Wednesday, November 19, 2014

One Hundred and Sixty Reasons to Assume Marcion's Gospel was Diatessaronic

Throughout this exercise I will use 'Diatessaron' and 'Diatessaronic' even though I am well aware that it is assumed to reinforce the pre-existence of four gospels.  The only other term I could find to denote the 'single, long gospel' which I assume to behind the canonical gospels is 'super gospel' which I will use infrequently.

Here are the top one hundred reasons for thinking the Marcionite gospel contained references to (what is from our point of view) - Matthew, Mark and John.

A) the earliest traditions acknowledge that the canonical gospels were corruptions of a 'super gospel'

1. Celsus of Rome (earliest testimony for the fourfold gospel):
After this he [Celsus] says, that certain of the Christian believers, like persons who in a fit of drunkenness lay violent hands upon themselves, have corrupted the original text of the Gospel (τῆς πρώτης γραφῆς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον), to a threefold (τριχῇ), and fourfold (καὶ τετραχῇ), and many-fold degree (καὶ πολλαχῇ), and have remodeled it (μεταπλάττειν), so that they might be able to answer objections." [Origen, Contra Celsum 2:27]  
While it is not unanimously acknowledged that Celsus is here referring to our canonical texts the reading of the passage as such is common.  Some examples:
  • Writing between 177 and 180, just a few years before Irenaeus wrote Book in of the Adversus Haereses, Celsus knew all four gospels and had a particular interest in their early chapters ... I take this to be a reference to differences between the "three or four canonical gospels" [Graham Stranton, Jesus and the Gospel p. 70], 
  • the silence of Celsus as to other (heretical) Gospels, and his exclusive, or almost exclusive, references to the contents of our canonical Gospels, go far to show that when he wrote his attack, about 176 A.D., they were held among Christians to be of exclusive and para mount authority. [Nicol, the Four Gospels in the Early Church p. 43].
The effort of scholars nevertheless is to implicitly deny what is explicit in the reference - namely that the three or four were corruptions of the one, long gospel.  So Hill :
  • [t]hough Origen uses the singular, 'the Gospel', he clearly means the four Gospels collectively(!)[Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? p. 134]
Celsus is saying in effect that one 'original gospel' became three and four and many gospel under the guidance of desperate Christian apologists - like Irenaeus.  

2. the fourfold gospel as a reaction to the one gospel of Marcion:

T. Heckel (1999, 327-29) argues that Justin (ca. 100-ca. 165) already knew a fourfold Gospel collection, and von Hamack (1960, 79, 84-85, 211, 249) argued that Marcion (who broke with the Roman church in the summer of 144 C.E.) already knew a fourfold gospel as well. It is also possible that the creation of a fourfold Gospel about 150-175 C.E. was perhaps a reaction to the single Gospel of Marcion, either in Rome or Asia Minor (Campenhausen 1972, 171-72). [David Aune Westinster Dictionary of Early Christianity p. 190]

3. the Diatessaron was not originally identified by the sects that used it as a 'harmony' of four pre-existent source texts -  It isn't just that Epiphanius preserves a report that the Diatessaron was the Gospel of the Hebrews (and thus 'ur-Matthew in some sense). (Panarion 46.1.9) It is extremely curious that Tatian is so well-known by our earliest sources (Irenaeus, Clement) and those sources inevitably report the most insignificant details of the 'heresies' of their enemies and they do not make mention of the Diatessaron.  The idea of a 'single, long gospel' was not in itself heretical in this period.  Justin, Tatian, Theophilus and virtually all our earliest witnesses had some form of this textual 'concept.'

Here is what is developed in Curt Peters, Das Diatessaron Tatians (1939) partly his own discoveries, partly from previous studies.
  1. The Diatessaron is founded on the Gospel of the Hebrews and probably includes the whole text of it. The reason Epiphanius confused the Diatessaron with the Gospel of the Hebrews is that it was the Gospel of the Hebrews with additions, and might even have been commonly called the Gospel of the Hebrews. 
  2. It was not named the Diatessaron by its author. That name comes from the later wrong guess that it was made by combining the Canonical Four. The older name is Diapente, “product of five”, that is, the Gospel of the Hebrews as base, with Matthew Mark Luke John fitted in. Even this name is not original. 
  3. Tatian changed the dialect from Western Aramaic to International Standard Eastern Aramaic, i.e. Syriac. 
  4. The wording of the Diatessaron is far superior in literary quality and in clarity and in logic to the wording of the Canonical Four, at all levels, from paragraph to sentence to phrase to choice of single word. This is taken to mean it was not re-worded from the Canonical Four, but is an original long Gospel similar to the source from which the Canonical Four were excerpted and re-worded. 
  5. None of the extant extensive text-witnesses give us the pure text of the Diatessaron. All have been adapted to the Canonical Four. This applies to the Syriac quotations, and to the Syriac text from which the Arabic was translated, and the Latin text from which the Dutch was translated. The original wording can,, however, be seen in some fragments in the European transmission. As such this adapted text that made people guess that the book was a combination of the Canonical Four. Nothing in the original Diatessaron was lifted from the Canonical Four, except where something was missing in the Gospel of the Hebrews. Peters adds that the original wording can be reconstructed verse by verse by comparing the extant Syriac quotations, the Arabic, the Dutch, quotations in Armenian, and quotations in some mediaeval Latin works. The rule is, whatever is furthest from the Canonical Four is closest to the Diatessaron. Imagine that the Arabic is not the Diatessaron, but the Diatessaron altered in content and wording to agree with the Canonical Four. 
  6. The Diatessaron was accepted immediately in Rome and translated immediately into Latin and vigorously promoted. 
The individual points may be debated but the basic sense is basically correct.  The Marcionite reading of Galatians chapters 1 and 2 assumes then two 'super texts' - one associated with Paul, the other the Jerusalem Church.  These texts were likely not that different from one another, yet the refusal of one side to accept the authority of the other text likely led to Irenaeus's 'final solution' - the development of the canonical four.

4. the exclusive use of a single, gospel in 'the lands of Jesus' before the fifth century:
Burkitt (Evangelion da-Mepharreshe, 2 vols., 1904) holds that the Assyrian Christians first knew the Syriac Gospels in the interwoven Diatessaron of Tatian, because the later title of the Four Gospels in Syriac, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe or 'the gospel of the separate ones.' “No one would be likely to speak of our four Gospels in that way who had not been earlier accustomed to use them in the combined form” (Souter, Text and Canon of the N. T., p. 55). The type of text in Tatian's Diatessaron is the δ or Western text. Souter (op. cit,. p. 56) notes that it is more like D and the Old Latin than it is like the Old Syriac text, though the Diatessaron and the Old Syriac do have some common renderings. [A. T. Robertson An Introduction to New Testament Criticism 2014 p. 144]
5. those who used the Diatessaron in the East before the fourth century identified Irenaeus's fourfold text to have been heretical:
Those of the movement of Simon made for themselves a gospel in four parts and they called it the Book of the Quarters (of the world). They are all sorcerers. A thread of scarlet and of the rose (color) they bind at the neck like the priests (of Rome). The ancients plated the hair of their heads and were occupying themselves with incantations and strange affairs. [Marutha of Maiperqat On the Sects translated by Voorbus p. 34] 
The description of plaiting their hair and the bit about roses describes the traditional Roman priesthood (hence an association with Rome). In the pertinent section of Irenaeus where the fourfold gospel is first introduced to the world:
for, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds ... (Adv Haer 3.10.8)
the Syriac for this section of Marutha's text and what is interesting is that the term used to specifically describe the gospel of the quarters of the word ܦܢܝܬܐ is a geographical term. I just assumed that it was principally a mathematical term (i.e. 'quarter') but the root actually means 'region.'  Not only Voorbus but Hennecke and Schneemelcher's definitive collection of the Christian apocrypha identify the reference as relating to Irenaeus - "the title (recalls the famous theory of Irenaeus (adv. haer. III. 11. 11 Harvey) on the fourfold Gospel: "It cannot be admitted that there are either more or less than four Gospels. For since there are four regions of the world (quattuor regiones mundi, tessara klimata tou cosmou ) in which we live, and four winds from the four cardinal points (quattuor principales spiritus, tessara katholica pneumata), Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, which from every part breathe out immortality and vivifying men." (cf. also Jeremiah Jones A New and Full Method p. 386 among other studies).

6. the use of the single, long gospel in the East was connected with a dangerous political conception - God coming to earth and anointed the 'true' ruler of the world -  those Semites who accepted the single, long gospel necessarily associated it with a political solution to their oppression - the appearance of the Christ heralded by Jesus.  Marcion was in a long line of people who used the single long gospel and whose 'Paraclete' reference heralded the coming of an individual rather than 'the Holy Spirit)
If Muhammad (or one of his informants or collaborators, in theory) had been familiar with the integrated Gospel, the Diatessaron, it is clear that, as far as he knew, the Diatessaron had probably been composed in Syriac. Having said that, it is not easy to know which Gospel text Muhammad could have been familiar with. However, there are a few rare direct references in the Qurʾān to the Gospels. Thus Q. 48: 29: “Such is their likeness in the Torah and their likeness in the Gospel— like as sown corn that sendeth forth its shoot and strengthenth it and riseth firm upon its stalk, delighting the sowers – that He may enrage the disbelievers with (the sight of) them. God hath promised, unto such of them as believe and do good works, forgiveness and immense reward." This text combines two Gospel pericopes – Mark 4:26–7 and Matthew 12:23 – the same amalgam that the Diatessaron makes, seen for example in the Middle-Dutch translation thereof, done in the thirteenth century from a lost Latin translation, and in the Arabic translations thereof. Van Reeth applies the same treatment to the passages of the Qur'an which pertain to the infancy of Mary (Q 3:35–48), John (Q 19:3), and Jesus (Q 3:37; 19:22–6), showing again that “le Coran témoigne de la tradition du Diatessaron.”108 He does the same again with the Docetist version of the Crucifixion of Jesus (Q 4:157), but in this case he refers to Angel-Christology (cf. G. Lüling), notably that of the Elkesaites, declaring: “Plutôt qu'un simulacre que Dieu aurait façonné et substitué au Christ pour être crucifié à sa place, il s'agit originalement de la forme humaine que Dieu a instaurée pour Jésus au moment de l'incarnation et dans laquelle sa personne transcendante et angélique pouvait descendre.”109 Even if the Diatessaron does not explain all of the Qur'anic particularities on the life of Jesus, Van Reeth makes the following conclusion: “En se référant au Diatessaron comme l'avait fait Mani avant lui, le Prophète Muhammad pouvait souligner l'unicité du message évangélique. En outre, il s'inscrivait dansla longue lignée de Marcion de Tatien et de Mani. Tous ont voulu (ré)tablir le vrai Évangile, afin d'en atteindre le sens original. Ils se croyaient autorisés à faire de travail d'harmonisation textuelle parce qu'ils s'assimilaient au Paraclet que Jésus avait annoncé.” [Claude Gilliot, The Authorship of the Quran in the Quran in its Historical Context p. 99]
The association with the single, long gospel with the expectation for a political ruler who was opposed to Caesar, a second century Muhammad if you will, helps explain why the text was repressed by the Roman Church undoubtedly with the 'assistance' of the Roman government (cf. Irenaeus Adv Haer 4.30.1 - 4).  When Irenaeus speaks of the heretics who 'divide Jesus and Christ' or 'two Christs' Jesus and the Jewish messiah, the expectation is related to a 'tradition' messianic figure being heralded by Jesus i.e. God descended from heaven to proclaim the advent of another.  

B) Marcion's gospel was a 'super gospel'

7. the Marcionites understood that Paul's references to 'my gospel' (Rom 2:16; 16:25) he was acknowledging that he produced the original gospel by revelation, a text from which all later texts were corrupted
Moreover, taking up Paul's references to "my gospel" in Galatians, Marcion concluded that he used one written gospel" [Steven Wilson, Related Strangers p. 171] "What of his insistence that there was only one true Gospel, the book which Paul referred to as 'my gospel'? Marcion was of course anachronistic in thinking that Paul meant a written gospel book" though Eusebius took the expression in the same way and also though it meant Luke" [John Barton Holy Writings Sacred Texts p. 43] "(Marcion) seems to have interpreted Paul's mention of “my gospel”6 (Rom 2:16; cf Gal 1:6 - 9) as a reference to this book." [Heikki Räisänen in the Blackwell Companion to Paul p. 302] 
8. the Marcionite canon is often regarded as the earliest authoritative collection of Christian writings, and its gospel the oldest of the narrative texts -  those who have argued that Marcion's gospel was ur-Luke include Paul-Louis Couchoud, Joseph Tyson among others.  Markus Vinzent and Matthias Klinghardt (in a two volume edition go one step further and argue that this Gospel is the oldest of its kind and the inspiration and source for other gospels, especially the later canonical ones which have been directly dependent on this one.

9. the Marcionites like their Diatessaron using orthodox (Palutian) neighbors in the second through fifth centuries believed the four 'separated' gospels were forgeries - Megethius the Marcionite in De Recta in Deum Fide identifies the texts as pseudepigraphal forgeries written in the name of disciples but were actually composed long after Paul.

10. both the Marcionite text and the so-called 'harmony' of Justin and Tatian (= Diatessaron) are part of the Western textual family.  As Souter notes:
There was certainly some kinship between the text used by Ephraim and that used by the heretic Marcion. This need not surprise us. Tatian and Marcion were in Rome about the same time. Just as Tatian used a Western text of the Gospels as the basis of his Diatessaron, so must Marcion also have used a Western text as the basis of his recension of St. Paul s Epistles. Doubtless Tatian brought the Epistles of Paul to Assyria, and may have translated an early Western text of them for the benefit of his compatriots. It may have been Marcion s edition which was translated in the first instance, and afterwards amplified. Of this text we would gladly know more, but only Armenian experts can give us this, and, so far as I know, they have not yet done so with the desirable fulness. [Souter Text and Canon of the New Testament p. 59 - 60]
Ulrich Schmid clearly showed evidence of Marcion's text being related to a 'pre-Western' text in his Apostolikon.  More recently Dieter Roth adds "[b]oth Marcion’s Apostolikon and Euangelion reveal affinities to the so-called ‘Western’ textual tradition, though the text is definitely not the ‘D-text’ and likely represents a precursor to the ‘Western’ text."

