Chapter VI. Date of composition

[p. 298]

Chapter VI

Date of Composition of the Different Parts of the Gospel

The date of composition of the original Gospel which Marcion used can be determined only by half, according to the terminus a quo [the date from which], since it emerges from the often-mentioned separation of the expectation of the parousia from the destruction of Jerusalem (chapter 21:24, 25) that the author takes his standpoint after this event. And indeed he seems also to be separated from this event already by a considerable time, since the conception of the καιροὶ ἐθνῶν [times of the Gentiles] that have come in has become wholly fixed. The terminus ad quem [the date up to which] for the composition of that writing cannot, however, be determined more closely than that the writing appears, between the years 130–140, in the use of Marcion and of Justin, although this circumstance does not, to be sure, compel us to place the origin of the writing down in the second century. Rather, the acquaintance which the Gospel found shortly after the first quarter of the second century requires that we place its composition in the last decades of the first century. For the revision of this writing, and thus for the origin of our canonical Gospel, there now likewise remains a fairly wide interval, from Marcion to Irenaeus, who is the first to name it (140–180). Yet both the wider circulation which it had found in the time of Irenaeus, and the relationship, which we have demonstrated, of this revision to the use of the underlying document by Marcion, make it necessary to place its composition at the very beginning of the interval indicated. For if it was precisely the successful activity of Marcion in Rome that was the occasion for rendering harmless, by a revision in the ecclesiastical sense, the Gospel which he used, then no considerable interval between his appearance and that revision is to be set.

[p. 299]

Since, now, the first Apology of Justin, composed in the year 139, already takes Marcion’s activity in Rome into account, we shall not be mistaken if we assume the first years of the fifth decade of the second century as the date of composition of the third canonical Gospel. Besides Irenaeus, who is the first to name it, we also find it in use among the Valentinians and Marcosians whom he combated, his contemporaries.¹

On this basis, then, it is easy to decide what value the statements of Irenaeus, and of the church teachers standing nearest to him, have concerning the author of the third Gospel. Irenaeus says: Καὶ Λουκᾶς δὲ ὁ ἀκόλουθος Παύλου τὸ ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου κηρυσσόμενον εὐαγγέλιον ἐν βιβλίῳ κατέθετο.² [And Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by him.] It is clear, however, that the contemporary of Marcion who composed the canonical Gospel cannot have been Luke. That statement of Irenaeus rests, moreover, on anything but historical tradition; it rests only on a combination of those passages of the New Testament which name Luke with those passages of the Acts of the Apostles in which the author, not named there, appears as a participant in Paul’s journey. This emerges clearly from the passage in Irenaeus III, 14, 1: Quoniam autem is Lucas inseparabilis fuit a Paulo³ et cooperarius ejus in evangelio⁴, ipse facit manifestum, non glorians sed ab ipsa productus veritate. Separatis enim, inquit, a Paulo et Barnaba et Joanne, qui vocabatur Marcus, et cum navigassent Cyprum, nos venimusin Troadem, et, quum vidisset Paulus per somnum virum Macedonem dicentem: veniens in Macedoniam opitulare nobis, Paule, statim, ait, quaesivimus proficisci in Macedoniam, intelligentes, quoniam provocavit nos dominus evangelizare eis. Navigantes igitur a Troade direximus

[p. 300]

navigium in Samothracen (Act. 16, 8—11): et deinceps reliquum. Omnibus his quum adesset Lucas diligenter conscripsit ea, uti neque mendax, neque elatus deprehendi possit, eo quod omnia haec constarent, et seniorem eum esse omnibus, qui nunc aliud docent, neque ignorare veritatem. Quoniam non solum prosequutor (Luc. 1, 3) sed et cooperarius fuerit apostolorum, maxime autem Pauli, et ipse autem Paulus manifestavit in epistolis etc. [But that this Luke was inseparable from Paul, and his fellow-worker in the Gospel, he himself makes manifest, not boasting, but brought forward by the truth itself. For when, he says, Barnabas and John, who was called Mark, had separated from Paul, and when they had sailed to Cyprus, we came to Troas [printed venimusin], and when Paul had seen in his sleep a Macedonian man saying, “Come into Macedonia and help us, Paul,” immediately, he says, we sought to set out for Macedonia, understanding that the Lord had summoned us to preach the gospel to them. Sailing, therefore, from Troas, we directed our ship to Samothrace (Acts 16:8–11); and the rest thereafter. Since Luke was present at all these things, he wrote them down diligently, so that he might be found neither a liar nor puffed up, because all these things agreed, and that he was older than all who now teach otherwise, and was not ignorant of the truth. That he was not only a follower (Luke 1:3) but also a fellow-worker of the apostles, and especially of Paul, Paul himself also made manifest in the epistles, and so on.] From this it emerges that, for the companion of Paul on the journey who does not name himself, and who as such seemed at the same time to be the author of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Gospel, a name was sought, and that of Luke appeared the most suitable, because according to some statements in the letters of Paul he stood in a close connection with him.

As a substitute for this, then — since this statement about the author of the canonical Gospel thus proves to be unfounded — one might come to the thought that the underlying document of the canonical Gospel which we have demonstrated perhaps derives from that companion of Paul. Since, however, Irenaeus knows nothing of that document, but with those statements means the canonical Gospel, and this too only through the mediation of its connection with the Acts of the Apostles, we see that no direct ground for that conjecture is at hand, although, as regards the chronology, it would be possible that Luke is the author of that original Gospel. But when we recall that the original Gospel bore his name neither with Marcion nor with Justin, this hypothesis too must appear wholly groundless. We must confess that the authors of both redactions of the Gospel cannot be discovered, since that travel report in the Acts of the Apostles does not, after all, permit an inference to the author of this whole writing either, and the assumption that Timothy is the author of the report has more probability in its favor than the assumption that it is Luke.⁵ Although, then, hitherto the

[p. 301]

Acts of the Apostles has always served as a key to the Gospel, still, given the uncertainty which prevails with respect to the author and the sources of the Acts, a more precise determination for the relationships of the Gospel is not, therefore, to be drawn from it. We believe, rather, that we have the right to reverse the matter, and to apply the conviction which we have gained concerning the date of composition of the third canonical Gospel also to the determination of the date of composition of the Acts of the Apostles. Since the Acts plainly presents itself as the second part of the canonical Gospel, it too can have been composed only about the middle of the second century, between 140 and 150; in which a fixed point for the assessment of this book is given.