Chapter VII. Marcion’s Apostolikon

[p. 151]

Chapter VII. Marcion’s Apostolikon

The defenders of the ordinary view of Marcion’s Gospel draw a principal ground for it

[p. 152]

from the circumstance that Marcion, after all, dealt just as arbitrarily with the Pauline letters which he accepted as the Church Fathers assert that he did in regard to his Gospel. If, then, he did the former, they conclude, one will be entitled to presuppose the same procedure also in the case of the Gospel writing used by him.¹ However that may be, whether the statements of the Fathers justify the charge of mutilation of the Pauline letters or not, the result we have reached concerning the Gospel cannot be contested by that means: least of all by such declamations as the one cited, which make a prejudice into a matter of conscience for the critic! Although, then, the question concerning the Pauline letters which Marcion possessed does not enter further into the investigation that occupies us here, still the connection in which the charges heaped upon him on account of the Gospel and on account of the letters stand will excuse us if we discuss, by way of an appendix, Marcion’s relationship to the Pauline letters as well.

Irenaeus (Against Heresies I, 27, 2) says: Apostoli Pauli literas abscidit, auferens quaecunque manifeste dicta sunt ab Apostolo de eo deo, qui mundum fecit, quoniam hic

[p. 153]

pater domini nostri I. C. et quaecunque ex propheticis memorans apostolus docuit, praenuntiantibus adventum domini. [He cut away the letters of the Apostle Paul, removing whatever was manifestly said by the Apostle about that God who made the world, since this one is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (I. C.), and whatever the apostle taught when he recalled things from the prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord.] Tertullian (Against Marcion V, 1, p. 372) says: Epistolas Pauli mutilatas etiam de numero, forma jam haeretici evangelii praejudicasse debebit² [The form of the heretic’s Gospel will already have to have prejudged the letters of Paul, mutilated even in their number]. And Epiphanius (Haer. 42, p. 309 D): ἔχει δὲ καὶ ἐπιστολὰς παρ' αὐτῷ τοῦ ἁγίου ἀποστόλου δέκα, αἷς μόναις κέχρηται, οὐ πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς ἐν αὐταῖς γεγραμμένοις ἀλλὰ τινα αὐτῶν περιτέμνων, τινὰ δὲ ἀλλοιώσας κεφάλαια. [He also has ten letters of the holy apostle, which alone he uses; not, however, all the things written in them, but cutting away some of them, and altering some chapters.] These ten letters are those to the Galatians, both to the Corinthians, to the Romans, both to the Thessalonians, to the Laodiceans (Ephesians),³ to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Philippians. This is the order in which Epiphanius (p. 310) lists them, and afterward collects passages from them for the refutation of Marcion; Tertullian departs from him only in transposing the last two letters. He lacked, then, the Pastoral Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews; their intentional exclusion Tertullian, as is readily explained, lays to Marcion’s charge from his own standpoint. We are naturally far from according Tertullian belief in this, since he presupposes, without the slightest historical right, that his canon derives from the apostolic age. It is rather to be assumed that this first collection of Pauline letters of which mention is made did not contain those letters for the reason that they were not known to the compiler. Marcion’s collection is the original one.⁴ How,

[p. 154]

then, can one expect that a still more complete collection of Pauline letters had been disseminated at a time (between 130 and 140) in which we find such meager mentions of the individual Pauline letters?⁵ That charge, then, epistolas Pauli mutilatas esse etiam de numero [that the letters of Paul were mutilated even in their number], must be dismissed entirely from the outset. For grounding the charge of mutilation and falsification of the text of those ten letters, on the other hand, there lies before us a series of statements in the fifth book of Tertullian against Marcion, and again, in Epiphanius, in so-called scholia, from which Hahn (in the work cited above, pp. 51–65) has compiled a striking register of charges. Both authorities have before their eyes, in their statements about the letters, just as little as in the case of the Gospel, the critical purpose directly, but rather, as one may well suppose, once again that of dogmatic refutation. Only in a few cases do they insert direct statements about passages that were missing in Marcion. The main point, then, will once again be decidable only by internal criticism, and only up to probability. And so one must also be content if we can refute Hahn’s view of individual cases only by showing their improbability: internal criticism will not lead us here to so striking a certainty as in the matter of the Gospel.

