Yuri Kuchinsky

[Part 3 of my study]

Dear friends,

So now here's some further textual support for the Strange Exorcist passage in the Magdalene Gospel. This support is found in the Aramaic versions of Lk 9:49 (parallel to Mk 9:38). There are two more close parallels there with the Magdalene text. Both of them have already been noted by Dr. Daniel Plooij, one of the leading textual scholars of his time, in his textual commentary to the Liege Diatessaron. These two parallels also have wide support in some other ancient MSS, including the Old Latin.

They are both pretty subtle parallels, and I would have probably missed them myself if not for the work of Plooij, who, with his extraordinary knowledge of ancient MSS, was able to provide substantial backing for both readings in various other texts.

First, here's how this passage goes in the Magdalene Gospel. The two readings that I will be focusing on are underlined below.

(MG 63:17) And then, St. John replied, and said that he saw a man driving away demons in Jesus' name, who did not follow _him_. (18) And they had objected that he should not do it any more. (19) And Jesus commanded _them_ that they should not hinder him.

1. The first parallel is shared by the Magdalene Gospel, Aramaic Curetonian MS, as well as the Liege Diatessaron. Here's how the Curetonian MS goes,

(Lk 9:49 Aramaic Curetonian) And John answered and said to him: "We saw a certain man casting out devils in your name, and we forbade him, because he comes not with us _after you_". (50) Jesus said to him, "Do not forbid..."

As we can see, there's a clear parallel there between these two texts, because the Aramaic adds the phrase "after you", which is lacking in the canonical Greek versions. Thus, according to both MG and the Aramaic, this anonymous Exorcist seems to stand even further away from Church authority. Not only is he not following the disciples, but he doesn't even seem to follow Jesus, himself! (Whereas the canonical text can be interpreted to mean that this Exorcist might have followed Jesus independently from the disciples.)

According to Dr. Plooij (p. 285 of his Commentary on the Liege DT), this same reading is also found in the following texts,

Syriac Peshitta
Sahidic Coptic versions
Ethiopian versions
Old Latin MS b
Arabic Diatessaron

All these parallels indicate that this text is very old indeed. No Greek MSS seem to feature this reading. (Some of these parallels above are also listed in Von Soden's edition of the NT.)

2. The second parallel between the Magdalene Gospel and the Old Syriac is in the phrase "Jesus commanded _them_".

Here, the parallel is with the Aramaic Sinaitic MS only (just like the previous parallel was with the Curetonian MS only). While the Sinaitic omits the phrase "after you", that we've examined above, it continues as follows in Lk 9:50,

(Lk 9:50 Aramaic Sinaitic) Jesus said to _them_, "Do not forbid..."

But what we find in the canonical Greek is as follows,

(Lk 9:50 Canonical Greek) Jesus said to _him_, "Do not forbid..."

According to Dr. Plooij, this Magdalene Gospel reading is also found in the following texts,

Greek MSS of the "Ferrar Group", and others
Syriac Peshitta
Syriac Harclensian versions (margin notes)
Old Latin MSS b c q
some Vulgate MSS
Bohairic Coptic versions

It seems like this reading is not found in any of the Diatessarons, other than the Magdalene Gospel. (Some of the above parallels are also listed in Aland's Synopsis.)

Thus, we can see that this passage in the Magdalene Gospel seems to preserve the elements of both the Sinaitic and the Curetonian Old Syriac Luke MSS. Shouldn't the logical conclusion here be that the Magdalene text goes back to the time before our two existing Old Syriac texts got separated -- a very ancient times indeed?

And here's how this passage reads in the Liege Diatessaron. As you can see, only the first of these two parallels is found there,

Liege DT (Plooij, p. 285)
"We saw a man casting out the evil spirit in your name, and we forbade him, for he follows _you_ not with us". And Jesus answered him thus: "Do not forbid it him again; for there is no one who does good works in my name, and can hastily speak evil of me."

Some may recall that, in my previous posts on this subject, I've been talking about the word "miracles", as found in the Magdalene Gospel. So I've been trying to show that the temporal progression was as follows, from MG to Greek,

miracles (MG) --> something (Aramaic Mark 9:39) --> power (canonical Greek Mark)

So now, it looks like the Liege DT actually happens to provide some further support for this Magdalene reading. First of all, the Liege DT expression "good works" is in plural, just like in MG. And, anyway, in general, "good works" does sound very similar to "miracles".

All this provides further support for the idea that the Magdalene Gospel's version of this passage goes back to the earliest edition of Luke's Gospel.

Best wishes,

Yuri.