11. Marcion's gospel utilized sections from what we know as the Gospel of Matthew and Mark -
In this regard, most recently, Matthias Klinghardt of Dresden University has presented astounding evidence that the Marcionite text of the Gospel of Luke more than likely preceded the canonical Gospel of Luke. It would then follow that the composers of the canonical Gospel of Luke more than likely edited Marcion's Gospel. Indeed Klinghardt asserts that the Gospel Marcion had in hand influenced the formation of both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. (Klinghardt 2010, 1–27) Without knowing of Klinghardt's work, David Williams's analysis of quotes of Marcion's adversaries show that Marcion did not throw out other Gospels as Tertullian and others said, but actually utilized sections from what we now know as the Gospel of Matthew and Mark (Williams q989, 431). Hahneman agrees. He states that Marcion probably did not reject other gospel traditions, but he adds that Marcion simply did not know other versions. He states that written Gospels, as we quoted above, must have circulated individually in isolation from one another, with only one Gospel being valued and used in any one community (Hahneman 1992, 95). Klinghardt argues that Marcion did know Mark and did utilize Mark, but that texts of Matthew were found in the Gospel Marcion had in hand, not in another existing Gospel (Klinghardt 2010, 11–27)". [Richard Cragun Christianity p. 159]
12. Tertullian 'knew as a fact' that Marcion was familiar with all four gospels - 
Look merely at one passage: 'Marcion Lucam videtur elegisse quem caederet' (' Marcion seems to have chosen Luke as the one he would cut'). From this, and from the whole method of proof in this chapter, it appears plainly that Marcion knew our four gospels ('apostolorurn' and 'apostolicorum' of apostles and apostles's followers). So the matter may rest in Weizsacker' decision: ' Tertullian did not merely guess that Marcion knew and put aside the other gospels; he knew it as a fact.[C.E. Luthardt John p. 108]
13. According to Irenaeus Marcion's adapted the teaching of Cerdo based on one gospel to another, the Gospel of Luke.  That ur-gospel of Cerdo is identified by later Church Fathers as containing references to Matthew:
Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judæa in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judæa, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, [Irenaeus Adv Haer 27:1,2]
When you actually think about what is being implied here, the implication is that Cerdo's doctrine was associated with another gospel - undoubtedly Luke - which implies that the teachings passed on to Marcion made reference to things also said in Matthew.  We will see more examples of this later in our investigation.

C) scholarship has not started from 'scratch' with regards to the question of Marcion's gospel and the development of the gospels

14. Irenaeus's gospel paradigm is our culture's 'default' position there can be no doubt that we have been collectively 'baptized into' the assumptions at the heart of the fourfold gospel.  We now take them granted.  This position won out in history because of the ascendance of the Roman Empire and the orthodox Church within that hegemony.  No wonder that the Diatessaron was only displaced by the 'separated gospel' with the efforts of the Imperial Church.  Yet this situation influences the way scholars approach problems in early Christianity in very subtle ways.

For instance, the fact that 'Mark,' 'Matthew' and 'Luke' have distinctive literary features in no way contradicts the possibility that a single, long text antedated the four canonical texts.  Indeed at the core, 'Matthew' and 'Luke' are forgeries of 'Mark.'  For instance the 'Lucan' character of Luke necessarily overshadow and obscure the pre-existent 'Marcan' features of Mark.  The same necessarily occurred with 'ur-Mark.'  Yet whenever scholars come face to face with the fact that the earliest writings of the Church witness the 'super gospel' form, their inherited prejudices take control of their thinking and the 'super-gospel' is described as a 'harmonized' text.
Even Koester (Ancient Christian Gospels, 18) affirms that “Several of the sayings of Jesus quoted in 2 Clement indeed reveal features which derive from the redactional activities of the authors of Matthew and Luke.” That of course leads him to date 2 Clement after Marcion because the harmonizing collection on which the Jesus sayings in 2 Clement are drawn can only have been assembled after Gospel collections had been formed and Jesus books had been called “Gospel,” a designation that Marcion was allegedly the first to undertake. The problem is, however, that such harmonizing collections bringing together more than one Gospel came into being in the first half the second century, as evidenced by the longer ending ofMark (16:9-20), the Epistula Apostolorum, and perhaps even John 21 (see Kelhoffer, “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ as a Reference to 'Gospel',” 10-13). [Michael Bird, the Gospel of the Lord p. 265]
15. Irenaeus was not a disinterested 'scholar,' his opinions should not be blindly trusted -  that Irenaeus testimony is "often quite untrustworthy" [Skinner, International Critical Commentary p. 141] is a vast understatement.  Sense describes him as a 'dishonest' writer [A Critical and Historical Enquiry Into the Origin of the Third Gospel p. 43] and commenting on one of his falsifications notes:
Here the unfairness and roguery of Irenaeus in short quoting the passage become apparent. The first clause of the verse is couched in coarse language unbecoming the disciple of the Lord, whose language elsewhere is decent. The first clause of the verse is alien to the subject which the disciple of the Lord is discussing, viz., that of Antichrists. These two considerations alone, apart from others, justify me in pronouncing this clause to be an interpolation, which in all probability Irenaeus knew to be a forgery, if he was not the forger himself. [p. 115]
Stuart George Hall more recently argues that Irenaeus was known as a "fixer" or 'fraud' to many of his contemporaries [Hall Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church p. 61]

Irenaeus was above all else a successful propagandist for his own imagination.  He created a scenario where four gospels 'together' = the true gospel.  It was as much a way of rejecting rival traditions even more that it was an explanative too with respect to textual criticism.  Irenaeus assumes as his starting point that the four canonical gospels were associated go back to four of the earliest possible witnesses.  While he cannot find a single authority to back up his claims that the four should be taken as one gospel, it is even more surprising that he can't find a near contemporary witness for the specific gospel forms he put together to make up his fourfold canon.

For instance Polycarp isn't cited as a witness for 'according to John' nor are there any Johannine references in Polycarp's only known letter.  Indeed the established authorities in Rome, a contemporary of Irenaeus and someone likely associated with the production of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, rejects the gospel as spurious.  The same situation seems to be associated with the claims about 'according to Luke' in relation to the 'anonymous' Pauline gospel of the Marcionites.  Yet there is an even clear example of Irenaeus's eyebrow raising efforts to 'back up' the existence of his particular gospel texts.

In the case of 'according to Matthew' he sets up as his 'ur-gospel' a text which he derived out of his own imagination, or better yet a deliberately false reading of his predecessor Papias of Hieropolis:
that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour 
These words have been demonstrated time and again (most recently Watson) to be misrepresentations of Papias's statement regarding Matthew collecting 'sayings of the Lord.'  No one can honestly claim that this 'sayings collection' witnessed by Papias was our gospel according to Mark.  As we just there were also questions raised about his introduction of the gospel according to John, the gospel according to Mark and finally the gospel according to Luke.  Irenaeus merely set up four 'shortened' texts to correspond with four heretical communities in the late second century Church.  His purpose was clearly to foster greater ecumenism in a manner very similar to the Mishnah within the Jewish community, a text which was codified at the very same time.

16. In spite of Irenaeus's credibility problem he was widely influential especially on the early understanding of the Marcionite heresy.  After acknowledging Irenaeus used earlier source material in his Against Marcion Stephanie Binder adds that "it is widely recognised that Tertullian was influenced by Irenaeus. [Tertullian, On Idolatry and Mishnah Avodah Zarah p. 72] Anthony Gregory in his study of the origin of the Gospel according to Luke adds that "Tertullian is indebted to and stands within the tradition of Irenaeus" [The Reception of Luke and Acts p. 208]  Some have even speculated that Irenaeus's texts were freely available in the public libraries of the Empire alongside his predecessor Justin Martyr.

Lightfoot was the first to notice "coincidences in language between Irenaeus and the Ignatian Epistles" [p. 424] With other early Patristic witnesses we find the same pattern. It is said "Irenaeus employs similar language and argument to that used by Justin [Hitchcock Irenaeus p. 154]. Minns in his book Irenaeus speaks in terms of "language reminiscent of Justin" [p. 62] The text of Justin's Dialogue has been demonstrated by Craig Evans and others to have been altered while Irenaeus was in his prime (i.e. 195 CE).  How then did Irenaeus become so influential if the potential for him being engaged in wrong-doing was so great?  This is a question we will have to leave to the side for the moment.

17. Tertullian his devoted adherent stops short of saying that he knows for a fact that Marcion corrupted Luke.  This is a point first noted by Hermann Raschke.  Raschke (p 37) notes that Tertullian's endorsement of the Marcion's = Luke is rather weak. It is only a presumption for Tertullian for he begins "It seems Marcion chose Luke as the one to mutilate" (caederet, tert IV. 2), for he says expressly 'videtur' or "it seems", which implies uncertainty.  The original passage reads, "nam ex iis commentatoribus quos habemus Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse quem caederet."  Evans translates the passage - "out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate" but Holmes "now, of the authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have singled out Luke for his mutilating process."

It isn't noted often enough that the entire thesis of Book Four is based on a superficial assumption which only 'seems' to be true. Tertullian does not claim to know 'for a fact' that the Marcionite gospel = cut Luke. Raschke also notes that elewhere Tertullian writes (IV 4) acknowledges the issue is not settled whether Luke or Marcion's gospel was the corrupt one. "I say that my Gospel is the true one; Marcion, that his is. I affirm that Marcion's Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine is. Now what is to settle the point for us?" Raschke characterizes these statements of Tertullian by saying that he is someone (p. 40) who is unable to provide the proof of the correctness of his view. He sees the gospel of the heretic as a private and independent work. Epiphanius (XLII 10) says that Marcion partly shortened and sometimes adds things. Raschke (p 42) points out that Harnack did not pay attention to various phrases such as: "he has not", "he cut off", "he falsified", "it changed" and regarded as synonyms for deleted which they are not.

18. Tertullian wasn't the original author of the material in Adversus Marcionem Books Four and Five.  Tertullian is universally acknowledged to be our 'best source' for information about the Marcionite canon.  The reason is simple.  He seems to go through line by line at times important sections of the Marcionite interpretation of the gospel which was common to both traditions.  Epiphanius does very much the same thing, but the Panarion is much later (= late fourth century CE).  Since the Latin text of Adversus Marcionem (= Against Marcion) seems to take up Irenaeus's claims that Marcion corrupted 'according to Luke' it is generally understood to confirm that position.  Why else would Tertullian agree that the Marcionite gospel is a corrupt version of Luke unless it were true?  But such a position ignores the reality of what stares us in the face at the very beginning of the text.

At the start of Book One hanging almost like a warning notice to the reader the following bold pronouncement is made:
Si quid retro gestum est nobis adversus Marcionem, iam hinc viderit. Novam rem aggredimur ex vetere. Primum opusculum quasi properatum pleniore postea compositione rescideram. Hanc quoque nondum exemplariis suffectam fraude tunc fratris, dehinc apostatati, amisi, qui forte descripserat quaedam mendosissime et exhibuit frequentiae. Emendationis necessitas facta est. Innovationis eius occasio aliquid adicere persuasit. Ita stilus iste nunc de secundo tertius et de tertio iam hinc primus hunc opusculi sui exitum necessario praefatur, ne quem varietas eius in disperso reperta confundat.

Whatever in times past we have wrought in opposition to Marcion, is from the present moment no longer to be accounted of.  It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one.  My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a brother, but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it.  The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise. This present text, therefore, of my work--which is the third as superseding the second, but henceforward to be considered the first instead of the third--renders a preface necessary to this issue of the tract itself that no reader may be perplexed, if he should by chance fall in with the various forms of it which are scattered about.
No matter how we try to get around matters here, this Latin editor is saying (a) that Adversus Marcionem was re-written at least three times and (b) at least one version of the text passed under the name of someone other than Tertullian.

Why is this interesting?  To start with, the idea that there existed many different versions of the argument against Marcion's gospel helps explain another important anomaly - at the deepest layer of the text, the author is not comparing Marcion's text to 'according to Luke.'  This only came with Irenaeus's introduction of Luke's gospel at the end of the second century.  It turns out that at the deepest layer of Adversus Marcionem we find another author besides Tertullian using a 'gospel harmony' which 'mixed' the sayings of Matthew and Luke in particular.  This means that the 'Luke layer' likely developed at the turn of the third century and the 'gospel harmony' layer developed at least a generation earlier.

Here is the critical discovery of the 'super gospel' vs 'super gospel' layer to Adversus Marcionem Book Four.  The Latin text notes that in 'the gospel':
"Because," says (Jesus), "He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." (Luke 6:35) Well done, Marcion! How cleverly have you withdrawn from Him the showers and the sunshine. (cf. Matt 5:45) [Tertullian Adv Marc 4:17]
It has long been noted that Tertullian assumes from his gospel that Luke 6:35 and Matthew 5:45 followed one another but Marcion 'erased' Matthew 5:45.  This order doesn't manifest itself in any of our gospels.  The situation develops with respect to a 'gospel harmony' which can be traced back to Justin.

Tertullian agrees with Justin, against Matthew, in regard to the sun and rain. While in Matthew the sun shines over the evil and the rain falls on the just, Justin and Tertullian have the rain fall on the evil and the sun shine on the just. This linkage is intriguing. A. J. Bellinzoni, who has examined harmonizations in Justin's corpus, states: "That this harmonization of Luke 6:36 and Matthew 5:45b was not peculiar to Justin but was rather a written source in common circulation in the early church appears evident not only because it is repeated in both Apol. 15:13 and in Dial. 96:3 but more especially because Lk. 6:36 and Mt. 5:45b occur together in six of the patristic passages already quoted above (see p. 11)."

This underscores the fact that Adversus Marcionem Books Four and Five was originally written by someone with a Diatessaron or a single long gospel which featured readings, commonly associated after Irenaeus with 'Matthew, 'Mark' and 'Luke.'  At some point after its original publication the text was altered to make it reflect an entirely knew textual criticism paradigm (i.e. Irenaeus's Marcion corrupted Luke). Now we can finally understand why Galatians is listed first (it was first in the canon of Diatessaron users in the east like Ephrem and others). This also explains why the author so often accuses Marcion of deleting things which only appear now in Matthew.

D) It is Easy to Distinguish Where Tertullian's Against Marcionem Was Falsified

Can we distinguish between the proposed 'original text' of Against Marcion developed as it was from a Diatessaron-based community from the later stages of corruption which introduce the 'Marcion falsified Luke' argument?  I think so.  If you take a careful look at the beginning of Book Four it is I think obvious to see how a more original argument dealing with the Diatessaron was altered to make it appear 'in line' with our existing canon.  Let me quote the Latin for this section in its entirety:
Habes nunc ad Antitheses expeditam a nobis responsionem. Transeo nunc ad evangelii, sane non Iudaici sed Pontici, interim adulterati demonstrationem, praestructuram ordinem quem aggredimur. Constituimus inprimis evangelicum instrumentum apostolos auctores habere, quibus hoc munus evangelii promulgandi ab ipso domino sit impositum. Si et apostolicos, non tamen solos, sed cum apostolis et post apostolos, quoniam praedicatio discipulorum suspecta fieri posset de gloriae studio, si non adsistat illi auctoritas magistrorum, immo Christi, quae magistros apostolos fecit. Denique nobis fidem ex apostolis Ioannes et Matthaeus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas et Marcus instaurant, isdem regulis exorsi, quantum ad unicum deum attinet creatorem et Christum eius, natum ex virgine, supplementum legis et prophetarum.
In other words, if we now breakdown the treatise in its English translation.   Tertullian begins by acknowledging that he has just given his "short and sharp answer to the Antitheses" and now passed on to:
I pass on to show how his (i.e. Marcion's) gospel—certainly not Judaic but Pontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of my order of approach. I lay it down to begin with that the instrument (sing.) of the gospel (sing.) has (sing.) the apostles for its author, and that this task of promulgating the gospel (sing.) was imposed upon them by our Lord himself. 
It amazing to see how much difficulty this passage gives to translators who think that Tertullian 'must be' speaking here about our four gospel canonical set.  But he is not.  He is instead undoubtedly copying out a text written by by someone like Justin who consistently references a single 'gospel' containing 'the memoirs of the apostles.'

