Chapter III. The sources for reconstruction

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Chapter III. The Sources for the Reconstruction and Assessment of the Marcionite Gospel

Since the investigation thus far has led to the result that the view of Tertullian and of the other Church Fathers contains, in and of itself, no historical worth, the decision between the two hypotheses concerning the Marcionite Gospel can be reached only from the remains of it that have been transmitted to us, by the path of internal criticism. Those remains are found in Tertullian, in the fourth book of his writing, already mentioned more than once, and in Epiphanius, Haer. XLII. For the citations found in Pseudo-Origenes (de recta in deum fide [On the Right Faith in God]) and in Jerome bring, in part, nothing that would not also be attested by Tertullian and Epiphanius, and in part diverge so far from those two that one sees how the later Marcionites supplemented and completed their Gospel from suitable passages of the canonical Gospels.¹ To be sure, the copy which Epiphanius used already had some

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divergences from the one that lay before Tertullian; yet these, as will be shown, have not yet been produced by a change in the service of a tendency.

That Tertullian really had before him a copy of the Marcionite Gospel, and that the sections gone through in the fourth book against Marcion, for Marcion’s refutation, come from that copy, is already evident from the words with which he opens that fourth book. He declares his intention of now passing over to Marcion’s Gospel, in order to refute him out of it itself, so that he might demonstrate as false, precisely by means of the Gospel itself, the Antitheses against the Old Testament which Marcion had grounded upon it.² He repeats the same intention several times more in the following chapters,³ just as he had already expressed it at a few places in the preceding books.⁴ And, with an allusion to the beginning, he also closes the fourth book by a fresh mention of the Gospel of Marcion that has just been gone through.⁵ Even in a later writing of Tertullian, De carne Christi [On the Flesh of Christ], it is indicated that, in the composition of the writing against Marcion, Marcion’s Gospel itself

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had lain before him.⁶ These passages show the mistrust which all the critics from Simon to Gratz have entertained toward Tertullian’s citations to be wholly unfounded. It is, rather, hardly to be understood how Gratz⁷ can think that the refutation of Marcion is conducted out of Luke, and how Eichhorn⁸ can establish the view that, in his refutations, Tertullian had not even had a copy of Marcion’s Gospel before his eyes. The ground which Eichhorn adduced for this in the second edition of his work — that Tertullian had cited from memory, because he charges Marcion with having struck out of Luke passages that belong in Matthew⁹ — is dismissed as erroneous by the remarks above.¹⁰

Epiphanius likewise had an exact knowledge of Marcion’s Gospel. He himself relates that he had collected from it a number of passages which seemed to him serviceable for refuting Marcion’s heresy, and which he inserted into his work under the title “scholia.”¹¹

After the passages of Tertullian and Epiphanius that have been set out, it is not to be expected that the two of them will enumerate one by one the differences between the Gospel of Marcion and canonical Luke. Neither of them had this

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critical point of view. Their work was aimed, rather, at the refutation of the heretic, as is plain from the passage of Epiphanius just cited and from the following words of Tertullian:

Sic habebit intentio et forma opusculi nostri, sub illa utique conditione, quae ex utraque parte condicta sit. Constituit Marcion, alium esse Christum, qui Tiberianis temporibus a dei quondam ignoto revelatus sit in salutem omnium gentium; alium, qui a deo creatore in restitutionem Judaici status sit destinatus, quandoque venturus. Intra hos magnam et omnem differentiam scindit, quantam inter legem et evangelium, quantam inter Judaismum et Christianismum. Hinc erit et nostra praescriptio, qua defigimus, nihil Christo dei alterius commune esse debere cum creatore Ceterum creatoris pronuntiandum, si administraverit dispositiones ejus, si impleverit prophetias ejus, si adjuverit leges ejus, si repraesentaverit promissiones ejus, si restauraverit virtutes ejus, si sententias reformaverit, si mores, si proprietates expresserit. Hujus pacti et hujus praescripti, quaeso te, lector, memineris ubique et incipe recognoscere, aut Marcionis Christum, aut creatoris. (Book IV, 6, p. 196.)

