So why doesn't the name "Petronius" appear in GMatt/GLuke?
Well, if Matthew got rid of the name "Petronius" at the crucifixion, he could have done it in the Q pericope as well. And remember that I think Luke did use GMatt, to revise Mc--so, in this case, Luke just used whatever GMatt had.
It remains possible that the name was kept in Marcion's gospel--in which case Luke just dropped it, following GMatt, as I've suggested. (Tertullian is strangely sparse about this pericope, meaning that perhaps the Marcionite version was puzzling to him for some reason.)
And, of course (as Andrew Criddle has suggested in comments to Part 1) maybe Petronius wasn't named in the original version, either--maybe the Q author didn't name him until later in the narrative, or the two centurions were supposed to be different characters. We'll probably never know for sure. But we do know that the same author invented the Q pericope, and named the centurion at the cross "Petronius", both taken from the description of the legate Petronius in Pseudo-Josephus' War of the Jews. Whether this same author also called the centurion in the Q pericope "Petronius" is incidental to my argument. He may very well have split the Josephus material in two, giving his Q centurion the words of Publius Petronius, and the PN centurion the name.
We'll next turn to an argument made by Delbert Burkett regarding the Q pericope to uncover more evidence concerning the evolution of this pericope.
Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteSince Matthew had to know Mark how could he have introduced an anonymous centurion if he wanted to distinguish his 'guy' from the centurion in Mark (which would only be natural). Whether or not Mark's centurion was named Matthew would have to have named his centurion if he wanted to distinguish him from the centurion that was known to appear at the end of Mark's gospel, don't you think?
Yes, Matthew knew Mark, but I see no reason why he would want to distance his centurion from Mark's. Matthew surely thought the centurion at the cross in GPet and the centurion in GMark were one and the same. And, it seems unimportant if Matthew thought this centurion was different from the one in Capernaum. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't--an interesting question, but not a helpful one.
ReplyDeleteSomething I didn't mention is that GPet uses KENTURIWN to refer to the centurion, matching Markan usage. Whereas Matthew and Luke both use EKATONTARCHOS or variants thereof, both in the Q peicope and at the crucifixion. This is a slight problem for me, in that I have to assume that Marcion used KENTURIWN, and that Luke then followed Matthew in revising Marcion. But it does show, I think, that KENTURIWN is the more primitive usage, and that GPet and GMark shared it.
What is the Josephean usage, I wonder?
So you are arguing that he had no problems introducing a second centurion without needing to distinguish it from the first? I am more prone to think that Mark originally had the same Capernaum centurion narrative and then it was taken out like the following witness of Irenaeus:
ReplyDeleteFor the Lord, revealing Himself to His disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who imparts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the Jews, who imagined that they, had [the knowledge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected His Word, through whom God is made known, declared, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]." Thus hath Matthew set it down, and Luke in like manner, and Mark(1) the very same; for John omits this passage. They, however, who would be wiser than the apostles, write [the verse] in the following manner: "No man knew the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him];" [Irenaeus AH iv.4.1]
I cite this rather than the Letter to Theodore for the benefit of those who might not fully accept its claims that Mark was shortened in the third century.
Moreover, as you mention the Marcionites, if Hippolytus's source is correct (Phil. vii.18) then the so-called 'Lukan material' was already part of a gospel according to Mark in their communities anyway.
I don't think Cerinthus cared to distinguish the two centurions, no, but it's possible (as I've mentioned) that the first was a nameless centurion, the second was specifically named "Petronius" (even though he was really just the centurion from GMark).
ReplyDeleteBut I think you're right to wonder if the Q pericope was originally in Secret Mark. I tend to think he wasn't, because so few of the elements in that pericope end up in GJohn (whom I also think used GMark), but I could be wrong. It's not impossible.
The Irenaeus passage you cite, however, is extremely interesting--I think it makes complete sense that that particular saying would have been found in Secret Mark--indeed, it reads very much like the sort of thing that John was trying to develop on. I'll definitely have to think about that one a bit.
I disagree though that the material we call "Lukan" was part of the Markan tradition. It's true that I think the Proto-Gospel was the source for Secret Mark, though I think it was a very different document than Secret Mark. And other "Lukan" material came from various sources--some from Cerinthus, some from Marcion, and some from the final redactor himself. That's why it seems so mixed.
Have been writing about this today.
ReplyDeleteThe Gospel of Peter is attributed to 'Marcianus' in Serapion's letter cited by Eusebius (Church History vi.12). Schaff notes that he "is an otherwise unknown personage, unless we are to identify him, as Salmon suggests is possible, with Marcion. The suggestion is attractive, and the reference to Docetæ gives it a show of probability. But there are serious objections to be urged against it. In the first place, the form of the name, Μαρκιανός instead of Μαρκίων. The two names are by no means identical. Still, according to Harnack, we have more than once Μαρκιανοί and Μαρκιανισταί for Μαρκιωνισταί (see his Quellenkritik d. Gesch. d. Gnosticismus, p. 31 sqq.)." The truth is that it is Hegesippus's early witness that references this sect of the Μαρκιανισταί (ibid iv.22). I have long argued that Marcion is a non-existent heretical boogeyman like Ebion, Elxai etc. developed through back formation - in the case of Marcion a back formation of the Aramaic gentilic collective plural mrqywni (found in the Life of Mar Apa) which means 'those of Mark.' The curious thing now is that Hegesippus seems to cite the name of the heretical sect this way in Greek via Μαρκιανισταί. If 'Marcian' is another Greek back formation from Μαρκιανισταί only now in Aramaic (i.e. a misunderstanding or misrepresentation) then we have a parallel to the claims of to Theodore that 'Mark' was the author of the Gospel of Peter.