Ephrem Seems to Confirm Tertullian's Report that the Jesus Baptism by John Was NOT Present in the Gospel of Marcion

I have noted this a number of times already - namely, that Tertullian [Against Marcion iv.11] is surprised to see that John appears very late in the Marcionite gospel, long after our Baptism narrative - at the very point 'disciples of John' are mentioned in Luke chapter 5.33 (Mark 2:18). As such the Marcionite castration baptism (also referenced a number of times in Tertullian) was based on that 'other baptism' Jesus alludes to Luke 12:50 and which I think was identical with the Secret Gospel of Mark's first addition mentioned in the Letter to Theodore (LGM 1).

Yet if we look at Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron he alludes to a similar situation with regards to the absence of the narrative in the Marcionite gospel by saying that this story of Jesus being baptized as a man 'caused confusion for Marcion' and questions why he didn't also erase the reference to him being 'thirty':

Jesus was about thirty years, when he came to be baptized. This [was] confusion for Marcion. For, if he had not assumed a body why should he have approached baptism. A divine nature does not need to be baptized. [But] does not the fact that he was thirty years also disclose his humanity [Ephrem Comm. Diat. IV.1a]

I clearly see this as a confirmation that Ephrem accused Marcion of deleting the 'baptism by John the Baptist' passage but retaining the Jesus was thirty reference.

Can we now acknowledge that the Marcionite gospel DID NOT have a reference to Jesus the angel being baptized by the man 'John the Baptist'? Can we move on to accepting that the Marcionite gospel instead had LGM 1 or a Marcionite version of that narrative as THEIR ONLY BAPTISM NARRATIVE?

At least let me know why this position should be rejected other than scholarship's normal approach - viz. IGNORING THE EVIDENCE which contradicts our inherited presuppositions about the basic principles of Christianity ...

UPDATE - For those who actually care about the 'real truth' and not just the inherited presuppositions of our ancestors, it should be noted that even though Ephrem scolds Marcion for removing the 'John the Baptist baptism' the two traditions actually AGREE against our own regarding the presence of a narrative which followed later where Jesus later baptized his disciple(s) with 'ANOTHER BAPTISM.'

I know we are trained to think in terms of martyrdom being the other 'baptism' but we have already brought forward in previous posts that this is NOT what Ephrem and Origen had in mind.

So let's go to the material in Ephrem's Commentary. Immediately following the last reference we Ephrem say that:

just as he [Jesus] clothed himself with a body and appeared as in need, so too he drew near to baptism to testify to the truth especially that through his baptism he might mark an ending for that [baptism of John], for he had baptized once again those who had been baptized by John. He showed that [the baptism of John] had served up until a time only, since true baptism [or the 'baptism of truth'] which purifies from the evil of the Law, was revealed through him. [ibid 1c]

And again in what follows:

Through baptism [the Lord] assumed the justice of the Old [Testament] in order to receive the perfection of the anointing and to give it fully and in its entirety to his disciples. For he put an end to John's baptism and the Law at the same time. He was baptized in justice, because he was sinless, but he baptized in grace because [all others] were sinners. Through his justice he dispensed the Law and through his baptism he abolished baptism. [ibid 2]

Again, I know how scholars who study the ROMAN tradition want to read these passages however Ephrem was from a completely separate tradition. You just can't layer one method of exegesis over another and 'presume' that everything always remained consistent within every Christian tradition.

They certainly did not.

Indeed call me crazy but Ephrem always sounds like a Marcionite accommodating himself to a (pseudo) Catholic gospel - viz. the Diatessaron!