The first passage at which Marcion is supposed to have exercised his critical arbitrariness is Galatians 3:6–9, of which Jerome reports that Marcion struck it out.⁶

[p. 155]

With this, Tertullian too is supposed to agree. He says, as Hahn (in the work cited above, p. 52) reports, that haereticam industriam erasisse mentionem Abrahae [heretical industry erased the mention of Abraham]. If, however, we look more closely at Tertullian’s words, the matter is not so simple after all. It reads in him (book V, 3, p. 380): Sed et cum adjicit, omnes enim filii estis fidei (Gal. 3, 26.), ostenditur, quid supra haeretica industria eraserit, mentionem scilicet Abrahae, qua nos Apostolus filios Abrahae per fidem affirmat (v. 7.): secundum quam mentionem hic quoque filios fidei notavit. Ceterum quomodo filii fidei, si non Abrahae? Si enim Abraham deo credidit et deputatum est justitiae (v. 6.): atque exinde pater multarum nationum meruit nuncupari, nos autem credendo deo magis proinde justificamur, sicut Abraham (v. 9.). Sic fit, ut et supra filios nos Abrahae pronunciarit, qua patris fidei, et hic filios fidei, per quam Abraham pater nationum fuerat repromissus (v. 8.). [But also when he adds, “for you are all sons of faith” (Galatians 3:26), it is shown what heretical industry had erased above, namely the mention of Abraham, by which the Apostle affirms us to be sons of Abraham through faith (v. 7): according to which mention he has here also designated sons of faith. But otherwise, how sons of faith, if not of Abraham? For if Abraham believed God and it was reckoned as righteousness (v. 6), and thence he deserved to be named father of many nations, we, however, by believing God are accordingly justified the more, just as Abraham (v. 9). So it comes about that both above he pronounced us sons of Abraham, as of the father of faith, and here sons of faith, through which Abraham had been promised as father of nations (v. 8).] One surely sees from this passage that Tertullian asserts only that Marcion erased the mentio Abrahae [mention of Abraham] in the seventh verse. And while, in order to show the unskillfulness of this procedure, he at the same time appeals to the sixth verse, it is nevertheless clear that he found that verse in Marcion’s copy: for he argues against his opponent only from the passages that have been conceded, as his procedure in the fourth book of his writing amply proves. Whence Jerome took his contradictory statement, whether perhaps, like Hahn, from a superficial view of Tertullian’s words, can be indifferent to us, since in any case he did not draw from the immediate source. But Tertullian appeals also to verses 8 and 9; only verse 7 was missing. And this one verse Marcion is supposed to have erased intentionally, on dogmatic grounds, and yet to have left standing all the thoughts that stand in the closest connection with it? This can be accepted only by someone who

[p. 156]

dares to take Marcion for a simpleton! For our part we rightly hesitate to assent to this judgment of the heresy-raging Jerome, but must rather believe that Marcion will have seen, just as well as Jerome did, that in order to bring the Pauline letters into agreement with his system on all points, no individual modifications could help, and that the only thing that mattered, therefore, was either to recognize Paul’s writings entirely, or not to recognize them at all. Marcion attached himself to Paul in the doctrine of the separation of law and Gospel, and in this respect appealed to his authority. Even if he was in general right to appeal to the apostle in this, it is nevertheless not probable that he undertook an exact comparison of the two standpoints and foisted upon his apostle his own doctrine of the opposition of the gods as well, but rather that he let the matter rest with the prejudice, which is to be sure not grounded at all, of the agreement between himself and Paul. For that he involved himself with the Pauline letters in the same way as with the Gospel, and likewise furnished them with antithetical remarks, all historical traces are lacking, and it is also improbable in and of itself. He took individual points of support for his doctrine out of Paul’s writings; only, to demonstrate so consistent an agreement with the letters as with the Gospel, he probably made no attempt at all. For this attempt would at once have led him to reject all the letters without distinction. The presupposition of the connection of the old and the new covenant is so much the basis of them all, and the dialectical mode of presentation requires so much more exact a connection of the thoughts than the looser one of the Gospel, that small changes must have appeared to Marcion as altogether unusable. And all the omissions which the Church Fathers, and besides them the more recent writers, mean to point out in him are trifling omissions of that kind. We must therefore declare it improbable from the outset that the lacunae which the Fathers point out in Marcion’s

[p. 157]

Apostolus were made intentionally. And so that verse too (Galatians 3:7) which Tertullian missed in the Marcionite copy can have been missing only through an oversight of the copyist: which is certainly not improbable, since in 70–80 years the letters may have passed through many hands and many regions.

