This question may be regarded as naturally following the discussion of S.
Luke’s peculiarities and characteristics, for it is by a knowledge of these that we are able to solve it. The question has been keenly debated during the last forty years, and may now be said to be settled, mainly through the
exertions of Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, and Sanday. Dr. Sanday’s article in the Fortnightly Review, June 1875, in answer to Supernatural Religion, was pronounced by Bishop Lightfoot to be “able and (as it seems to me)
unanswerable” (On Sup. Rel. p. 186). This article was incorporated in The Gospels in the Second Century, Macmillan, 1876, now unfortunately out of print, and it remains unanswered. It is now conceded on all sides1 that Marcion’s Gospel does not represent the original S. Luke, and that our Third Gospel has not been largely augmented and interpolated, especially by the addition of the first three chapters and the last seven verses; but that Marcion’s Gospel is an abridgment of our S. Luke, which therefore was current before Marcion began to teach in Rome in or before a.d. 140. The statements of early Christian writers (not to be accepted as conclusive without examination) have been strongly confirmed, and it is right to speak of Marcion’s Gospel as a “mutilated” or “amputated” edition of S. Luke.
Irenæus says of Marcion : id quod est secundum Lucam evangelium circumcidens (1:27, 2, 3:12, 7) ; and again: Marcion et qui ab eo sunt, ad intercidendas conversi sunt Scripturas, quasdam quidem in totum non cognoscentes, secundum Lucam autem evangelium et epistolas Pauli decurtantes, hæc sola legitima esse dicunt, quæ ipsi minoraverunt (3:12, 12). Similarly Tertullian: Quis tam comesor mus Ponticus quam qui evangelia corrosit? (Adv. Marcion. 1:1). Marcion evangelio suo nullum adscribit. auctorem. … ex iis commentatoribus quos habemus Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse quem cæderet (ibid. 4:2). Epiphanius also: ὁ μὲν γὰρ χαρακτὴρ τοῦ κατὰ Λουκᾶν σημαίνει τὸ εὐγγέλιον· ὡς δὲ
ἠκρωτηρίασται μήτε ἀρχὴν ἔχων, μήτε μέσα, μήτε τέλος, ἱματίου
βεβρωμένου ὑπὸ πολλῶν σητῶν ἐπέχει τὸν τρόπον (Hær. 1:3, 11, Migne,
41:709). Epiphanius speaks of additions, τὰ δὲ προστίθησιν: but these were very trifling, perhaps only some two or three dozen words.
The evidence of Tertullian and Epiphanius as to the contents of Marcion’s Gospel is quite independent, and it can be checked to some extent by that of Irenæus. Their agreement is remarkable, and we can determine with
something like certainty and exactness the parts of the Third Gospel which Marcion omitted; not at all because he doubted their authenticity, but
because he disliked their contents. They contradicted his doctrine, or did not harmonize well with it, or in some other way displeased him. In this
arbitrary manner he discarded 1:2 and 3 excepting 3:1, with which his Gospel began. Omitting 3:2-4, 13, 17-20, 24, he went on continuously to 11:28. His subsequent omissions were 11:29-32, 49-51, 13:1-9, 29-35, 15:11-32, 17:5-10, 18:31-34, 19:29-48, 20:9-18, 37, 38, 21:1-4, 18, 21, 22, 22:16-18, 28-30, 35-38, 49-51, 24:47-53. Perhaps he also omitted 7:29-35;
and he transposed 4:27 to 17:18.
It should be observed that not only does Marcion’s Gospel contain nearly all the sections which are peculiar to Luke, but it contains them in the same order. Where Luke inserts something into the common tradition, Marcion has the insertion; where Luke omits, Marcion omits also. This applies in particular to “the great intercalation” (9:51-18:14) as well as to smaller insertions; and this minute agreement, step by step, between Marcion and Luke renders the hypothesis of their independence incredible. The only possible alternatives are that Marcion has expurgated our Third Gospel, or that our Third Gospel is an expansion of Marcion’s ; and it can be
demonstrated that the second of these is untenable.
