Lost and Hostile Gospels

2. Marcion's Gospel was without the Preface, Luke i. 1-4.

This Preface is certainly by St. Luke, but was added, we may conjecture, after the final revision of his Gospel, when he issued the second edition. Its absence from Marcion's Gospel shows that it did not accompany the first edition.

3. The narrative of the nativity, Luke i. ii., is not in Marcion's Gospel.

It has been supposed by critics that he omitted this narrative purposely, because his Christ was descended from the highest God, had no part with the world of the Demiurge, and had therefore no earthly mother.450 But if so, why did Marcion suffer the words, “Thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee” (Luke viii. 20), to remain in his Gospel?

And it does not appear that Marcion denied the incarnation in toto, and went to the full extreme of Docetic doctrine. On the contrary, he taught that Christ deceived the God of this World, by coming into it as a man. The Demiurge trusted he would be his Messiah, to confirm the Law for ever. But when he saw that Christ was destroying the Law, he inflicted on him death. And this was only possible, because Christ was, through his human nature, subject to his power.

It is a less violent supposition that in the Church of Sinope the Gospel was, like that of St. Mark, without a narrative of the nativity and childhood of Jesus. It is probable, moreover, that the first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel were added at a later period. The account of the nativity and childhood is taken from the mouths of the blessed Virgin Mary, of eye-witnesses, or contemporaries. “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart,” and “His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.”451 This is our guaranty that the story is true. Mary kept them in memory, and the evangelist appeals to her memory for them. So with regard to the account of the nativity of the Baptist, “All they that heard these things laid them up in their hearts.”452 To their recollections also the evangelist appeals as his authority.

Now it is not probable that St. Luke or St. Paul were brought in contact with the Virgin and the people about Hebron, relatives of the Baptist. Their lives were spent in Asia Minor. But St. John, we know, became the guardian of the blessed Virgin after the death of Christ.453 Greek ecclesiastical tradition declares that she accompanied him to Ephesus. But be that as it may, St. John almost certainly would have tenderly and reverently collected the “memorabilia” of the blessed Mother concerning her Divine Son's birth and infancy.

St. John had the organizing and disciplining of the “Asiatic” churches founded by St. Paul after the removal of the Apostle of the Gentiles. When he came to Ephesus, and went through the Churches of Asia Minor, he found a Gospel compiled by St. Luke in general use. To this he added such particulars as were expedient to complete it, amongst others the “recollections” of St. Mary, and the relatives of the Baptist. It is most probable that he gave them to St. Luke to work into his narrative, and thus to form a second edition of his Gospel.454 That the Gospel of St. Luke was retouched after the abatement of the anti-legal excitement can hardly be doubted. We shall see instances as we proceed.

4. The section relating to the Baptist (Luke iii. 2-19), with which the most ancient Judaizing Gospels opened, was absent from that of Marcion.

John belonged to the Old Covenant; he could not therefore be regarded as revealing the Gospel of the unknown God. This is thought by Baur, Hilgenfeld and Volckmar, to be the reason of the omission. But the explanation is strained. I think it probable, as stated above, that St. Luke when with St. Paul had not got the narrative of those who had heard and seen the birth of the Baptist and his preaching beyond Jordan. Had Marcion, moreover, objected to the Baptist as belonging to the Old Covenant, he would not have suffered the presence in his Gospel of the passage, Luke vii. 24-28, containing the high commendation of John, “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee.”

5. There is no mention in Marcion's Gospel of the baptism of our Lord (Luke iii. 21, 22). This is given very briefly in St. Luke's Gospel. To the Nazarene Church this event was of the utmost importance; it was regarded as the beginning of the mission of Jesus, the ratification by God of his Messiahship, and therefore the Gospels of Mark and of the Hebrews opened with it. But the significance was not so deeply felt by the Gentile converts, and therefore the circumstance is despatched in a few words.

