[p. V]
Preface
In laying the following work before the theological public, I permit myself the following remarks. I have attempted to demonstrate in it that Marcion’s Gospel is not a mutilation of the Gospel of Luke, but its original stock [Grundstamm]. Now, however much this result runs counter to one of the few views that enjoy general recognition in the field of New Testament criticism, and however venturesome the undertaking itself appears to me, of carrying through, against that view, a hypothesis which people already regard as antiquated, I am nevertheless unwilling to give up the hope of convincing unprejudiced men who are capable of judgment, and of winning them to my view. I cannot, to be sure,
[p. VI]
conceal from myself that decided opposition to it will also be raised from some quarters, and that my work will be rejected as a product of negative criticism. But this charge either does not fit my investigation, since I believe I have found a very positive result, and one of consequence for the interpretation of Luke, or else that category contains no charge at all, since every criticism, as such, is negative toward assumptions hitherto held. Insofar, however, as that charge is meant to include the accusation of carelessness and of a passion for hypotheses, I protest in the most decided terms against its being applied to my work, and every page of it, as I think, bears witness to the contrary.
I have sought to establish the result stated above by demonstrating that the sections of Luke which are missing in Marcion’s Gospel show themselves, by their want of connection, to be interpolations, and that by their excision a writing is reconstructed which, through its character, remaining fairly constant, partly affords a guarantee of its credibility, and partly makes it possible to check that writing precisely by comparison with Matthew, whereas the interpreters hitherto, who noticed the incoherence of many passages of the Gospel,
[p. VII]
but held the Gospel itself to be an original whole, could not avoid becoming very doubtful about its historical worth. Here, then, is the dilemma. Either one recognizes the distinction between the original stock and the interpolations, whereby the credibility of the greatest part of the Gospel is rescued, while it is at the same time granted that its revision, in the form it now has, can have taken place only toward the middle of the second century; or one holds the Gospel to be the work of one man, whose ability and credibility, taken as a whole, then deserve the most unfavorable judgment, on account of the long series of contradictions and offenses against the connection which cannot be explained away in the Gospel. I ask that this not be overlooked in the assessment of my investigation.
The analysis of the Gospel of Luke which I have attempted in the second book of my work, and to which I have subordinated the question of Marcion’s Gospel, will, one may hope, not be declared unnecessary, both as preparatory work for the criticism of the life of Jesus and as a test of the first investigation. For even if some things in it are not new, the distinction of the different parts
[p. VIII]
of the writing required that the observations already made about the Gospel be altered on a number of points. I think I have also done nothing superfluous for this further reason: that in the most recent work on the Gospel of Luke, in the anonymous writing Die Evangelien, ihr Geist und ihre Verfasser [The Gospels, Their Spirit, and Their Authors] (Leipzig, 1845), the point of view from which that Gospel is to be considered has been shifted entirely. I also regard my work, on the whole, as a refutation of the view set forth there, although it will not be taken amiss that I have taken account of that view in detail only by way of example. The usable observations, on the other hand, which are to be found in that book, I have duly acknowledged in the proper place.
Written on 25 March 1846.
The Author.
[p. IX]
Contents
Introduction — p. 1
Book One. The Gospel of Marcion.
Chapter I. The history of the investigation concerning it — p. 5
Chapter II. The testimonies of the Church Fathers concerning its character — p. 20
Chapter III. The sources for its reconstruction — p. 37
Chapter IV. The principle of its assessment — p. 55
Chapter V. Marcion’s Gospel compared with that of Luke.
A. Variants and scribal errors — p. 69
B. Alleged alterations and mutilations — p. 73
C. Alleged additions and the remaining divergences — p. 119
Chapter VI. Marcion’s Gospel and Justin’s Gospel citations — p. 130
Chapter VII. The Apostolikon of Marcion — p. 151
Book Two. The canonical Gospel of Luke.
Chapter I. Definition of the task — p. 172
Chapter II. The dogmatic tendency of Ur-Luke — p. 177
Chapter III. The pragmatic design of the Gospel writing of Ur-Luke — p. 203
Chapter IV. The discourses of Jesus in Ur-Luke — p. 226
Chapter V. Character and origin of the interpolations — p. 276
Chapter VI. Date of composition of the different parts of the Gospel — p. 298
The verso of the contents page (p. X) is blank.