[Such will be the intention and the form of our little work, under that condition, of course, which has been agreed from either side. Marcion has determined that there is one Christ, who in the times of Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salvation of all nations; and another, who has been destined by the creator god for the restoration of the Jewish state, and is to come at some time. Between these he cleaves a great and complete difference, as great as that between the law and the Gospel, as great as that between Judaism and Christianity. Hence our prescription also will be this, by which we fix it that the Christ of the other god ought to have nothing in common with the creator. Otherwise he is to be pronounced the creator’s, if he has administered the creator’s arrangements, if he has fulfilled his prophecies, if he has furthered his laws, if he has presented his promises anew, if he has restored his mighty works, if he has reformed his sentences, if he has expressed his manners, his properties. Of this agreement and of this prescription, I ask you, reader, be mindful everywhere, and begin to recognize either the Christ of Marcion or the Christ of the creator.]

After this preface Tertullian begins, with chapter 7, the refutation grounded on the individual sections of the Marcionite Gospel, in such a way that he sometimes cites the words exactly, and sometimes sums up whole sections, especially narratives which are also found in Luke, in brief, allusive words, since he can presuppose his readers’ closer acquaintance with them. An example of this is the way he mentions the narrative of the healing of the ten lepers (Luke 17:11–19): in curatione decem leprosorum, quos tantummodo ire jussos, ut se ostenderent sacerdotibus, in itinere purgavit. (Book IV, 35, p. 333.) [In the cure of the ten lepers, whom, merely bidden to go and show themselves to the priests, he cleansed on the way.] The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:10–13) is summed up in the words: duos adorantes diversa mente describit, Pharisaeum in superbia, publicanum in humilitate; ideoque alterum reprobatum, alterum justificatum descendisse. (Book IV, 36, p. 338.) [He describes two men praying with different minds, the Pharisee in pride, the tax collector in humility; and therefore that the one went down rejected, the other justified.]

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The individual sentences of the discourses of Jesus to which Tertullian attaches his attack he mostly weaves into his own words — for example, the discourse of rebuke against the Pharisees (Luke 11:37 ff.). It reads in Tertullian, Book IV, 27, p. 300:

Et vae ingerit Pharisaeis et doctoribus legis. Quis est tam similis dei mei Christus, nisi ipsius? Saepe jam fiximus, nullo modo potuisse illum destructorem legis denotari, si alium deum promulgasset. Ideo et tunc Pharisaeus, qui illum vocarat ad prandium, retractabat penes se, cur non prius tinctus esset, quam recubuisset, secundum legem, qui deum legis circumferret. Jesus autem ei interpretatus est legem dicens, illos calicis et catini exteriora emundare, interiora autem ipsorum plena esse rapina et iniquitate; ut significaret, vasculorum munditias hominum esse intelligendas apud deum. Quia et pharisaeus de homine non de calice illoto apud se tractaverat. Ideo exteriora, inquit, calicis lavatis, id est carnem: interiora autem vestra non emundatis, id est animam; adjiciens: Nonne qui exteriora fecit, id est carnem, et interiora fecit, id est animam: quo dicto aperte demonstravit, ad eundem deum pertinere munditias hominis exterioris et interioris, cujus uterque sit, praeponentis non modo lavacro hominis sed etiam sacrificio. (Hosea 6:6.) Subjungit enim: Date quae habetis, eleemosynam, et omnia munda erunt vobis. Quodsi et alius potest deus misericordiam mandasse, non tamen antequam cognitus. Porro et hic apparet non de deo increpitos sed de ejus disciplina, a quo illis et figurate vasculorum munditiae et manifeste misericordiarum opera imperabantur. Sic et oluscula decimantes, vocationem autem et dilectionem dei praetereuntes objurgat. Cujus dei vocationem et dilectionem, nisi cujus et rutam et mentam ex forma legis et de decimis offerebant? etc.