6. The genealogy of Joseph is not given (Luke iii. 23-38). This is not to be wondered at. It is an evidently late interpolation, clumsily foisted into the sacred text, rudely interrupting the narrative.

(21): “Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven opened, (22) and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. (iv. 1): And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” Such is the natural order. But it is interrupted by the generation of Joseph, the supposed father of Jesus, from Adam. This generation does not concern Jesus at all, but it came through some Jewish Christians into the hands of the Church in Asia Minor, and was forced between the joints of the sacred text, to the interruption of the narrative and the succession of ideas.455 Marcion had it not in the Gospel brought from Pontus.

7. The narrative of the Temptation is not in Marcion's Gospel. It can have been no omission of his, for it would have tallied admirably with his doctrine. He held that the God of this world believed Christ at first to be the Messiah, but finally was undeceived. In the narrative of the Temptation the devil offers Christ all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. He takes the position which in Marcion's scheme was occupied by the Demiurge. Had he possessed the record of the Temptation, it would have mightily strengthened his position.

8. The “Gospel of our Lord” opens with the words, “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate ruling in Judaea (ἡγεμονεύοντος in place of ἐπιτροπεύοντος, an unimportant difference), Jesus came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and straightway on the Sabbath days, going into the synagogue, he taught” (εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐδίδασκε in place of καὶ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν), again an unimportant variation.

9. The words “Jesus of Nazareth”456 are in Marcion's Gospel simply “Jesus.” This may have been done by Marcion on purpose. But there is no evidence that it was omitted in xxiv. 19.

10. The order of events, as given in Luke iv., is changed. Jesus, in Marcion's Gospel, goes first to Capernaum, and then to Nazareth, reversing the order in St. Luke.

By placing the subject-matter of the two narratives side by side, and numbering that of St. Luke consecutively, and giving the corresponding paragraphs, with their numbers as in Luke's order, arranged in the Marcionite succession, the reader is able at once to see the difference. No doctrinal question was touched by this transposition. The only explanation of it which is satisfactory is that each Gospel contained fragments which were pieced together differently. One block consisted of paragraphs 2-8; another, of paragraphs 9-14; another 15. Besides these blocks, there were chips, splinters, the paragraphs 1, 13, 15. Marcion's Gospel was without 1 and 4.

Par. 2, verse 15: “He taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all,” was common to both Gospels. In Marcion's, most appropriately, it came after Christ has performed miracles; less judiciously in Luke's does it come before the performance of miracles.

Par. 13: “And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.” St. Luke put this after Christ had taught in Nazareth and Capernaum; in Marcion's Gospel it was before he had been to Nazareth, but immediately after the healing of Simon's wife's mother. It ought probably to occupy the place assigned it in Marcion's text. The fame of Christ spreads. They in Nazareth hear of it, and say, “What we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here.”

Par. 15: “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him,” &c., as in St. Luke iv. 40, 41. This Marcion's Gospel has immediately after the healing of the sick wife of Simon, as though the rumour of the miracle attracted all who had sick relations to bring them to Christ. No doubt the paragraph should rightly stand in connection with this miracle of healing the fevered woman.

But there are omissions supposed to have been made purposely by Marcion. In verse 16 of St. Luke's Gospel, c. iv.: “He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up,” in the “Gospel of the Lord” ran, “He came to Nazareth” only. But it is not improbable that “where he had been brought up” was a gloss which crept into the text after the addition of the narrative of the early years of Christ had been added to the Canonical Gospel.

All the reading from the prophet Esaias, and the exposition of the prophecy (Luke iv. 17-21) was omitted, there can be small question, by Marcion, because it mutilated against his views touching the prophets as ministers, not of the God of Christ, but of the God of this world.

Luke iv. 23: “Do also here in thy country,” changed into, “Do also here.” It is possible that “in thy country” may be a gloss which has crept into a later text of St. Luke's Gospel, or was inserted by Luke in his second edition.

