gospel and the Apostolikon⁴.

4. The First Dialogue, with M.’s genuine disciple Megethius, contains — apart from one citation (Col. 4:10f., 14) that is read aloud from the Marcionite codex of the Pauline letters — no citation from M.’s Apostolikon; for Megethius declares that he will prove his teaching from the holy scriptures of the catholics, and proceeds accordingly to the end of the dialogue. Thus the numerous New Testament citations of this book, whether they are put forward by “Adamantius” or by Megethius, have no claim to derive from M.’s Bible. Zahn himself, however, qualifies this claim with a “probability” and a “possibility”: it is probable that “Adamantius” will not have put into the Marcionite’s mouth precisely those passages that he knew to be absent from M., or substantially different in wording; and it is possible that Adamantius, under the influence of older Marcionite writings in which M.’s teaching was disputed on the basis of his Bible, unintentionally allowed a few Marcionite readings to flow in⁵.

5. The Second Dialogue, with Marcion’s disciple Marcus, takes its stand from the outset on the ground of M.’s Bible and maintains this ground right to the end, so that here all the citations, whether [p. 56*] they are put forward by Adamantius or by Marcus, are Marcionite. Adamantius, then, either himself possessed an exact knowledge of M.’s Bible, or made heavy use of an older anti-Marcionite work that contained ample reports drawn from that Bible. The only qualification to be made is that, in the case of shorter citations not read out from M.’s Bible, memories of the catholic text may have crept in.

6. The Third Dialogue, with the Bardesanite Marinus, drops out of consideration entirely.

7. The Fourth and Fifth Dialogues (against the Valentinians and Bardesanites) come into consideration in part for M.’s Bible as well — namely, where Adamantius takes into account the Marcionites who are still present; indeed, here the Marcionite origin of a long series of citations in the Fifth Dialogue is especially securely guaranteed, since they are given in the order in which the Pauline letters stood in M.’s Bible (Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans).

(On 1.) As so often, the significance of a newly discovered witness has at first been overestimated; Zahn, too, succumbed to this. In contrast to him, van de Sande Bakhuyzen has shown, in his edition (pp. XLII–XLIX), that Rufinus’s translation of the dialogues, while more faithful than his translations of Origen, nevertheless also takes great liberties here. This holds both for the biblical citations and for the speeches. Rufinus, then, is by no means always right as against the Greek original — especially since it is also a gross exaggeration to speak of a formal “reworking” in which the Greek text is supposed to lie before us. This text has, it is true, received early additions at a couple of points, but is otherwise intact. One is therefore obliged, in the case of the biblical citations too, to decide case by case whether the original text has been preserved by the Greek or by Rufinus.

(On 2 and 3.) The literary character and factual value of the work can be determined more sharply than Zahn has done. First, it must be established that the dialogues are fictions throughout. Zahn, too, admits this; but he does not draw the consequences firmly. Here it is not really the case that now the catholic [p. 57*] Bible, now the Marcionite one, is brought in and opened up — so it seems, according to Zahn — here nothing is actually read out from Marcion’s Bible, here no real speech and counter-speech takes place, and so on⁶. If all this, then, is mere dramatic costuming, the dramatic remarks and situations are all wholly immaterial for establishing the origin and value of the actual statements, and it can only be decided on internal grounds whether something is authentically Marcionite or not, regardless of whether it is put forward by the heretics or by Adamantius. In order to establish the factual value of the work, then, one must set aside the whole artistic form and simply regard it as a large treatise. One is then at once convinced that we are dealing with a derivative work (a compilation) of a low degree of order, which is nevertheless of the greatest importance to us, since it replaces for us the lost sources it made use of. The very fact that the author has hidden himself behind the name of Origen — for only he can be meant by “Adamantius” — makes it probable that he himself had nothing to say, but reproduced older material. The tacit, wholesale plagiarism of Methodius — who was perhaps still alive, but in any case had written his work on free will only a few years before — displays an audacity unusual even by the standards of literary practice at that time. The numerous points of contact with the theological expositions of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen confirm that the author lived off borrowed material. The reporting of many of Marcion’s Antitheses, without the work of the Antitheses itself ever once being named, makes it certain that he did not know this work from his own acquaintance with it at all — indeed, it seems that he knew nothing whatever of its existence. Finally, that the Marcionites, Bardesanites, and Valentinians — and only these — are combated in turn leads to the assumption that the author wished to strike at the heretics who troubled his own province, but brought to bear, for none of these groups, any particular knowledge of his own drawn from their own works.