[And he thrusts woes upon the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Who is a Christ so like my God, if not his own? We have already established often that he could in no way have been branded as a destroyer of the law if he had promulgated another god. Therefore the Pharisee, too, who had invited him to breakfast, was then turning over in his mind why he had not first washed before he reclined, according to the law — he who was carrying about the god of the law. But Jesus interpreted the law to him, saying that they cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but that their inside is full of plunder and iniquity; so as to signify that the cleanness of vessels is to be understood of men in the sight of God. For the Pharisee, too, had been concerned in his own mind about a man, not about an unwashed cup. Therefore, he says, you wash the outside of the cup, that is, the flesh; but you do not cleanse your inside, that is, the soul. He adds: Did not he who made the outside, that is, the flesh, also make the inside, that is, the soul? By this saying he openly demonstrated that the cleanness of the outer and of the inner man belongs to the same god, of whom each is, a god who prefers [mercy] not only to the washing of a man but also to sacrifice. For he subjoins: Give what you have as alms, and all things will be clean for you. And if another god, too, can have commanded mercy, yet not before he was known. Further, here also it is plain that they were rebuked not concerning God but concerning his discipline, by whom both the cleanness of vessels, figuratively, and the works of mercies, openly, were enjoined upon them. So also he rebukes those who tithe herbs but pass over the calling and the love of God. The calling and the love of which god, if not of him whose rue and mint, according to the form of the law, and from tithes, they were also offering?]

In the further course of the passage there are also cited v. 43, Primatum quoque captantes locorum et honorem salutationum incusat [He also blames those who grasp at the first places and at the honor of salutations]; v. 46, Invehitur et in doctores ipsos legis, quod onerarent alios

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importabilibus oneribus, quae ipsi ne digito quidem aggredi auderent [they burden others with unbearable burdens, which they themselves did not dare to touch even with a finger]; v. 47, Vae audiunt etiam, quod aedificarent prophetis monumenta, interemptis a patribus eorum [They hear woes also, because they built monuments to the prophets, slain by their fathers]; v. 52, Quam vero clavem habebant legis doctores, nisi interpretationem legis? Ad cujus intellectum neque ipsi adibant, non credentes scilicet: nisi enim credideritis, non intelligetis: neque alios admittebant, utique docebant praecepta potius et doctrinas hominum. [But what key did the teachers of the law have, if not the interpretation of the law? To the understanding of it they themselves did not approach, not believing, of course — for unless you have believed, you will not understand — nor did they admit others; at any rate they taught the precepts and doctrines of men rather.] [Verse numbers of this kind, placed by Ritschl in the course of a quotation, are his reference aids.] From these citations one recognizes at a glance that Marcion’s Gospel really agrees with canonical Luke word for word on most points. And for that very reason Tertullian does not always take the trouble to cite with verbal exactness. Hahn, too, rightly took this circumstance into account in his reconstruction of the Marcionite text. Only at a few passages does he take inaccurate citations of Tertullian for divergences of that text from the canonical one — divergences which we must correct all the more, because Hahn attaches to one of these misunderstandings the charge of intentional mutilation. At Luke 20:35 we read: οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν [but those who have been counted worthy to obtain that age]. Tertullian cites these words, Book IV, 38, p. 346: Quos vero dignatus sit deus illius aevi possessione [But those whom God has deemed worthy of the possession of that age], and Hahn has accordingly given as Marcion’s text: οὓς δὲ κατηξίωσεν ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν κ. τ. λ. [but those whom the god has counted worthy to obtain that age, and so forth] (in Thilo, codex apocryphus I, p. 467). This divergence does not seem to me necessary, since in the translation Tertullian, on account of the deponent dignari [to deem worthy], had to resolve the participle into a relative clause. Marcion, too, will therefore have read καταξιωθέντες, though still with the addition ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ [by God], which is absent from canonical Luke. — Luke 16:17 reads: εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστι τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν, παρελθεῖν ἢ τοῦ νόμου μίαν κεραίαν πεσεῖν [It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fall]. The citation in Tertullian, chapter 33, p. 324, reads: Transeat igitur coelum et terra citius, sicut et lex et prophetae, quam unus apex verborum domini. [Let heaven and earth, then, pass away sooner, as also the law and the prophets, than one apex of the words of the Lord.] Apart from the divergence of the last words, which cannot yet be discussed here, Hahn has the