11. Luke vii. 29-35 are wanting in Marcion's Gospel. That verses 29-32 should have been purposely excluded, it is impossible to suppose, as they favoured Marcion's tenets. It has been argued that the rest of the verses, 33-35, were cut out by Marcion because in verse 34 it is said, “The Son of Man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber.” But the “Gospel of the Lord” contained Luke v. 33: “Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make long prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink;” and the example of Christ going to the feast prepared by Levi is retained (v. 29).

12. Luke viii. 19: “Then came to him his mother and his brethren,” &c., omitted; but the next verse, “And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.” This cannot be admitted as a mutilation by Marcion. Had he cut out verse 19, he would also have removed verse 20. Rather is verse 19 an amplification of the original text. The “saying” of Jesus was known in the “Asiatic” churches; and when Luke wove it into the text of his Gospel, he introduced it with the words, “Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press,” words not necessary, but deducible from the preserved text, and useful as introducing it.

13. Luke x. 21: “In that hour he rejoiced in the spirit, and said, I praise and thank thee, Lord of heaven, that those things which are hidden from the wise and prudent thou hast revealed to babes.” The version in Luke's Gospel may have been tampered with by Marcion, lest God should appear harsh in hiding “those things from the wise and prudent.” But it is more likely that Marcion's text is the correct one. Why should Christ thank God that he has hidden the truth from the wise and prudent? The reading in Marcion's Gospel is not only a better one, but it also appears to be an independent one. He has, “I praise and thank thee.” The received text differs in different codices; in some, Jesus rejoices “in the Spirit;” in others, “in the Holy Spirit.”

14. Luke x. 22: “All things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man hath known the Father save the Son, nor the Son save the Father, and he to whom the Son hath revealed him.” No doctrinal purpose was effected by the change. It is therefore probable that the Sinope Gospel ran as in Marcion's text.

15. Luke x. 25: “Doing what shall I obtain life?” “eternal” being omitted, it is thought, lest Jesus should seem to teach that eternal life was to be obtained by fulfilling the Law.457 But Marcion did not alter the same question when asked by the ruler, in Luke xviii. 18; for then Christ, after he has referred him to the Law, goes on to impose on him a higher law – that of love. But “eternal” may be an addition to Luke's text in the second edition.

16. The first petition in the Lord's Prayer differs in Marcion's Gospel from that in St. Luke. Marcion has, “Father! may thy Holy Spirit come to us, Thy kingdom come,” &c., instead of, “Father! (which art in heaven – not in the most ancient copies of St. Luke) Hallowed be thy name,” &c. No purpose was served by this difference; and we must not attribute to Marcion in this instance wilful alteration of the sacred text. It is apparent that several versions of the Lord's Prayer existed in the first age of the Church, and that this was the form in which it was accepted and used in Pontus, perhaps throughout Asia Minor.

That the Lord's Prayer in St. Luke's Gospel stood originally as in Marcion's Gospel is made almost certain by verse 13. After giving the form of prayer, xi. 2-4, Christ instructs his disciples on the readiness of God to answer prayer. “And,” he continues, “if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” How ready will He be to give that which you have learned to ask in the first petition of the prayer I have just taught you! The petition was altered in the received text later, to accommodate it to the form given in St. Matthew's Gospel.

17. Luke xi. 29: “There shall no sign be given.” What follows in St. Luke's Gospel, “but the sign of the prophet Jonas,” and verses 30-32, were not found in Marcion's Gospel. Perhaps all this was inserted in the second edition of St. Luke's Gospel. But also perhaps the allusions to the Ninevites and the Queen of the South were omitted, because of the condemnation pronounced on the generation which received not Christ through them; and Jesus was not the manifestation of the God of judgment, but of the God of mercy.

18. So also “judgment” was turned into “calling,” in verse 42; and also the verses 49-51, in which the blood of the prophets is said to be “required of this generation.”

19. Luke xii. 38: “The evening watch” is perhaps an earlier reading than the received one: “If he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch;” which has the appearance of an expansion of the simpler text.