We shall meet with yet several further statements of Tertullian that sections were not present in the Pauline letters. Most of the arbitrary expulsions, by contrast, which are enumerated by Hahn and by de Wette,⁷ who follows him, have their ground in misunderstandings of the text and of Tertullian’s method on Hahn’s part. This scholar presupposes, namely, that Marcion’s text contained nothing other than precisely the verses which Tertullian cites. When, therefore, it reads in Tertullian (p. 380): Accepimus igitur benedictionem spiritalem, per fidem (v. 14), inquit, ex qua scilicet vivet justus, secundum creatorem. Hoc est ergo, quod dico ejus dei fidem esse, cujus est forma gratiae fidei. Sed et cum adjicit, omnes enim estis filii fidei, (V. 26) ostenditur etc. [We have therefore received a spiritual blessing, through faith (v. 14), he says, from which, of course, the just shall live, according to the creator. This, then, is what I say: that the faith is of that God whose it is, the form of the grace of faith. But also when he adds, “for you are all sons of faith” (v. 26), it is shown, and so on], Hahn⁸ infers from this that Marcion omitted the first half of v. 14 and joined v. 26 immediately to it. This latter point is supposed to be indicated by the word adjicit [he adds]. How unfounded this assumption is, however, is proved by Tertullian’s repeated use of this word to introduce verses which do not hang closely together with the one last cited, and in which everything lying between was certainly present. Compare chapter 4, p. 388: Mihi mundus crucifixus est, et ego mundo (Gal. 6, 14) — Cum vero adjicit, stigmata Christi in corpore suo gestare se, (v. 17) utique etc. [The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14). But when he adds that he bears the marks of Christ in his body (v. 17), certainly, and so on.] Chapter 13, p. 431: Iram dicit revelari de coelo super impietatem et injustitiam hominum, qui veritatem injustitia detineant (Röm 1, 18). — Etiam adjiciens, scimus autem judicium dei secundum

[p. 158]

veritatem esse etc. (Romans 2:2). [He says that wrath is revealed from heaven upon the impiety and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). — Also adding: but we know that the judgment of God is according to truth, and so on (Romans 2:2).] At these passages Hahn himself assumed no lacuna: why, then, at that first one? Because that one allegedly contradicted Marcion’s system. But everything without exception that Tertullian cites from the Pauline letters contradicts Marcion’s gnosis. He would therefore have had either to destroy everything, or we have no cause to blame him for this in a few cases where there is not even a sufficient occasion in the reports. And then, as for the inference which Hahn builds upon the failure to mention the first half of v. 14, he himself concedes at another place that Tertullian is concerned with the refutation of Marcion, and not with one’s coming to know Marcion’s text completely (p. 55). But further, what text must Marcion have had, if one wished to carry through consistently the principle which Hahn applies here? Then the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians would have had three and a half verses instead of 26, and the sixth chapter, of 18 verses, two whole ones and four half ones! From this one can see how fabulous the view is that takes Tertullian’s citations as the measure of Marcion’s text.

Galatians 4:3 Tertullian (chapter 4, p. 381) cites thus: Adhuc, secundum hominem dico, dum essemus parvuli, sub elementis mundi eramus positi ad deserviendum eis. [Still, I speak according to man: while we were children, we were placed under the elements of the world, to serve them.] It is striking here that the formula from Galatians 3:15 is joined with the verse Galatians 4:3. And Tertullian therefore adds: Atquin non est hoc humanitus dictum, non enim exemplum est, sed veritas. Quis enim parvulus, utique sensu, quod sunt nationes, non elementis subjectus est mundi, quae pro deo suscipit. Illud autem fuit, quod cum secundum hominem dixisset, tamen testamentum hominis nemo spernit aut superordinat (3, 15). Exemplo enim humani testamenti permanentis divinum tuebatur. Abrahae dictae sunt promissiones et semini ejus. Non dixit seminibus, quasi pluribus, sed semini, tanquam uni, quod est Christus (v. 16). [And yet this was not said in a human manner, for it is not an example but the truth. For what child, in the sense, of course, that the nations are, is not subject to the elements of the world, which it takes up in the place of God? But the point was this: that although he had said “according to man,” still no one rejects a man’s testament or sets anything above it (3:15). For by the example of a human testament that remains in force he was defending the divine one. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He did not say “to seeds,” as of many, but “to a seed,” as of one, which is Christ (v. 16).] It is correct that that formula belongs to v. 15, just cited. The words Tertullian has added, on the other hand, are a pure contradiction. First he denies that in Galatians 4:3

[p. 159]

a non-literal expression (humanitus dictum, exemplum [said in a human manner, an example]) is present, and then he nevertheless sees himself compelled to interpret the notion parvuli [children] more closely, precisely because it is a non-literal one. It now emerges from the passage that Marcion’s text did indeed contain the addition to Galatians 4:3, an addition which is not unsuitable and which was perhaps originally a gloss. On Hahn’s view, Marcion would have made the addition in order to join the verse better to Galatians 3:26, because the remaining verses in between had dropped out. This is once again the incorrect conception of Tertullian’s method, of which we have spoken above. But how that addition can establish a better connection between the two verses named is not at all to be seen. In order to recommend such an explanation, one must at least give it the appearance of being suited to its purpose. But precisely this is wanting in Hahn’s explanation. Tertullian concludes the passage cited above, in which he endeavored to assign to the addition secundum hominem dico [I speak according to man] its correct place, with the words: Erubescat spongia Marcionis! [Let Marcion’s sponge blush!] That is, Marcion had cause to be ashamed, because an alteration which he had undertaken had been discovered, namely the repetition of those words from Galatians 3:15 before Galatians 4:3. Since nothing else is spoken of in the passage, one sees that the expression spongia Marcionis, which for Tertullian did indeed count as the principal tool in the hands of the heretic, is precisely here not to be understood in the most proper sense, since what is spoken of is only a relocation of a few words, and not a lacuna made in the text. For that verses 15 and 16, which Tertullian adduces, were missing in Marcion’s text is grounded by nothing, since Tertullian cites them only in order to show where the formula under discussion belongs. The words that now follow, Nisi quod ex abundanti retracto, quae abstulit, cum validius sit, illum ex his revinci, quae servavit [Unless it be that, more than is needed, I take up again the things he removed, although it is more effective that he be refuted from the things he preserved], stand in no closer connection with what precedes than that the spongia reminds Tertullian in general once again that Marcion mutilated his text.

