The critics have acknowledged, or have not contradicted, that Tertullian had before him a Marcionite Latin New Testament, and they have testified that an important new insight for the history of the canon and of the text is thereby given. But the observation that M.’s text, apart from the tendentious corrections, is simply a W-text (also in its harmless individual readings) has likewise gained acceptance.
There remains, however, the question whether and in what measure Marcion’s text acted upon the Catholic text. My final result — that it did act upon it, but to a slight degree — appears uncertain, or unbalanced, on account of an ambiguous expression (p. 245), as Bauer and von Soden have rightly noted. I had written: “(M.’s significance) is proved by the observations of how strongly the Marcionite Bible, as such and also through its text, acted upon the Catholic Bible.” What I meant [p. 27] was that M.’s Bible acted strongly as such,1 and in addition, though weakly,2 through its text.3 Several critics have taken exception to this formulation, but from opposite points of view. Bauer and Lagrange assume a stronger influence upon the Church text; von Soden denies (with Zahn) that there was any such influence at all. He holds that even in the readings which I judged to be Marcionite intrusions into the W-text there is no necessity to regard them as Marcionite tendentious corrections; M. could here too be a witness of the W-text, and indeed that is the probable view.4 I have gone through the problem once again (see also the following “Addenda and Corrections” on p. 229*) and have reached the result that this assumption, while not impossible, is in a high degree improbable; indeed I must go a step further and concede to Bauer (and also to Lietzmann) that I might have emphasized, or established, the influence of the Marcionite text upon the Church text somewhat more strongly. Not only does this influence extend (though not very frequently) beyond the W-text;5 within the W-text itself (Bauer points to Luke 22:15–20; I can add several passages6) the influence is more strongly demonstrable.7
[p. 28] Added to this is the fact that there are some passages in the W-text for which unfortunately the Marcionite text is not preserved, but in whose formulation one must ask whether they are not of Marcionite origin.8 The whole problem can only be thoroughly discussed once the W-text with its variants for Luke and Paul has been restored, quoad fieri potest — a task still more urgent than the restoration of the Diatessaron, but best undertaken together with it. In my judgment the Old Latin tradition (with the exclusion of the African text) and M.’s text are to be chosen as the basis. Here one will arrive at surprising and certain results, and at last put an end to the preferential treatment of B ℵ Origen.
Notes
- [p. 27] Namely as a model and also through its prologues. ↩
- [p. 27] I have noted this in several places. ↩
- [p. 27] This excludes the assumption which otherwise suggests itself (Lietzmann and others), that the Catholic Latin text of the Pauline letters is only a Catholic revision of the Marcionite one. This assumption can be strictly refuted, and von Soden announces a refutation. ↩
- [p. 27] Von Soden has for the time being not yet established this view. ↩
- [p. 27] Particularly interesting is the influence upon ℵ. ↩
- [p. 27] For example Luke 4:16 f.; 24:6 (“He is not here”); 1 Cor. 15:3 (“which I also received by tradition”). See the Addenda. ↩
- [p. 27] In the Old Latin Gospel of Luke, the Palat. Vind. (e) stands — better instruction reserved — closest to the Marcionite text; then follow Veron. (b), Colb. Par. (c), Vercell. (a), and after these the others and Dd. — The few cases in which one sees oneself all but compelled to assume Marcionite additions (9:54, 55, 56; 23:2 [twice]; 23:34) will nevertheless always invite renewed examination as to whether they are not already pre-Marcionite, since the assumption that M. made free additions [note continues on p. 28] to the Gospel is in itself burdened with difficulties. He was, paradoxical as it sounds, a conservative biblicist. This follows from his attitude toward the Old Testament, which his disciple Apelles already held to be backward, and from the in any case quite small number of additions. But may one then assume any such additions at all? In any case he will not simply have invented these either. His strictly biblical attitude is further supported by an observation which I did not emphasize sufficiently in my work on M.: that he evidently renounced almost entirely any formulations of doctrine of his own, and in the “Antitheses” too essentially let the word of the Bible speak. How rarely did the disciples (Megethius and Marcus) appeal to freely formulated dogmatic utterances of M.; how few could Tertullian cite! Where is there a great ecclesiastical teacher who has been able in this way to let Scripture itself speak instead of a dogmatics? ↩
- [p. 28] In the case of others for which Marcionite origin has been asserted, it does not seem probable to me. ↩