Justin Against Marcion: Defining the Christian Philosophpy (original) (raw)
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The Apologetic and Literary Value of the Acts of Justin
Phronema 34:1, 2019
The purpose of this article is to outline the consistent apologetic function and literary value of the acta describing the trial and execution of St Justin Martyr and his disciples in Rome (aspects which have largely been overlooked by scholarship hitherto). To this end, it will examine whether the most authentic recensions echo the apologist's understanding of the rapports between Christianity and pagan philosophy. Moreover, it will discuss the editors' articulation of Christian identity through their representation of Justin and his disciples, including the influence of the New Testament in this regard. It will also highlight the editors' censure of paganism via their negative depiction of Quintus Junius Rusticus (a descendant of a Stoic martyr, an influential philosopher himself, and the urban prefect who served as Justin's judge).
"This may be the most important book on Justin Martyr’s work in a century." - Daniel Boyarin, University of California Berkeley, USA.
"Matthijs den Dulk’s outstanding Between Jews and Heretics sheds new light on the central questions of Christianity in the second century: mutual self-definition among rival groups, the development of heresiological discourse, literary images of Jews and Judaism, and appropriations of the Septuagint and of traditional philosophy. Its innovative reading of Dialogue with Trypho persuasively shows how all these themes converge in Justin Martyr’s project of inventing what he considered true Christianity. This is essential reading for all historians of early Christianity." - David Brakke, The Ohio State University, USA "Taking the title Dialogue with utmost seriousness, Den Dulk has written a truly innovative book on Justin’s work while grounding his arguments in both meticulous historical philology and in critical theory. This important book situates the Dialogue in the vibrant milieu of religious diversity, inside and between Christianities and Judaisms of the second century CE, and significantly contributes to our understanding of these religious identities." - Galit Hasan-Rokem, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel "[den Dulk] advances scholarship on several core issues of second-century CE Christianity, including heresiology, the relationship between Judaism(s) and Christianities, and Christian identity articulation ... This is a masterful work that is sure to influence scholarship on early Christianity for years to come." - Religious Studies Review 2019 "Den Dulk skillfully examines Justin’s contemporary social, historical, and religious contexts and offers a rich and close reading of the Dialogue based on its focus on heresiology. Given that Justin belonged to a complex social context that required negotiation between various contemporary cultures and religions, Den Dulk rightly points out that the Dialogue must be read not as a monotonous evangelical text for Jews but as a multifaceted text pursuing a variety of purposes. Den Dulk’s refreshing interpretation shows modern readers Justin’s cultural intersection with Judaism and his contemporary Christians and redefines him as the expert of heresiology." - Chang Seon An, Boston University - Review of Biblical Literature 2019 "There is much to applaud in his book: the courage to risk the promotion and defense of new labels for early Christian groups, away from the non-native label of “Gnosticism” is just one reason... Den Dulk does an excellent job at conveying the second-century fluidity of Christian identity, and the ever-negotiated role of Jewishness without Jews, and of the Septuagint without its Jews in early Christian literature." - Edward Iricinschi, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany – Vigiliae Christianae 2019 "[A] measured step forward in “refiguring the second century”—hat relatively under-researched age in which the foundations of both Judaism and Christianity in their extant forms were laid... [The book] is a sustained, disciplined balancing act of close literary analysis of the complex and seemingly contradictory features of the Dialogue with a keen eye on its literary and historical setting, without giving in to the temptation of assigning it to one of the settled positions in the crucially important late second century CE." - Peter J. Tomson, KU Leuven, Belgium - Journal for the Study of Judaism 2019 Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho is the oldest preserved literary dialogue between a Jew and a Christian and a key text for understanding the development of early Judaism and Christianity. In Between Jews and Heretics, Matthijs den Dulk argues that whereas scholarship has routinely cast this important text in terms of "Christianity vs. Judaism," its rhetorical aims and discursive strategies are considerably more complex, because Justin is advocating his particular form of Christianity in constant negotiation with rival forms of Christianity. The striking new interpretation proposed in this study explains many of the Dialogue’s puzzling features and sheds new light on key passages. Because the Dialogue is a critical document for the early history of Jews and Christians, this book contributes to a range of important questions, including the emergence of the notion of heresy and the "parting of the ways" between Jews and Christians. The book is available in OA format and can be downloaded in full.