[p. 160]

For the rest, however, it is supposed to introduce the further progress of the refutation. I translate: “If I do not take up again, superfluously, what he has cast away (I ask pardon), since it is more to the purpose to refute him from what he has retained.”⁹ He therefore at once takes up Galatians 4:4, Cum autem evenit impleri tempus, misit deus filium suum [But when it came about that the time was fulfilled, God sent his Son], in order to contest Marcion. Tertullian’s words do not contain the textual addition γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον [born of a woman, born under the law]; from this Hahn (p. 56) then concludes that the same had been removed by Marcion. But that one indication does not suffice for this assumption. As has already been remarked more than once, the consistent carrying through of the opinion that Marcion’s [printed Marions] text consists only of the fragments which Tertullian communicates is altogether impossible. Tertullian often cites incompletely, as emerges, for example, from the passage Bonum autem facientes non fatigemur: et dum habemus tempus operemur bonum [But let us not grow weary in doing good; and while we have time, let us work the good], which in full reads thus: τὸ δὲ καλὸν ποιοῦντες μὴ ἐκκακῶμεν· καιρῷ γὰρ ἰδίῳ θερίσομεν μὴ ἐκλύομενοι. Ἄρα οὖν ὡς καιρὸν ἔχομεν, ἐργαζώμεθα τὸ ἀγαθὸν πρὸς πάντας, μάλιστα δὲ πρὸς τοὺς οἰκείους τῆς πίστεως. (Galatians 6:9, 10.) [And in doing what is good let us not lose heart; for in its own season we shall reap, if we do not grow faint. So then, as we have opportunity, let us work what is good toward all, and especially toward those of the household of the faith.] In our passage, however, he could well pass over that addition, because his only concern was probare, nullum alium deum ab apostolo circumlatum (esse, quam creatorem.)¹⁰ [to prove that no other god was carried about by the apostle (than the creator)]. The mention of that addition would have led him to the Christology, which did not lie in his plan. For the rest, Tertullian, speaking on his own account, cites the same verse just as incompletely (book V, 8, p. 406 [printed pap.]). He will therefore probably have read the addition in his text.

[p. 161]

Let no one object that Marcion was nevertheless compelled by his system to strike out the words in question. For this is a view grounded up to now by nothing, whose incorrectness has been shown in the case of the Gospel, and whose application to the Pauline letters is not asserted even by Tertullian.¹¹ For he did find in Marcion’s text of the letters passages which flatly contradicted it, for example Galatians 4:21 ff., about which he expresses himself in his malicious manner thus: Sed ut solet furibus aliquid excidere de praeda in indicium, ita credo et Marcionem novissimam Abrahae mentionem dereliquisse, nullam magis auferendam, etsi ex parte convertit.¹² [But as something is wont to fall from thieves out of the plunder as evidence, so I believe that Marcion too left the last mention of Abraham, none being more to be removed, even if he altered it in part.] This last remark is now supposed, on Hahn’s opinion, to refer to this, that verses 27–30, which Tertullian does not mention, were struck out by Marcion. But we are not yet entitled to this assumption by these two grounds, because Tertullian’s omissions furnish no standard at all for Marcion’s text, and then because that charge is too indefinite. It seems rather to be a malicious remark of the enemy of heretics, who did not want to leave Marcion the credit undiminished that he had not tampered with a passage. Epiphanius reports at Galatians 5:9 that Marcion put δολοῖ [adulterates] instead of ζυμοῖ [leavens] (scholion 4, p. 351), and accompanies this with the remark: ἵνα μηδὲν ἀληθὲς παρ' αὐτῷ εὑρεθείη, οὐδαμοῦ σχεδὸν ἄνευ ῥαδιουργίας ταῖς γραφαῖς προςενήνεκται. [so that nothing true might be found with him, he has hardly anywhere applied himself to the scriptures without knavery.] But δολοῖ happens to be a variant widely disseminated in codices and old translations.