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words ὡς καὶ ὁ νόμος καὶ οἱ προφῆται [as also the law and the prophets], which he believed he had to receive into the Marcionite text (p. 185; in Thilo, in the work cited, p. 454). But it is merely an addition originating with Tertullian, in order to attach the content of this verse to the preceding verse, which in him is separated from it by several sentences.¹² — At Luke 21:27 stand the words τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν νεφέλη μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ δόξης πολλῆς [the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory]. Tertullian, chapter 39, p. 352, cites the verse: Et tunc videbunt filium hominis venientem de coelis cum plurima virtute. [And then they will see the Son of Man coming from the heavens with very great power.] Here ἐν νεφέλη [in a cloud] is already not rendered quite exactly by de coelis [from the heavens]. An equal inexactness of Tertullian, however, is also the passing over of μετὰ δόξης πολλῆς [with great glory]; and these words were not, as Hahn thinks (p. 201), omitted by Marcion so that he might then be able to refer the passage to the false Christ of the creator of the world. For in the further course of the discourse, in which Tertullian means to prove the agreement of the Gospel text with the Old Testament, he plainly presupposes the presence of those words. This is shown by the words Et gloria omnis serviens illi etc. [And all glory serving him, and so forth] (p. 353), after the formula et data est illi regia potestas etc. [and royal power has been given to him, and so forth] had previously referred to μετὰ δυνάμεως πολλῆς [with great power]. — The citation of Luke 10:24, likewise, seems to be an inexact citation by Tertullian: Dico enim vobis, quia prophetae non viderunt, quae vos videtis [For I say to you that prophets did not see what you see] (chapter 25, p. 292), in place of λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι πολλοὶ προφῆται καὶ βασιλεῖς ἠθέλησαν ἰδεῖν, ἃ ὑμεῖς βλέπετε, καὶ οὐκ εἶδον [But I say to you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it], as indeed the following words also, καὶ ἀκοῦσαι ἃ ἀκούετε καὶ οὐκ

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ἤκουσαν [and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it], were not missing in Marcion, but were only passed over by Tertullian. For that reason the difference from the text of Luke in the preceding words, too, seems to come from Tertullian rather than from Marcion. — A similar explanation seems to me necessary also for Tertullian’s citation of Luke 21:32, 33. The text reads: οὐ μὴ παρέλθη ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται. ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσονται, οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσι [This generation will by no means pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away]. Tertullian (chapter 39, p. 355) cites the verses in these words: adhuc ingerit, non transiturum coelum ac terram nisi omnia peragantur. — Transeat age nunc terra et coelum: sic enim dominus eorum destinavit, dum verbum ejus maneat in aevum. [He further insists that heaven and earth will not pass away unless all things are accomplished. — Come now, let earth and heaven pass away: for so their lord has appointed, while his word remains forever.] Hahn accordingly holds as Marcion’s text οὐ μὴ παρέλθη ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται [Heaven and earth will by no means pass away until all things have taken place], in which, on his view, ἡ γενεά [the generation] has been displaced because Marcion rejected the chiliastic hopes (p. 202). If this ground really obtained, one should rather expect that the whole verse had been struck out than that it had been disfigured by the anticipation of the words from the following verse. It lies much nearer, on the contrary, to assume a slip of Tertullian, who, deceived by the similarity of παρέλθη [pass away, aorist] and παρελεύσονται [will pass away], already drew the protasis of the second verse over into the first. From the form transiturum [going to pass] it is also to be gathered, besides, that παρελεύσονται and not παρέλθη is what is to be translated by it; and with this our view agrees better than Hahn’s hypothesis. Marcion’s text, then, will here too not have diverged from the canonical one.

The text reported by Tertullian does, certainly, also contain divergences from the canonical text. But as Tertullian always has before his eyes his dogmatic aim of refutation, he is not accustomed to calling attention to them; and for that reason one might be inclined to take many divergences and smaller omissions for chance inexactnesses of Tertullian, if Epiphanius, with his definite statements, did not make the decision easier. In the citation of Luke 10,