[p. 58*] With regard to the Bardesanites and Valentinians this is obvious — should it be otherwise with the Marcionites? Zahn does indeed hold it very probable that the author drew also directly from the writings of M. and the Marcionites, in particular from the Gospel and the Apostolikon; but he himself adds that this cannot be proven. In fact, not even a trace of proof can be produced; against this, his ignorance of the work of the Antitheses casts a bad light on his knowledge of the Marcionite writings generally. That he nevertheless brought together good material in abundance was, for a polemicist writing around the year 300, not difficult. At least a dozen works against Marcion in the Greek language were available at that time (by Justin, Dionysius of Corinth, Philip of Gortyna, Melito, Miltiades, Modestus, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Rhodon, Proculus, Hippolytus, Bardesanes), together with Origen’s polemic, which was far more thorough and extensive than the remains preserved to us. Which of these works — or rather, which several of them — he made use of can, unfortunately, no longer be determined today. What speaks for the work of Theophilus is worth noting, but is not sufficient. Bardesanes wrote dialogues against Marcion in Syriac, and his disciples translated them into Greek (Euseb., Hist. eccl. IV, 30, 1); perhaps it is precisely these dialogues that “Adamantius” made use of in the first or second dialogue, and that prompted him to adopt this literary form. That he himself, in the third dialogue, combats a Bardesanite would be no argument against this⁷.

Under these circumstances — that is, since the author cannot be credited with independent knowledge of the Marcionite Bible — every single biblical citation, regardless of which dialogue it stands in and [p. 59*] whether it is put forward by “Adamantius” or by a heretic, must be examined, on its own terms and within the framework of its context, as to whether it flowed from the Marcionite Bible or not; and we shall have to prepare ourselves to encounter citations of very diverse origin, as cannot be otherwise expected in a compilation of this kind.

(On 4–7.) In light of what has been set out, the principles that Zahn has laid down here cannot be maintained. Only a few words are therefore needed. As for the First Dialogue, it too may very well contain more Marcionite biblical material than the single citation that Zahn allows to count as Marcionite (Col. 4:10f., 14); for we would have a guarantee for Zahn’s claim that, in this dialogue, disputation proceeds throughout on the ground of the catholic Bible on the basis of an agreement, only if this were a real disputation rather than a fictitious one. Since it is fictitious, however, we do not know with what degree of care the author distributed the citations that his sources offered him. Incidentally — to name just one example here for now — when Megethius (Dial. I, 13) reproduces the Marcionite Antithesis: “The prophet of the God of Genesis [i.e. of the Creator], in order that by making war he might destroy the more, made the sun stand still, so that it should not go down until he had finished destroying those warring against the people; but the Lord, being good, says: ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath’” — it is surely evident that Eph. 4:26 derives here from the Marcionite Bible. Conversely, it is not the case that all the citations in the Second Dialogue must derive from M.’s Bible. It is true that, according to the agreement between the disputants, this ought to be the case — Zahn is right about that — but has the author kept his source uniformly pure throughout his recasting of it? No; there are sure examples where, at some points, he does not reproduce M.’s text. Further, the Third Dialogue offers only three citations from the Pauline letters in all, and is directed against Bardesanes; but here too it would be possible that the author, given the compilatory character of his work, has introduced Marcionite material, and in view of the citation of Rom. 6:19 this does not seem to me improbable. This citation reads (III, 7), in its second half, thus: οὕτω παραστήσατε τὰ μέλη τῷ θεῷ δοῦλα τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ [“thus present your members as slaves to God, unto righteousness”] (Rufinus: “ita nunc ex- [p. 60*] “-hibete membra vestra deo servire in iustitia” [“present your members to God, to serve in righteousness”]). The original text reads: οὕτως νῦν παραστήσατε τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν δοῦλα τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ [“thus now present your members as slaves to righteousness”]. I set aside “nunc,” “vestra,” and “servire” (so too F G, d e f g, the Vulgate, Origen, Ambrosiaster): the valuable variant, otherwise nowhere attested, lies in the inserted “θεῷ” [“to God”]. Whoever inserted this did not wish it to be read that believers should place their members in service to righteousness (although the parallel with ἀνομίᾳ [lawlessness] demanded this); he therefore altered it so that God himself becomes the master served, and then allowed it to stand that believers (in Rufinus the correct wording appears) serve God in righteousness. This is Marcionite; for M. had to fear that δουλεύειν τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ [“to serve righteousness”] would be understood as δουλεύειν τῷ δικαίῳ θεῷ [“to serve the just God” — i.e. the Creator]; but a δουλεύειν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ [“to serve in righteousness”] he could allow to stand, for δικαιοσύνη [“righteousness”], rightly understood, was tolerable to him too. — The same holds of the Fourth and Fifth Dialogues as of the First Dialogue; but Zahn is right here that the Pauline citations given in Dialogue V, chs. 22–27, in the Marcionite order of the Pauline letters, form a closed group and must therefore derive from the Marcionite Bible.