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 1:18, Marcion, as emerges from Tertullian’s citation (chapter 5, p. 389), read καὶ σοφία [and wisdom] after δύναμις [power] as well, so that the contrast with μωρία [folly] emerges more strikingly in the same verse. This is naturally only an innocent variant, since it is not at all to be

[p. 162]

seen what this insertion was supposed to serve Marcion for.¹³

At 1 Corinthians 9:8 Marcion is supposed to have put ἐν Μωϋσέως νόμῳ [in the law of Moses] instead of ἐν νόμῳ [in the law] (Epiphanius, scholion 15, p. 355). But ἐν Μωϋσέως νόμῳ is our received text, and the divergence so slight that only an Epiphanius can look for a malicious intention behind it.

At 1 Corinthians 10:19 Marcion had ἱερόθυτον [a thing sacrificed to an idol] instead of εἴδωλον [an idol] (Epiphanius, scholion 18). The variant is certainly indifferent.

That at 1 Corinthians 11:7 γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρὸς ἐστιν [and the woman is the glory of the man] was missing, as Hahn thinks (p. 58), follows neither from Tertullian (chapter 8, p. 404) nor from Epiphanius (scholion 19, p. 361).

At 1 Corinthians 14:19, διὰ τὸν νόμον [on account of the law] instead of διὰ τοῦ νοός μου [through my understanding] is an old scribal error, which has also passed into old Latin translations.

At 1 Corinthians 15:45 Marcion read, according to Tertullian’s statement (chapter 10, p. 416): Factus primus homo Adam in animam vivam, novissimus dominus in spiritum vivificantem [The first man, Adam, was made into a living soul; the last, the Lord, into a life-giving spirit]: thus ἔσχατος, κύριος [the last, the Lord] instead of ἔσχατος Ἀδάμ [the last Adam].¹⁴ Even if the idea of the second Adam must have been offensive to Marcion, it does not yet follow from this that the divergence in this passage comes from Marcion. It is to be explained quite simply from a gloss. Just as little does an intention lie in the omission of ἄνθρωπος [man] in the phrase δεύτερος

[p. 163]

ἄνθρωπος ὁ κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ [the second man, the Lord from heaven], in verse 47 (cf. Tertullian, p. 417). If one reads the chapters of Tertullian in which he goes through the Corinthian letter, and notices how many passages flatly contradicting Marcion have not been erased by him, one must abandon the view that he ought to have helped himself with such trifles as the present change is.

In 2 Corinthians 4:13 Marcion did not read the words κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον [according to what is written] (Epiphanius, scholion 27, p. 367). This indifferent variant too Marcion is supposed to have made intentionally, while he let stand, as a testimony against himself, countless appeals to the Old Testament!

With respect to the Epistle to the Romans, Tertullian says (chapter 13, p. 431): Quantas autem foveas in ista vel maxime epistola Marcion fecerit auferendo, quae voluit, de nostri instrumenti integritate patet. Mihi sufficit, quae proinde eradenda non vidit, quasi negligentias et caecitates ejus accipere. [But how many pits Marcion made in this epistle most of all, by removing what he wished, is plain from the integrity of our instrument. It is enough for me to take up, as so many negligences and blindnesses of his, the things which he accordingly did not see had to be erased.] Under the cover of these words, which yet obviously bear the character of exaggeration, Hahn then finds a series of grievous mutilations in the Epistle to the Romans. But whoever compares with this the statements of Epiphanius will be surprised that this man, who is otherwise not blind when it comes to noticing lacunae in the text, or at least attempts to pass off a variant as the work of the most wicked arbitrariness, presents nothing of the kind precisely in the case of the Epistle to the Romans. This circumstance ought already to have prompted a cautious use of Tertullian’s passionate utterance. Yet let us consider the four examples which Hahn (p. 60) adduces in support of that assertion of Tertullian’s! First, Marcion is supposed to have struck out, in Romans 1:17, the words καθὼς γέγραπται· ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται [as it is written: the righteous shall live by faith], since Tertullian does not cite them (at the place cited, p. 431). This cannot be regarded as a sufficient ground of that accusation. We know that Tertullian does not cite with literal exactness, and we can only be surprised that Hahn, who acknowledges the same circumstance with respect to the citations from the Gospel, and defends the citations of the Gospel in the same respect

[p. 164]

against Eichhorn’s misunderstandings, has denied that same principle in this passage.