(1) In most cases we can see why Marcion omitted what his Gospel did not contain. He denied Christ’s human birth; therefore the whole narrative of the Nativity and the genealogy must be struck out. The Baptism,
Temptation, and Ascension involved anthropomorphic views which he would dislike. All allusions to the O.T. as savouring of the kingdom of the Demiurge must be struck out. And so on. In this way most of the omissions are quite intelligible. The announcement of the Passion (18:31-34) and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, etc. (19:29-48), were probably disliked as being fulfilments of O.T. prophecy. It is less easy to see Marcion’s objection
to the Prodigal Son (15:11-32) and the massacre of Galileans, etc. (13:1-9);
but our knowledge of his strange tenets is imperfect, and these passages probably conflicted with some of them. But such changes as “all the
righteous” for “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets” (13:28), or “the Lord’s words” for “the law” (16:17), or “those whom the god of that world shall account worthy” for “they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world” (20:35), are thoroughly intelligible. Others which his critics supposed to be wilful depravations of the text are mere differences of
reading found in other authorities; e.g. the omission Of αἰώνιον (10:25) and of ἢ μεριστήν (12:14); and the insertion of καὶ καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας (23:2).
(2) But the chief evidence (in itself amounting to something like demonstration) that Marcion abridged our S. Luke, rather than the Evangelist expanded Marcion, is found in the peculiarities and
characteristics of Luke’s style and diction. These run through our Gospel from end to end, and on the average are as frequent in the portions which Marcion omitted as in the rest. In the first two chapters they are perhaps somewhat more frequent than elsewhere. It is quite incredible that the supposed interpolator made a minute analysis of the style and diction of Marcion’s Gospel, practised himself in it, and then added those portions of our Gospel which Marcion did not include in his Gospel: and that he
accomplished this feat without raising a suspicion. Such a feat in that age would have been a literary miracle. Only those who have worked through the passages expunged by Marcion, carefully marking what is peculiar to Luke or characteristic of him, can estimate the full force of this argument.
But the analysis of a few verses will be instructive.
The dotted lines indicate that the expression is found more often in Luke’s writings than in the rest of N.T., and the fraction indicates the proportion:
e.g. the (6/3) with καθεῖλεν means that καθαιρεῖν occurs six times in Lk.
and Acts, and three elsewhere in the rest of N.T. The plain lines indicate that the expression is peculiar to Luke in N.T., and the figure states the
number of times in which it occurs in his writings: e.g. κατὰ τὸ ἔθος occurs thrice in Lk. and Acts, and nowhere else in N.T.
Καθεῖλεν 6/3 δυνάστας ἀπὸ θρόνων, καὶ ὕψωσεν ταπεινούς, πεινῶντας ἐνέπλησεν 22/2 ἀγαθῶν, καὶ πλουτοῦντας ἐξαπέστειλεν 10/2 κενούς.
ἀντελάβετο Ἰσραὴλ παιδὸς 7/1 αὐτοῦ, μνησθῆναι ἐλέους (καθὼς
ἐλάλησεν πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν) τῷ Ἀβραὰμ καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. Ἔμεινεν δὲ Μαριὰμ σὺν 75/53 αὐτῇ ὡς μῆνας 10/8 τρεῖς, καὶ ὑπέστρεψεν 33/3 εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦς (1:52-56).
Καὶ ἐπορεύοντο οἱ γονεῖς αὐτῆς κατʼ ἔτος 26/23 εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ τῇ ἑορτῇ τοῦ πάσχα. καὶ ὅτε ἐγένετο ἐτῶν 26/23 δώδεκα, ἀναβαινόντων αὐτῶν κατὰ τὸ ἔθος 3 τῆς ἑορτῆς, καὶ τελειωσάντων τὰς ἡμέρας, ἐν τῷ ὑποστρέφειν 33/3 αὐτοὺς ὑπέμεινεν Ἰησοῦς ὁ παῖς ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ· καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ· νομίσαντες 9/6 δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ συνοδίᾳ εἶναι ἦλθον ἡμέρας ὁδόν, καὶ ἀνεζήτουν 3 αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς συγγενέσι καὶ τοῖς 2 γνωσγοῖς· 12/3 καὶ μὴ εὑρόντες ὑπέστρεψαν 33/3 εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἀναζητοῦντες 3 αὐτόν. καὶ ἐγένετο μεθʼ ἡμέρας τρεῖς, εὗρον αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, καθεζόμενον ἐν μέσῳ τῶν διδασκάλων, καὶ ἀκούοντα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπερωτῶντα αὐτούς· ἐξίσταντο 11/6 δὲ πάντες οἱ ἀκούοντες αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ συνέσει καὶ ταῖς ἀποκρίσεσιν αὐτοῦ (2:41-47).