1The Jews of the Roman Empire sometimes tested the limits of Roman power, at other times, utilized it for their own ends, and often did both at the same time.1 When they did so, they often used it to persecute each other. Josephus, for example, recounts the violent reaction of "the inhabitants of Caesarea and Sebaste" to the death of Agrippa I.2 Tensions and rows amongst Jews in the city sometimes elicited a response from the Roman authorities and even from an emperor, as in the case of Claudius.3 Further examples include the execution of James, the brother of Jesus, by Jews during an interregnum between Roman procurators,4 and Jesus’ own death at the hand of Romans, but at the instigation of his chosen, closest friend Judas (Luke 22:1-6, 47-48 par.). The suffering of Jews at the hand of Jews is also exemplified by Paul’s persecution of the church. Paul himself recounts how he used to attack his fellow Jews in Phil 3:6, "In my zeal for God I persecuted the church". He repeats this in Gal 1:13: "For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it". In 1 Thess 2:14 he states that the killing of "Jesus and the prophets’", and subsequent persecutions in Judaea and Thessalonica, were carried out by "Jews" whom Paul regarded as his and the Thessalonians’ "own countrymen" (ὑπὸ τῶν ἰδίων συμφυλετῶν).

2The year 135 CE marked the end of a period characterized by revolts and internal conflicts, and inaugurated what Seth Schwartz refers to as "the most controversial era in Jewish history".5 According to Schwartz "the core ideology of Judaism […] ceased, after the two revolts, to function as an integrating force in Palestinian Jewish society", and he adds:

The intermediaries of the Torah lost not only their legal authority but also their status as cultural ideals. Indeed, if there was anything at all holding Palestinian Jewish society together, it may have been no more than an attenuated sense of a common past, a mild feeling of separation from their neighbors that the latter, who had shared memories of their own, may have conspired to maintain.6

3Besides the "newly emerging group, the rabbis, men who had attained expertise in the Torah and in Jewish law (both civil and ritual) and were authorized to teach and judge",7 this period also marked – if we follow the suggestion of Guy Stroumsa – the simultaneous rise of the teachers and proponents of Rabbinism’s emerging twin religion, Christianity. Both Rabbinism and Christianity developed a partially shared Jewish heritage,8 but reacted differently to Jewish defeats at the hands of the Romans, the rabbis through retreat and closing of ranks, the Christians by opening their ranks and embracing the language and culture of the victors.

4In what follows I would like to present Marcion of Sinope as an example of one who navigated a path between Jerusalem and Rome. As a businessman and shipowner, he certainly suffered from the social and economic upheavals and instabilities of the time. Nevertheless, he took opportunity to emphasise non-retribution and non-involvement, suggesting a third way between Rome and Jerusalem, drawing on both traditions while creating a new one.9 This he did explicitly by following the oral tradition about the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and his message as relayed and revealed to Paul who had articulated a spiritual Judaism in a Greco-Roman spirit. From the former Marcion took the idea of salvation, from the latter the idea of colonial inclusivity. By combining both he believed that "salvation" would reach all people: "everyone who believes, to the Jew and to the Greek, because the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith unto faith".10 In Marcion’s view, righteousness was no longer confined to one form of faith. It was now revealed to all, to "the Jew" as well as "to the Greek", just as "injustice" is revealed "from heaven" to all as evinced by the "wrath" and "all [the] ungodliness and injustice of people who suppress the truth by their injustice".11 He developed Paul’s idea of Judaism not as a matter of "flesh", but rather a "circumcision of the heart", "in the spirit, not in the letter".12 This idea of spiritual non-judgmentalism – which Marcion coupled with a non-aggressive, pacifist and loving disposition even in the face of aggressors, foes and persecutors – drove him so far as to embrace the Jewish and Roman deprecation "Christians", coining from it the term "Christianity" which he presented as the antithesis of "Judaism".13

5The last of the Jewish revolts (132-135 CE) resulted in the displacement of Jews from Palestine and Asia Minor – such as Justin (and the protagonist of his Dialogue with Trypho) and Marcion – and their migration westward. It was the bloodiest war ever waged by a Roman Emperor and "proved to be one of the most difficult "police actions" Rome" ever undertook.14 Dio Cassius’ report about the war is telling and, even if we are sceptical about his numbers, the overall sense of his account is clear. He begins by summarizing the devastating repercussions of the war for the Jews:

Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities.

