John Knox on Marcion

In spite of all I have quoted to you from Knox, he still sticks to the theory of four separate Gospels that were canonised as a set. I mean he doesn’t see the present Gospels as only being selections from a comprehensive book. His own preceding argument from the evidence goes in the opposite direction, as I have said, but he did not follow his own arguments to their conclusion. Be careful to distinguish between his original arguments and his tame conclusion.

Here is a bit more of what he proves or shows to be likely.

(a) Marcion did not attribute his Gospel to Luke. If he attributed it to anyone, it was Paul. Others noticed that it resembled what they called Luke.
(b) Marcion didn’t shorten it. Others had an opening section of their Luke that was not original.
(c) We don’t actually know it was shorter than the later Luke. We only know it didn’t have some of what was in the later Luke. It could have had a lot in it that is not in the later Luke and is now in John. (This phrasing and the sharpness of the conclusions are mine. The analysis of the evidence and the basis of the argument are Knox’s).
(d) The double book Luke-Acts imitates Marcion’s Gospel + Apostle. The character of the Apostle has been changed and the concept of twelve apostles is presented.
(e) Polycarp wrote or edited I and II Timothy and Titus.
(f) Polycarp or others of his time invented the confusion of Disciples and Apostles. The letters of John, James, etc. were re-labelled as letters of these newly invented apostles.
(g) The four-faced Gospel was imposed by force. That is how it became universal so quick. In 150 CE no-one had heard of the concept. In 175 CE it is official.
(h) Knox says over and over that here is a big difference between the existence of various Gospels attributed to John or Matthew or Mark and the act of canonising the four-faced Gospel. The canonisation was not a compilation. It was an edition of the whole, promoted as the ancient complete edition. The invention of the four-faced Gospel was more radical and daring than the Diatessaron, not less. The purpose of both was to include everything.
(i) In this process of invention and canonisation, bits could be added on to each of what we would call the components, either from books or from scraps of tradition. (Note by me. What was useful from the Gospel of Peter could be inserted. It could then be said that nothing genuine was missing from the new official Gospel. This would nave made it easy to add little bits that were new, or change the wording away from what was original. THE RECOLLECTION OF THIS ACTION PERSISTED, BUT WITHOUT DETAILS OR PROOF).
(j) The term “the four-faced Gospel” is taken from Irenaeus, who has in mind Ezekiel’s vision. The concept is new. (An addition from me. This is more than a metaphor. Irenaeus says Christ rides on the cherubs. Ezekiel’s cherub has four faces. The phrase “riding on the cherubs” is from the O.T. The word cherub means steed. The cherubs were depicted as having human faces, lion’s bodies. eagle’s wings, and the feet of cattle. One cherub thus has aspects of the four animals linked to the supposed authors of the four faces of the Gospel.
(k) Knox maintains that the same forces or circumstances that caused the composition of the Diatessaron caused the invention of the present canon of four Gospels, which was seen at that time as one Gospel.
(l) In my opinion, all this makes it likely that all Gospels except the new canonical four were very long, and the Diatessaron was an effort to reconcile the concept of a single long Gospel with the new concept of a long work with four aspects. The canonisation of this invention is extended to the Diatessaron by describing it as a harmony of the four. In the process, Tatian could choose versions of pericopes or sentences from one or more older long Gospels, in preference to the text of the canonical four, AND NO-ONE WOULD OBJECT.
(m) What was just said about length might seem to be contradicted by the shortness of Thomas and Philip. Not so. These are not complete Gospels. They are collections of sayings. We don’t know the length of any of the full Gospels, such as the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of the Hebrews, and so on.

I conclude from these data and others that Marcion represents the original and authentic tradition of doctrine. The claim that he rejected the Torah is unsupported by any evidence at all, as far as I can see. Knox proves Marcion invented the concept of a New Testament and its canonisation. Others had proven this before him, but he adds new lines of proof. I would add that Marcion’s theoretical position in regard to the Torah would have been easy to misrepresent when there was no Catholic and Roman New Testament. (Remember Knox’s point, that the existence of Gospels and Letters does not mean a New Testament, and respect or even the attribution of authority are not canonisation. The Roman and Catholic Gospel was formed and canonised and imposed between 165 and 170 CE The Roman and Catholic New Testament, as a concept, is later still. Irenaeus still doesn’t know about it). It could then be said, by deliberate misrepresentation, that he had invented this CONCEPT (not text) of a New Testament (both concept and book) to replace the Torah. Later on, when his opponents had copied him and re-labelled their inherited books and their revised books and their new books as the New Testament, the original line of argument would have been incomprehensible. Then the evidence could be re-interpreted even further in the wrong direction.

Knox points out that the meaning of the term New Testament changes as soon as you go from the Greek word ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ to the Latin word Testamentum.

Marcion did not remove the quotes from the Torah or from the O.T. in general from the Gospel. The quotes are still there. As far as I can see, what the evidence comes down to is that he didn’t have the first two chapters of Luke. I would add that I can’t see any change of doctrine caused by the presence or absence of these two chapters.

If the Marcion of the early second c. CE represents a doctrine, did he exist as a person? If he did, he must have been the inheritor of something going back to the time of Jesus, not an originator.