Gospel of Marcion

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The Gospel of Marcion or the Gospel of the Lord was a text used by the mid-second century Christian teacher Marcion to the exclusion of the other gospels. Its reconstructed fragments now appear among the New Testament apocrypha. So many Catholic apologists wrote treatises against Marcion after his death, in addition to the noted diatribe by Tertullian, that it has been possible to reconstruct almost the whole of Marcion's Gospel of the Lord from their quotations. Marcion, then, is known only through his critics, who considered him a major threat to the form of Christianity that they knew.

[edit] Relationship to the Gospel of Luke

There are two possible relationships between Marcion's gospel and the Gospel of Luke.

One view: Church Fathers wrote and the majority of modern scholars agree that Marcion edited Luke to fit his own theology, Marcionism. This view is consistent with the way he altered other books in his canon. It is also likely because Luke's gospel was believed to be complete by Marcion's time. In it, he eliminated the first two chapters concerning the nativity and beginning at Capernaum and made modifications of the remainder suitable to Marcionism. The differences in the texts below highlight the gnostic view that, first, Jesus did not follow the Prophets and, second, the earth is evil.

Luke	Marcion
O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken	O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that I have told you
They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation . . .’	They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation . . . and destroying the law and the prophets.'
I give Thee thanks, Father, God of heaven and earth.	I give thanks, Father, Lord of heaven.

The second view: John Knox in Marcion and the New Testament was the first to propose in the mid-16th century that Marcion's Gospel may have preceded Luke's Gospel and Acts, echoing Marcion's own claims. Some recent scholars have agreed. In this case, Luke's gospel was not finished. There are two possibilities: Either Marcion and Luke both based their gospels on an earlier, common source, or the Gospel of Luke was based on Marcion's gospel. For an example of evidence that may support this view, compare Luke 5:39 to Luke 5:36-38; some scholars question whether Marcion deleted 5:39 from his Gospel or whether it was added later to counteract a Marcionist interpretation of 5:36-38. See also New Wine into Old Wineskins. The central problem with this view is that Marcion and Luke are not contemporaries. Thus, a traditional view of the authorship of the Gospel of Luke clearly positions it as much earlier than Marcion's.