Ben C Smith

I would like helpful feedback on the following idea. Assume for this thread that we can at least roughly reconstruct the Marcionite gospel and epistles from patristic information (Tertullian and Epiphanius, for example). Assume also that this Marcionite gospel and the canonical gospel of Luke are textually related somehow.

How exactly are they related?

It seems to me that there are three basic options:

1. Luke copied from Marcion.
2. Marcion copied from Luke.
3. Marcion and Luke both copied from a separate gospel, a proto-gospel of some kind (no longer extant).

I intend to use the respective authorial names of these gospels as an indicator of which scenario makes the most sense. For the record, our canonical third gospel is named after Luke in all sources that mention the name at all, and the gospel of Marcion is anonymous, according to Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.2.3, despite the fact that (also according to Tertullian, as well as Epiphanius and others) Marcion preserved versions of the Pauline letters, too.

With these names (or lack thereof) in mind, I say that number 1 is unlikely. If you are going to take an anonymous gospel that you see as insufficient or even heretical and modify it, why settle on a mere companion of the apostle whom Marcion revered? Why not give the gospel to Paul himself, or (better) to one of the eyewitness apostles, like Peter or Thomas? It cannot in this case be argued that the companion option was taken in light of the we passages in Acts, since Marcion did not preserve Acts; if the gospel were linked to Acts before Marcion, then that already disproves the first option.

I also say that number 2 is unlikely. If Marcion chose Luke to modify, presumably because of the we passages in Acts that imply that its author accompanied the Marcionite apostle of choice, why keep the gospel anonymous? This anonymity suggests to me, in this case, that Marcion did not know Luke as the author of whatever gospel he modified. If he found the gospel without the Acts, either (A) he was just too unlucky to have ever encountered Acts or (B) he was too incompetent to notice, as everyone else noticed, that the volumes are linked. But perhaps Acts was not yet written, though the gospel was (and in its extant form). I cannot exclude this possibility using the names alone. (But I think other considerations make apparent that both the gospel and the acts were either composed or redacted by the same author or editor; if this is so, then the gospel as we now know it was not the same gospel that Marcion used.)

If those two options are unlikely, then we are left with number 3. This one makes the most sense to me. The proto-gospel, similar to our Luke, was anonymous, and this anonymous gospel was used in two different ways:

• Someone used it to compose our canonical Luke and then added Acts; this person was either a former companion of Paul or was pretending to be; either at the same time or in this same stream of tradition, the name Luke was attached.
• Marcion used it to compose his own gospel. He did not regard it as written by Luke, because he knew the gospel without certain additions and without Acts. (If he also knew our Luke and Acts, he rejected them in favor of what he knew to be the earlier gospel text; perhaps he was supremely unhappy with the redactions made to that earlier text and accordingly thought of Luke as a corrupter the tradition.)

I do not yet know which of the above events came first; so the list is unnumbered.

What do you think? Am I off base on those three basic options?

Ben.

spin

My first reaction is that according to Tertullian the Marcionite gospel starts with Jesus arriving at Capernaum, which omits the section which is the first 20 verses of Mark. Did the common source gospel not have the JtB material, the temptation or the first calling of disciples? I would have thought that a Lucan gospel would already have some form of the baptist stuff from the Marcan source although the Lucan version does go its own way on JtB. Did the Marcionite gospel really just leave it out? This has always been a problem for me though I've never gone into it further.


spin

vid

IMO the preface of Luke makes bit better odds for option 3: Luke already admits to be drawing from other sources, you don't have to assume it (even though Synoptic Problem makes that assumption quite likely).

2-J

How close are Marcion's gospel and the gospel of Luke? Do we know? I think I'm right in saying that Acts and Luke are believed to have the same author not just because of the prologue but because of stylistic and thematic similarities in Luke and Acts? If we could show that Marcion's gospel had the distinct 'Luke-Acts' flavour, then that would be evidence in favour of option 2.

I remember a good thread on this topic or one close to it before. This is one of the most interesting questions surrounding the new testament to me.

show_no_mercy

I think that Marcion didn't include Acts because it contradicts some of the information that Paul gives about himself in his epistles... so I think Marcion could have used "Q" as a source just like the other three synoptics.

aa5874

Up to the middle of the 2nd century, there is no indication that there were any writings called the Acts of the Apostles. Justin Martyr used no passages from Acts of the Apostles in his writings, he did not make any reference to the gifts of the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues, the miracles of Peter or Paul, or their evangelical works as reported in Acts.