The evening watch was the first watch. The Christians in the first age thought that our Lord would come again immediately. But as he did not return again in glory in the first watch, they altered the text to “the second watch or the third watch.” Consequently Marcion's text is the original unaltered one.

20. Luke xii. 6, 7: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Perhaps Marcion omitted this because he did not hold that the Supreme God concerned Himself with the fate of men's bodies.

But more probably the passage did not occur in the original Pauline Gospel, but was grafted into it afterwards when St. Matthew's Gospel came into the hands of the Asiatic Christians, when it was transferred from it (x. 29-31) verbatim to Luke's Gospel.

21. Marcion's Gospel was without Luke xiii. 1-10.

The absence of the account of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and of those on whom the tower in Siloam fell, which occurs in the received text, removes a difficulty. St. Luke says, “There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood,” &c., as though it were a circumstance which had just taken place, whereas this act of barbarity was committed when Quirinus, not Pilate, was governor, twenty-four years before the appearance of Jesus. And no tower in Siloam is mentioned in any account of Jerusalem. The mention of the Galilaeans in the canonical text has the appearance of an anachronism, and probably did not exist in the Gospel which Marcion received, and was a late addition to the Gospel of Luke.

The parable of the fig-tree which follows may, however, have been removed by Marcion lest the Supreme God should appear as a God of judgment against those who produced no fruit, i. e. did no works. But it is more probable that this parable, which has an anti-Pauline moral, was not in the original edition of Luke's Gospel.

22. Luke xii. i 28: “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out,” altered into, “when ye shall see all the righteous in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves cast and held back without.”458

The change of “the righteous” into “Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,” in the deutero-Luke, clearly disturbs the train of thought. Ye Jews shall weep when ye see the δικαίοι, those made righteous through faith, by the righteousness which is not of the Law, Gentiles from East and West, in the kingdom, and ye yourselves cast out.

Hilgenfeld thinks that the account of the Judgment by St. Matthew and St. Luke is couched in terms coloured by the respective parties to which the evangelists belonged, and that the sentences on the lost are sharpened to pierce the antagonistic party. Thus, in the Gospel of St. Luke, Christ dooms to woe those who are workers of unrighteousness, ἐργάται ἀδικίας,459 using the Pauline favourite expression to designate those who are cast out to weeping and gnashing of teeth, as men who have not received the righteousness which is of faith; whereas, in St. Matthew it is the workers of anomia, οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν,460 by which Hilgenfeld thinks the Pauline anti-legalists are not obscurely hinted at, who are hurled into outer darkness. In St. Luke it is curious to notice how the lost are described as Jews: “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets;” whereas the elect who “sit down in the kingdom of God” come “from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south,” that is to say, are Gentiles.

In Marcion's text we have therefore the ἀδικαίοι shut and cast out, and the δικαίοι sitting overthroned in the kingdom of God. It can scarcely be doubted that this is the correct reading, and that “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” was substituted for δικαίοι at a later period with a conciliatory purpose.

The rest of the chapter, 31-35, is not to be found in Marcion's Gospel. The first who are to be last, and the last first, not obscurely means that the Gentiles shall precede the Jews. This was in the “Gospel of the Lord,” which was, however, without the warning given to Christ, “Get thee out, and depart hence; for Herod will kill thee,” and the lamentation of the Saviour over the holy city, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets,” &c. Why Marcion should omit this is not clear. It was probably not in the Gospel of Sinope.

23. Luke xiv. 7-11. The same may be said of the parable put forth to those bidden to a feast, when Christ marked how they chose out the chief rooms. It has been supposed by critics that Marcion omitted it, lest Jesus should seem to sanction feasting; but this reason is far-fetched, and it must be remembered that he did retain Luke v. 29 and 33.