6The historian then notes the losses on the Roman side which seem to have outweighed those of the Jews:

Many Romans perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, "If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health".15

7Even 30 years after these events, this "was the type of war the Romans recalled only in horror. When the Roman author Cornelius Fronto wrote a letter to the emperor Marcus Aurelius on the occasion of the destruction of a legion by the Parthians (in A.D. 162), he compared it to the Bar Kokhba revolt, implicitly admitting that the latter had been a defeat" for the Romans.16 Fronto confirms that Hadrian’s address to the Senate after the war represented an implicit admission of defeat.17 The humiliation remained fresh in Roman memory and in its aftermath Jews were subjected to harsh punishments and drastic upheavals. Though the Temple had been burnt to the ground by Titus in 70 CE, hopes of it being rebuilt had endured – hopes which constituted driving factors behind the Bar Kokhba revolt. Now, however, Jews were expelled from Jerusalem entirely, leading to the dissolution of the Levitical and priestly orders and resulting in the Jews being banned from the town and infrastructure of Jerusalem for centuries, only being allowed back once a year to commemorate the Temple’s destruction. Moreover, the Temple of Jerusalem was replaced by a Roman sanctuary, the centre of Aelia Capitolina, Hadrian’s city.

8Marcion’s reconceptualization of Judaism immediately after the Bar Kokhba war18 is reflected in his endeavour to collect the written legacy of Paul and to gather oral information about Jesus of Nazareth, using these in his Roman classroom (and perhaps even earlier in Asia minor). The lectures seem to have been a success and Marcion’s material on the life of Jesus quickly attracted interest from other Roman teachers who considered themselves members of the Jesus-tradition. The material Marcion had organized biographically and geographically (as befitted a man engaged in the ship trade), was rapidly picked up by others, copied, altered and presented to the public as the Gospels according to Matthew, John, Mark and Luke (and others).19 Marcion himself, as Tertullian explains, reacted negatively to the plagiarism of his Gospel, especially as it was circulated under the names of apostles (Matthew, John) and apostolic men (Mark, Luke). In response, Marcion decided to present his collection as an anonymous Gospel, prefaced by his Antitheses, and supplemented by ten Pauline letters which he had gathered, edited, and biographically and geographically arranged. He entitled the entire collection the "New Testament". It was in the preface to this work that he portrayed "Christianity" as the "antithesis" to "Judaism" to which he had once belonged and from which he had suffered during the last anti-Roman revolt.20 For the first time, the shameful appellation "Christian" was used by the new cult to describe itself. "Christianity" was envisioned as a "new covenant or testament" with no connection to Judaism – which Marcion called the "old covenant" of the Jews and their god the creator – other than its participation in Jewish historical typologies, as the terms "covenant" or "testament" already indicated. Marcion, however, did not emerge from nowhere. It seems that he grew up in a Hellenistic Jewish environment in Sinope,21 and from the account of contemporary proselyte and co-citizen Aquila we can learn something about his Jewish background.22 In addition, it should be noted that besides Marcion and Aquila, other authors at the time were also beginning to collect, translate and edit the traditions of the past. Josephus had done so towards the end of the 1^st century, and now in the aftermath of Bar Kokhba war, Tannaitic authors and a growing number of "Christian" writers were doing the same.

Marcion, businessman and cult founder

9In terms of sheer amount of literary output directed to, about, and against any person in Late Antiquity, Marcion of Sinope has no parallel. Already during his lifetime, his name was on many people’s tongues – at least amongst those people who soon after him would call themselves "Christians". The 2^nd century literature on Marcion, is only equalled by the scholarship dedicated to him in the modern era. Beginning with the ground-breaking work of Adolf von Harnack, published in 1924 (based on the studies of another towering figure, Theodor Zahn)23 and continuing into the present day, scholarship on Marcion has been extensive. This is reflected, among other things, by the number of books dedicated to him over the past few years, authored by May, Moll, Beduhn, Roth, Klinghardt and Lieu,24 all participating in a debate to which I have contributed myself.25