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21, Gratias ago et confiteor, domine coeli, quod ea, quae erant abscondita sapientibus et prudentibus, revelaveris parvulis [I thank you and confess, Lord of heaven, that you have revealed to infants what was hidden from the wise and prudent] (chapter 25, p. 288), the words πάτερ [Father] and καὶ τῆς γῆς [and of the earth] are passed over, the absence of which Epiphanius (scholion 22) expressly reports. — Luke 11:42 is cited by Tertullian: Sic et oluscula decimantes vocationem autem et dilectionem dei praetereuntes objurgat [So also he rebukes those who tithe herbs but pass over the calling and the love of God] (chapter 27, p. 301). Epiphanius (scholion 26) states: ἀντὶ τοῦ παρέρχεσθε τὴν κρίσιν, εἶχε παρέρχεσθε τὴν κλῆσιν [instead of “you pass over judgment,” it had “you pass over the calling”]. — Luke 12:8, 9 read in Tertullian: omnis qui confitebitur in me coram hominibus, confitebor in illo coram deo. Et omnis qui negaverit me coram hominibus, denegabitur coram deo. [Everyone who confesses me before men, I will confess in him before God. And everyone who denies me before men will be denied before God.] (chapter 28, p. 305.) Epiphanius (scholion 30) says: ἀντὶ τοῦ· ὁμολογήσει ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ λέγει [instead of “he will confess before the angels of God,” it says “before God”]. After these examples it appears necessary to attend exactly to every divergence of the Tertullianic citations from the canonical text of Luke, and, unless the words have obviously been reported inaccurately, to assume a definite difference of the texts.

The most important cases of this kind are the following:

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Only at a few passages does Tertullian expressly indicate a divergence of the two texts from one another. Namely, with reference to Luke 10:25, he says: In evangelio veritatis legis doctor, dominum aggressus, quid faciens, inquit, vitam aeternam consequor? In haeretico (evangelio) vita solummodo posita est sine aeternae mentione. (chapter 25, p. 292.) [In the Gospel of truth the teacher of the law, having approached the Lord, says, “What shall I do to obtain eternal life?” In the heretical (Gospel) only “life” is put, without mention of “eternal.”] Marcion, then, read not ζωὴν αἰώνιον [eternal life], but merely ζωήν [life]. — Another example is at Luke 12:51: Putatis venisse me pacem mittere in terram? Non, dico vobis, sed separationem. Machaeram quidem scriptum est. Sed Marcion emendat, quasi non et separatio opus sit machaerae. (chapter 29, p. 313.) [Do you think that I have come to cast peace on the earth? No, I say to you, but division. “Sword,” indeed, is what is written. But Marcion emends it, as if division, too, were not the work of a sword.] Here, however, Tertullian is in a manifest error. The reading διαμερισμόν [division], which he charges against Marcion as an emendation of the word μάχαιραν [sword], is the reading received in our Luke as well. μάχαιραν, on the contrary, stands in the parallel passage, Matthew 10:34; and Tertullian either falsely read this in his text, or by a lapse of memory took it for the genuine reading. — Tertullian makes noticeable yet another case of divergence, but again while doing Marcion an injustice. With reference to Luke 23:34, διαμεριζόμενοι δὲ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἔβαλον κλῆρον [and dividing his garments they cast lots], he says: Vestitum plane ejus a militibus divisum (partim), partim sorte concessum Marcion abstulit, respiciens psalmi prophetiam: dispertiti sibi sunt vestimenta mea, et in vestimentum meum sortem miserunt (chapter 42, p. 363). [Marcion has indeed taken away his clothing as divided by the soldiers (in part), in part allotted by lot, with an eye to the prophecy of the psalm: “They divided my garments among them, and upon my clothing they cast lots.”] Against this, Epiphanius (scholion 71), while drawing several verses briefly together, cites: καὶ ἐλθόντες εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον κρανίου τόπος ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτὸν καὶ