After citing Romans 8:11, Qui suscitavit Christum a mortuis, vivificabit et mortalia corpora vestra [He who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies live] (chapter 14, p. 437), Tertullian continues: Salio et hic amplissimum abruptum intercisae scripturae sed apprehendo testimonium perhibentem apostolum Israëli, quod quidem zelum dei habeant, non tamen per scientiam (cap. 10, 2). [Here too I leap over a very large break in the cut scripture, but I lay hold of the apostle as he bears witness to Israel, that they have indeed a zeal for God, yet not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2).] From this Hahn now infers that, even if some verses of the eighth chapter would have remained untouched by Marcion, because they would not have contradicted his teaching, Romans 9 was nevertheless certainly not tolerated by him. However this may be, there is nevertheless no occasion for it in the words of Tertullian that have been cited [printed Tetullians]; which, however, Hahn has, strangely enough, understood in a wholly incorrect way. If Tertullian skips over something, then something must have been there. This he now calls an abruptus intercisae scripturae [a break in the cut scripture], a section of the writing which had, for the rest, suffered mutilations; but that these occurred precisely in this part, namely chapters 8 and 9, is precisely the contrary of what is asserted when Tertullian says that he skips this section and turns to another. And because he had already left several sections aside, as for example Romans 1:18–2:1, and Romans 4, he says salio et hic [here too I leap over]. By this, then, it is explained both that the charge of a mutilation is not presupposed here, and that those passings-over are not caused by Marcion’s omissions. Moreover, the sed apprehendo [but I lay hold of], with which Romans 10:2 is introduced, proves that the amplissimus abruptus [very large break] which Tertullian means to pass over is not limited to the piece indicated, Romans 8:11–9:2, but that it has a still wider extent, out of which, to be sure, that verse is taken and discussed separately. Thus it is explained that not until Romans 11:33, O profundum divitiarum et sapientiae dei etc. [O the depth of the riches and of the wisdom of God, and so on] (at the place cited, p. 438), is anything cited again. Immediately afterward, however, Tertullian adds: Unde illa eruptio? Ex recordatione scilicet scripturarum, [Whence that outburst? From the recollection, of course, of the scriptures,]

[p. 165]

quas retro revoluerat, ex contemplatione sacramentorum, quae supra disseruerat in fidem Christi, ex lege venientem. Haec si Marcion de industria erasit, quid apostolus ejus exclamat, nullas intuens divitias dei tam pauperis et egeni, quam qui nihil condidit, nihil praedicavit, nihil denique habuit, ut qui in aliena descendit. [which he had rolled back, from the contemplation of the mysteries which he had set forth above concerning a faith in Christ that comes from the law. If Marcion erased these things on purpose, why does his apostle cry out, beholding no riches of a god so poor and needy as one who created nothing, preached nothing, and in the end possessed nothing, as one who descended into what belonged to another?] From this Hahn now infers that the whole section from Romans 10:5–11:32 was struck out by Marcion. The whole passage, however, is not at all so simple to understand. That that whole section has dropped out does not follow already from its not being mentioned, and from Tertullian’s speaking at the same time of mutilations; for the passage discussed previously proves that the section which Tertullian wished to skip had a wider extent than as far as Romans 10:4. It is true, however, that the recordatio scripturarum [remembrance of the scriptures] and the contemplatio sacramentorum [contemplation of the mysteries], upon which, according to Tertullian, that exclamation of Paul rests, begin already at Romans 10:5. And would Marcion have struck out this whole passage? But then Tertullian contradicts himself. What, further, is the sentence in Tertullian supposed to mean: quae supra disseruerat in fidem Christi ex lege venientem [which he had set forth above concerning a faith in Christ that comes from the law]? Is Paul’s meaning hit by that? By no means. Rather, this sentence contains the dogmatic result which Tertullian developed out of the Epistle to the Romans, and in which Marcion, for whom the law did not count as a preparation and as a ground of faith, of course diverged from him. Tertullian now represents this opposition of dogmatic view in such a way that he charges Marcion with having struck out (erasit) the meaning of the apostle as understood in his own sense, inasmuch as Marcion acknowledges no preparation of Christianity, as the apostle and, with him, Tertullian do. But in presupposing that his opponent acknowledges that exclamation of Paul (Romans 11:33), he recalls the contradiction which obtains between this verse and Marcion’s dogmatic view in other respects. If this, then, is the sense of the passage before us, it does not follow from it that there was a lacuna in Marcion’s text. But at the same time it cannot be denied that Tertullian,

[p. 166]

whether intentionally or through confusion in his own passion, set down his words so unclearly that they at first permit the inference of a mutilation of the text. But partly they are not clear enough to require this interpretation, and partly it is easy to picture to oneself how Tertullian, in his passionate forcing of consequences, became confused and passed from the dogmatic view over to the acknowledgment or non-acknowledgment of the text. We therefore contest the application of this passage too as proof of a lacuna in the text made by Marcion. The only thing with which he can be charged is the well-known omission of the last two chapters of the Epistle to the Romans.¹⁵ But whether, on internal grounds, one holds them to be authentic or inauthentic, this much is nevertheless clear from the varying position of the doxology in the codices: that even without any agency of Marcion’s the Epistle to the Romans must have been in circulation in the second century without the last two chapters, for otherwise the position of the doxology at the end of Romans 14 would not be explicable at all. There is, however, no ground for making Marcion solely responsible for that. Instead of this case Hahn adduces another, namely that Romans 11:35, ὅτι ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα· αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας [for from him and through him and unto him are all things; to him be the glory unto the ages], must have been missing, because — Tertullian does not cite the verse, although he does mention the preceding one. How little this ground amounts to has already been said on similar occasions. In this case, however, that is still much harder to gather from Tertullian’s citation, since at verse 34 he

[p. 167]

remarks: Qui tanta de scripturis ademisti, quid ista servasti, quasi non et haec creatoris? [You who have taken away so much from the scriptures, why have you preserved these things, as if these too were not the Creator’s?] If Tertullian expresses his astonishment at finding this verse, he would surely not have left it unmentioned if he had not found the following verse in Marcion’s text.