10Who was Marcion? In the beginning of the 3^rd century, the amount of ink spilt by Tertullian of Carthage over Marcion overshadows all the other people and subjects about whom he wrote. As Tertullian was a profuse writer, and many of his works have been preserved, this proves important.26 According to Tertullian, Marcion was a relatively rich businessman, a ship-owner who had made so much money that, when he moved from northern Bithynia to Rome in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba war, he donated 200,000 sesterces to the Roman "community of brethren".27 Assuming he paid this out of pocket, and assuming such cash donations did not exceed 5% of his wealth, he was certainly one of the richest patrons and pater familias of Jewish proselytes28 in his hometown Sinope, even though he may not have been a member of the Roman Empire’s upper elite.

11Although it is not entirely clear why Marcion moved to Rome after the revolt, we are told by Clement of Alexandria that like many other teachers who had moved to Rome, they belonged to the "minority […] of the Jews" who "part the hoof [… and who] the Scripture represents as clean and acceptable to God".29 Marcion may have arrived in the empire’s capital during the last years of the reign of Emperor Hadrian (135-138), even though Tertullian believes that Marcion came to Rome a few years later, during the early reign of Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius, who was emperor from 138 to 161 CE. According to Clement, Marcion was "considerably older" than other contemporary teachers belonging to the Jesus tradition (such as Valentinus and Basilides who arrived in Rome in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba war). He also mentions that Marcion was no longer alive when Marcus Aurelius began his reign in 161 CE. We can therefore conclude that Marcion arrived in Rome between the years 136 and 140.30

12Why did he, like so many other Jewish teachers later considered Christians, move to Rome after the war? Unfortunately, we lack data to verify how deeply the Jewish revolt in Judaea affected Jews living in the Asian provinces. We can, however, deduce from the fact that people migrated long distances, such as to Corinth and Rome from Judaea, Bithynia, Syria and Samaria,31 that the revolt had a wide impact which was not confined to Judaea. We can therefore suggest that the end of the revolt provided a challenge as well as an opportunity to the smart and successful entrepreneur, Marcion. Roman military might was as repulsive as it was attractive, particularly to people who were drawn to the centre of commerce and whose dealings depended on communication and trade with the city of Rome.

13Tertullian will serve as our chief witness. The fourth of his five books Against Marcion, which he wrote at the beginning of the 3^rd century, provides us with an extensive commentary on Marcion’s Gospel – a text which only during the last five years has been thoroughly and independently reconstructed by three of the aforementioned scholars, Jason BeDuhn, Dieter T. Roth and Matthias Klinghardt.32 To us, the fact that Tertullian is the first commentator on any preserved Gospel is most important, only preceded in this regard by Heracleon who wrote two commentaries: one on Marcion’s Gospel (only fragments of which survive),33 the other on the Gospel of John, fragments of which are preserved in Origen.34 This demonstrates the importance and standing of Marcion; his Gospel was an extremely important and influential text, written by one of Clement’s "minority Jews" and interpreted and criticized by Tertullian in Carthage.

14Unlike the canonical Gospels from the New Testament, Marcion’s Gospel begins by providing the political, historical and geographical context of Jesus’ life. He describes the Roman Empire, mentioning Emperor Tiberius, and describing a Roman dominated Judaea headed by the prefect, Pontius Pilate:

3:2 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea, 4:3 [Jesus] had come down from above and appeared in Capernaum, a city of Galilee, by the sea in the regions of Zaboulon and Nephthalim, and on the Sabbath, he began to teach.35

15Tertullian in his commentary ascribes a great deal of importance to the fact that Marcion does not report how Jesus came down from above, depicting the beginning of Jesus’ life as the appearance of a heavenly being or angelic prophet.36 According to Tertullian, Marcion’s choice to describe Jesus’s beginning as an "appearance", "suggests a sudden and unexpected sight" and implies fixing one’s eyes on "a thing which has at that instance appeared". He therefore wonders about the "sequence", the "aspect", the "sort of array", even the "speed", "move", and "time of day or of night", when Jesus "came down". Who "witnessed it, and who gave assurance of a fact not easily credible even to him who gives assurance?", he asks. And because of the incredible nature of the event, Tertullian argues that nobody could have believed it, had it not been foretold by the Prophets of Israel.