The same applies to Paul, Justin seems to have no knowledge of any writings of Paul, he did not quote any of the 10 letters, did not mention the miraculous conversion or the revelations of "Paul", but Justin mentioned the revelation of "John".


But, it would appear that Justin had writings or was aware of a Jesus story that had some information that was only found in gLuke as we have it today, yet Justin never refered to this writings as being written by anyone called Luke.

Justin quoted the last words of the so-called Jesus on the cross, and these words are similar or identical to words only found in gLuke "Into thine hands I commend my Spirit".

Now, Justin also mentioned Marcion without ever associating Marcion with Luke or Paul, and it must be noted that Macion's Jesus does not need any of the Gospels or any of the letters as they are today.

Marcion's Jesus is not from the God of the Jews, all so-called prophecies about the Jesus of the NT are irrelevant, the Holy Ghost conception and birth are not needed. Marcion's Jesus cannot die, his Jesus only appears to be human, but is all God.

We are left with information coming from sources hostile to Marcion, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen after it is assumed Marcion is dead.

The information from Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen and others cannot be confirmed to be true[/b], the information about Marcion may have been planted to create the false impression that the gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul were already written.

Ben C Smith

Reread (emphasis added):

Please keep this thread on topic.

Thank you.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Possibly not, though I think it must have had the John the baptist material that comes later in Luke (chapter 7), based on comments from the fathers.

My suspicion is that this proto-gospel did not depend on Mark; maybe Mark depended at least in part on it.

Blessed is he for whom this is the only problem with the Marcionite gospel.

But I suspect there may be others.

Ben.

DCHindley

Let's distill the spirits from the mash:

ANF Tertullian Against Marcion Book 4 2:1

... I pass on to give a proof of the Gospel--not, to be sure, of Jewry, but of Pontus [i.e., Marcion's Gospel]--having become meanwhile adulterated; ... We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors [on the basis if the titles ascribed to them], ...

Of the apostles [here including Mark and Luke with Matthew and John] ... Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement in the essential matter of the faith, in which there is disagreement with Marcion['s Gospel].

Marcion, on the other hand, you must know, ascribes no author to his Gospel, as if it could not be allowed him to affix a title to that from which it was no crime (in his eyes) to subvert the very body.

And here I might now make a stand, and contend that a work ought not to be recognised, which holds not its head erect [by attributing an author to it], which exhibits no consistency [when compared to the received Gospels], which gives no promise of credibility from the fullness of its title and the just profession of its author. [this colored part is a value judgement of Tertullian] ...

Now, of the authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have singled out Luke for his mutilating process [i.e., whatever Marcion's Gospel said seemed to resemble the Gospel of Luke more than any other received Gospel]. ...

Inasmuch, therefore, as the enlightener of St. Luke himself desired the authority of his predecessors for both his own faith and preaching, how much more may not I require for Luke's Gospel that which was necessary for the Gospel of his master.

How much of this kind of thing is polemic, twisting the words of his opponent, and how much is uncolored fact? Are we to place much weight on the criticism that no author is attributed to his Gospel? It is clearly a jab at Marcion for implying that the Gospel he published was Paul's own "gospel" (spoken of in Romans 2:16 & 16:25) by implying that rather than being the gospel that inspired Paul it is really just a mutilated form of Luke. However, when Tertullian says that Marcion seems to have derived his gospel from Luke's, has he really proved that Marcion mutilated Luke to be almost unrecognizable, or just smeared his opponent?

See where I am going here?? If one seeks a modern analogy, look to the US presidential race.

DCH

Ben C Smith

Nitpick: Luke does not admit to using other written sources; he admits to knowing of them. (But I doubt it can be seriously maintained that he did not use at least some of the ones he knew; it is just that the ancients were often shy about telling us they used sources.)

We glean most of our information in this respect from Tertullian and Epiphanius; according to reconstructions based on them, the Marcionite gospel had far more in common with Luke than with any other gospel known to us. There seem occasionally to be passages included that we find only in Matthew, but there are very frequently passages included that we find only in Luke.

It has been so argued.

Please proceed.

That is possible. I noted the possibility in my OP.

I myself tend to be quite skeptical about the existence of Q. But if it existed I suppose it may as well have occupied space in front of Marcion as in front of Matthew and Luke.

Ben.