From what has been set out here it follows that no consistent, fixed principles can be established for ascertaining the Marcionite Pauline citations in the dialogues; rather, one must decide almost everywhere (with the exception of V, 22–27) on internal grounds. But in order to prove that the Pauline citations of Dialogue I, and of certain parts of Dialogue V, which Zahn rejects on principle as Marcionite citations, must nevertheless also be taken into consideration and yield something for M., a few pieces of evidence shall be given here:

At Gal. 1:8 Zahn, in his reconstruction of the text, rightly offered, following Tertullian: ἄλλως εὐαγγελίζηται [“should preach a gospel otherwise”] (Tertullian, three times: “aliter evangelizaverit”). In the catholic text ἄλλως is absent, but in Adamantius, Dial. I, 6, one likewise reads, in Rufinus’s translation (the text a mixture of vv. 8 and 9): “aliter evangelizaverit” (the Greek here offers, as sometimes happens, a corrupted text). Who can doubt that this ἄλλως, otherwise wholly unattested, has flowed, in Adamantius, from M.’s text?

1 Cor. 15:1–4 is cited verbatim in Dial. V, 6; but in both places κατὰ τὰς γραφάς [“according to the scriptures”] is missing, and along with it ὃ καὶ [p. 61*] παρέλαβον [“and which I also received”]. Both this and that omission are certainly Marcionite; for he could neither allow the death and resurrection to have been foretold by “the scriptures,” nor concede that he [Paul] had received the gospel in the same way as the Corinthians had received it from him. A few verses later (v. 20) the unfalsified text reads: Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται ἐκ νεκρῶν [“Christ has been raised from the dead”], but in Dial. V, 6: Χριστὸς κηρύσσεται ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστάναι [“Christ is proclaimed to have risen from the dead”]. We know, however (see on Gal. 1:1), that M. did not like to speak of Christ’s being raised [by another], but inserted “resurrection” or “self-raising” in its place. A Marcionite text is present here too, then.

1 Thess. 4:15–17 is cited, in part verbatim, by Tertullian (V, 15) and in the Dialogue (I, 25). The two witnesses agree in that they do not attest πρῶτον [“first”] but the Old Latin reading πρῶτοι [“(we who are) first (alive)”], and that they carry over the words εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ [“unto his coming”] from v. 15 into v. 17 (otherwise unattested): “we... who are left, unto the coming of Christ (of him), shall together with them be caught up.” Can this coincidence be accidental?

Tertullian (Adv. Marc. IV, 16), in reproducing the Marcionite text of Luke 6:29 (in the form of a report), inserts “amplius” [“further,” “in addition”] twice (“alteram amplius maxillam offerri” [“to offer the other cheek in addition”] and “sed et amplius et pallium concedendi” [“but also to grant even the cloak in addition”]); in Adamantius, Dial. I, 18, the text reads: πρόσθες αὐτῷ καὶ τὸν χιτῶνα [“add to him the tunic also”]. This πρόσθες [“add”] is offered neither by Luke nor by Matthew; but, as we see, Tertullian attests it. Here, then, Adamantius offers the Marcionite text. Further, at Luke 6:38 the Marcionite reading, according to Tertullian (IV, 17), is τῷ αὐτῷ μέτρῳ ᾧ [“with the same measure with which”] (otherwise attested only by the Old Latin codex g²); but this reading is also offered by Adamantius, Dial. I, 15 (following Rufinus, who must be followed here, as so often). Further, in Tertullian’s two reports (II, 27 and IV, 17) on M.’s principal saying about the bad and the good tree, he uses “proferre” or “producere,” which corresponds exactly neither to Matthew’s nor to Luke’s text; but in Dial. I, 28 the saying has προενεγκεῖν (προενέγκαι) [“to bring forth”] — the same text — and it should also be pointed out that, in the Dialogue, the bad tree precedes the good, because, according to M., it signifies the Law, which precedes the Gospel. Finally, one more example: Luke 24:25 — M.’s text read, in a tendentious recasting, according to Tertullian and [p. 62*] Epiphanius: ἐλάλησα (ἐλάλησεν) πρὸς ὑμᾶς [“I spoke (he spoke) to you”] in place of ἐλάλησαν οἱ προφῆται [“the prophets spoke”]; but as with those witnesses, it also reads so in Dial. V, 12.

These examples will suffice to demonstrate that Zahn’s fixed principles regarding the use of the dialogues do not hold good⁸ — as certain as it is that the dialogues contain numerous citations that do not derive from M.’s Bible. Adamantius drew, in fact, from various anti-Marcionite sources.