Romulus/Christ

16Before Tertullian moves on to the issue of Jewish traditions, he notes that Marcion at the beginning of his Gospel neither cites Jewish witnesses nor frames Jesus’ appearance within the history of Israel. Instead, he uses the Roman Empire as a reference point, opening his account with the words "fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea". Tertullian comments on this Roman framing of the biographical narrative as follows:

It is quite wrong in fact, that Romulus should have had Proculus to vouch for his ascent into heaven, yet that Christ should not have provided himself with a foreteller of his god’s descent from heaven – though that one must have gone up by the same ladder of lies by which this one came down.37

17In this comment Tertullian compares Christ to Romulus, making the case that Romulus had a witness who vouched "for his ascent into heaven". This is in contrast to Marcion’s account in which Jesus is denied any witness or herald; according to Marcion none of the Prophets of Israel, including Moses and John the Baptist, had any foreknowledge of Jesus’ sudden and unexpected appearance and divine character.

18The Romulus-Proculus comparison is not just a random example. The Latin writer Tertullian is drawing on Livy’s History of Rome (1.16),38 as well as his familiarity with the literary background that he shared with his readers. In Livy we learn that the Romans attributed a similarly abrupt and sudden, albeit opposite occurrence to Romulus, the founder of Rome. Livy narrates that when King Romulus visited his army in the plain near the lake of Caprae, "a sudden storm" arose "with great thunder and lightning" which "enveloped the king in a so dense a mist, that it took all sight of him from the assembly". Within an instant, Romulus had vanished. Just as Jesus appeared from above and from nowhere, so "the Roman youth saw the royal seat" suddenly "empty […] [Romulus being] carried aloft by the storm". However, the reaction from those present was mixed. A few began to salute followed by "the whole multitude", all saluting "Romulus as a god, son of a god, the king and parent of the Roman city; they implore[d] his favour with prayers, that he would be pleased always propitiously to preserve his own offspring". However, Livy explains: "I believe that even then there were some, who silently surmised that the king had been torn in pieces by the hands of the fathers", and as Livy admits, "this rumour also spread", even though "it was not credited". Indeed, the critical voices became politically dangerous and "the state [would have been] […] troubled with regret for the king, and felt incensed against the senators", had not "a person of weight", namely Proculus Julius, come forward to address the assembly. He vouched for Romulus’ miraculous heavenly ascent, claiming that he had subsequently seen "Romulus, the father of this city [of Rome] […] suddenly descending from heaven, and appear[ing] to" him, Proculus. The "revelation" took place "at daybreak", while Proculus "stood covered with awe, and filled with a religious dread", wanting and "beseeching Romulus to allow […] to see him face to face". Livy explains the core message delivered by Romulus who tells his witness Proculus: "Go tell the Romans that the gods so will, that my Rome should become the capitol of the world. Therefore let them cultivate the art of war, and let them know and hand down to posterity, that no human power shall be able to withstand the Roman arms". Livy concludes the passage by adding: "Having said this, Romulus ascended up to heaven".

19The Roman story, referred to by Tertullian to demonstrate that Christ should not be denied a herald of his coming, conveys more than antithetical parallelism. The two founding figures, Romulus and Christ, share many characteristics. Romulus’ sudden ascent to and descent from heaven is parallel to Jesus’ own heavenly descent. Both events were greeted by a mixed reaction from the people, some believing the account others denying it. Finally, both protagonists were ascribed divinity, both being referred to as the "son of god" and "king". Hence, Tertullian, implicitly, transfers to Christ parenthood of the city of Rome. Implicitly, again, Christ is being implored with prayers to save his offspring, and the unbelievers are called upon who "[have] been torn in pieces by the hands of the fathers", referring, now, not just to the Jews, but also to the Romans who killed Jesus on the cross. And yet, the "regret for the king", and the incense "against the senators" is an implicit criticism of both Roman and Jewish authorities. Tertullian demands a witness who saw Christ "face to face", as opposed to the angelic phantom of Marcion’s account. Tertullian thus slips into the persona of Proculus. Proculus conveyed Romulus’ message, just as Tertullian, now, conveys Christ’s message. Romulus’ words about the Roman "art of war", and the inability of humans to "withstand Roman arms" has thus been imputed by Tertullian to the Christian religion. This is implicitly Romanocentric: Rome "should become the capitol of the world"; it should cultivate the "the art of war", and be given the task of passing down "to posterity, [the knowledge] that no human power shall be able to withstand the Roman arms". Though, these are all implicit parallels, by referring to Romulus, Tertullian certainly makes use of his readers’ tacit knowledge.