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διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος [and having come to a place called the place of a skull, they crucified him, and divided the garments, and the sun was darkened]. Despite this, Hahn decides for Tertullian’s testimony.¹³ But it is suspect precisely here, because it presupposes something in the text of Luke which really does not stand in it, namely the reference back to the passage of the psalm, which is cited only at Matthew 27:35 and John 19:24; and because the words Vestitus divisus partim, partim sorte concessus [clothing divided in part, in part allotted by lot] point to the form of this event in John rather than to that in Luke. In Luke it reads quite simply διαμεριζόμενοι τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἔβαλον κλῆρον [dividing his garments they cast lots]; in John 19:23, 24, on the contrary: ἔλαβον τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐποίησαν τέσσαρα μέρη, ἑκάστῳ στρατιώτη ἓν μέρος, καὶ τὸν χιτῶνα. — εἶπον οὖν πρὸς ἀλλήλους· μὴ σχίσωμεν αὐτὸν, ἀλλὰ λάχωμεν περὶ αὐτοῦ, τίνος ἔσται. ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθῇ, ἡ λέγουσα κ. τ. λ. [They took his garments and made four parts, to each soldier one part, and the tunic. — They said therefore to one another: Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be. That the scripture might be fulfilled which says, and so forth.] It is clear that Tertullian had this passage in mind, falsely took it for the text of Luke, and suspected a falsification in the simple words found in Marcion. Just as in this case the passage from John hovered before him, so in Tertullian’s immediately preceding words, Sed et duo scelesti circumfiguntur illi, ut inter iniquos scilicet deputaretur [But two criminals are also fixed on the cross with him, so that he might, of course, be reckoned among the transgressors], there lies a reminiscence of Mark 15:28, where alone this Old Testament passage is applied to that event. It is natural that the most developed form which a Gospel story has received in one of the evangelists impresses itself most easily and most securely, and this circumstance may have led Tertullian into that inexactness. — Apart from these direct statements of divergences between the two texts, of which, moreover, only one deserves confidence, we find in Tertullian only the further definite assertion that the story of the childhood of Jesus was missing in Marcion’s Gospel, which, in a highly rhetorical passage of his book De carne Christi, chapter 1, he makes a charge against him. That, besides this, the stories

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of John the Baptist, of the baptism of Jesus, and of the temptation were missing is necessarily to be inferred from the beginning of Marcion’s Gospel, which Tertullian (chapter 7, p. 197) gives thus: Anno quintodecimo principatus Tiberiani, proponit eum (Christum) descendisse in civitatem Galilaeae Capharnaum. [In the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius, he sets forth that he (Christ) descended into a city of Galilee, Capernaum.] For since this fact coincides with the middle of the fourth chapter of Luke, everything preceding it must have been missing in Marcion’s Gospel. The remaining differences between the two writings are to be gathered only from Tertullian’s silence about some sections which we find in Luke. But since, as has been remarked, Tertullian’s chief aim is not to make the divergences of the two texts recognizable, but to refute Marcion on the ground of Marcion’s own text, it is clear that the passing over of definite sections can rest just as well on their not having seemed serviceable to Tertullian for his aim as on their not having stood in the text at all. This circumstance makes more difficult the use of the Tertullianic statements for the reconstruction of the Marcionite text, since in the matter itself there lies no ground of decision whether a passage thus passed over was actually read by Tertullian or was not read. Certainly, as soon as one has let oneself be moved by the Church Fathers to the conviction that Marcion mutilated Luke for the sake of his system, it is natural to look at those sections of Luke which were passed over in silence only with a view to whether Marcion could have had a ground for striking them out. If no such ground was present, it was probable that Tertullian had read them and had only passed over them in the refutation; in the other case, Tertullian’s silence counted as testimony that they were missing. Hahn proceeded by this method. But since this standpoint, in our eyes, lacks that support in the historical testimonies, we also cannot adopt the method of treating Tertullian that is connected with it. Before, however, the decision on this can be given and another manner of treatment established, we turn

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to Epiphanius, who by his definite statements in many cases puts into our hands the surest decision about passages which Tertullian passed over in silence.

For although Epiphanius, too, pursues chiefly only the aim of refuting Marcion dogmatically out of his Gospel, he has nevertheless also made noticeable a series of sections of Luke which Marcion did not read in his Gospel. Only one must not believe that the divergences he cites are the only ones, and that besides them a verbal agreement between the two texts had obtained.¹⁴ For in him the critical aim was throughout subordinated to the dogmatic one. And although in the citation of petty, insignificant differences he is often highly exact, his statements are nevertheless not free from carelessness either,¹⁵ and sometimes are even decidedly erroneous. That Epiphanius has not given all the differences is plain at least from the fact that he does not mention the divergence, made noticeable by Tertullian, in Luke 10:25, of ζωήν [life] for ζωὴν αἰώνιον [eternal life]. The larger sections which Epiphanius mentions as not present in the Gospel of Marcion are the following:

Luke 11:29–32, the words about the sign of Jonah and the Ninevites, as well as about Solomon and the queen from the south.¹⁶