24. Luke xv. 11-32. The parable of the Prodigal Son is omitted. That it is left out, as is suggested by some critics, because the elder son signifies mystically the Jewish Church, and the prodigal son represents the Heathen world, is to transfer such allegorical interpretations back to an earlier age than we are justified in doing. Marcion was not bound to admit such an interpretation of the parable, if received in his day. Marcion, moreover, opposed allegorizing the sayings of Scripture, and insisted on their literal interpretation. Neander says, “The other Gnostics united with their theosophical idealism a mystical, allegorizing interpretation of the Scriptures. Marcion, simple in heart, was decidedly opposed to this artificial method of interpretation. He was a zealous advocate of the literal interpretation which prevailed among the antagonists of Gnosticism.”461 It is therefore most improbable that a popular interpretation of this parable, if such an interpretation existed at that time, should have induced Marcion to omit the parable.

25. Luke xvi. 12: “If ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who will give you that which is mine?” Surely a reading far preferable to that in the Canonical Gospel, “who will give you that which is your own?”

26. Luke, xvi. 17: “One tittle of my words shall not fall,” in place of, “One tittle of the Law shall not fall.” As has been already remarked, the reading in St. Luke is evidently corrupt, altered deliberately by the party of conciliation. Marcion's is the genuine text.

27. Luke xvii. 9, 10. The saying, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do,” was perhaps omitted by Marcion, lest the Gospel should seem to sanction the idea that any obligation whatever rested on the believer. The received text is thoroughly Pauline, inculcating the worthlessness of man's righteousness. Hahn and Ritschl argue that the whole of the parable, 7-10, was not in Marcion's Gospel; and this is probable, though St. Epiphanius only says that Marcion cut out, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.”462 The whole Parable has such a Pauline ring, that it would probably have been accepted in its entirety by Marcion, if his Gospel had contained it; and the parable is divested of its point and meaning if only the few words are omitted which St. Epiphanius mentions as deficient.

28. Luke xvii. 18: “There are not found returning to give glory to God. And there were many lepers in the time of Eliseus the prophet in Israel; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.” In the Gospel of the Lord, this passage concerning the lepers in the time of Eliseus occurs twice; once in chap. i. v. 15, as already given, and again here. It has been preserved in St. Luke's Gospel in only one place, in that corresponding with Marcion i. 15, viz. Luke iv. 27.

It is clear that this was a fragmentary saying of our Lord drifting about, which the compiler of the Sinope Gospel inserted in two places where it thought it would fit in with other passages. When St. Luke's Gospel was revised, it was found that this passage occurred twice, and that it was without appropriateness in chap. xvii. after verse 18, and was therefore cut out. But in Marcion's Gospel it remained, a monument of the manner in which the Gospels were originally constructed.

29. Luke xviii. 19. Marcion had: “Jesus said to him, Do not call me good; one is good, the Father;” another version of the text, not a deliberate alteration.

30. Luke xviii. 31-34. The prophecies of the passion omitted by Marcion.

31. Luke xix. 29-46. The ride into Jerusalem on an ass, and the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the Temple, are omitted.

Why the Palm-Sunday triumphal entry should have been excluded does not appear. In St. Luke's Gospel Jesus is not hailed as “King of the Jews” and “Son of David.” Had this been the case, these two titles, we may conclude, would have been eliminated from the narrative; but we see no reason why the whole account should be swept away. It probably did not exist in the original Gospel Marcion obtained in Pontus.

Did Marcion cut out the narrative of the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the Temple? I think not. St. John, in his Gospel, gives that event in his second chapter as occurring, not at the close of the ministry of Christ, but at its opening.

St. John is the only evangelist who can be safely relied upon for giving the chronological order of events. St. Matthew, as has been already shown, did not write the acts of our Lord, but his sayings only; and St. Mark was no eye-witness.

A Pauline Gospel would not contain the account of the purifying of the Temple, and the saying, “My house is the house of prayer.” But when St. Matthew's Gospel, or St. Mark's, found its way into Asia Minor, this passage was extracted from one of them, and interpolated in the Lucan text, in the same place where it occurred in those Gospels – at the end of the ministry, and therefore in the wrong place.