5 We give this quotation as a resume by an English historian
and divine, but the idea of the "New Testament remodelled by
Marcion," is a mere ecclesiastical imagination.
Jesus,(1) "mixing up matters of the Law with the words of the Saviour."(2)
Tertullian reproaches Marcion with having written the work in which he details the contrasts between Judaism and Christianity, of which we have given the briefest sketch, as an introduction and encouragement to belief in his Gospel, which he ironically calls "the Gospel according to the Antitheses;"(3) and the charge which the Fathers bring against Marcion is that he laid violent hands on the Canonical Gospel of Luke, and manipulated it to suit his own views. "For certainly the whole object at which he laboured in drawing up the 'Antitheses.'" says Tertullian, "amounts to this: that he may prove a disagreement between the Old and New Testament, so that his own Christ may be separated from the Creator, as of another God, as alien from the Law and the Prophets. For this purpose it is certain that he has erased whatever was contrary to his own opinion and in harmony with the Creator, as if interpolated by his partisans, but has retained everything consistent with his own opinion."(4) The whole hypothesis that Marcion's Gospel is a mutilated version of our third Synoptic in fact rested upon this accusation. It is obvious that if it cannot be shown that Marcion's Gospel was our Canonical Gospel merely garbled by the Heresiarch for dogmatic reasons in the interest of his system,—for there could not be any other conceivable
reason for tampering with it,—the claim of Marcion's Gospel to the rank of a more original and authentic work than Luke's acquires double force. We must, therefore, inquire into the character of the variations between the so-called heretical, and the Canonical Gospels, and see how far the hypothesis of the Fathers accord with the contents of Marcion's Gospel so far as we are acquainted with it.
At the very outset we are met by the singular phenomenon, that both Tertullian and Epiphanius, who accuse Marcion of omitting everything which was unfavourable, and retaining only what was favourable to his views, undertake to refute him out of what remains in his Gospel. Tertullian says: "It will then be proved that he has shown the same defect of blindness of heresy both in that which he has erased and that which he has retained."(1) Epiphanius also confidently states that, out of that which Marcion has allowed to remain of the Gospel, he can prove his fraud and imposture, and thoroughly refute him.(2) Now if Marcion mutilated Luke to so little purpose as this, what was the use of his touching it at all? He is known as an able man, the most influential and distinguished of all the heretical leaders of the second century, and it seems unreasonable to suppose that, on the theory of his erasing or altering all that contradicted his system, he should have done his work so imperfectly.(3) The Fathers say that he endeavours to get rid of the contradictory passages which remain by a system of false interpretation; but surely he would not have allowed himself to be driven
to this extremity, leaving weapons in the hands of his opponents, when he might so easily have excised the obnoxious texts along with the rest? It is admitted by critics, moreover, that passages said to have been omitted by Marcion are often not opposed to his system at all, and sometimes, indeed, even in favour of it;(1) and on the other hand, that passages which were retained are contradictory to his views.(2) This is not intelligible upon any theory of arbitrary garbling of a Gospel in the interest of a system.
It may be well to give a few instances of the anomalies presented, upon this hypothesis, by Marcion's text. Some critics believe that the verses Luke vii. 29—35, were wanting in Marcion's Gospel.(3) Hahn accounts for the omission of verses 29, 30, regarding the baptism of John, because they represented the relation of the Baptist to Jesus in a way which Marcion did not admit.(4) But as he allowed the preceding verses to remain, such a proceeding was absurd. In verse 26 he calls John a prophet, and much more than a prophet, and in the next verse (27) quotes respecting him the words of