Marcion, it may be remarked, would have had no objection to acknowledging St. Luke as the compiler of [pg 257] the Gospel, as that evangelist was a devoted follower of St. Paul. If he did not do so, it was because at Sinope the Gospel read in the Church was not known by his name.
2. Marcion's Gospel was without the Preface, Luke i. 1-4.
This Preface is certainly by St. Luke, but was added, we may conjecture, after the final revision of his Gospel, when he issued the second edition. Its absence from Marcion's Gospel shows that it did not accompany the first edition.
3. The narrative of the nativity, Luke i. ii., is not in Marcion's Gospel.
It has been supposed by critics that he omitted this narrative purposely, because his Christ was descended from the highest God, had no part with the world of the Demiurge, and had therefore no earthly mother.[455] But if so, why did Marcion suffer the words, “Thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee” (Luke viii. 20), to remain in his Gospel?
And it does not appear that Marcion denied the incarnation in toto, and went to the full extreme of Docetic doctrine. On the contrary, he taught that Christ deceived the God of this World, by coming into it as a man. The Demiurge trusted he would be his Messiah, to confirm the Law for ever. But when he saw that Christ was destroying the Law, he inflicted on him death. And this was only possible, because Christ was, through his human nature, subject to his power.
It is a less violent supposition that in the Church of Sinope the Gospel was, like that of St. Mark, without a narrative of the nativity and childhood of Jesus. It is probable, moreover, that the first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel were added at a later period. The [pg 258] account of the nativity and childhood is taken from the mouths of the blessed Virgin Mary, of eye-witnesses, or contemporaries. “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart,” and “His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.”[456] This is our guaranty that the story is true. Mary kept them in memory, and the evangelist appeals to her memory for them. So with regard to the account of the nativity of the Baptist, “All they that heard these things laid them up in their hearts.”[457] To their recollections also the evangelist appeals as his authority.
Now it is not probable that St. Luke or St. Paul were brought in contact with the Virgin and the people about Hebron, relatives of the Baptist. Their lives were spent in Asia Minor. But St. John, we know, became the guardian of the blessed Virgin after the death of Christ.[458] Greek ecclesiastical tradition declares that she accompanied him to Ephesus. But be that as it may, St. John almost certainly would have tenderly and reverently collected the “memorabilia” of the blessed Mother concerning her Divine Son's birth and infancy.
St. John had the organizing and disciplining of the “Asiatic” churches founded by St. Paul after the removal of the Apostle of the Gentiles. When he came to Ephesus, and went through the Churches of Asia Minor, he found a Gospel compiled by St. Luke in general use. To this he added such particulars as were expedient to complete it, amongst others the “recollections” of St. Mary, and the relatives of the Baptist. It is most probable that he gave them to St. Luke to work into his narrative, and thus to form a second edition of his Gospel.[459] That the Gospel of St. Luke was retouched [pg 259] after the abatement of the anti-legal excitement can hardly be doubted. We shall see instances as we proceed.
4. The section relating to the Baptist (Luke iii. 2-19), with which the most ancient Judaizing Gospels opened, was absent from that of Marcion.