There is a clear reluctance in early Fathers to speak of 'Gospels' in the plural.  Justin speaks instead of apomnemoneumata ton apostolon because as David Aune has stressed in his The New Testament in its Literary Environment he was drawing from a pre-existent literary genre in antiquity.  Aune argues that apomnemoneumata is roughly synonymous with Greco-Roman biography and
is an inclusive literary form which provides a framework or setting for various types of short forms including anec­ dotes (which Greek rhetoricians called chreiai), maxims (gnomai), and reminiscences (apomnemoneumata). Chreiai are essentially sayings or actions (or a combination of the two) set in a brief narrative framework (e.g., the question-and-answer section of the Life of Secundus).Gnomai are proverbial sayings which lack attribution or a narrative framework, and apomnemoneumata are expanded chreiai thought to be transmitted by memory. Examples of longer literary forms which can be included in biographies are novellas, speeches and dialogues (as in the Life of Secun­dus).
But clearly we are speaking here - as we see still in Tertullian's Latin text - of a single gospel written out by the body of apostles as one text.  We should notice at once the clear echo of Matthew 28:20 referencing Jesus sending out the apostles to the farthest reaches of the world.

As we see the text continue we can already see the editors had move on the text for we read:
Si et apostolicos, non tamen solos, sed cum apostolis et post apostolos, quoniam praedicatio discipulorum suspecta fieri posset de gloriae studio, si non adsistat illi auctoritas magistrorum, immo Christi, quae magistros apostolos fecit.
The emboldened text is clearly interrupting the original idea in the text of Justin - namely that the one gospel was written by 'the apostles' exclusively.  For Irenaeus introduced the idea of a fourfold gospel written by two apostles (Matthew and John) and two disciples (Mark and Luke).  Not surprisingly right on cue the text continues:
In short, from among the apostles the faith is introduced to us by John and by Matthew, while from among apostolic men Luke and Mark give it renewal, beginning with the same rules , as far as relates to the one only God, the Creator, and to his Christ, born of a virgin, the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. It matters not that the arrangement of their narratives varies, so long as there is agreement on the essentials of the faith—and on these they show no agreement with Marcion. 
One can immediately see the palpable effect of Irenaeus's hand on this section.  Notice the dogmatic assertion of dogma.  Not only does the introduction of 'those who came after the apostles' interrupt the original train of thought (namely that Jesus commissioned the apostles to spread the gospel at the end of the gospel) but the editor makes the original author reinforce other doctrinal differences with the Marcionites which clearly weren't important to him.  These familiar obsessions of Irenaeus include 'the one and only God the Creator' and Jesus being 'born of a virgin' and this 'a fulfillment of the (expectations of) the law and prophets.'

If you take out these Irenaeus obsessions we arrive at a much more believable antithesis between the original Diatessaronic gospel according to the apostles and what immediately follows the last citation in Tertullian, namely:
Marcion, on the other hand, attaches to his gospel no author's name,—as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name. But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmentioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. 
In other words, in contradiction to the clear affirmation of the conclusion of Matthew where Jesus commissions the apostles to spread the gospel - and the Diatessaronic gospel is identified as that 'gospel' - the original author of Against Marcion says that Marcion's gospel not only has no ascription to a particular person but more importantly does not identify itself as belonging to the 'apostles.'  Thus the distinction between the single long gospel which is the 'memoirs of the apostles' of the community of Justin and the anonymous gospel of the Marcionite community only makes sense when take out the other distractions introduced by Irenaeus to the text (and later loosely transcribed by Tertullian).

Notice that in what immediately follows again how feebly Irenaeus identifies Luke as the original text of the author saying:
For out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate.
Raschke rightly calls attention to the word 'seems' here (i.e. can't the author be more convincing here?) But then notice that the immediate follow up tries to make the argument 'square' with the original point about the 'gospel (sing.) of the apostles: 
Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple (Mt 10:24) in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single instrument would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of its predecessors.
So if we really think about it, Irenaeus here has turned around the implausibility of claiming that 'Luke' was meant by the original author's reference to the 'gospel of the apostles' (because Luke wasn't an apostle but a disciple) by following a familiar tactic - seemingly appealing to Matthew 10:24.

But wait a minute.  The whole point of the exercise in this book was supposedly to say that Marcion erased Luke.  This expression that a 'disciple is not above his master' is not to be found in Luke but only Matthew.  So we should assume in fact that the appeal to Matthew 10:24 is an authentic part of the original treatise.  In other words, Justin must have argued that the Marcionite gospel was written by a disciple rather than an apostle from the beginning of the section.  He had the 'gospel of the apostles' and by contrast the Marcionite gospel was really written by a disciple - something made manifest by the fact that there is no title to the text (and juxtaposed by the clear identification of Justin's gospel as 'belonging to the apostles.'

The decision to truncate the Marcionite gospel and make it too according to a mere disciple was done as a concession to the original argument of Justin in Against Marcion.  In other words, Irenaeus was saying in effect, Justin was right to identify the author of the Marcionite gospel as a disciple but he was incorrect in not recognizing that a more original text - one called 'according to Luke' predated the corrupt Marcionite mutilation.  To this end, Justin must have been the one who wrote the sentence based on an appeal to Matthew 10:24 but instead of 'Luke' as the name of the gospel used by the Marcionites there must have been another 'disciple' who thought he was 'above his master.'

Which disciple can this be?  The answer is obvious when you remember Clement's discussion of Mark developing his gospel without the permission of Peter.  In other words:
Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple (Mt 10:24) in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single instrument would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of its predecessors.
must have originally read:
Now Mark was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple (Mt 10:24) in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Peter, to be sure: so that even if Mark had introduced his gospel under the name of Peter in person, that one single instrument would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of its predecessors. 
In other words, 'Paul' and 'Luke' relationship is obviously little more than a poor copy of the pre-existent (and more widely known) pairing of 'Peter' and 'Mark.'  Instead of allowing for Justin to acknowledge that the Marcionites have a lesser gospel developed without Peter's permission by a disciple, Irenaeus developed the mythical pairing of 'Paul' and 'Luke' out of Justin's original work.

Now we should see that Justin is allowed to be correct about the fact that the Marcionite possessed an inferior gospel - one which belonged to a 'disciple' rather than an apostle.  This was true for the underlying relationship between 'Mark's second gospel' which Peter neither approved nor denied and the one that developed from Peter's memories (i.e. by Peter dictating to Mark).  Clement says that the gospel 'according to Mark' was not the name given to the text by the Alexandrian community.  It, like the Marcionite gospel, was not given a name.

Irenaeus by inventing a parallel pairing of Paul and Luke (figures who never actually existed in history) allows for a gospel developed from disciples to have legitimacy and at the same time erases the memory of the original gospel according to Peter.  Mark's gospel becomes equated with the one 'according to Peter,' secret Mark disappears, and the heretical text originally in the possession of the Marcionites (= secret Mark) becomes confounded with a 'corrupt text' associated with another gospel written by a disciple ('according to Luke').

According to Justin then 'the gospel' developed from the memories of the apostle was superior to that which developed by the disciple tinkering with the master's work without his approval.  Irenaeus allows this to stand by pretending that Papias's oracles of the Lord written by Matthew was the original apostolic narrative gospel.  The original controversy that Justin and the Marcionites were engaged in necessarily also gets sidestepped in the process.

For we should notice that immediately following the last citation Tertullian's text jumps unexpectedly into a discussion of Galatians - an argument is not only sudden but rather developed from strange logic.
so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of support from proceeding authorities (singularitas instrumenti destituta patrocinio antecessorum). There would still be wanting that gospel (sing.) also which Paul found, that to which he gave his assent, that with which shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: for his intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the apostles,was lest perchance he had run in vain —that is, lest perchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preaching the gospel in their manner. At length, when he had conferred with the original, and there was agreement concerning the rule of the faith, they joined the right hands , and from thenceforth divided their spheres of preaching, so that the others should go to the Jews, but Paul to Jews and gentiles. If he therefore who gave the light to Luke chose to have his predecessors' authority for his faith as well as his preaching, much more must I require for Luke's gospel the authority which was necessary for the gospel of his master.

It is another matter if in Marcion's opinion the Christian religion, with its sacred content, begins with the discipleship of Luke. However, as it was on its course even before that, it certainly possessed an authoritative structure by means of which it reached even to Luke: and so with the support of its evidence Luke also can find acceptance. But Marcion has got hold of Paul's epistle to the Galatians, in which he rebukes even the apostles themselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,a and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ: and on this ground Marcion strives hard to overthrow the credit of those gospels which are the apostles' own and are published under their names, or even the names of apostolic men, with the intention no doubt of conferring on his own gospel the repute which he takes away from those others. And yet, even if there is censure of Peter and John and James, who were esteemed as pillars,b the reason is evident.

We have to take this idea step by step.  The first thing which is clear is that Tertullian accepts the Marcionite idea that 'gospel' in the epistle to the Galatians refers to an actual written text.  The author begins by saying that even if we accept the Marcionite identification of their own written gospel being mentioned in the material, there is still another gospel which was older and founded on apostolic authority.

This is where things get interesting.  Let's look at the start of the section because it clearly derives from the single gospel layer:
so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of support from proceeding authorities (singularitas instrumenti destituta patrocinio antecessorum) There would still be wanting that gospel (sing.) also which Paul found, that to which he gave his assent, that with which shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: for his intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the apostles,was lest perchance he had run in vain —that is, lest perchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preaching the gospel in their manner. At length, when he had conferred with the authors (auctoribus) and there was agreement concerning the rule of the faith, they joined the right hands, and from thenceforth divided their spheres of preaching, so that the others should go to the Jews, but Paul to Jews and gentiles.
If this material is taken at face value it is extremely difficult to make any of this account with the fourfold canon - let alone Luke.  Instead we find it acknowledged - in a manner which agrees with Origen, Eusebius and the Alexandrian tradition - that Paul had a written gospel and the 'apostles' in Jerusalem had another.  This entire section is pre-Irenaean and juxtaposes two gospels as being already present in the earliest period of Christianity.

Of course when we move forward to the next sentence it is again obvious that the editor's hand resurfaces.  For 'Luke' is suddenly injected into this impossible scenario:
If he therefore who gave the light to Luke chose to have his predecessors' authority for his faith as well as his preaching, much more must I require for Luke's gospel the authority which was necessary for the gospel of his master
This sounds eerily like the 'introduction to Luke' which appears in Irenaeus's Against Heresies.  If we are to accept the aforementioned reading of Galatians, the editor writes, then Luke must be the gospel of Paul.  But clearly Luke cannot be this gospel of Paul on a number of grounds.  The meeting with the Jerusalem Church necessarily precedes the mythical appointment of Luke at the expense - interestingly enough - of Mark (also called John).   This is why our tradition, despite the objections of Clement, Origen and Eusebius, slams the door on the idea that Paul possessed a written gospel.

The Luke-centered redaction continues in what immediately follows where the editor says that it would be "another matter if in Marcion's opinion the Christian religion, with its sacred content, begins with the discipleship of Luke."  The Marcionites themselves clearly knew nothing about 'Luke.'  This entire section was written by a second hand including the eye-opening claim that
Marcion has got hold of Paul's epistle to the Galatians, in which he rebukes even the apostles themselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ: and on this Marcion ground strives hard to overthrow the credit of those gospels which are the apostles' own and are published under their names, or even the names of apostolic men, with the intention no doubt of conferring on his own gospel the repute which he takes away from those others. And yet, even if there is censure of Peter and John and James, who were esteemed as pillars, the reason is evident.
Notice that the sudden introduction of the plural 'gospels' (evangeliorum) coincides with this entire section of text.  The original argument was - there were two gospels, one 'according to the apostles' the other an anonymous text written according to a disciple.  The new argument is something completely different and more in line with what are now our familiar canonical assumptions.

Indeed the false arguments (italicized below) continue until - not surprisingly we return to the allusion back to Matthew 28:20 (see above):
It was that they appeared to be altering their manner of life through respect of persons. Yet since Paul himself made himself all things to all men so that he might gain them all, Peter too may well have had this in mind in acting in some respect differently from his manner of teaching. And besides, if false apostles also had crept in, their character too is indicated: they were insisting on circumcision, and the Jewish calendar. So it was not for their preaching but for their forms of activity that they were marked down as wrong by Paul, though he would no less have marked them wrong if they had been in any error on the subject of God the Creator, or of his Christ. Therefore we have to distinguish between the two cases. When Marcion complains (queritur) that apostles are suspected (for their prevarication and dissimulation) of having even depraved the gospel, he thereby accuses Christ, by accusing those whom Christ chose.
Clearly then there is an underlying understanding throughout the text which accords with two gospels - one in the hands of Paul, the other that belongs to the apostles which does not accord with our traditional division of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The argument immediately continues  in Adversus Marcionem:
If however the gospel which the apostles compared with Paul's was beyond reproach, and they were rebuked only for inconsistency of conduct, and yet false apostles have falsified the truth of their gospels, and from them our copies are derived, what can have become of that genuine apostles' document which has suffered from adulterators—that document which gave light to Paul, and from him to Luke? Or if it has been completely destroyed, so wiped out by a flood of falsifiers as though by some deluge, then not even Marcion has a true one.  Or if that is to be the true one, if that is the apostles', which Marcion alone possesses, then how is it that that which is not of the apostles, but is ascribed to Luke, is in agreement with ours? Or if that which Marcion has in use is not at once to be attributed to Luke because it does agree with ours—though they allege ours is falsified in respect of its title—then it does belong to the apostles. And in that case ours too, which is in agreement with that other, no less belongs to the apostles, even if it too is falsified in its title.  So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying with equal effort to the one side or the other. I say that mine is true: Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion's is falsified: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide between us? Only such a reckoning of dates, as will assume that authority belongs to that which is found to be older, and will prejudge as corrupt that which is convicted of having come later. For in so far as the false is a corruption of the true, to that extent must the truth have preceded that which is false. An object must have been in existence before anything is done to it, as what it is in itself must be prior to any opposition to it. Otherwise how preposterous it would be that when we have proved ours the older, and that Marcion's has emerged later, ours should be taken to have been false before it had from the truth material , and Marcion's be believed to have suffered hostility from ours before it was even published: and in the end that that which is later should be reckoned more true, even after the publication to the world of all those great works and evidences of the Christian religion which surely could never have been produced except for the truth of the gospel—even before the gospel was true. So then meanwhile, as concerns the gospel of Luke, seeing that the use of it shared between us and Marcion becomes an arbiter of the truth, our version of it is to such an extent older than Marcion that Marcion himself once believed it. That was when in the first warmth of faith he presented the catholic church with that money which was before long cast out along with him after he had diverged from our truth into his own heresy. What now, if the Marcionites are going to deny that his faith at first was with us—even against the evidence of his own letter? What if they refuse to acknowledge that letter? Certainly Marcion's own Antitheses not only admit this, but even make a show of it. Proof taken from them is good enough for me. If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see whether it is Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion by his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already. No one passes censure on things afterwards to be, when he does not know they are afterwards to be. Correction does not come before fault. As corrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberius to those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes to light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time, repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without Marcion to protect them. And yet heresy, which is always in this manner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is the effect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even if Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Marcion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so we preach:a and if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of the prophets have to be subject to the prophets,b for they are not of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were an angel, he is more likely to be called anathema than gospel-maker, seeing he has preached a different gospel. And so, by making these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and that that other came later which he has put together out of his corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own. 
As it stands Tertullian, who wasn't even certain that Marcion corrupted Luke at the beginning of the text, now claims that he knows Marcion got a hold of the Letter to the Galatians first and then decided to corrupt a gospel - presumably Luke.  But the original text did not say this, clearly.  

