overlooked much; and besides, he believes that by his replies to particular passages he has already sufficiently dealt with many others of a similar kind; indeed, avowedly, he will not willingly repeat himself. A certain conclusion, therefore, can only be deduced from the silence of Tertullian when special circumstances enter."(l) Volkmar, however, deduces with certainty from the statements of Tertullian that, whilst he wrote, he had not before him the Gospel of Luke, but intentionally laid it aside, and merely referred to the Marcionitish text, and further that, like all the Fathers of the third Century, he preferred the Gospel according to Matthew to the other Synoptics, and was well acquainted with it alone, so that in speaking of the Gospel generally he only has in his memory the sense, and the sense alone of Luke except in so far as it agrees or seems to agree with Matthew.(2)
With regard to the manner in which Tertullian performed the work he had undertaken, Hilgenfeld remarks: "As Tertullian, in going through the Marcionitish Gospel, has only the object of refutation in view, he very rarely states explicitly what is missing in it; and as, on the one hand, we can only venture to conclude from the silence of Tertullian that a passage is wanting, when it is altogether inexplicable that he should not have made use of it for the purpose of refutation; so, on the other, we must also know how Marcion used and interpreted the Gospel, and should never lose sight of Tertullian's refutation and defence."(3)
Hahn substantially expresses the same opinions. He
says: "Inasmuch as Tertullian goes through the Mar-cionitish text with the view of refuting the heretic out of that which he accepts, and not of critically pointing out all variations, falsifications, and passages rejected, he frequently quotes the falsified or altered Marcionitish text without expressly mentioning the variations.(1)... Yet he cannot refrain—although this was not his object—occasionally, from noticing amongst other things any falsifications and omissions which, when he perhaps examined the text of Luke or had a lively recollection of it, struck and too grievously offended him."(2)
Volkmar's opinion of the procedure of Epiphanius is still more unfavourable. Contrasting it with that of Tertullian, he characterizes it as "more superficial," and he considers that its only merit is its presenting an independent view of Marcion's Gospel. Further than this, however, he says: "How far we can build upon his statements, whether as regards their completeness or their trustworthiness is not yet made altogether clear."(3) Volk-mar goes on to show how thoroughly Epiphanius intended to do his work, and yet that, although from what he himself leads us to expect, we might hope to find a complete statement of Marcion's sins, the Father himself disappoints such an expectation by his own admission of incompleteness. He complains generally of his free and misleading method of quotation, such, for instance, as his alteration of the text without explanation; alteration of the same passage on different occasions in more than one way; abbreviations, and omissions of parts of quotations; the sudden breaking off of passages just commenced with
the indefinite [———], without any indication how much this may include.(1)
Volkmar, indeed, explains that Epiphanius is only thoroughly trustworthy where, and so far as, he wishes to state in his Scholia an omission or variation in Marcion's text from his own Canonical Gospel, in which case he minutely registers the smallest point, but this is to be clearly distinguished from any charge of falsification brought against Marcion in his Refutations; for only while earlier drawing up his Scholia had he the Mar-cionitish Gospel before him and compared it with Luke; but in the case of the Refutations, on the contrary, which he wrote later, he did not at least again compare the Gospel of Luke. "It is, however, altogether different," continues Volkmar, "as regards the statements of Epiphanius concerning the part of the Gospel of Luke which is preserved in Marcion. Whilst he desires to be strictly literal in the account of the variations, and also with two exceptions is so, he so generally adheres only to the purport of the passages retained by Marcion, that altogether literal quotations are quite exceptional; throughout, however, where passages of greater extent are referred to, these are not merely abbreviated, but also are quoted in very free fashion, and nowhere can we reckon that the passage in Marcion ran verbally as Epiphanius quotes it."(2) And to this we may add a remark made further on: "We cannot in general rely upon the accuracy of his statements in regard to that which Marcion had in common with Luke."(3) On the other hand Volkmar had previously