26. Luke, xvi. 17: “One tittle of my words shall not fall,” in place of, “One tittle of the Law shall not fall.” As has been already remarked, the reading in St. Luke is evidently corrupt, altered deliberately by the party of conciliation. Marcion's is the genuine text.
27. Luke xvii. 9, 10. The saying, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do,” was perhaps omitted by Marcion, lest the Gospel should seem to sanction the idea that any obligation whatever rested on the believer. The received text is thoroughly Pauline, inculcating the worthlessness of man's righteousness. Hahn and Ritschl argue that the whole of the parable, 7-10, was not in Marcion's Gospel; and this is probable, though St. Epiphanius only says that Marcion cut out, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to [pg 271] do.”[467] The whole Parable has such a Pauline ring, that it would probably have been accepted in its entirety by Marcion, if his Gospel had contained it; and the parable is divested of its point and meaning if only the few words are omitted which St. Epiphanius mentions as deficient.
28. Luke xvii. 18: “There are not found returning to give glory to God. And there were many lepers in the time of Eliseus the prophet in Israel; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.” In the Gospel of the Lord, this passage concerning the lepers in the time of Eliseus occurs twice; once in chap. i. v. 15, as already given, and again here. It has been preserved in St. Luke's Gospel in only one place, in that corresponding with Marcion i. 15, viz. Luke iv. 27.
It is clear that this was a fragmentary saying of our Lord drifting about, which the compiler of the Sinope Gospel inserted in two places where it thought it would fit in with other passages. When St. Luke's Gospel was revised, it was found that this passage occurred twice, and that it was without appropriateness in chap. xvii. after verse 18, and was therefore cut out. But in Marcion's Gospel it remained, a monument of the manner in which the Gospels were originally constructed.
29. Luke xviii. 19. Marcion had: “Jesus said to him, Do not call me good; one is good, the Father;” another version of the text, not a deliberate alteration.
30. Luke xviii. 31-34. The prophecies of the passion omitted by Marcion.
31. Luke xix. 29-46. The ride into Jerusalem on an ass, and the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the Temple, are omitted.
Why the Palm-Sunday triumphal entry should have [pg 272] been excluded does not appear. In St. Luke's Gospel Jesus is not hailed as “King of the Jews” and “Son of David.” Had this been the case, these two titles, we may conclude, would have been eliminated from the narrative; but we see no reason why the whole account should be swept away. It probably did not exist in the original Gospel Marcion obtained in Pontus.
Did Marcion cut out the narrative of the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the Temple? I think not. St. John, in his Gospel, gives that event in his second chapter as occurring, not at the close of the ministry of Christ, but at its opening.
St. John is the only evangelist who can be safely relied upon for giving the chronological order of events. St. Matthew, as has been already shown, did not write the acts of our Lord, but his sayings only; and St. Mark was no eye-witness.