Malachi iii. 1: "This is he of whom it is written: Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." It is impossible on any reasonable ground to account for the retention of such honourable mention of the Baptist, if verses 29, 30 were erased for such dogmatic reasons.(1) Still more incomprehensible on such a hypothesis is the omission of Luke vii. 31—35, where that generation is likened unto children playing in the market-place and calling to each other: "We piped unto you and ye danced not," and Jesus continues: "For John is come neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil (34). The Son of Man is come, eating and drinking; and ye say: Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Hahn attributes the omission of these verses to the sensuous representation they give of Jesus as eating and drinking.(2) What was the use of eliminating these verses when he allowed to remain unaltered verse 36 of the same chapter,(3) in which Jesus is invited to eat with the Pharisee, and goes into his house and sits down to meat? or v. 29—35,(4) in which Jesus accepts the feast of Levi, and defends his disciples for eating and drinking against the murmurs of the Scribes and Pharisees? or xv. 2,(5)
where the Pharisees say of him: "This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them?" How absurdly futile the omission of the one passage for dogmatic reasons, while so many others were allowed to remain unaltered.(1)
The next passage to which we must refer is one of the most important in connection with Marcion's Docetic doctrine of the person of Jesus. It is said that he omitted viii. 19: "And his mother and his brethren came to him and could not come at him for the crowd," and that he inserted in verse 21, [———]; making the whole episode in his Gospel read (20): "And it was told him by certain which said: Thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee: 21. But he answered and said unto them: Who are my mother and brethren? My mother and my brethren are these," &c. The omission of verse 19 is said to have been made because, according to Marcion, Christ was not born like an ordinary man, and consequently had neither mother nor brethren.(3) The mere fact, however, that Marcion retains verse 20, in which the crowd simply state as a matter fully recognized, the relationship of those who were seeking Jesus, renders the omission of the preceding verse useless,(4) except on the ground of mere redundancy.
Marcion is reported not to have had the word [———] in x. 25,(5) "so that the question of the lawyer simply ran:
"Master, what shall I do to inherit life?" The omission of this word is supposed to have been made in order to make the passage refer back to the God of the Old Testament, who promises merely long life on earth for keeping the commandments, whilst it is only in the Gospel that eternal life is promised.(1) But in the corresponding passage, xviii. 18,(2) the [———] is retained, and the question of the ruler is: "Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" It has been argued that the introduction of the one thing still lacking (verse 22) after the keeping of the law and the injunction to sell all and give to the poor, changes the context, and justifies the use there of eternal life as the reward for fulfilment of the higher commandment.(3) This reasoning, however, seems to us without grounds, and merely an ingenious attempt to account for an embarrassing fact. In reality the very same context occurs in the other passage, for, explaining the meaning of the word "neighbour," love to whom is enjoined as part of the way to obtain "life," Jesus inculcates the very same duty as in xviii. 22, of distributing to the poor (cf. x. 28—37). There seems, therefore, no reasonable motive for omitting the word from the one passage whilst retaining it in the other.(4)
The passage in Luke xi. 29—32, from the concluding words of verse 29, "but the sign of the prophet Jonah"