Marcion’s view of Rome

20Tertullian who otherwise is often, though not entirely, critical of Rome,39 was certainly prompted to draw the comparison between Romulus and Jesus by the way Marcion opens his Gospel: placing the Roman Empire, its emperor and its prefect at centre stage. It seems that Tertullian understood that Marcion’s Gospel was produced as a literary reaction to the nonsensical, messianic, and suicidal attempt by Jewish rebels to overthrow the Romans under the leadership of Bar Kokhba. Immediately before his discussion of the Gospel’s preface, Tertullian relates to its end:

Marcion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time of Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salvation of all the nations; and another Christ who is destined by God the Creator to come at some time still future for the reestablishment of the Jewish kingdom. Between these he sets up a great and absolute opposition, such as that between justice and kindness, between law and gospel, between Judaism and Christianity.40

21According to Tertullian, Marcion supported neither Bar Kokhba nor any other Jewish figure as a messiah who was "destined by God the Creator […] to come in order to re-establish the Jewish kingdom". Marcion’s Messiah was not a political rebel, but a spiritual figure "revealed by a god formerly unknown", who had come "for the salvation of all the nations", including Romans, Jews and others. Again, Marcion and Tertullian insist that this Messiah was revealed "in the time of Tiberius". Although Tertullian would oppose Marcion’s proposed contrast between the Christ of an unknown god and the Christ of God the Creator, as well as the antitheses of justice to kindness, and law to gospel, he did adopt Marcion’s antithesis of Judaism to Christianity, and with it, a profound "Romification" of the new form of religion for which Marcion had coined the term Christianismus. Just as Marcion has provided the "New Testament", a title which Tertullian only uses in his anti-Marcionite writings,41 Marcion had also produced the antithetical historical biography of its angelic founder which he termed "eu-angelion", using a Pauline expression to refer to a written document, the good message of an angel which, in English is only translated nebulously as "gospel".

22This gospel represents the first text of this new genre to provide an alternative Scripture which is the antithesis to the old edict of Moses.42 Marcion portrays Jesus as a symbol of love for one’s enemies, of doing good to one’s oppressors (Mcn. 6.27, 35), of lending money expecting nothing in return (Mcn. 6.35). His Jesus warns people "to guard from all types of greed, because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Mcn. 12.15). His Jesus refers to tax collectors (Mcn. 5.27-32), as Roman collaborators, but nevertheless calls them "justified" (Mcn. 18.14). He promises even the "rich chief tax collector" salvation (Mcn. 19.1-10); and to the question of the Pharisees (Mcn. 20.1) whether or not Jews should pay taxes to the Emperor (Mcn. 20.22), Marcion’s Jesus answers: "Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it? They said, Caesar’s. So he said to them, then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s" (Mcn. 20.24-25).43 Nevertheless, "the elders of the people" (Mcn. 22.66) accuse Jesus to Pilate: "We found this man subverting the nation, dissolving the Law and the Prophets, forbidding us to pay the tribute tax, taking away women and children from us, because they are neither washed nor purified like us, and claiming that he himself is Christ, a king" (Mcn. 23.2).44 In Marcion’s Gospel, Pilate responds to the High Priests and the crowd as follows: "I find no basis for an accusation against this man" (Mcn. 23.3).45 He attempts several times to free Jesus, only giving up when faced by the insistent demands of Jesus’ accusers. Already in the early chapters of Marcion’s Gospel, Jesus says of a Roman centurion, who loves the nation of the Jews and has even built them a synagogue, that "by nobody in Israel" has he "found such faith!" (Mcn. 7.9).