Luke 11:49–51, the words that the Pharisees would kill apostles and prophets, but would suffer punishment for it.¹⁷

Luke 13:1–9, concerning the Galileans killed by Pilate,

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and the discourses of Jesus attached to that, together with the parable of the barren fig tree.¹⁸

Luke 13:29–35, the message about the plots of Herod, and the cry over Jerusalem.¹⁹

Luke 15:11–32, the parable of the lost son.²⁰

Luke 18:31–34, an announcement of Jesus’ death.²¹

Luke 19:29–46, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the events that follow upon it.²²

Luke 20:9–18, the parable of the rebellious vinedressers.²³

Luke 20:37–38, the testimony of Moses to the resurrection of the dead.²⁴

Luke 21:18, the promise of inviolability for the disciples.²⁵

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Luke 21:21–22, the promise of punishment for Jerusalem.²⁶

Luke 22:35–37, counsels of Jesus with reference to the exercise of the apostolic office.²⁷

Luke 22:49–51, the disciple’s act of violence against the servant of the high priest.²⁸

With this the citations of Tertullian agree insofar as he, too, passes over precisely all these passages in silence. Besides this, Epiphanius designates yet several individual verses as missing, with which, however, other verses that are exactly connected with those must also have fallen out — which can then also be reconciled with Tertullian’s tacit testimony. Thus there was missing:

Luke 12:6: οὐχὶ πέντε στρουθία πωλεῖται ἀσσαρίων δύο; καὶ ἓν ἐξ αὐτῶν οὐκ ἔστι ἐπιλελησμένον ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ [Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria? And not one of them is forgotten before God], according to scholion 29. But v. 7 likewise must have been missing: ἀλλὰ καὶ αἱ τρίχες τῆς κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν πᾶσαι ἠρίθμηνται. μὴ οὖν φοβεῖσθε· πολλῶν στρουθίων διαφέρετε [But even the hairs of your head have all been numbered. Do not fear, then: you are of more value than many sparrows].

Luke 17:10: οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς, ὅταν ποιήσητε πάντα τὰ διαταχθέντα ὑμῖν λέγετε· ὅτι δοῦλοι ἀχρεῖοί ἐσμεν· ὅτι ὃ ὠφείλομεν ποιῆσαι, πεποιήκαμεν [So you also, when you have done all that was commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were bound to do] was missing according to scholion 47. But the same must then also be the case with the preceding verses 7–9, of which that verse only forms the conclusion.

Luke 22:16: λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐκέτι οὐ μὴ φάγω ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἕως ὅτου πληρωθῇ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ [For I say to you that I will by no means eat of it any longer, until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God] was missing according to scholion 63. Therefore surely also the closely connected verses 17, 18.

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Luke 22:30: ἵνα ἐσθίητε καὶ πίνητε ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης μου ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ μου, καὶ καθίσησθε ἐπὶ θρόνων κρίνοντες τὰς δώδεκα φυλὰς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ [that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel], which was missing according to Refutation 63, forms only the conclusion of the section vv. 24–30, which must then have fallen out entirely.

Luke 23:43: καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, σήμερον μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ [And Jesus said to him: Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise] was missing according to scholion 72, and therefore plainly also verses 39–42, with which that verse is most exactly connected.

On a few points, however, the statements of Epiphanius diverge from those of Tertullian. According to scholion 31 the words ὁ θεὸς ἀμφιέννυσι τὸν χόρτον [God clothes the grass] were missing, that is, therefore, probably the whole 28th verse of the 12th chapter. But in Tertullian’s citation, cujus et lilia et foenum non texunt nec nent, et tamen vestiuntur ab ipso [whose lilies also, and the grass, do not weave or spin, and yet are clothed by him] (chapter 29, p. 308), that verse too is precisely alluded to. It cannot be decided whether in Epiphanius’s time the Marcionites had intentionally struck out the verse or whether it was missing by a slip. Nor does anything depend on it, since the verse is secured for the Gospel of Marcion by Tertullian’s mention of it. — At another passage, chapter 23, v. 2, Epiphanius found a few additions which Tertullian (chapter 42, p. 362) does not mention, namely, after διαστρέφοντα τὸ ἔθνος [perverting the nation], the words καὶ καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας [and destroying the law and the prophets], and after κωλύοντα καίσαρι φόρους διδόναι [forbidding to give tribute to Caesar], the words καὶ ἀποστρέφοντα τὰς γυναῖκας καὶ τὰ τέκνα [and turning away the women and the children] (scholia 69, 70). The same are also found in individual codices of Luke (cf. Griesbach on this passage). That they come from Marcionites, as Hahn supposes (p. 212), and have passed over from their copies into the canonical ones, is not really probable, since they betray nothing of a Marcionite character; and it is much harder to assume an influence of heretical codices upon canonical ones than the reverse case, for which the recension of the Marcionite Gospel that occurs in Pseudo-Origenes also contains several examples.²⁹ — Another divergence mentioned by Epiphanius

