Thursday, November 20, 2014

31. 'Marcion cut Matthew 12:48'

Tertullian's remarks (chapter 19), it would seem at first as if Marcion had added to his Gospel that answer of our Savior which we find related by St. Matthew 12:48 "Who is my mother, who are my brethren." For he represents Marcion (as in De carne Christi, vii., he represents other heretics, who deny the nativity) as making use of these words for his favourite argument. But, after all, Marcion might use these words against those who allowed the authenticity of Matthew's Gospel, without inserting them in his own Gospel; or else Tertullian might quote from memory, and think that to be in Luke which was only in Matthew-as he has done at least in three instances. (Lardner refers two of these instances to passages in chap. vii. of this Book iv., where Tertullian mentions, as erasures from Luke, what really are found in Matthew v. 17 and xv. 24. The third instance referred to by Lardner probably occurs at the end of chap. ix. of this same Book iv., where Tertullian again mistakes Matt. v. 17 for a passage of Luke, and charges Marcion with expunging it; curiously enough, the mistake recurs in chap. xii of the same Book.) [Schaff Pre-Nicene Church Fathers Holmes note] 
Jerome - He has not denied his mother, then, in the sense that Marcion and Manicheus think, as one who was thought to have been born of a phantom. [Commentary on Matthew 12]


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