In the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2:15, Marcion read τῶν ἀποκτεινάντων Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς ἰδίους προφήτας [of those who killed Jesus and their own prophets], as do many other witnesses. Tertullian, on the contrary, explains: suos adjectio est haeretici [“their own” is an addition of the heretic] (chapter 15, p. 441). In the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 1:8, Marcion did not read the ἐν πυρὶ φλογός [in flaming fire] (flammam et ignem delendo haereticus exstinxit, ne scilicet nostratem deum faceret [by deleting flame and fire the heretic extinguished it, lest, of course, he make him our own god]. Tertullian, chapter 16, p. 444). This too is only an accidental omission, for, as Tertullian himself adds,¹⁶ the change could be of no help to him, since the promise of judgment contained in the following verses had nevertheless to be referred to the highest God.

Whether the changing of the title of the Epistle to the Ephesians into the Epistle to the Laodiceans came about through Marcion’s arbitrary choice¹⁷ is, after all, rightly to be doubted. The dogmatic criticism allegedly practiced by him could not

[p. 168]

induce him to do so; and whether he applied historical criticism of the sort with which antiquity otherwise attacked the title of the Epistle to the Ephesians, of that we have no sure indications.

The divergences in the text of this epistle are the following. In Ephesians 2:15, τὴν ἔχθραν ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ, τὸν νόμον τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασι καταργήσας [the enmity in his flesh, having abolished the law of commandments in ordinances], αὐτοῦ [his] was missing in Marcion. (Tertullian, chapter 17, p. 454: Marcion abstulit sua ut inimicitiae daret carnem, quasi carnali vitio, non Christo aemulae [Marcion took away “his,” so that he might assign the flesh to the enmity, as if to a carnal vice, not to one that rivals Christ].) This intention is of course merely imputed by Tertullian to his opponent; the divergence itself is an insignificant slip. — In Ephesians 2:20, ἐποικοδομηθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν [built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets], the last two words were missing. (Tertullian, l. c., p. 455: abstulit haereticuset prophetarum, oblitus dominum posuisse in ecclesia sicut apostolos, ita et prophetas [the heretic took away “and of the prophets,” forgetting that the Lord had placed in the church, just as apostles, so also prophets].) This too is an unintentional omission. — Ephesians 3:9, τίς ἡ οἰκονομία τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ ἀποκεκρυμμένου ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἐν τῷ θεῷ [what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God]. Here the ἐν [in] before τῷ θεῷ [God] is missing (Tertullian, chapter 18, p. 455: rapuit haereticus in praepositionem, et ita legi fecit, occulti ab aevis deo, qui omnia condidit [the heretic snatched away the preposition “in,” and so caused it to be read “hidden from the ages, to the god who created all things”]). This intention too is foisted upon Marcion by Tertullian. — Ephesians 5:31, ἄνθρωπος προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ [a man shall be joined to his wife]. According to Epiphanius, scholion 38, p. 372, γυναικί [to a wife] was missing here, or, as it stands in the received text, πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα [to the wife], of course entirely by accident. Hahn falsely asserts (p. 64) that the whole phrase was missing, because Tertullian does not cite it (p. 459), which is of course refuted by Epiphanius’s express testimony. — In Ephesians 6:2 there was missing: ἥτις ἐστὶν ἐντολὴ πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελίᾳ [which is the first commandment in promise] (Tertullian, l. c., p. 460), which case lines up with the rest as of the same kind.

In the Epistle to the Colossians, in the first chapter, Marcion is supposed to have struck out several sentences from verses 15–17 which contradict him. Let us see whether this follows from Tertullian’s words. He says (chapter 19, p. 462): Si non est Christus primogenitus conditionis ut sermo creatoris per quem omnia facta sunt, et sine quo nihil factum est, si non in illo condita sunt universa in coelis et