23The Gospel’s pro-Roman and anti-Pharisaic tendency is already apparent from the political-historical setting of its opening and its mention of Pilate and Tiberius.

The historico-political setting

24Tiberius was Roman Emperor from 13/4 CE to 36/7 CE, and a step-son of his royal predecessor the great Augustus. Nevertheless, he would never attain the same historic status nor be enshrined with the same glory as Augustus. Although one of the great military leaders and diplomats of Rome, he is described by Pliny the Elder as the "saddest of men".46 He was known and renowned for the actions of his envoy Pilate. Herod’s son Antipas who "occupied a 'high place' in the circle of Tiberius’s friends",47 founded and dedicated to Tiberius the city of Tiberias "on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee", and "modelled in plan on Hellenistic lines, […] the first Hellenistic city in the region designed for Jews".48

25Scholars are divided over the start-date of Tiberius’ "fifteenth year of the reign". It is possible that the count begins from the death of Augustus, Aug. 19, A.U.C. 767 = 14 CE. Alternatively, it may begin from the time when Tiberius became "associated with Augustus as joint ruler at the end of 764 or beginning of 765 A.U.C." = 11 or 12 CE.49 "The statements of Tacitus and Suetonius" are more consistent with the former dating, because Tiberius was joint ruler with Augustus, but never joint Emperor. Moreover, when Augustus died, "Tiberius was not regarded by himself or by others as already Emperor".50 However, Marcion’s choice of ἡγεμονία instead of μοναρχία to describe Tiberius’ "reign" indicates the co-rulership of the (then) Emperor Tiberius.51 However we reckon the count, Marcion seems conversant with Roman historiography and legal terminology. His use of ἡγεμονεύοντος to describe Pontius Pilate’s position is precise,52 as it denotes the military prefecture, the Roman praefectus,53 while the civic title procurator (ἐπίτροπος) was not yet in specific use in Tiberius’ time, and was only introduced later by Emperor Claudius.54 Pontius Pilate, the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, succeeded Valerius Gratus in 26 CE, and "was recalled A.D. 36 or 37 by Tiberius, who died, March A.D. 37, before Pilate reached Rome".55 Given the historical roles played by Tiberius and Pilate, their use at the beginning of Marcion’s Gospel carries not just political, but also a socio-religious and theological significance56 – something well understood by those who read his text.

26After the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, his empire was divided amongst his three sons, Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Philip,57 as stipulated in his last will and testament which was endorsed by the Emperor.58 Archelaus, Herod’s son and that of his Samaritan wife Malthace, became the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea (as well as taking over the jurisdiction of Salome’s estates), "constitut[ing] the major portion of his [= Herod’s] kingdom".59 Already before he was officially installed, Archaelaus was deeply involved in the struggle between Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees pressured him to remove the Sadducean High Priest Joezer of the Boethus family and to punish Herod’s former councillors who were responsible for the martyrdom of the Pharisaic "scholars Judah son of Ẓipporai and Mattathias ben Margalot and their associates, who had been put to death at Herod’s command for tearing down the Roman eagle from the Temple gates".60 Archelaus’ delayed response provoked popular anger against him, "and when the soldiers were stoned, Archelaus ordered them to suppress the uprising by force. In the clash which followed approximately 3,000 people were killed"61 in the Temple of Jerusalem. Archelaus was not a lover of Sadducees either, and he removed several High Priests from office out of financial interests. And although he made some concessions to the Jews by not placing his image on coins, he may have offended their sensibilities by entering into a union regarded incestuous by the Jews of the time (as mentioned by Josephus): after his divorce he married Glaphyra, the widow of his stepbrother Alexander, "by whom she had children" (cf. Lev 18:16-18, 20:21).62 According to Josephus, Archelaus thus was "transgressing ancestral law" which was "abhorrent to the Jews".63

27It is not quite clear from Josephus’ report who belonged to the delegation to Rome which eventually led to Archelaus’ removal, but it seems that it was a joint effort by his own family and prominent figures in Judea and Samaria. As a result, in 6 CE Archelaus was removed and the province of Judea was formed and placed under direct Roman rule. Beginning in 26 CE, Pontius Pilate was installed as its prefect. As Josephus explains in his Antiquities, this was during the Census of Quirinius which was supported by the Sadducean High Priest Joazar.64