If we boil down the original argument from the 'Diatessaronic-based' section of the text (i.e. before the invention and injection of Luke into the treatise) we find with our parallel substitution of 'Mark' for 'Luke' and 'Peter' for 'Paul' :

I pass on to show how Mark's gospel is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of my order of approach. I lay it down to begin with that the instrument of the gospel has the apostles for its author, and that this task of promulgating the gospel was imposed upon them by our Lord himself. Since, however, there are also some who are apostolic (apostolicos) they are yet not alone, but appear with apostles and after apostles; because the preaching of disciples might be open to the suspicion of an affectation of glory, if there did not accompany the authority of the masters, which means that of Christ, for it was that which made the apostles their masters.

Mark, you must know, attaches to his gospel no author's name,—as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name. But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmentioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour.

Now Mark was not an apostle but an apostolic, not a master but a disciple (Mt 10:24) in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Peter, to be sure: so that even if Mark had introduced his gospel under the name of Peter in person, that one single instrument would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of its predecessors.

So that even if Mark had introduced his gospel under the name of Peter in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of support from proceeding authorities. He rebukes even the apostles themselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ. When Mark complains that apostles are suspected - for their prevarication and dissimulation - of having even depraved the gospel, he thereby accuses Christ, by accusing those whom Christ chose.

So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying with equal effort to the one side or the other. I say that mine is true: Mark makes that claim for his. I say that Mark is falsified: Mark says the same of mine. Who shall decide between us? Only such a reckoning of dates, as will assume that authority belongs to that which is found to be older, and will prejudge as corrupt that which is convicted of having come later.

For in so far as the false is a corruption of the true, to that extent must the truth have preceded that which is false. An object must have been in existence before anything is done to it, as what it is in itself must be prior to any opposition to it. Otherwise how preposterous it would be that when we have proved ours the older, and that Mark's has emerged later, ours should be taken to have been false before it had from the truth material , and Mark's be believed to have suffered hostility from ours before it was even published: and in the end that that which is later should be reckoned more true, even after the publication to the world of all those great works and evidences of the Christian religion which surely could never have been produced except for the truth of the gospel—even before the gospel was true.

No one passes censure on things afterwards to be, when he does not know they are afterwards to be. Correction does not come before fault. Mark's comes to light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time, repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without Mark to protect them: for even if Mark were a disciple, he is not above his master. And so, by making these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and that that other came later which he has put together out of his corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own.

The same pattern of corruption - of adding things to pre-existent text - was perpetrated throughout the Marcionite scriptures.  Yet we can begin to see that even the texts were written against the sect were corrected owing to the fact that the original authors knew nothing of Irenaeus's later textual innovations.  To this end it should be clear that it was not only Mark who wrote the gospel associated with the Marcionites but the epistles of the canon were also his.  Again there was only 'Peter' (Simon) and 'Mark.'  'Paul' and 'Luke' were invented figures developed as part of the reworking of Justin's original critique of the Marcionite religion.

E) Adversus Marcionem Says Marcion 'Erased' Things from Matthew Because Both the Original Author and Marcion Used 'Super Gospels'

19. Eznik of Kolb: Casey concludes from his analysis of Eznik's Against the Sects (Casey, R. “The Armenian Marcionites and the Diatessaron,” JBL 57 (1938), 185–194) that the Marcionites had a Diatessaron:
The result of this investigation has been to discover in Eznik IV clear evidence for the use of a Syriac Marcionite source emanating from the circles with which St. Ephraim was acquainted and agreeing in all essential points with their theology and usage ... Like the earlier Marcionites they appeared as practicing Christians with peculiar ascetic notions and habits, but unlike them they followed the traditional Scriptural authority of their surroundings and retained the Diatessaron as their gospel. It would seem natural that the group had gained some ground in Armenia, since they are treated by Eznik as a living issue, but if so the probabilities are that they, like many Armenian Catholics of their time, employed Syriac as their theological language.
20. Ephrem the Syrian: Ephrem's Commentary and Against Marcion assumes that the Marcionite gospel resembled the shape and form of his own 'Diatessaron.'  He assumes that Marcion possessed a compatible text which was 'tweaked' for doctrinal reasons.

21. De Recta in Deum Fide:  This text attributed to a certain 'Adamantius' and written undoubtedly in Edessa at a time when the Marcionite gospel was ascendant and subsequently preserved in a corrupt form does not know Irenaeus's 'myth' about Marcion 'corrupting Luke' and instead features a common gospel form shared by Palutian and Marcionite Christians and the accusation that Marcion 'cut' things from that gospel which are known to us from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

22. Other Eastern witnesses: We can similarly assume that all treatises written 'Against Marcion' in the East (Theophilus, Rhodo the student of Tatian etc) were written from a similar perspective as the aforementioned (i.e. Marcion corrupted a 'Diatessaronic' text rather than 'Luke.'

23. Justin Martyr:  Justin used a so-called 'harmonized gospel' (Hengel 2000, p 20) and his Against Marcion was reflective of the original POV of the Latin Adversus Marcionem associated with Tertullian.

E)  Tertullian and Epiphanius's say Marcion cut things which only appear in Matthew
It is perplexing, then, that Tertullian periodically charges Marcion with the excision of material which does not appear in Luke, but is seemingly to be found in Matthew or Mark. In the following pages I will raise a conjecture which may help explain the presence of this feature in AM. Briefly, I will present evidence which suggests that Tertullian's text of Luke may have contained some harmonizations with Matthew and/or Mark. Thus when he saw only Lukan elements in the text of Marcion's Gospel, while his own text also contained Matthean and/or Markan elements, Tertullian assumed that Marcion had omitted the latter material. Before I examine this evidence, however, I will present and assess previous explanations of this aspect of Tertullian's critique of Marcion's Gospel.
  1. C. T. Ward suggested that Tertullian simply made a mistake. Since Tertullian charged that Marcion removed passages which "were never in Luke, but belonged to Mark or Matthew [he] could not have used Luke's Gospel for comparison while writing'' AM .4 According to Ward, while Tertullian should have used Luke to compare with Marcion's Gospel, he actually employed either Matthew or Mark. 
  2. Some scholars have suggested that Tertullian treated all four Gospels as a single unit. Thus, when he accused Marcion of removing something from "the Gospel," Tertullian meant to imply not just Luke, but also Matthew, Mark, and John. An exchange between W. R. Cassels and B. F. Westcott will serve to make this point clear. In AM 4.7.5 Tertullian censures Marcion for omitting two non-Lukan sayings, one of which corresponds to Matthew 15:24 and the other to Matthew 15:26 and Mark 7:27 — "To your task, Marcion: remove even this from the Gospel, 'I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and, "It is not to take away the children's bread and give it to dogs." passage reveals that Tertullian's procedure was "superficial and hasty," and thus "We have, in fact, no guarantee of the accuracy or trustworthiness of any of [his] statements." Westcott replied, "It may be worthwhile to notice that Tertullian does not say that Marcion removed Matt xv. 24,26 from St. Luke. He simply challenges him to take away from the Gospel what was a well-known part of it. 
  3. Others have suggested that Tertullian's memory occasionally failed him and he confused the texts of the Gospels in his mind. A. Harnack is representative of this position. In AM 2.17.1 Tertullian claims that Marcion struck out from his Gospel a statement similar to Matthew 5:45 — "the facts show that [God] sends rain upon both good and evil and makes his sun rise over just and unjust . . . although Marcion has presumed to erase [this] from the Gospel." Harnack comments: "er [Tertullian] bekann sich nicht darauf, dass der Spruch nicht bei Lukas steht."7 II Several objections may be raised with regard to these positions. [David Williams, 'On Tertullian's Text of Luke'.SecCenf 8(1991), p. 195]
I can still remember reading these words from a photocopy I made of the original journal when I was attending university.  The puzzle has stayed with me all of these years - that is, until I came up with the proper solution.  The reason why Tertullian routinely accuses Marcion of 'cutting' things which only appear Matthew when - it would seem - the narrative is supposed to document 'things Marcion cut from Luke, is because the original author used a Diatessaron.

Williams dismisses Ward's assertion that Tertullian wasn't using Luke by arguing essentially 'of course he does, the text plainly says so.'  Nevertheless as we just saw, the opening words of the treatise as a whole tell us that the material preserved today was rewritten may times over and survived under at least two different historical authors.  Williams own solution then is part of the way there to the correct answer but still not exactly right as Gregory notes:
Thus, taking the evidence of Marcion's opponents at face value, there would seem to be no doubt about the fact that Marcion abridged Luke in order to make a Gospel which he considered appropriate. This is what Irenaeus and Tertullian believed, and their presentation is widely accepted. Yet although the references of Irenaeus and Tertullian to Luke identify Marcion's Gospel with one of the four accounts of the ministry of Jesus used by them, it is important to note that the heresiologists' texts of Luke may not have been identical to a modern day critical edition of Luke. There are at least two ways in which this is important.

First, the evidence of the Gospel citations of Irenaeus and Tertullian suggest that their Gospels reflect the still unstable western tradition. Therefore it is possible both that their versions of Luke may have contained harmonising readings not necessarily associated by modern readers with Luke, or by Marcion with his Gospel, and also that these readings may have been later than the text of Marcion's Gospel and thus not excised by him. For example, there are three instances where Tertullian accuses Marcion of having excised from his Gospel Jesus' statement (known from Matthew, not Luke) that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it (Williams 1991).  [Williams] argues that Tertullian's text of Luke may have contained some harmonizations with Matthew and/or Mark, such as Matthew 5:17, which he accuses Marcion of removing from Luke (Against Marcion 4.7. 4; 4.9.15; 4.12.14) and a harmony of Luke 6.35 with Matthew 5.45. [Andrew Gregory The Reception of Luke Acts p. 174]
This helps explain a number of important features of the Adversus Marcionem tradition - most notably the Galatians first canon of the Pauline letters.  To be certain then, if - as I have suggested - the author of the original material was an eastern (Palutian) Christian like Ephrem, living in the environs of Edessa combating the Marcionite gospel by means of a rival Catholic 'Diatessaron' and then this text was reworked by Irenaeus in order to make it reflective of the existence of Luke and this second text translated into Latin with subsequent minor changes we can at last better explain not only the references of 'Marcion cut things that only appear in Matthew' in Adversus Marcion but also 'Marcion cut things which only appear in Mark' and more importantly the 'Marcion cut things which only appear in John'

A comprehensive list of these references to Marcion 'cutting things' which only appear in Matthew include:

24. 'Marcion cut Matthew 4:13' - “It behoved Marcion’s Christ to have forborne all connection whatever with the domestic localities of the Creator's Christ.” [18:37, 24:19] - “Nazareth” not mentioned by either Tertullian or Epiphanius. Ephrem makes a similar statement that 'Nazareth' is replaced by 'Bethsaida' in the Marcionite gospel

25. 'Marcion cut Matthew 5:17 - Take the gospel [or the evangelicon] of Marcion, and you will presently see at the very beginning a proof of their impudence. For they have left out our Lord's genealogy from and Abraham. And if you proceed a little farther, you will see another instance of their wickedness, in altering our Lord's words. "I came not," says he, " to destroy the law or the prophets." But they have ' made it thus: " Think ye, that I came to fulfil the law or the prophets? I am come to destroy, ' not to fulfil.'" [Adv Marc ]

26. 'Marcion cut Matthew 4:14' This argument was developed by David Inglis. “But since both the place and the work of illumination according to the prophecy are compatible with Christ, we begin to discern that He is the subject of the prophecy, which shows that at the very outset of His ministry, He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them; [c.f. Mt 5:17] for Marcion has erased the passage as an interpolation.”

Tertullian is referring to something in his copy of Lk that he did not see in Mcg, but what passage did he not see? At first sight he appears to be saying that the text we see in Mt 5:17 was in his copy of Lk, but not in Mcg. However, from the sentence construction it is more likely that he is just using Mt 5:17 to highlight the fact that, by his actions regarding “the place and the work of illumination according to the prophecy,” Christ in Mcg is fulfilling the same prophecies as Christ in Lk. As a result it is more likely that “the place and the work of illumination according to the prophecy” were not present in Mcg. The “work of illumination” is mentioned in Jesus’ reading in vv. 4:18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, [c.f. Isa 61:1a] and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, [c.f. Isa 61:1b] To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. [c.f. Isa 61:2a] 

From this it appears that “and recovering of sight to the blind,” which is a reference to “the work of illumination” but is not part of Isa 61, was not in Mcg. The place of illumination is not referred to here, but is mentioned in Isa 9:1-2, previously quoted by Tertullian. Although we do not today see any reference to this passage in Lk, we do see a version of Isa 9:1-2 at Mt 4:14-16, at the beginning of the Capernaum passage:
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: [Mt 4:13] That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, [Mt 4:14]  The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; [Mt 4:15] The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. [Mt 4:16] 

It is possible that Tertullian saw this text in Lk, but it is instead more likely that in his copy v. 4:31 read the same as the variant in Bezae:
And came down to Capernaum, a city near the sea, in the borders ot Zabulon and Nephthalim, and taught them on the sabbaths.

The actual solution is that Marcion's text was the same as Clement's in Stromata 1.  But that is an unnecessary diversion.  

27. 'Marcion cut Matthew 5:45 - "Because," says He, "He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." [Luke 6:35] Well done, Marcion! How cleverly have you withdrawn from Him the showers and the sunshine. – Tertullian expected to see Mt 5:45 in the Marcionite gospel. [Tertullian Adv Marc 4:17]
Now, undoubtedly, He is the good God who “sends rain on the just and on the unjust, and makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good;” Matthew 5:45 sustaining and nourishing and assisting even Marcionites themselves! [Tertullian Adv Marc. 4.36] 
 Marcion, a very mouthpiece of ungodliness ; for one who teaches different Gods, one good, the other just, contradicts the Son, who says Rigtheous Father [John 17.25]. Again, one who says that the Father is different from the Maker of the world, is at variance with the Son who says, If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the to-morrow is cast into the oven [Luke 12.8]; and Who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [Matt 5:45] This Marcion, then, came next, the originator of another error; for being refuted by the texts from the Old Testament which are cited in the New, he who had already effaced the idea of God, was the first to venture also on cutting out those very testimonies to the word of faith preached in the Gospel ; and to consent to weaken the Church's faith, as though there had been no heralds of it. [Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 6:15] 
Marcion, therefore, himself, by dividing God into two, maintaining one to be good and the other judicial, does in fact, on both sides, put an end to deity. For he that is the judicial one, if he be not good, is not God, because he from whom goodness is absent is no God at all; and again, he who is good, if he has no judicial power, suffers the same [loss] as the former, by being deprived of his character of deity. And how can they call the Father of all wise, if they do not assign to Him a judicial faculty? For if He is wise, He is also one who tests [others]; but the judicial power belongs to him who tests, and justice follows the judicial faculty, that it may reach a just conclusion; justice calls forth judgment, and judgment, when it is executed with justice, will pass on to wisdom. Therefore the Father will excel in wisdom all human and angelic wisdom, because He is Lord, and Judge, and the Just One, and Ruler over all. For He is good, and merciful, and patient, and saves whom He ought: nor does goodness desert Him in the exercise of justice, nor is His wisdom lessened; for He saves those whom He should save, and judges those worthy of judgment. Neither does He show Himself unmercifully just; for His goodness, no doubt, goes on before, and takes precedency. The God, therefore, who does benevolently cause His sun to rise upon all, and sends rain upon the just and unjust, shall judge those who, enjoying His equally distributed kindness, have led lives not corresponding to the dignity of His bounty; but who have spent their days in wantonness and luxury, in opposition to His benevolence, and have, moreover, even blasphemed Him who has conferred so great benefits upon them. [Irenaeus Adv Haer 3.25.3,4] For God the Lord and Demiurge, in caring for all, makes his sun rise on evil and good, sends his rain on those who blaspheme and those who glorify him, and nourishes all. [Epiphanius Against the Marcionite Sectarians of Lucian] And, to prove that the just man belongs in the category of goodness, he said, 'Be ye like unto your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on good and evil, and sendeth rain on just and unjust,'32 to make it plain that just is good and good is just, and that evil is unjust, and unjust, evil. [Epiphanius Against the Ptolemaeans] 
There can be no doubt that an early writer before Irenaeus 'alerted' the world to Marcion's editing of Matt 5:45 out of the gospel. It is probably Tertullian's source and likely saw Luke 6:35 immediately followed by Matt 5:45. This sounds like Justin's harmonized gospel from what I can remember. Justin I think witnesses sayings 'harmonized' in this way. Is Justin the source?

