The Two Main Challenges

Before examining the scriptural texture of the Gospel, and its relation to both the canon and tradition, it is worth considering the two main challenges against which it was worked out.

The Way to Nicaea, John Behr

The time is the first half of the second century. The first challenge is from Marcion, a rich ship owner from the Black Sea. Arriving in Rome, he donated a large sum of money to the church there; this money was returned once it was learned what Marcion was teaching.

However, his teaching found many adherents; Marcionite communities existed around the Mediterranean for many centuries. He drew a sharp distinction between the God of the Hebrew Scriptures and that of the Father of Jesus Christ – one, spiteful and malicious, the other loving and forgiving, redeeming us from that Old Testament God.

He claimed that not only had the Old Testament proclaimed another God, but that all the apostles apart from Paul had misunderstood Jesus Christ in terms of the expected Messiah of the God of the Old Testament, and so had distorted his message…

According to Marcion, only Paul understood Christ’s message. Yet, even here, he would excise passages from Paul’s letters. As for the four Gospels, he only had some confidence in Luke – but even this required some editorial work.

According to Tertullian, it was a separation of Law and Gospel that led Marcion to this point; he saw in these conflict and disagreement. He separated the Gospel from what was Scripture at the time of Christ – the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets.

The second challenge comes from a group we know as the Gnostics. What is meant by the term and how it relates to Christianity has been a subject of intense debate. Per Behr, it also has come out of the second century, one of the key figures being Valentinus, a native of Egypt. His disciples would claim that Valentinus had been taught by a pupil of Paul.

He, like Marcion, would also end up in Rome. Unlike those in the Church, stuck in the physical level, Valentinus saw something deeper, a gnôsis, possessed by those, like him, who were truly spiritual. Unlike Marcion, Valentinus felt no need to close a body of Scripture – a canon of fixed, authoritative writings. Instead, he would produce work that looked at Scripture as perceived in the heart – and such truths could be seen in other places such as the philosophers. Valentinus would write:

“For this shared matter is the utterances that come from the heart, the law that is written on the heart.”

Part of this is true enough, yet Valentinus would anchor this in nothing but the heart – the origin of all truth is to be found here, in the interior of one’s being.

One has direct access to truth itself, that which has inspired what is true in various writings.

There is no distinction between Scripture and commentaries, between Scripture and philosophical writings, between source and interpretation. The goal was to attain this gnôsis, this higher knowledge. There is no canon, no special place for Scripture – the interpretation of Scripture, as Ireneus would point out, was whatever the interpreter wished. Hence, there is nothing common to the Gnostics beyond this very individualized freedom to interpret via any method desired.

There were, of course, those who opposed such views – the views of Marcion and of Valentinus: Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Ireneus of Lyon. Their framework will be examined in a future chapter of the book; each in his own way would maintain a text-interpretive framework for revelation: “according to the Scriptures.”

Here, Christ is proclaimed, according to the Scriptures (the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets). Who is this Christ proclaimed? What is the relationship of Christ, the Gospel, and the Scriptures? Behr sees a method of mimêsis, or emulation, throughout the Scriptures: Noah presiding over a new world, described in the imagery of Genesis; Isaiah urging an exiled people to look to their father Abraham; Christ’s passion, of which the Exodus Pascha is a type:

John 3: 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Matthew describes Christ as the new Moses; Paul describes Him as the new Adam. Behr points to 2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:6), describing it as a very complex passage in which Paul begins to address the interconnected relationships between Moses and Christ, the Scriptures and the Gospel.

That the veil was removed by Christ means that it is only in Christ that the glory of God is revealed and that we can discern the true meaning of Scripture, and that these two aspects are inseparable.

This does not mean that the Gospel is just a rereading of Scripture. Christ has acted in a definitive way; we preach Christ crucified, and that He rose from the dead. It is Christ who is being explained by Scripture, not the other way around.

…to understand Christ, who, by being explained “according to the Scriptures,” becomes the sole subject of the Scriptures throughout.

This interpretive framework is what is found throughout the Gospels – references to the Scripture, citations of passages, prophecy fulfillment.

John 5: 45 Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

The second century writers that were later recognized as orthodox were sensitive to this relationship between Scripture and the Gospel. Scripture speaks of Christ, and what is in the apostolic writing is found in Scripture.

It is in this sense that Christ, the Word of God, is often said to be the key to Scripture.

Conclusion

Beginning from what God has in fact revealed of himself, the Christian confession is certainly that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of Jesus Christ, is alone the one true God, who, together with his Son and his Spirit, created all things, and besides whom there is no other.

This is where Behr begins his work, and it is the method by which the early Church Fathers considered Jesus Christ. A more detailed examination of that method will follow.