28In light of these events, opening a gospel with reference to the reign of Tiberius and the rule of Pilate places the story within a specific religio-political frame. Josephus relates a story which sheds further light on both Tiberius and Pilate:

Pilate, being sent by Tiberius as procurator to Judaea, introduced into Jerusalem by night and under cover the effigies of Caesar which are called standards. This proceeding, when day broke, aroused immense excitement among the Jews; those on the spot were in consternation, considering their laws to have been trampled under foot, as those laws permit no image to be erected in the city; while the indignation of the townspeople stirred the countryfolk, who flocked together in crowds. Hastening after Pilate to Caesarea, the Jews implored him to remove the standards from Jerusalem and to uphold the laws of their ancestors. When Pilate refused, they fell prostrate around his house and for five whole days and nights remained motionless in that position.
On the ensuing day Pilate took his seat on his tribunal in the great stadium and summoning the multitude, with the apparent intention of answering them, gave the arranged signal to his armed soldiers to surround the Jews. Finding themselves in a ring of troops, three deep, the Jews were struck dumb at this unexpected sight. Pilate, after threatening to cut them down, if they refused to admit Caesar’s images, signalled to the soldiers to draw their swords. Thereupon the Jews, as by concerted action, flung themselves in a body on the ground, extended their necks, and exclaimed that they were ready rather to die than to transgress the law. Overcome with astonishment at such intense religious zeal, Pilate gave orders for the immediate removal of the standards from Jerusalem.65

29Josephus – himself of priestly descent and who later joined the party of the Pharisees – reports this uproar, describing the tumult it caused among the Jews, that is, Pharisaic Jews. In contrast, the Herodian dynasty had few qualms about using human images and pagan iconographies.66 In a catacomb at the Vigna Randanini, Rome, where Greek, Latin and some Aramaic and Hebrew Jewish inscriptions were found from the 3^rd century CE, wealthy Jews are attested67 and a synagogue named after Herod is mentioned. As Nikolaus Müller rightly states: "The name was a programme".68 In the catacomb were found murals with animals and human imagery, pagan personifications of the seasons (Abundantia, Victoria), as well as a painting of a young man wearing a victory garland. "It is well known how little offence Herod the Great and Herod Antipas took from human and animal images in their private areas of their palace, and that their love of images even offended"69 their people. Contrary to that of the Herodians, Jewish art during this period is markedly non-iconic.70

30Against this historical background, Marcion’s mention of Tiberius and Pilate in the opening of his gospel indicates that he shared a Herodian perspective on Judaism and on the Roman Empire.71 The gospel seems to have been Marcion’s entrance ticket to Rome in the immediate aftermath of the Bar Kokhba war, the programme of a Jewish teacher who created a new Jewish cult with his endowment and a didascaleion in the capital city of Rome. His new Jewish cult, with its many priestly, ascetic, and messianic elements, was conceived of as an antithesis to the messianic movement of Bar Kokhba and to Pharisaic Judaism. Marcion draws on both, emphasizing the prophetic teacher and messiah figure Jesus and the radicalised view that only Jesus’ oral tradition would constitute the covenant with God. This God, however, is perceived by Marcion as the antithesis to the God of Israel – the judging, war-mongering creator god of the Torah, the Prophets, and apocalyptic writings like Daniel. In his place, Marcion crowns the God of the new edict of peace and love of enemies, a counter-programme to that of Bar Kokhba.

31Reading Marcion’s Gospel one might be tempted to agree with Guy Stroumsa that Christianity, not rabbinic Judaism, was the form of religion that most faithfully continued the older Jewish tradition. He explains that with the birth of

two new religions […] side by side […] the appearance of Rabbinic Judaism after 70 CE, and its growth in the following centuries represents a real mutation of the religion of Israel […] [whereas] in a way, early Christianity, a religion centred upon a sacrificial ritual celebrated by priests, represents a more obvious continuity with the religion of Israel than the religion of the Rabbis.72

32If so, Marcion laid the foundation for the formation of a cult which was both a continuation of the "religion of Israel" but also consciously an act of subjugation to the Roman authorities.