[p. 169]

in terris, visibilia et invisibilia, sive throni, sive dominationes, sive principatus, potestates, si non cuncta per illum et in illo condita (haec enim Marcioni displicere oportebat): non utique tam nude posuisset Apostolus: et ipse est ante omnes. [If Christ is not the firstborn of creation, as the Word of the Creator, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made; if all things in the heavens and on earth were not created in him, things visible and invisible, whether thrones, whether dominions, whether principalities, powers; if all things were not created through him and in him (for these things were bound to displease Marcion): then the Apostle would surely not have set it down so baldly: “and he himself is before all.”] It must strike one that, if those words really were missing in Marcion’s text, Tertullian makes this noticeable in so uncertain and incidental a way, since otherwise he does not spare the bitterest charges, even when the smallest divergence is at issue. One must therefore become very doubtful whether he does not merely feign that Marcion had a different text here, because the dogmatic formulas would have been excluded by Marcion’s system. Accordingly he also feigns that the remaining formulas, καὶ αὐτός ἐστι πρὸ πάντων [and he himself is before all things] and ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησε πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι [in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell], would not have been repugnant to Marcion, and that with respect to the rest Marcion had raised the charge of forgery against the Catholics. (aut si haec pseudapostoli et Iudaici evangelizatores de suo intulerint [or if the pseudo-apostles and the Judaic evangelizers introduced these things of their own].) The words illa quae Marcion detraxit [those things which Marcion took away] too could without difficulty be referred to Marcion’s dogmatic denial of those formulas. This view of the matter cannot, to be sure, be raised to absolute certainty, and will strike many as decidedly improbable. But Tertullian’s own statements are not, after all, of such a kind that one can be quite certain about the omission of that passage; and then one can also credit him — who takes no offense at any fiction, or at any forcing of consequences against heretics — with this inference as well: that a passage whose content was excluded by Marcion’s system will not have been acknowledged by him at all.¹⁸ We do, to be sure, concede that if this passage of the Epistle to the Colossians really was missing in Marcion’s copy, then the charge of an alteration of the text in the service of a tendency will not be able to be warded off from him.

[p. 170]

But it would also be the only passage of the epistles at which this assumption would be unavoidable. As it is, however, Tertullian’s words are of such a kind that another explanation is possible, to which we of course had to draw attention, because it is not grounded by any other sure traces that one should assume an intentional falsification of the text precisely at this one passage.

From the epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon Tertullian adduces no divergences. Of the latter he says: Soli huic epistolae brevitas sua profuit, ut falsarias manus Marcionis evaderet [To this epistle alone its brevity was of benefit, so that it escaped the falsifying hands of Marcion] (chapter 21, p. 470). When Epiphanius says, both of the epistles to the Thessalonians and to the Philippians and of that to Philemon, that he adduces nothing from it, διὰ τὸ ὁλοσχερῶς αὐτὴν διαστρόφως παρ᾽ αὐτῷ κεῖσθαι [because the whole of it lies, in a distorted form, with him] (pp. 371, 373), it is surely clear, since Tertullian asserts precisely the opposite of the letter to Philemon, how unfounded those same judgments of Epiphanius about the other epistles must be, and how superficially he must have looked at them.

For the rest, I am far from believing that I shall convince everyone that the charge of the Church Fathers concerning the Pauline epistles is unfounded. The lacuna in the Epistle to the Romans, which one must acknowledge, does not, to be sure, ground that charge. The grounds, on the other hand, with which I have sought to defend the integrity of the Epistle to the Colossians in spite of Tertullian’s statements, lack, as I well know, the necessary evidence. And if they appear insufficient to ward off that charge at this passage, then one will also wish to regard others of the textual divergences that have been adduced in the same way. I have therefore been able only to content myself with representing this charge against Marcion, in general and in the particular, as improbable, and especially with bringing out the ambiguity of individual passages of Tertullian that bear upon it. If, then, my view does not appear even to myself as fully secured, the same thing applies to the opposite view as well. The result

[p. 171]

will therefore be that the historical material does not permit the complete decision of the question.

In the foregoing investigation no further account has been taken of two treatises, by Löffler¹⁹ and by Schelling,²⁰ which are devoted to the same subject, and indeed with the same intention, of clearing Marcion of the prevailing suspicion. Löffler, however, has contented himself with illuminating only the easier divergences of the Marcionite text from the ordinary text, and, in the more difficult cases, merely with expressing his doubt of Tertullian’s credibility. Schelling, however, proceeds from the assumption that neither Epiphanius nor Tertullian had a Marcionite copy of the epistles before him. This, however, is necessarily to be presupposed, at least in Tertullian’s case, even if he does not express himself about it so definitely as he does with respect to the Gospel. But if he once had the latter before him, he will probably also have had the Marcionite Apostolus. Furthermore, the definite statements of divergences between the two texts compared are not to be explained if one imagines that Tertullian refuted his opponent only out of the ordinary text. There is the further point that, at least in relation to the divergent reading in 1 Corinthians 15:45, Tertullian and Pseudo-Origen agree. In relation to the falsification of the Epistle to the Colossians, Schelling (p. 19 ff.) sets forth an explanation similar to the one given by us above.