Markus Vinzent

Translated by Harsh Kumar Verma, 2020, from the German Wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Vinzent. Citations supplied in German on the German page.

In the latter field he has contributed major studies, but also discoveries of new texts by Meister Eckhart (four more Parisian Questions and others), provided the Biblical Index to the critical edition of Eckhart’s works in the Klostermann edition (Stuttgart), editions, translations and commentaries to Eckhart’s works. As a result, Eckhart is embedded more deeply within the discourse of the late 13th and early 14th century discourse of scholasticism at the University of Paris, Oxford and Erfurt. Moreover, it became clear that Eckhart was not only one of the most successful and debated preachers with a great impact on the development of his vernacular middle high German language, but that he was also a sought after and highly recognized University master with his Latin works. In a very recent new manuscript discovery at the Wartburg Castle of Eisenach, Germany, Eckhart’s own vernacular translation of some of his Latin works seems to be preserved (with a parallel codex in Berlin and fragments in Munich).

Thus Marcion’s Gospel is taken to be the historical font for each of the four canonical gospels, because they consult Marcion as their source. In his own words, Marcion created the literary genre of the gospel tradition and gave his work its name, all whilst without historical precedent in the attachment of the name of this genre to the story of Jesus. Through the collected texts of his Gospel and the ten Pauline Epistles, which he came to publish as ‘the New Testament’, the first collection ever to take this name, Marcion gave a previously ‘Jewish sect’ an increasingly Christian profile, thus setting in motion their establishment into the institutional environment of the Roman world, in that Christianity had finally come to shed its Jewish identity. In the introduction to his New Testament, Marcion copies Tertullian’s example, and denounces the four later canonical gospels as plagiarism. Thus Vinzent thinks that from this, the basis was created for the establishment of the Pauline Epistles as canon, through the connection of the later four canonical gospels with origins of the wider New Testament, in which the Acts of the Apostles are found at the end. Markus’s project enjoys a scholarly connection to reconstructions of the Gospel of Marcion undertaken by Theodor Zahn, Adolf von Harnack, Dieter T. Roth, and Matthias Klinghardt.

His latest research pertains to historiographical methodology. Influenced by the sociological debates of modernity, particularly through his fellowship at the Max Weber Kolleg, Erfurt, he reflected on the various turns (cultural turn, material turn), and developed his anachronological criticism further in his project on ‘Retrospection’. In this he highlights the paradox between the retrospective nature of any writing of history and the progressive form of language and any form of narrative, including that of history.

Markus Vinzent is the head of the research project at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies on the place of Marcion of Sinope in the development of the gospel genre. The project, entitled ‘The Gospel of Marcion: The Beginnings of Christianity’, proceeds from the premise that the four canonical gospels of the New Testament were composed in the first-century and were canonised following the end of the second-century AD. The project brings into question the scholarly consensus surrounding the dating and redaction history of the canonical gospels, to show that the teacher and naval merchant, Marcion, was the first to compile a work of literature recognisable today as belonging to the gospel tradition. The predominant language of Marcion’s home region, Sinope, a Bithynian-Pontian Roman province, is widely accepted to be Pontiac Greek, a dialect of Ancient Greek, although it remains yet unknown, whether or not Marcion was fluent in the language.

For Vinzent, the ‘Gospel of Marcion’ was initially composed for teaching, and not publication, however, as soon as it was published, it was heavily plagiarised by several teachers and scribes, and then revised for publication into several different editions under the guise of various pseudonymous attributions to the Apostles and their disciples.

Vinzent is board member of the Eckhart Gesellschaft (2016-), and member of a series of academic societies, the European Academy of Science (Vienna, 2001-), the Academia Europeae (London, 2015-), the Eckhart Society (2011-), International Society of Neoplatonic Studies (2012-), Internationale Gesellschaft für Theologische Mediävistik (2014-), Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft (2017-).

Vinzent (2014) argues, that the core writings of the New Testament were likely heavily redacted, if not outright created, in the second-century AD, namely the canonical gospels (as well as the non-canonical gospels), which stem from the middle of the second-century AD, the Pauline Epistles (going back to Paul, but severely redacted when further ‘Pauline’ letters and Acts were added). Even further redactions followed in the second-century, when the texts were gathered to form the collection of the New Testament. The Roman teacher and merchant, Marcion of Sinope, is regarded by Christianity as one of its key thinkers and founders, and is associated with the first compilation of a gospel and 10 Pauline letters. Vinzent’s views stand apart from the conventional understanding of scholarship. The early Church first developed itself out of a ‘Jewish sect’, but it failed to shed its Jewish trappings until Marcion reinterpreted it in the years following 140 AD. For Vinzent, it was Marcion, who through the corpus of the ten Pauline Epistles and his one Gospel, helped to spread the belief in the Resurrection of Christ throughout Christendom.