Justin: teacher, philosopher and martyr
Romanitas: revista de estudos grecolatinos, 2016
On this essay, we will present to the reader Justin Martyr, a II century Christian philosopher and theologian. To accomplish this task, we will give a brief summary of the use of the term διδάσκαλος in the Greek poetic and philosophical literature, in Flavius Josephus and the New Testament. Onwards, we will reconstruct the essential elements of Justin's philosophical school at Rome. Aditionally, we will present Justin's biographical data and a critical analysis of his legal procedure and conviction, as transmited by the Acta Iustini, Rescencion A. Finally, we will do a stylistic analysis of Justin's Apology. Resumo: No presente artigo, apresentaremos ao leitor a figura de Justino Mártir, filófofo e teólogo cristão do século II. Para tanto, apresentaremos um breve resumo do emprego do termo διδάσκαλος na literatura poética e filosófica grega, em Flávio Josefo e no Novo Testamento. A seguir, reconstruiremos os elementos essenciais da escola filosófica de Justino, em Roma. Adicionalmente, apresentaremos os elementos biográficos conhecidos sobre Justino e analisaremos criticamente o registro de seu processo judicial e condenação, conforme transmitidos pela Recensão A dos Acta Iustinus. Finalmente, realizaremos uma análise estilítica da Apologia, de Justino.
The New Marcion: Rethinking the "Arch-Heretic"
Forum 4, 2015
It seems we are always rethinking Marcion; and each new Marcion reflects a remapping of our understanding of broader developments in early Christianity. Several rethinkings, from Adolf von Harnack's portrait of Marcion as a biblical theologian and proto-Luther, 1 to more recent attempts to highlight possible connections to gnostic trends, have been undertaken on the same familiar data we have had for more than a century. Indeed, not a single new source on Marcion has come to light since Harnack's definitive study of the 1920s. Perhaps because those sources remain overwhelmingly polemical, it has remained tempting for some to merely surrender to them and revive the traditional image of Marcion as the "arch-heretic," a man accurately characterized by his enemies in both his deeds and motives. Yet we need not surrender our critical judgment of these sources or despair of discerning anything new in them. The long familiar sources may still have some genuinely new data to offer, provided that we approach them with fresh perspectives and resist imposing our expectations on them. Marcion's scriptural canon-consisting of the Evangelion and the Apostolikon-has a story to tell if we reopen the question of Marcion's exact relationship to these texts. The state of that question has been a key indicator of shifts in the course of scholarship on Marcion in the last two centuries. Before Harnack, Marcion's biblical texts held more interest than Marcion himself. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries they were considered a possible window into early stages of composition and redaction prior to the emergence of the catholic versions; 2 and then, in the conservative reaction that set into Marcion scholarship in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were dismissed as bastardized products of the heretic's redactional knife. Harnack was more interested in Marcion than in his Bible, and was willing to accept the traditional polemical charge that he edited the Gospel of Luke and Paul's letters, because by doing so he acquired precious data on Marcion's thinking. After all, quotations from Marcion's only known composition, the Antitheses, were few, but every edit of Luke or Paul potentially helped to map the topography of Marcion's positions. Critics such as Tertullian and Epiphanius provided a starting point as they posited Marcion's motives for "mutilating" or "cutting" the text. Yet they remained FORUM third series 4,2 fall 2015
Vessela Traykova-Yoanina, 2021
The book proposes a new assessment of the issue of the archbishopric of Justiniana Prima, founded by Justinian I in Eastern Illyricum in the sixth century; and also of the place of this archbishopric in the early history of Christianity in South-East Europe. The aspects of the issue are examined in relation to 1) Justinian’s imperial policy, 2) the specific features of the local churches which Apostle Paul founded in Illyricum, and 3) the rivalry between them and the Churches of Rome and Constantinople for control over the dioceses of Illyricum. Consideration is given to Justinian’s possible motives in founding Justiniana Prima, thе archbishopric’s special character, and the reasons why it had a relatively short lifetime. The book then studies the presentation of the concept of Justiniana Prima in later centuries, and attempts to answer the questions: ‘Who are the true successors of Justiniana Prima?’ and also: ‘Is it possible that behind the apparent course of events there emerges a deeper spiritual subtext sending a message to future generations?’ Emphasis is placed on certain sources previously unavailable in Bulgarian translation. These shed light on Justinian’s personality, his actions, and his religious policy. The book also looks at the issue of early Christianity and at its roots in the millennial ‘culture of mysteries’. It also examines the essence of the conflict between early Christianity and the formalizing Churches of Rome and Constantinople with their Judeo-Christian background. There is an analysis of the reasons for the perversion of Christ’s Teaching, with some examples given of erroneous views that were substituted for the Savior’s own Teachings. The illustrations provide evidence for the specific features of churches lineally descended from the Apostle Paul and their kinship with the local ‘culture of mysteries’. An epilogue represents an attempt for a change in paradigm enabling the human individual and the human community to be placed in a larger context of many levels. The necessity of such a change is the outcome of the complexity of the problems raised in the text, which demand deeper levels of cognition.
Marcion’s Gospel and the History of Early Christianity: The Devil is in the (Reconstructed) Details
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity, 2017
The significance of Marcion's Gospel in understanding the history of early Christianity has often been noted; however, a major challenge in research on Marcion's Gospel as it relates to numerous issues (e. g., the gospel genre itself, the textual history of Luke, the relationship between Marcion's Gospel and Luke, the Synoptic Problem, etc.) is that since no copies of Marcion's Gospel are extant, the text must be reconstructed. This article offers a critical appraisal of specific issues related to the reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel in recent scholarship on Marcion and his texts by Jason BeDuhn, Markus Vinzent, Matthias Klinghardt, and Judith Lieu. Particular attention is given to the variety of challenges confronting the academic study of this text, the manner in which potentially problematic reconstructions contribute to the place one ascribes to Marcion's Gospel in the history of early Christianity, and the variety of points that must be discussed and debated further in order to advance research on Marcion's Gospel. Only then is it possible to gain a better understanding of the Gospels, including Marcion's Gospel, in the second century and in the history of early Christianity.
Tyndale Bulletin 44 (1993), 307–321., 1993
This article seeks to establish the extent to which Marcion's Christology influenced the formation of his gospel canon, the Euaggelion. Marcion's Christology, as seen in statements preserved in Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius, has features that can be described as both docetic and modalist. These christological beliefs effect Marcion's redaction of the Pauline epistles and his omission of material from Luke's Gospel. In particular the omission of the birth narratives and notices relating to the humanity of Jesus suggest the appropriateness of Tertullian's slogan: 'the sudden Christ'.
Does Justin Argue with Jews? Reconsidering the Relevance of Philo
Vigiliae Christianae, 2023
Several recent studies on Justin's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew have argued that the Dialogue should not be read as a witness to the state of theological debate between Jews and Christ-followers in the second century. Such arguments conclude that Justin does not engage with actual Jewish perspectives, but rather reconstructs a hypothetical Judaism from secondhand , polemical sources, or merely uses Trypho's "Judaism" as a stand-in for what are actually (in Justin's view) heterodox Christian interpretations. This article challenges this claim by returning to an older debate in Justin scholarship: the question of his relationship with Philo of Alexandria. By attending particularly to the role of the Logos in each author's exegesis of Pentateuchal theophanic texts, the article argues that Justin's interpretations in the Dialogue carefully avoid a kind of Logos theology that is well represented in the writings of Philo. This rhetorical distancing supports the conclusion that, in the Dialogue, Justin is in fact responding to exegetical traditions which he knows from the writings of Hellenized Judaism.