28. 'Marcion cut Matthew 8:4' - Scholion < One >, from Marcion’s Own Version of the Gospel "Go shew thyself unto the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded – that this may be a testimony unto you,” instead of the Saviour’s, “for a testimony unto them.” (Scholion 1) In Elenchus 1 (b) Epiphanius then states: “And offer for thy cleansing.” Even if you excise “the gift,” it will be evident, from the word, “offer,” that he is speaking of a gift. From this it appears that while Mcg had “offer,” Epiphanius knew a slightly different variant of this verse, containing “the gift,” as we see today in Mt 8:4.

29. 'Marcion cut Matthew 10:10' - Who anciently enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth, that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from his labor, on the principle that the worker is worthy of his hire? Marcion may expunge such precepts, but no matter, provided the sense of them survives. [Tertullian Adv Marc 4:21] Tertullian expected to see Mt 10:10c after v. 9:3 in the gospel of Marcion.  David Inglis writes, " He also appears to suggest that Marcion has removed text that we only see in Mt 10:10: He sends forth His disciples to preach the kingdom of God. [9:1-2] … He forbids their taking anything for their journey, by way of either food or raiment. [9:3] … Who anciently enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth, that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from his labor, on the principle that the worker is worthy of his hire? [Mt 10:10c] Marcion may expunge such precepts, but no matter, provided the sense of them survives... But when He charges them to shake off the dust of their feet against such as should refuse to receive them, He also bids that this be done as a witness. [9:5]"

30. '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]
31. 'Marcion cut Matthew 15:24" - Tertullian's second objection (after Mt 5:17) is that Marcion removed the following from the Gospel: I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). This passage too is only in Matthew, and nowhere in St Luke. This could suggest that both of Tertullian's objections are about Marcion's Gospel in general, Tertullian evidently assuming Marcion had no reason for accepting one Gospel in preference to another; but in that case he was producing no specific evidence against his adversary. It is possible that Tertullian's Gospel text was not accurate and contained a mixture of readings from several Gospels. [Richard Simon Critical History of the New Testament p. 24 - 25] Detrahe voces Christi mei : res loquentur. Ecce venit in synagogam, certe ad oves perditas Israelis. Ibid, p. 408. 7. This text also is not in Luke, but in Matt xv. 24. [Lardner p. 434] Marcion removed the following from the Gospel: I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). [Richard Simon Critical History of the Bible p. 434]

32. 'Marcion cut Matthew 15:26' - the very same passage in Adversus Marcionem says both were cut. "It will, however, be vain for him [Marcion] to deny that Christ uttered in word what He forthwith did partially indeed. For the prophecy about place He at once fulfilled. From heaven straight to the synagogue. As the adage runs: "The business on which we are come, do at once." Marcion must even expunge from the Gospel, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel; "[Mt 15.24] and, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs," [Mt 15.26] -- in order, forsooth, that Christ may not appear to be an Israelite."

33. 'Marcion cut even more from this section than merely Matthew 15:24 - 26' - from David Inglis - Here Tertullian accuses Marcion of removing anything reporting actual sayings of Jesus, while narrative descriptions of Jesus’ actions are left in place:
“It will, however, be vain for him to deny that Christ uttered in word what He forthwith did partially indeed. For the prophecy about place He at once fulfilled. From heaven straight to the synagogue. As the adage runs: "The business on which we are come, do at once."
“Withdraw all the sayings of my Christ, His acts shall speak.”
34. 'Marcion cut Matthew 16:17 - 19 - The publican who was chosen by the Lord, [Luke 5:27] he adduces for a proof that he was chosen as a stranger to the law and uninitiated in Judaism, by one who was an adversary to the law. The case of Peter escaped his memory, who, although he was a man of the law, was not only chosen by the Lord, but also obtained the testimony of possessing knowledge which was given to him by the Father. – Tertullian expected to see Mt 16:17 [or possibly Mt 16:17-19] in the Marcionite gospel [Tertullian Adv Marc 4:11]

35. 'Marcion cut Matthew 19:3 - 8' - As regards Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV, 34,' it seems 'very probable that Marcion, when dealing with Lk. 16:18, also considered and rejected Matt. 19:3- 8.' Here Harnack calls on the support of Zahn, op. cit. I, p. 670. [Hans von Campenhausen Formation of the Christian Canon p. 153]

36. Tertullian cites Matt 19:16 - 19 as being present in his commonly held gospel gospel with the Marcionites - "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul (anima), and with all thy strength " (Anti-Mar., iv. 25). Tertullian pronounced Marcion's text as “heretical” and “mutilated.” If Tertullian would have checked, he would have found Marcion's verses in Matthew (19:16-19)! By accepting the texts of Matthew without any alteration, there is now no need to view Marcion's Gospel as an extravagant mutilation of Luke. Among the earliest churches, Matthew's was held to be the earliest Gospel.[Ray Embry, the Enigma p. 103]

37. 'Marcion cut Matthew 27:35' - "Tertullian says (in the 4th chapter of the preceding Book) that Marcion erased the passage which gives an account of the parting of the raiment of our Saviour among the soldiers. But the reason he assigns for the erasure-`respiciens Psalmi prophetiam'-shows that in this, as well as in the few other instances which we have already named, where Tertullian has charged Marcion with so altering passages, his memory deceived him into mistaking Matthew for Luke, for the reference to the passage in the Psalm is only given by St. Matthew xxvii. 35. [ibid]

38. Marcion cut Mark 2:10' - Epiphanius records this variation in Mcg’s version of v. 5:24 (emphasis added): But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power to forgive sins upon earth. (Scholion 2) In the KJV the parallels at Mk 2:10a and Mt 9:6a both read: But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, However, in Mk 2:10a the Aramaic Bible in Plain English has: But that you may know The Son of Man is authorized to forgive sins in the earth NA27, B, Θ (038), 157, pc also have this order in Mk 2:10a, suggesting that this may have been the original form of these words.

39. Marcion's gospel contained references to other Johannine passages J. Schafers, Eine altsyrische antimarkionitische Erkldrung von Parabeln des Herrn und zwei andere altsyrische Abhandlungen zu Texten der Evangelien. Mil Beitrdgen zu Tatians Diatessaron und Markions Neuem Testament, NTA 4.1.2 finds a number of references to the Marcionite gospel in this Syriac text including Jn 15:5a, 2a and Jn 3:29a. The more famous reference is the opening words at its (the Gospel's) beginning "O miracle upon miracle, ecstasy, power and astonishment, it is that one can say nothing about it (the Gospel) nor think about it, no compare it to anything"

40. Marcion cut things from John - Marcion, a very mouthpiece of ungodliness ; for one who teaches different Gods, one good, the other just, contradicts the Son, who says Rigtheous Father [John 17.25]. Again, one who says that the Father is different from the Maker of the world, is at variance with the Son who says, If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the to-morrow is cast into the oven [Luke 12.8]; and Who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [Matt 5:45] This Marcion, then, came next, the originator of another error; for being refuted by the texts from the Old Testament which are cited in the New, he who had already effaced the idea of God, was the first to venture also on cutting out those very testimonies to the word of faith preached in the Gospel ; and to consent to weaken the Church's faith, as though there had been no heralds of it. [Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 6:15] There are three refutations of Marcion from 'the gospel' - John 17.25, Luke 12.8, Matt 5:45. Since the last two are explicitly confirmed to be standard accusations of Marcion 'removing things' from his gospel that contradicted his thesis, the first John 17:25 must be similarly regarded.

F) Tertullian and Epiphanius and all Western witnesses to the 'cut Luke' origins for the Marcionite gospel derive their information from Irenaeus's falsification of Justin's original Against Marcion


Let's be honest.  The fact that we can finally explain why Tertullian keeps saying 'Marcion cut this' - a saying which only appears now in Matthew - is a huge step forward.  Nevertheless it pales in comparison with discovering how many references there are to Marcion's gospel actually containing things from Luke, Mark and John or that Marcion's gospel might have been Mark or John's gospel.  We find ourselves at least at the point where we can dismiss the entire 'Marcion is a corrupt form of Luke' argument.  If - as I have demonstrated - the original anti-Marcionite author of Adversus Marcionem understood Marcion (or 'the Marcionites') to have a parallel 'Diatessaronic gospel' to that used in his community we can can be certain:

  1. Our surviving Adversus Marcionem Books Four and Five (the books where the information about the Marcionite New Testament canon are principally found) represent a small portion of the original treatise (which necessarily did not merely focus on Luke's gospel and the order of its narrative).  The same thing can be seen in Origen's Commentary on John which only mentions the passages from Heracleon which had to do with 'according to John' (it is clear he also made reference to material from 'according to Luke' in other sources).  Indeed Origen's Commentary on Matthew was clearly 'boiled down' from a larger commentary on a Diatessaronic-gospel used in Alexandria.
  2. Since the original author did not develop his arguments against Marcion in relation to Luke but a Diatessaron (likely that used by Justin and Tatian) the 'Marcion corrupted Luke' and the very introduction of 'according to Luke' must have been subsequent to the understanding that Marcion corrupted a Diatessaronic-gospel. 

All original reports from individuals who claimed to have seen a Marcionite gospel firsthand (as we see above) attest to the texts ''Diatessaronic' character.  The only exception is Irenaeus, whose lost 'Against Marcion' was likely only an adaptation of Justin's original work 'remodeled' to conform to his 'circumcised' Luke claims and moreover his broad meta-thesis regarding four gospels 'corrupted' by four heretical communities.  Irenaeus re-worked Against Marcion is likely the second version of Adversus Marcionem (see Adv Marc 1:1 cited above), the ancestor to the adapted form of Tertullian's text in Book Four of Adv Marc on the one hand and Epiphanius's elaborate scholia in the Panarion.

Tertullian

41. Tertullian and Irenaeus share a great number of unique scriptural readings even though one wrote in Greek and the other Latin.  The best way to explain these shared readings is that Tertullian translated and remodeled original treatises written by Irenaeus.  Examples of Tertullian copying out original treatises of Irenaeus necessarily include his Against the Valentinians (Irenaeus's Against Heresies Book One) and his Prescription Against the Heresies (cf. Cyril of Jerusalem's mention of a treatise of this name written by Irenaeus). Roberts also notices other striking parallels between the two men "In Adversus Valentinianos (c 6) Tertullian says that he intends to follow among others ‘Irenaeus, that very exact inquirer into all doctrines, and a comparison of that treatise with the A dversus Omnes Haereses (I , cc 1—12) shows that the extent of his indebtedness is considerable It is little more, in fact, than a translation of the work of Irenaeus. In addition, the following points may be noted. The account of Simon Magus and Helen (Tertullian, De Anima, c. 34) is evidently copied from Irenaeus (I., c. 23). The account of Menander (Tertullian, De Anima, c. 50) is also obviously inspired by the same chapter of Irenaeus. Both complain that the heretics follow neither Scripture nor tradition (Irenaeus, III. 3; Tertullian, De Praes. Haer., 17, 32). Both mention the continuous |p59 succession of bishops in the Churches (Iren., III. 3; Tert., De Praes. Haer., 32). That the Church alone has the true doctrine is asserted by both (Irenaeus, III. 4; Tertullian, De Praes. Haer., 26—29), that heresies are of recent growth (ibid.), and that Christ and the apostles delivered the truth without deception (Ireneaus, III. 5; Tertullian, De Praes. Haer., 27). The systematic use of Scripture in Tertullian’s later works is along the lines followed by Irenaeus throughout. Both state that the heretics derived their opinions from the philosophers (Irenaeus, II. 14 Tertullian, De Praes. Haer., c. 7, Apol., c. 47). Both also refer to the Homerocentones (Irenaeus, I. 9); Tertullian, De Praes. Haer., c. 39)."

42. Tertullian's others works have been identified to have originated with Justin - Dunn notes Adversus Iudaeos "is a work that relies heavily upon Justin's Dialogus cum Tryphone."  This pattern also holds true for large parts of Adv Marc 4's 'sister text' Adv Marc 5.  This hypothesis would agree with the assumption that the ur-text of Adversus Marcionem 4 & 5 as well as Adversus Marcionem 3 originated with Justin and got to Tertullian in a reworked Irenaean form.  This would account for Adversus Iudaeos also being 'translated' and reworked by Tertullian.  It represents an earlier form of Adversus Marcionem 3 (something almost universally acknowledged) and Tertullian perhaps owing to his Montantism assumed that the similarities were a result of both authors being inspired by the same 'Holy Spirit.' Ernest Evans commenting on parallel harmonized readings in 2 Clement and Justin writes in his introduction of his translation of Against Praxeas " The reference to Luke 1. 35 is not explicit: but that the homilist was acquainted with John 1. 14 and 4. 24 is too evident to admit of denial, and the association of these texts with the words of the Annunciation is probable. Justin Martyr evidently interpreted Luke in the light of John, and it was probably from him that Tertullian copied this exegesis, as he copied so much else."

43 Tertullian adapted or received an adapted MS which transformed Justin's original 'Diatessaron based' commentary 'Against Marcion' into a 'Luke based' critique of Marcion.  Tertullian 'says' that Marcion erased things from his gospel which do not appear in Luke but only Matthew because Justin wrote the original treatise working from his 'gospel harmony' and these references were left intact ignored by subsequent reworking of the MS.  This would also account for Tertullian's use of videtur "it seems" when identifying Marcion's alleged corruption of Luke.  As Raschke (p 37) notes Tertullian's endorsement of the Marcion's 'cutting' of Luke is rather weak. It is only a presumption for Tertullian for he begins "It seems Marcion chose Luke as the one to mutilate" (caederet, Tert Adv Marc. 2).  He uses videtur "it seems" because either he is uncertain or he is aware that his audience might be aware of another version of the text (cf. Adv Marc 1:1) where a Diatessaron based critique of the gospel of Marcion was floating around.  His words are nam ex iis commentatoribus quos habemus Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse quem caederet. Evans translates the passage - "out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate" but Holmes "now, of the authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have singled out Luke for his mutilating process." It is rarely noted that the entire thesis of Book Four is based on a truth which only 'seems' to be true. Tertullian does not claim to know 'for a fact' that the Marcionite gospel = cut Luke.

