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Updated: June 22, 2025
Haer. iv. 27. 2; 12. 12. Cf. Volkmar, p. 46. Marcion's, p. 45. We have just the remarkable coincidence spoken of above. The statement is mistaken in regard to Volkmar and Hilgenfeld. Both these writers would make Marcion retain this passage. It happens rather oddly that this is one of the sections on which the philological evidence for St. Adv. Marc. iv. 19, 37, 43. Adv.
Or, is it not possible that the converse may be true, and that Marcion's Gospel was the original and ours an interpolated version?
If we judge Marcion's procedure by a standard suited to the age in which he lived, our wonder will be, not that he has shown so little, but so much, consistency and insight. I think, therefore, that the dogmatic argument, so far as it goes, tells distinctly in favour of the 'mutilation' hypothesis. But at the same time it should not be pressed too far.
The number of words found only in the portion of the Gospel retained by Marcion and in the Acts is 231; that of words found in these retained portions and not besides in the Gospels or the two other Synoptics is 58; and both these classes together for the portions omitted in Marcion's Gospel reach a total of 62, which is decidedly under the proportion that might have been expected.
Marcion's reading of this verse corresponded with that of other Gnostics, but has no extant manuscript authority. We have touched upon it elsewhere. Adv. xi. 2. Crt. xii. 14. Crt. xii. 38. Crt., combine the two readings in various ways. xvi. 12. xvii. 2. xviii. 19.
He does not say that the statements of Tertullian and Epiphanius are untrustworthy, simply and absolutely, but only that they need to be applied with caution on certain points. Such a point is especially the silence of these writers as proving, or being supposed to prove, the absence of the corresponding passage in Marcion's Gospel.
There is no evidence to show whether the additions in ix. 55, xxiii. 34, and xxii. 43, 44 were present in Marcion's Gospel or not. It will be observed that the readings given above have all what is called a 'Western' character. These textual phenomena are highly interesting, but at the same time an exact analysis of them is difficult. No simple hypothesis will account for them.
Supposing, for the moment, that the author has proved the points that he sets himself to prove, to what will this amount? With the exception of the first, I do not think these points are proved to any important extent; but, even if they were, it would still, I believe, be possible to show that Marcion's Gospel was based upon our third Synoptic by arguments which hardly cross or touch them at all.
This question has, however, been thoroughly debated among German critics, the one side maintaining that Marcion mutilated Luke's Gospel, the other that Marcion's Gospel was earlier than Luke's, and that Luke's was made from it; while some, again, maintained that both were versions of an older original.
It should be remembered that the above are only samples from the whole body of evidence, which would take up a much larger space if exhibited in full. The total result may be summarised thus. Accepting the scheme of Marcion's Gospel given some pages back, which is substantially that of 'Supernatural Religion, Marcion will have omitted a total of 309 verses.
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