Similarly, Vinzent has shown that the Christian Creed is a later development and, like that of Christian festivals (except Easter which was adopted from Judaism, but was radically altered by Marcion – a change which was adopted only at a time when the other festivals were introduced) is a product of the fourth century. Especially the Apostles' Creed seems to have derived from the dogmatic disputes in 340 AD.

Together with Professor Allen Brent, he has directed the major research project on 'Early Christian Iconography and Epigraphy', a project generously funded by the British Academy (2011–12); as prime investigator he was running the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded major research project on ‘Meister Eckhart and the early 14th century Parisian University’ (2013-2016) following his re-discovery of new Parisian Questions of this medieval philosopher and theologian. He is now co-leading together with Marie-Anne Vannier (Université de Lorraine, Metz) a major research project on ‘Teaching and Preaching with Patristic auctoritates – Meister Eckhart in France and Germany, past and present’, funded by the French Agence National de la Recherche (ANR) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (2018-2021).

Vinzent supports the investigation of David Trobisch and Matthias Klinghardt (2011), which examines the origin of the post-Marconite gospels as ‘canonical redaction’. According to Klinghardt, the compilation of the 27 individual articles into a single literary unit is supposedly not the result of a coherent process of collection and selective procuration, but much rather the product of a single, or even multiple redactors. Vinzent combines these assumptions with the hypothesis, in that the redaction followed as a reaction to the Gospel of Marcion, and amongst other things, that it embodied an anti-Marconian current, which supposedly means that it was intended to be understood as a response to Marcion and as an alternative written in opposition to his condemned gospel. Vinzent sees evidence of this editorial intention in the writings of Origen of Alexandria, Irenaeus of Lyon, Tertullian, and Justin the Martyr. Thus Vinzent presents the following points:

In 2003 he initiated and co-authored the Birmingham study with Guidelines on the ‘Trialogue of Cultures’ as a result of a major 8-European-country study of teaching and learning about Islam, Judaism and Christianity in schools, funded by the ALTANA/BMW-Foundation (Herbert-Quandt-Stiftung) with a major research grant (2000-2002). This resulted in the creation of a 10-year initiative by the foundation in which during the years 2005 to 2015 around 200 German schools took part in a trialogue competition. The aim was, based on the Guidelines to develop creative projects in schools for a better co-cultural-living. The results have led to a list of publications, a children broadcast teaching course by the Hessische Rundfunk and various other media.

Since 2003 he has served as one of the directors of the International Conference on Patristic Studies, is editor-in-chief of Studia Patristica, the conference's official publication, has initiated and is editor of the series Studia Patristica Supplements and of the series Eckhart: Texts and Studies.

Vinzent has held academic posts as senior research fellow at King's College, Cambridge (1991-3), senior research fellow at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaft (tenure), Berlin (1993-5), C4-professor (non-tenure) for history of theology in the times of the Reformation and Modernity, University of Mainz, Germany (1996-7), C4-professor for history of theology (tenure), University of Cologne, Germany (1997-9), HG Wood Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham (1999-2010), including a stint as head of department (1999-2001). He joined the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London in September 2010. During the years 2010 to 2015 he served as Adjunct Professor of Korea University, Seoul. Since 2012 he is Fellow of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, Erfurt University. Additionally, in 2015/2016 Fellow of TOPOI, Humboldt University Berlin, and in 2017/2018 Guest scholar at Augsburg University, Germany.

Vinzent studied philosophy, theology, Jewish studies, ancient history, and archaeology at the Universities of Eichstätt, Paris (Diplom, Philosophy and Theology, 1978–83), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany (Ph.D., 1987–91), and Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg, Germany (Postdoctoral research, Habilitation, 1991-5). He worked as a pastor between 1984 and 1991, and from the 1990s onward he has also been a serial entrepreneur (IT, Internet, HR, energy, waste, utilities and infrastructure).

Markus Vinzent (born 1959) is a historian of religion (specializing in early Christianity, Patristics and Medieval Studies, Historiography, Retromodernity, Religion and Business). He is professor in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at King's College London, and fellow of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, Erfurt, Germany.