44. Other signs of Justin's original 'Diatessaron-based' critique of Marcion's gospel.  
It is not only Matt 5:45 and Luke 6:35 which betray the original Diatessaron of the author of Adversus Marcionem.  It would seem that Luke 11:27 'blessed is the womb that bore you' and the material around Matthew 12:49 originally formed a unit in the Diatessaronic tradition.  The Arabic Diatessaron 16 has
and while he was saying that, a woman from the multitude lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts that nursed thee. But he said unto her, Blessed is he that heareth the word of God, and keepeth it. And while he was speaking unto the multitude, there came unto him his mother and his brethren, and sought to speak with him; and they were not able, because of the multitude; and they stood without and sent, calling him unto them. A man said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren are standing without, and seek to speak with thee. But he answered unto him that spake unto him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he beckoned with his hand, stretching it out towards his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother! and behold, my brethren! And every man that shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven is my brother, and my sister, and my mother. 
Compare this with what is noted both in Against Marcion Book Three:
Also that woman Philumena did better in persuading Apelles and the other deserters of Marcion, that Christ was indeed clothed with veritable flesh, yet without nativity, having taken it on loan from the elements. But if Marcion was afraid that belief in the flesh might also carry with it belief in nativity—there is no doubt that he who was seen to be man was naturally thought to have been born. A certain woman cried out, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked: and how comes it that his mother and his brethren are reported standing without? But we shall consider these texts in their proper place. Certainly when he himself described himself as the Son of man, this was a claim to have been born. For the moment—so that I may defer all these matters until I come to assess the evidence of the gospel—yet which I have already established, that if he who was seen to be a man had without question to be accepted as having been born, to no purpose has conjectured that belief in nativity can be ruled out by the supposition of imaginary flesh 
And again On the Flesh of Christ:
But as often as there is discussion of the nativity, all those who reject it as prejudging the issue concerning the verity of the flesh in Christ, claim that the Lord himself denies having been born, on the ground that he asked, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? So let Apelles too hear what answer I have already given to Marcion in that work in which I have made appeal to the Gospel which he accepts, namely that the background of that remark must be taken into consideration. Well then, in the first place no one would ever have reported to him that his mother and his brethren were standing without unless he were sure that he had a mother and brethren and that it was they whose presence he was then announcing, having either previously known them, or at least then and there made their acquaintance. This I say, in spite of the fact that the heresies have deliberately removed from the Gospel the statements that those who marvelled at his doctrine said that both Joseph the carpenter, his reputed father, and Mary his mother, and his brothers and sisters, were very well known to them. 'But,' they say, 'it was for the sake of tempting him that they announced to him the mother and the brethren whom actually he had not.' .... he answered also that other exclamation--not as denying his mother's womb and breasts, but as indicating that those are more blessed who hear the word of God. We have expounded, in terms of the truth of the Gospel as it was until Marcion and Apelles mutilated and corrupted it, those passages which these regard as their most effective armoury: and this by itself ought to have been enough to establish the fact of Christ's nativity, and thereby to prove his possession of human flesh. But inasmuch as these Apelleasts make a special point of sheltering behind the dishonour of the flesh, alleging that it was constructed for seduced souls by that fiery prince of evil and therefore is unworthy of Christ, and therefore he must needs have got him a substance from the stars, I have the task of beating them back with the aid of their own ordnance. 
It would seem very clear once this is connected with the consistent 'error' made by Tertullian that Marcion cut things from his gospel which were never in Luke that the original author of the material against Marcion was using a Diatessaron.

In Against Marcion Book Three and On the Flesh of Christ we see Tertullian using a source who originally employed a Diatessaron. In those texts Luke 11:27 (= Blessed be the womb that bore Thee) and Matthew 12:28 (= "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you") appeared back to back. We know this because the same pattern appears in the Arabic Diatessaron, Codex Fuldensis and perhaps most importantly Ephrem's Harmony Gospel. In this last text we completely tear a whole in the wall that separates us from the truth because it is clear that Ephrem knows that Marcion's text also resembled a Diatessaron when he writes:
Blessed the womb which bore you and the breasts which suckled you. Marcion said, "They were indeed tempting him, as to whether he was born. Similarly in the case of "Behold your mother and brothers are seeking you." What was the purpose of the appearance of his body and nourishment? [Marcion] said, "That he might hide his greatness and make them believe that he was corporeal, because they were not capable of [grasping] it." Why should he have denied his birth? For if, through denying this, he wished to show them that he was not born, he would not have gone on and made himself a brother of his disciples who was born. If, from what he denied above, he refuted the idea that he was not born, then it must be believed, from what he said here, that he was born. Even if [hypothetically] kinship would have been blotted out by his denial of his mother, nevertheless through the acknowledgement of his brothers, the lineage of his paternal ancestry was made known. Moreover, even if he showed that he did not have parents because he did not recognize either his mother or his brothers, nevertheless he did say, "Why do you call me good," which was something he did not say above, namely, "Why do you call me conceived and born"? Blessed is the womb that bore you. He took blessedness from the one who bore him and gave it to those who were worshipping him. It was with Mary for a certain time, but it would be with those who worshipped him for eternity. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. (Commentary on the Harmony Gospel, McCarthy trans. p. 179 - 180) 
45. Tertullian treated the four gospels as a single unit - Since Tertullian charged that Marcion removed passages which "were never in Luke, but belonged to Mark or Matthew [he] could not have used Luke's Gospel for comparison while writing'' Adv Marc .4 According to Ward, while Tertullian should have used Luke to compare with Marcion's Gospel, he actually employed either Matthew or Mark. (2) Some scholars have suggested that Tertullian treated all four Gospels as a single unit. [Second Century 1991 p. 123]

46. The surviving Latin texts associated with Tertullian inevitably go back to Greek originals or things written by other people. Theodor Zahn pointed out that Tertullian's Latin work Scorpiace (Σκορπιακή) has a Greek title. Oehler says that J. Pamelius, in his epistle dedicatory to Philip II. of Spain, makes mention of a Greek copy of Tertullian in the library of that king. We've mentioned the works derived from Irenaeus and Justin but one should also consider Against Hermogenes was certainly written by Theophilus of Antioch (which explains the odd start to the text where Tertullian is forced to imply that the same 'Hermogenes' whom Theophilus railed against in the previous century made his way down to Carthage cf. Vinzent Christ's Resurrection p. 124).  What a prudent observer should conclude from this continuous recycling of material in the late second and early third centuries is (a) that the early Church Fathers not only plagiarized the writings of those who proceeded them but (b) had no scruples about 'correcting' strange or outdated beliefs and practices referenced in those texts.  Hence when von Soden made the astonishing suggestion that "Fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen all used Diatessarons in addition to their (normative) text. All deviations from the (normative) text in the early Fathers were due to the (corrupting) influence of the Diatessaron" (Petersen p. 156) he was only recognizing the borrowing of these men from Patristic sources who lived before Irenaeus's introduction of the fourfold gospel.

Epiphanius

47. Epiphanius is a "generally untrustworthy" witness [Legge Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity p. 151]Plooj has perhaps the best line on the subject of the bishop's dishonesty
I think Epiphanius ought to be the last witness we should trust uncontrolled, especially in his testimonies on heretics and heretical writings. He combines all kinds of notices, rumours, and calumnies into abracadabra often completely incomprehensible." [A Primitive Text of the Diatessaron p. 78]. 
48. Epiphanius was heavily indebted to Irenaeus, another unreliable source, for most of his material on the Marcionites.  As Williams notes in his translation Epiphanius's source material is clearly distinguishable.  Making reference to the entire section which precedes his lengthy discussion of Marcionite corruption of scripture he says:
this Section follows the outline of Hipp. Synt., which is represented by PsT 6.2-3 and Fil. 45; it inserts data from Irenaeus. (Fil. may have used Epiph as well.) Epiph has also read Eusebius (H. E. 4.11.1; 5.13.1-4) and his data about Marcion's 'gods' may be based on a faulty memory of this author.
Since Epiphanius passes off this first section on the beliefs of the Marconites as his own, it would stand to reason that his main two sources here - i.e. Irenaeus and Hippolytus - are Epiphanius's sources for the scriptures associated with the Marcionites.  Unfortunately both Irenaeus's Against Marcion and Hippolytus's Syntagma are now lost to us.  All that we have available to us is Tertullian's reworking and Latin adaptation of the former.

So why would Epiphanius have passed off a composite list of 'scriptural references' to Marcion's gospel as his own?  There are many explanations for this of course but the most obvious as we shall see is that Epiphanius 'cherry picked' his evidence from these sources - i.e. he didn't make mention of the many times that his sources either gospel references from Marcion's gospel which came from the other gospels besides Luke (if that was really was evidenced in his sources) and more importantly still when they accused Marcion of cutting things from his gospel which aren't found in 'according to Luke.'

We will have more to say about this later but let's scrutinize this first section of the Panarion for examples of Epiphanius's borrowings from Irenaeus. Unlike Irenaeus, Epiphanius acknowledges the Marcionites said there were three powers (the good god, the just god and the devil) rather than Irenaeus's dualistic claims.  Nevertheless a great deal of material still comes from Irenaeus, and much of that is preserved in Latin by Tertullian. For instance when Epiphanius says "Marcionite supposed mysteries are celebrated in front of the catechumens" William's rightly notes that this is derived from a statement in Tert. Praescr. 41.1-2, although Tertullian does not specify Marcionites.

We read there "In the first place, it is uncertain who is a catechumen and who a baptized believer; they all alike reproach, they all alike hear, and all alike pray— even heathens, if any should have chanced to enter. They will "throw that which is holy to dogs, and pearls" (albeit false ones) "to swine." While it is true that 'Marcionites' are not specifically mentioned in Praescr 41 the material continues to 42 where they are identified alongside the Valentinians. It is important to remember also that Cyril of Jerusalem identifies Irenaeus as the author of a like-named treatise.

In the very next sentence Epiphanius mentions that Marcion:
claims that we should fast on the Sabbath for the following reason: 'Since it is the rest of the God of the Jews who made the world and rested the seventh day, let us fast on this day, so as to do nothing congenial to the God of the Jews. (42.3.4)
Williams correctly points to Tertullian's discussion at Adv. Marc. 4.12 as the original source for this idea.  The next sentence is correctly identified as Iren. 1.27.3.  There follows a few sentences on baptism which doesn't derive its origin from Irenaeus but the next section certainly does. After copying word for word Iren. 1.27.3  Epiphanius goes back to Praescr 41.5 (the section cited above). Compare:
They even permit women to administer baptism! For, given that they even venture to celebrate the mysteries in front of catechumens, everything they do is simply ridiculous (Pan 42.4.5)
with:
the very women amongst the heretics, how precocious they are! They presume to teach, to dispute, to practise exorcism, to promise cures, perchance also to baptize! (Praescr 41.5)
And then finally, just before he goes on to cite his treatise on the Marcionite gospel this long section from Epiphanius's attack against Marcion which is again identified as deriving from Irenaeus by Williams.  Compare:
And how can Marcion's own tally of three principles be substantiated? How can the one which does work—either the work of salvation, or the other kinds—in the bad god's territory be considered 'good'?  For suppose the world does not belong to him, and yet he sent his Only-begotten into the world to take things from someone else's world, which he neither begot nor made—it will be found, either that he is invading someone else's domain or that, being poor and having nothing of his own, he is advancing against another person's territory to procure things which he does not already have. And how can the demiurge act as judge between both parties? Whom can he judge, then? If he presides as judge over the articles which have been taken from the God on high, he is more powerful than the God on high—seeing that he hales the possessions of the God on high into his court, or so Marcion thought.

And if he is a judge at all, he is just. But from the word, 'just,' I shall show that goodness and justice are the same thing. Anything that is just is also good. It is because of his being good that, with impartial justice, God grants what is good to one who has done good. And he cannot be opposed to the good God in point of goodness, since he provides the good with good on the principle of justice, and the bad with the penalty of retribution.  Nor, again, can he be good if he gives the good reward to the unrepentantly evil at the end, even though for now he makes his sun rise on good and evil men and provides them with his rain, because of their freedom of choice at this present.  The nature of a God who provides the evil with the reward of salvation in the world to come, and does not rather hate what is wicked and evil, cannot be good and just.

But as to Marcion's third, evil god. If he has the power to do evil things and master either the denizens of the world who belong to the God on high or the ones who belong to the intermediate, just God—then this god must be stronger than the two whom Marcion calls Gods, since he has the power to seize what is not his.  And then the two will be adjudged weaker than the one evil god, since they are powerless to resist and rescue their possessions from the one who is seizing them and turning them into evil.

And to realize what a joke the tramp's nonsense is, let us observe it again in another light. If the evil god is at all evil, and yet he seizes the good men from the good God and the just ones from the just God and does not seize only his own, then the evil god will turn out not to be evil—desiring the good and claiming them at law, because they are better.  And if, besides, he judges his own and exacts a penalty from wrongdoers, this judge of evil men cannot be evil after all.

And Marcion's thesis will turn out to be self-refuting in every way.  But again, tell me, how did the three principles come to be? And who was it that set a boundary for them? If each is enclosed in its own space, then these three, which are enclosed in certain places that contain them, cannot be considered perfect. The thing that contains each one must be greater than the thing that is contained. And the thing that is contained can no longer be called 'God' but rather, the boundary which contains it must (be so called).  But even if, when they met, each one was allotted its own place by concession and, being in its own place, no principle crowds or encroaches on another, the principles cannot be opposed to each other, and none of them can be considered evil. They mind their own business in a just, calm and tranquil fashion, and do not try to overstep.

But if the evil god is overpowered, coerced and oppressed by the God on high although he has received his allotment and is in his own place, and no part of this place belongs to the God on high nor has anything here, I mean in the evil god's territory, been created by him—the God on high will turn out to be the more tyrannical, certainly not 'good,' since he sent his own Son, or Christ, to take what belonged to someone else. And where is the boundary which, according to the tramp's statement of his thesis, separates the three first principles? We shall need a fourth of some kind, abler and wiser than the three and an expert surveyor, who assigned its limits to each and made peace between the three, so that they would not quarrel or send anyone into each other's realms.

And this person who convinced the three principles will be found to be a fourth—both wiser and abler than the others. And he too, once more, must be sought in his own place, from which he came to intervene between the three and wisely assign its portion to each, so that they would not wrong each other. But if the two principles are resident in the realm of the one, that is, the realm of the demiurge, with the evil one always active in his territories and the good God's Christ a visitor there, then the judge will turn out not be only a demiurge and a judge, but good as well, since he permits the two to do what they please in his domain. Or else we shall find that he is feeble and unable to stop the alien robbers of his possessions. But if he is even inferior in power, then his creation cannot exist, but would have given out long ago—carried off every day to his own realm by the evil god, and to the realms on high by the good one. And how can the creation still stand?
with Iren. 2.1.2-5:
In like manner, there is an absolute necessity that He should experience the very same thing at all other points, and should be held in, bounded, and enclosed by those existences that are outside of Him. For that being who is the end downwards, necessarily circumscribes and surrounds him who finds his end in it. And thus, according to them, the Father of all (that is, He whom they call Proon and Proarche), with their Pleroma, and the good God of Marcion, is established and enclosed in some other, and is surrounded from without by another mighty Being, who must of necessity be greater, inasmuch as that which contains is greater than that which is contained. But then that which is greater is also stronger, and in a greater degree Lord; and that which is greater, and stronger, and in a greater degree Lord--must be God.