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(scholion 19), namely the absence of the words οὐκ ἠδυνήθηαν ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτό [they were not able to cast it out], is probably only a chance omission. The words are so necessary in the context, and the ground which Hahn (p. 156) gives for their absence — that they were struck out by the Marcionites for the vindication of the apostles’ honor — departs so far from the presupposition that the dogmatic system of the Marcionites supplied the standard for their mutilation of the writings, that one must necessarily come back to the solution we have given. — In another case, however, Hahn has wrongly found a discrepancy in the reports of Tertullian and Epiphanius. Namely, according to scholion 55 the parable of the vinedressers, Luke 20:9–18, was missing. The preceding section, which contained the disputed question about the baptism of John put to the Pharisees, vv. 1–8, was present according to Tertullian’s testimony (chapter 38, p. 344), and immediately upon it there followed the half of the 19th verse mentioned by Epiphanius (scholion 54): (καὶ ἐζήτησαν ἐπιβαλεῖν τὰς χεῖρας ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν.) [and they sought to lay hands on him, and they were afraid]. From Refutation 53, however, Hahn (p. 197) means to infer that Epiphanius had before him, of the whole section, only v. 1 and v. 19, and that therefore in the copy he used vv. 2–8 were also missing. It is already striking that he did not report this circumstance in a scholion as well, as he did report the absence of the following section in scholion 55. But if one looks at that refutation, from which Hahn has torn out a few words, it is evident that he has wholly misunderstood it. That refutation has the aim of censuring the absence of the section which narrates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and so forth (chapter 19:29–46), and it does so by pointing to the section 20:1–8, 19, which shows Jesus in the temple, and by asking how, then, he would have got there. That section is, as often (for example,

[p. 54]

scholion 25, above), designated only by the words of the beginning and of the end. Its content, however, namely the discourse in question about the baptism of John, was so far from being missing that Epiphanius definitely sets it, as οὗτος ὁ λόγος [this discourse], over against the discourses in chapter 19.³⁰

In the sometimes rather inexact and abbreviated citations from Marcion’s Gospel in Epiphanius, Eichhorn believed he had to see the original words of that writing, and in this imperfection of the style meant to find a proof of the original character of that apocryphal Gospel.³¹ An unpracticed writer, he thinks, would always write in such a way as to leave his readers all sorts of things to supply; a reviser would only afterward bring in the necessary rounding and intelligibility. However it may be with this general justification of that hypothesis, the inexact manner in which Epiphanius also cites the pieces that belong to the reviser Luke could already have made Eichhorn attentive to the fact that it was no different with the citations from Marcion’s Gospel either. Further, however, some citations of Epiphanius, if one takes them as exact statements of the text, are entirely senseless, as in scholion 43 the words ὁ νόμος καὶ οἱ προφῆται ἕως Ἰωάννου καὶ πᾶς εἰς αὐτὴν βίαζεται [the law and the prophets until John, and everyone forces his way into it], which without the intervening clause ἀπὸ τότε ἡ βασίλεια τοῦ θεοῦ εὐαγγελίζεται [from then the kingdom of God is proclaimed]

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are not to be understood, but Epiphanius could very well leave his readers, who were well acquainted with Luke, to supply it, though a first original composer of the discourse could not. If, now, Eichhorn assumes a scribal error in order to explain the dropping out of that sentence,³² he himself admits that his view cannot be carried through. Hahn’s remarks on the matter³³ refute that view completely, and it will probably be maintained by no one any longer.