Now, since there exists, according to them, also something else which they declare to be outside of the Pleroma, into which they further hold there descended that higher power who went astray, it is in every way necessary that the Pleroma either contains that which is beyond, yet is contained (for otherwise, it will not be beyond the Pleroma; for if there is anything beyond the Pleroma, there will be a Pleroma within this very Pleroma which they declare to be outside of the Pleroma, and the Pleroma will be contained by that which is beyond: and with the Pleroma is understood also the first God); or, again, they must be an infinite distance separated from each other--the Pleroma [I mean], and that which is beyond it. But if they maintain this, there will then be a third kind of existence, which separates by immensity the Pleroma and that which is beyond it. This third kind of existence will therefore bound and contain both the others, and will be greater both than the Pleroma, and than that which is beyond it, inasmuch as it contains both in its bosom. In this way, talk might go on for ever concerning those things which are contained, and those which contain. For if this third existence has its beginning above, and its end beneath, there is an absolute necessity that it be also bounded on the sides, either beginning or ceasing at certain other points, [where new existences begin.] These, again, and others which are above and below, will have their beginnings at certain other points, and so on ad infinitum; so that their thoughts would never rest in one God, but, in consequence of seeking after more than exists, would wander away to that which has no existence, and depart from the true God.

These remarks are, in like manner, applicable against the followers of Marcion. For his two gods will also be contained and circumscribed by an immense interval which separates them from one another. But then there is a necessity to suppose a multitude of gods separated by an immense distance from each other on every side, beginning with one another, and ending in one another. Thus, by that very process of reasoning on which they depend for teaching that there is a certain Pleroma or God above the Creator of heaven and earth, any one who chooses to employ it may maintain that there is another Pleroma above the Pleroma, above that again another, and above Bythus another ocean of Deity, while in like manner the same successions hold with respect to the sides; and thus, their doctrine flowing out into immensity, there will always be a necessity to conceive of other Pleroma, and other Bythi, so as never at any time to stop, but always to continue seeking for others besides those already mentioned. Moreover, it will be uncertain whether these which we conceive of are below, or are, in fact, themselves the things which are above; and, in like manner, will be doubtful] respecting those things which are said by them to be above, whether they are really above or below; and thus our opinions will have no fixed conclusion or certainty, but will of necessity wander forth after worlds without limits, and gods that cannot be numbered.

These things, then, being so, each deity will be contented with his own possessions, and will not be moved with any curiosity respecting the affairs of others; otherwise he would be unjust, and rapacious, and would cease to be what God is. Each creation, too, will glorify its own maker, and will be contented with him, not knowing any other; otherwise it would most justly be deemed an apostate by all the others, and would receive a richly-deserved punishment. For it must be either that there is one Being who contains all things, and formed in His own territory all those things which have been created, according to His own will; or, again, that there are numerous unlimited creators and gods, who begin from each other, and end in each other on every side; and it will then be necessary to allow that all the rest are contained from without by some one who is greater, and that they are each of them shut up within their own territory, and remain in it. No one of them all, therefore, is God. For there will be [much] wanting to every one of them, possessing [as he will do] only a very small part when compared with all the rest. The name of the Omnipotent will thus be brought to an end, and such an opinion will of necessity fall to impiety.
To be certain Irenaeus Adv Haer 2.1.2 - 5 isn't the only source here.  But that is the whole point.  Epiphanius blended together principally two separate sources - Irenaeus and his student Hippolytus - into one seamless unit much like the section that follows that deals with the Marcionite scriptures.

49. Epiphanius was not attempting to preserve a definitive list of the Marcionite scriptural amendations.  If you actually look at what he says in the introduction to his lengthy discussion of the Marcionite scriptures one can see immediately that he has taken haphazard notes about the subject of the Marcionite gospel rather than a definitive list of things altered in the text.  He writes "for some of them (the alleged scriptural emendations) had been falsely entered by himself, in an altered form and unlike the authentic copy of the Gospel and the meaning of the apostolic canon.  But others were exactly like both the Gospel and Apostle, unchanged by Marcion but capable of completely demolishing him." (Pan 32.10.1)

As such it would seem that Epiphanius had before him a treatise written against the Marcionite interpretation of scripture where a mix of scriptural references were present.  This explains why much of the cited material in Panarion does not contradict the received text of Luke.  Nevertheless it is extremely puzzling why Epiphanius would have developed such an usual compilation (some alterations mixed with 'correct' readings but which on their own 'destroy' the Marcionite system).  It is puzzling only until we remember that scholars have the same difficulties with Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem. 

As we have already noted, the original critic of Marcion had a habit of working from his own 'harmonized gospel' to attack the heretic.  The reason of course for this, as we have already noted, is that they shared a very similar 'Diatessaronic gospel.'  Nevertheless this original 'harmony' based critique of Marcion was adapted by Irenaeus to filter out all but the explicit citations of Luke in Marcion's gospel.  Nevertheless as has been noted many times before us, passages where the original author accuses or intimates that Marcion 'deleted' things which now only appear in Matthew stayed.  All that Epiphanius has done is further refined the list of Lukan passages from Irenaean adaption of early material, removing the references to 'things Marcion cut which now appear only in Matthew.  Epiphanius also likely had more than the original parent text for Adversus Marcionem 4 & 5 at his disposal.

So whereas Tertullian only intimates that Marcion began his gospel with his descent to a synagogue at Capernaum:
Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own.
Epiphanius says that Marcion cut the first chapters of Luke:
At the very beginning he excised everything Luke had originally composed—his 'inasmuch as many have taken in hand,' and so forth, and the material about Elizabeth and the angel's announcement to Mary the Virgin; about John and Zacharias and the birth at Bethlehem; the genealogy and the story of the baptism. All this he cut out and turned his back on, and made this the beginning of the Gospel, 'In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,' and so on. (32.11.4,5)
The first 'Lukan corruption' that Marcion made is the same in both narratives - "that it may be to you for a testimony." (Pan 32.11.6, Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.9.9-10). Epiphanius goes on to cite a number of passages which are not alterations at all but the second category of citations Epiphanius mentions at the beginning viz "were exactly like both the Gospel and Apostle, unchanged by Marcion but capable of completely demolishing him."

It cannot be doubted that the 'alteration' -'He came down among them (κατέβη ἐν αὐτοῖς).' (Luke 6:16-17) instead of 'He came down with them' (κατέβη μετ' αὐτῶν)- isn't present in Tertullian but it is a minor variant, something which Epiphanius might have seen in an anti-Marcionite treatise.Most of the explicit references to alterations in the Panarion can be traceable to the common source shared with Tertullian.

So Epiphanius's allusion to 'Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me,'(Luke 7:27) being altered as though it refers to John is present in almost all the major sources (cf. Adam. 2.18; Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.18.7 and Ephrem Against Marcion). His reference to an interest in Luke 8:19-20 is picked up numerous times in Tertullian. The explicit reference to a substitution in Luke 9:40-41 has a shared interest in Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.23.1. Epiphanius's notice about an alteration in Luke 10:21 is paralleled in Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.25.1. So too Luke 11:42 with Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.27.4 and Luke 12:8 with Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.28.4.

When Epiphanius says after quoting 'I say unto my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body. Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath authority to cast into hell.' that Marcion did not have, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?' this can certainly be explained by Tertullian's curtailing of the expression at the very same point (Adv Marc 27.5). Furthermore Epiphanius's statement that "instead of He shall confess before the angels of God,' Marcion says, 'before God' is also reflected in Tertullian's citation in Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.28.4.

Similarly the statement in the Panarion that Marcion does not have, 'God doth clothe the grass' is reflective of the citation Luke 12 in Adv Marc 29 where Tertullian along with Bezae do not mention grass or lilies 'toiling.'  Further the snide remark:
"'And your Father knoweth ye have need of these things,' physical things, of course.
is certainly lifted from Tertullian's commentary in the parallel section in Adv Marc 29.  So too the statement which immediately follows in the Panarion.  The substitution of 'the Father' for 'your Father' in Luke 12:32 is minor and happens countless times in any commentary on the section.  So too the next statement with respect to a substitution of 'evening watch' in Marcion's gospel for 'in the second or third watch' (Luke 12:38) it found in a number of existing MSS.

The large excision from chapter 13 in Luke mentioned by Epiphanius next is not referenced by Tertullian but is found neither in Mark or Matthew either and reflects knowledge of Josephus.  It would seem to be a clear example of Epiphanius deriving his information from another source other than Tertullian's.  But the reference to the excision in Luke 13:28. is reflective of Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.30.5 and paralleled in the citations in De Recta in Deum Fide.  The next reference which follows in Epiphanius:
Again, he falsified, 'They shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down in the kingdom,' 'The last shall be first,' and 'The Pharisees came saying, Get thee out and depart, for Herod will kill thee'; also, 'He said, Go ye, and tell that fox,' until the words, 'It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem,' and, 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent, Often would I have gathered, as a hen, thy children,' 'Your house is left unto you desolate,' and, 'Ye shall not see me until ye shall say, Blessed.'
seems to be derived from the same source as the larger excision mentioned earlier as well as the statement which follows "Again, he falsified the entire parable of the two sons, the one who took his share of the property and spent it in dissipation, and the other."

It is worth noting that Tertullian and Epiphanius cite appear to cite the next reference in the Panarion Luke 16:16 differently at first:
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached. (Tertullian)

The law and the prophets were until John, and every man presseth into it. (Epiphanius)
But this may be explained as Epiphanius noting the missing clause 'every man presses into it' in Tertullian.  His next mention of excision - he falsified, 'Say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.' - does not derive from Tertullian and the statement that follows that Marcion excised a great deal' actually contradicts Adv Marc.  As such it demonstrates that Epiphanius was again using another source.

Epiphanius reference to Luke 18:18-20 follows indicating several differences in the Marcionite manuscripts:
One said unto him, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  He replied, “Call not thou me good. One is good, God.” Marcion added, “the Father,” and instead of, “Thou knowest the commandments,” says “I know the commandments.” (Scholion 50) 
While Tertullian does not mention these changes Hippolytus the presumed source for much of the Philosophumena does as he notes:
For if He is a Mediator, He has been, he says, liberated from the entire nature of the Evil Deity. Now, as he affirms, the Demiurge is evil, and his works. For this reason, he affirms, Jesus came down unbegotten, in order that He might be liberated from all (admixture of) evil. And He has, he says, been liberated from the nature of the Good One likewise, in order that He may be a Mediator, as Paul states and as Himself acknowledges: “Why do you call me good? There is one good.” 
Tertullian either refers to or quotes from all these verses. He agrees with Epiphanius regarding the beginning of v. 18:18, reading “a certain man” (or just “one”) instead of “a certain ruler,” although neither recognizes this as a difference.  This matches the parallels in Mt and Mk.

Throughout this exercise I will use 'Diatessaron' and 'Diatessaronic' even though I am well aware that it is assumed to reinforce the pre-existence of four gospels.  The only other term I could find to denote the 'single, long gospel' which I assume to behind the canonical gospels is 'super gospel' which I will use infrequently.

Here are the top one hundred reasons for thinking the Marcionite gospel contained references to (what is from our point of view) - Matthew, Mark and John.

Yet as we shall demonstrate later in this discussion, Tertullian is clearly not citing from Luke but a Diatessaronic text which uses what we would identify as 'Matthew' in much of this section.  In v. 18:20b Tertullian gives the order of commandments as: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother." This is not the order found in either v. 18:20 or the parallel in Mk 10:19, but that found only in Mt 19:18.  To this end, we may argue that wherever Epiphanius recognized that Tertullian's source was quoting from Matthew or using a Diatessaron he either ignored the material or found another source - most likely Hippolytus's Syntagma.

Indeed for the last remaining alterations, which happen to correspond with the closing chapters of the gospel, Epiphanius's seems to have abandoned the material common with Tertullian and chosen his other source.  This source tells Epiphanius that a number of major 'cuts' were taken from the equivalent passages in Luke.  For instance we hear:
52. Marcion falsified, 'He took unto him the twelve, and said, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written in the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered and killed, and the third day he shall rise again.'  He falsified the whole of this.
53. He falsified the passage about the ass and Bethphage, and the one about the city and the temple, because of the scripture, 'My house shall be called an house of prayer, but ye make it a den of thieves.'
54. 'And they sought to lay hands on him and they were afraid.'
55. Again, he excised the material about the vineyard which was let out to husbandmen, and the verse, 'What is this, then, The stone which the builders rejected?'
56. He excised, 'Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, in calling the Lord the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. But he is a God of the living, not of the dead.'
57. He did not have the following: 'Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, saying that the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob is God of the living.'
58. Again he falsified, 'There shall not an hair of your head perish.'
59. Again, he falsified the following: 'Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains,' and so on, because of the words subjoined in the text, 'until all things that are written be fulfilled.'
60. 'He communed with the captains how he might deliver him unto them.'
61. 'And he said unto Peter and the rest, Go and prepare that we may eat the passover.'
62. 'And he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him, and he said, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.'
63. He falsified, 'I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.'
64. He falsified 'When I sent you, lacked ye anything,' and so on, because of the words, 'This also that is written must be accomplished, And he was numbered among the transgressors.'
This long series of erasures in the Panarion is completely unprecedented when compared to the rest of the treatise.  Clearly the difference is attributable to a different source who happens to have given detailed information about the differences between Luke chapters 18 - 22 and the Marcionite gospel.  All that breaks up the references to excisions is Epiphanius's typical interest in passages which demonstrate that Jesus could be touched (and thus contradicting the claim he was a phantom).

In addition to the sections already mentioned in Scholion 53, here Epiphanius makes several references to Marcion concealing information about the journey and/or the road between Jericho and Jerusalem via the Mount of Olives. These comments are odd, because although Luke mentions the Mount of Olives, he does not provide any details of the earlier part of the ascent from Jericho.  This may indicate that this source was originally comparing the Marcionite gospel to something else - perhaps a 'Diatessaronic' text.

Based on what Epiphanius states was omitted from Marcionite gospel it is likely that the equivalent to entirety of chapter 19 of Luke was simply:
And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem. (19:28) And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him, (19:47)  And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him. (19:48) 
Tertullian's lack of mention of this material may well support this assumption. that this is also what he saw in his copy of Lk.  Furthermore at Elenchus 53 Epiphanius tells us that "but for his refutation out of his own mouth, Marcion says,
It came to pass on one of those days, as he taught in the temple, they sought to lay hands on him and they were afraid,” as we read in next paragraph, 54.
Indeed Epiphanius confirms this reading in Scholion 54, where he writes:
And they sought to lay hands on him and they were afraid.
This appears to be a combination of what we see as verses 20:1a and 19b:
And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, [20:1a] … [they] sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: [20:19b] 
It has been noted that in a number of mss (G, S, V, Y, Γ, Δ, Ω, 047, 565, 700, 1342, and 1424) “τον αον” (the people) is omitted from v. 20:19, changing the reading from “they feared the people” to “they were afraid.” He concludes that this is “probably an accidental omission,” which is a reasonable opinion if the only evidence is a number of late (mainly 9th century) mss.

To this end Epiphanius, through his second source, may have preserved the introduction to the events which lead to Jesus's arrest.  Tertullian doesn't seem as interested in this material.  He has a specific theological purpose (i.e. to demonstrate that Jesus was not against the god of the Jews).  So it is that next few references also seem to come exclusively from Tertullian's second source:
69. After, 'We found this fellow perverting the nation,' Marcion added, 'and destroying the Law and the prophets.'
70. The addition after 'forbidding to give tribute' is 'and turning away the wives and children.'
71. 'And when they were come unto a place called Place of a Skull they crucified him and parted his garments, and the sun was darkened.'
The pattern continued down through the end of Epiphanius's discussion of changes in the Marcionite gospel.  It should be clear that given the parallels and the differences, Epiphanius only pretended to have the Marcionite gospel and rather compiled at least two sources - and probably more - in order to have something definitive to say about Marcion 'cutting' the gospel according to Luke.  However none of these statements were intended to be the 'final word' on these cuts.

F) Marcion's 'Antitheses' were the original version of Matthew 5:21 - 49

I have never been convinced by scholarly reconstructions of the 'Antitheses' of Marcion.  Evans translation of Adversus Marcionem makes it seem plausible that this 'written text' highlighting the differences between the gospel of Jesus and the Law of Moses placed in front of the gospel in the canons of the Marcionites.  But a careful examination of the evidence reveals that the Marcionite gospel certainly contained the so-called 'Antitheses' of Matthew.  Betz goes so far as to say that Marcion was the first to coin this name in relation to the Sermon on the Mount (The Sermon on the Mount 200 - 201)..  It was only was only when Tertullian's ur-text - the Diatessaron-rooted Against Marcion - was transformed by Irenaeus into a Luke-based critique of Marcion that the references became obscured.  Nevertheless there is ample evidence that Marcion's gospel contained these 'Antitheses'

50. the testimony of Irenaeus - Irenaeus while saying that Marcion 'circumcized' the gospel of Luke also implies Marcion used or knew Matthew
And that the Lord did not abrogate the natural [precepts] of the law, by which man is justified, which also those who were justified by faith, and who pleased God, did observe previous to the giving of the law, but that He extended and fulfilled them, is shown from His words. "For," He remarks, "it has been said to them of old time, Do not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That every one who hath looked upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." And again: "It has been said, Thou shalt not kill. But I say unto you, Every one who is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment." And, "It hath been said, Thou shalt not forswear thyself. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; but let your conversation be, Yea, yea, and Nay, nay." And other statements of a like nature. For all these do not contain or imply an opposition to and an overturning of the [precepts] of the past, as Marcion's followers do strenuously maintain; but [they exhibit] a fulfilling and an extension of them, as He does Himself declare: "Unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." For what meant the excess referred to? In the first place, [we must] believe not only in the Father, but also in His Son now revealed; for He it is who leads man into fellowship and unity with God. In the next place, [we must] not only say, but we must do; for they said, but did not. And [we must] not only abstain from evil deeds, but even from the desires after them. Now He did not teach us these things as being opposed to the law, but as fulfilling the law, and implanting in us the varied righteousness of the law. That would have been contrary to the law, if He had commanded His disciples to do anything which the law had prohibited. But this which He did command--namely, not only to abstain from things forbidden by the law, but even from longing after them--is not contrary to [the law], as I have remarked, neither is it the utterance of one destroying the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and affording greater scope to it. For the law, since it was laid down for those in bondage, used to instruct the soul by means of those corporeal objects which were of an external nature, drawing it, as by a bond, to obey its commandments, that man might learn to serve God. But the Word set free the soul, and taught that through it the body should be willingly purified. Which having been accomplished, it followed as of course, that the bonds of slavery should be removed, to which man had now become accustomed, and that he should follow God without fetters: moreover, that the laws of liberty should be extended, and subjection to the king increased, so that no one who is convened should appear unworthy to Him who set him free, but that the piety and obedience due to the Master of the household should be equally rendered both by servants and children; while the children possess greater confidence [than the servants], inasmuch as the working of liberty is greater and more glorious than that obedience which is rendered in [a state of] slavery. And for this reason did the Lord, instead of that [commandment], "Thou shalt not commit adultery," forbid even concupiscence; and instead of that which runs thus, "Thou shalt not kill," He prohibited anger; and instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes, [He told us] to share(7) all our possessions with the poor; and not to love our neighbours only, but even our enemies; and not merely to be liberal givers and bestowers, but even that we should present a gratuitous gift to those who take away our goods. For "to him that taketh away thy coat," He says, "give to him thy cloak also; and from him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again; and as ye would that men should do unto you, do ye unto them:" so that we may not grieve as those who are unwilling to be defrauded, but may rejoice as those who have given willingly, and as rather conferring a favour upon our neighbours than yielding to necessity. "And if any one," He says, "shall compel thee [to go] a mile, go with him twain;"(9) so that thou mayest not follow him as a slave, but may as a free man go before him, showing thyself in all things kindly disposed and useful to thy neighbour, not regarding their evil intentions, but performing thy kind offices, assimilating thyself to the Father, "who maketh His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and unjust." Now all these [precepts], as I have already observed, were not the injunctions] of one doing away with the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and widening it among us; just as if one should say, that the more extensive operation of liberty implies that a more complete subjection and affection towards our Liberator had been implanted within us. For He did not set us free for this purpose, that we should depart from Him (no one, indeed, while placed out of reach of the Lord's benefits, has power to procure for himself the means of salvation), but that the more we receive His grace, the more we should love Him. Now the more we have loved Him, the more glory shall we receive from Him, when we are continually in the presence of the Father. [Adv Haer 4.13]
51.  the testimony of Tertullian:
For if they who are our enemies, and hate us, and speak evil of us, and calumniate us, are to be called our brethren, surely He did in effect bid us bless them that hate us, and pray for them who calumniate us, when He instructed us to reckon them as brethren (= Marcionites). Well, but Christ plainly teaches a new kind of patience, when He actually prohibits the reprisals which the Creator permitted in requiring "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," (Mt 5:38) and bids us, on the contrary, "to him who smiteth us on the one cheek, to offer the other also, and to give up our coat to him that taketh away our cloak." No doubt these are supplementary additions by Christ, but they are quite in keeping with the teaching of the Creator ... Therefore, inasmuch as it is incredible that the same (God) should seem to require “a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye,” in return for an injury, who forbids not only all reprisals, but even a revengeful thought or recollection of an injury, in so far does it become plain to us in what sense He required “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,”—not, indeed, for the purpose of permitting the repetition of the injury by retaliating it, which it virtually prohibited when it forbade vengeance; but for the purpose of restraining the injury in the first instance, which it had forbidden on pain of retaliation or reciprocity; so that every man, in view of the permission to inflict a second (or retaliatory) injury, might abstain from the commission of the first (or provocative) wrong. For He knows how much more easy it is to repress violence by the prospect of retaliation, than by the promise of (indefinite) vengeance. Both results, however, it was necessary to provide, in consideration of the nature and the faith of men, that the man who believed in God might expect vengeance from God, while he who had no faith (to restrain him) might fear the laws which prescribed retaliation.  This purpose of the law, which it was difficult to understand, Christ, as the Lord of the Sabbath and of the law, and of all the dispensations of the Father, both revealed and made intelligible, when He commanded that “the other cheek should be offered (to the smiter),” in order that He might the more effectually extinguish all reprisals of an injury, which the law had wished to prevent by the method of retaliation, (and) which most certainly revelation had manifestly restricted, both by prohibiting the memory of the wrong, and referring the vengeance thereof to God. Thus, whatever Christ introduced, He did it not in opposition to the law, but rather in furtherance of it, without at all impairing the prescription of the Creator. [Tertullian Adv Marc 4.17] 
52. the testimony of De Recta in Deum Fide - Megethius: It says in the Law, "Eye for eye and tooth for tooth', but the Lord, because He is good, says in the Gospel, "If anyone should slap you on the cheek, turn the other one as well." [Pretty p. 57]

53. the testimony of De Recta in Deum Fide - Megethius: What then does it mean in the Law when it says, "Cloak for cloak", while the good Lord says, "If anyone should take your cloak, give him your tunic also [Petty p. 60]

54. - the testimony of De Recta in Deum Fide -
Adamantius: It is evident then that Marcus wants things to exist that are opposed to what has been commanded.
[MK:] But to commit adultery is opposed to the command, "You shall not commit adultery" murder opposes "You shall not murder" and in the same way stealing is against the command not to steal. Presumably then the rest of the commandments have been abrogated.
[AD:] But how could it be that Christ abrogated the Law? Let Marcus explained, please. For in the Law it stands written you shall not commit adultery you shall not bear false witness. Let him say then which one of these Christ abrogated? Whom does He order to commit adultery - he indeed who had actually rejected the more lustful look as unchastity? Whom did He command to kill - he who directed not to resist the evil man? Whom did the Saviour teach to steal in order that He might oppose the Lawmaker? These commands of the Saviour are not new but are from the Law and the prophets. The Saviour asserts "But I say to you not to resist evil" while the Old Scripture says "Say to those who hate and detest you, 'You are our brethren'" (Isa 66.5 LXX)
[MK:] When the Law again said, "do not steal," the Saviour said "Sell your possessions and give to the poor."
[AD:] But giving to the poor is not new teaching for it was commanded in the Old Testament "Do not refrain from doing good to the needy one whenever you hand can help." The Saviour's 'Love your enemies" is not new, but required in the Prophets: "If your enemy be hungry get him to eat: if he thirst give him to drink." But why must we prolong the discussion? It is at least clear that although the Saviour came to fulfil the Law, Marcus' people assert that he came to destroy it! It is like your party's audacity — to reverse (90) this statement, just as you have tampered with others! However, let the Apostle come forward to reprove your dishonesty.
MK. The Saviour clearly says, "A new commandment I give to you"(Jn 13:34 Petty's note Intriguingly Marcus again quotes from a gospel outside of Marcion's Luke as he does further on cf. the next note) The new one is not the same as the old, for the Saviour says again, "New wine they put into new wineskins, and both are preserved" The new commandment is not the complement of the old one, for the Saviour says again, "Nobody puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment" (Matt 9:16) Neither Christ nor the Apostle is the complement of the Law.
AD. Observe as judge noble Eutropius how my opponent hunting after words takes in a wrong sense instructions so clearly laid down! Please request the Gospel to be read, and it will be revealed what new commandment the Saviour enjoined.
EUTR: Let it be read!
AD. I will read: "A new commandment" he says "I give to you that you love one another as the Father has loved you" (cf. Jn 13:34 different than main recension)
EUTR. It is plain that He designated Love as a new commandment.
AD. Yet the new command is no stranger to the old one previously existing.
MK. The old command of the Law belongs to the Creator God, but the new one comes from the Good God, for He says "Nobody puts unshrunk cloth on an old garment"
AD. How can the new cloth possibly be foreign to the old garment when it is one and the same substance (ousia cf. Arianism) natural to sheep from which woolen are made? But even the art of working in wool had to do with one and the same thing, for it makes both the old and the new. But then even wine is from the same vine that produces both the old and the new. Yet so that I may the more clearly establish the fact that the Saviour did not enjoin anything unheard of before when He said, "A new commandment I give unto you: That you love another" let me read what is written in the Law "You shall love the Lord God with your whole mind and secondly "Your neighbor as yourself."
MK: How it then that the Apostle says "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creature the old things have passed away. Behold all things have become new?"
AD. Please show Marcus what new creature He created; what new heaven or earth, and what new human being. Surely you realize that old things renewed are called 'new' although the same substance still exists? E
UTR. The new things are not different from the old ones in material or kind. The case is like that of a man who should want to remodel one of his vessels that has become old. Using his skill anew, he made out of a piece of material different from that of the old. So what you thought to offer, Marcus, as fresh, new proof, will be found written in the Law, and to assert that there is a God previously unknown who lays down decrees previously unknown is inconceivable.
AD. Paul will demonstrate to you very clearly that love is the fulfilling of the Law. With your permission, I now read the passage referring to this: for "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal' and if there be any other commandment it is comprised of this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" Love works no evil to one's neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law. (Rom 13.9 - 10 with slight variation from the main recension)
MK. The word 'comprised' shows that the former law has been annulled.
EUTR. I have listened to the Apostle speaking of the fulfillment of the Law. If what is lacking is made up what is already there is not different from what is supplied but is united with it and the completed whole will not be different from what was there before.
AD: The Saviour will more clearly convince you of this in the Gospel. Someone came to him and asked "Good Teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, 'Why do you call me good? None is Good except One - God." And he said "I know the commandments, (ὁδὲ ἔφη· τὰς ἐντολὰς οἶδα) "Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother." And he said " All these things I have kept from my youth." When Jesus heard this he said to him "One thing you lack: Sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven." EUTR. See Marcus! All the audience is astounded at your incredible proofs! He who came as you said to annul the Law and to lay down decrees previously unknown, stated, "You will still lack one thing so that you may receive treasure in heaven?" Therefore the "one thing" is quite clearly revealed as a 'fulfilling' of the others. The Apostle is in complete agreement with this statement when he sets forth "one thing" as the fulfilling of many, that is Love. [ibid p. 95 - 98]
55. Theodoret's account of Cerdon - Cerdon lived under Antoninus I and claimed that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and unknown to the prophets, was different from the creator of all and giverof Moses' law. And that the one was righteous, whilst the other one good. He says that [the just one] ordered in the law the excision of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, yet the good one ordered in the Gospels turning theother cheek to anyone who hits the right cheek, and to someone who wants to take one's tunic giving the mantle also (cf Matt 5:43, 44). And the utterly crack-brained one did not realise that in the law [God] also commanded people to bring back the wandering ox of the enemy (cf.Exod. 23:4), and to help the [enemy's] fallen animal to stand up (cf.Exod. 23:5), and not to overlook the enemy in need of help. And the one called 'good' by him [declared that] whoever calls his brother a fool is threatened by Gehenna (cf. 5.22). And showing himself [as] just, he said, 'for with the measure that you use it will be measured back to you' (Luke 6:38). Nevertheless, confuting these [things] is not a task for the present, the more so since the blasphemy is very easily detectable by those who read the Divine Scriptures. Now Marcion of Pontus, being educated in these things by Cerdon, was not content with the teaching transmitted to him, but augmented the impiety. [Theodore of Cyrrhus chapter 24 (PG 83 (172 - 177)]
Theodoret's account of Cerdon is to this effect: "He was in the time of tie first Antonius. He taught that there is one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, unknown to the prophets; another, the Maker of the universe, the giver of the Mosaic law; and this last is just, the other good. For he in the law orders 'that an eye should be given for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;' but the good God in the Gospels commands that 'to him who smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn the other also;' and that to him who would take away thy coat, thou shouldest give thy cloak also. He in the law directs to love a friend and hate an enemy; but the other, to love even our enemies. 'Not observing,' says Theodoret, 'that in the law it is directed that if a man meet his enemy's ox going astray, he should bring him back; and not forbear to help his beast when Iving under his burden;' and that he who, according to him, is alone good, threatens 'hell-fire to him who calls his brother fool;' and showing himself to be just, said, 'With what measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you again.' " [Nathaniel Lardner the Works of p. 589]
Finally, there is Theodoret of Cyrus, who provides two antitheses in connection with Marcion (Haer. fab. com. I.24. Technically, Theodoret attributes these antitheses to Marcion’s teacher Cerdo, however, there can be no doubt that we are dealing with a re-projection of Marcion’s theology onto Cerdo here, cf. Chapter II): the first is the contrast between the Law’s demand “an eye for an eye” and Christ’s command to turn the other cheek to anyone who hits the right cheek, the second is the opposition between the Law’s demand to love one’s friends and to hate one’s enemies compared to Christ’s command to love one’s enemies also. The fact that Theodoret’s Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium forms a very late source for the analysis of Marcionism (ca. 452/453) makes it all the more striking that the two antitheses which the bishop of Cyrus mentions are also to be found in similar form in the Adamantius-Dialogue and in Tertullian (see above). We can also see once more that the original Marcionite form of these antitheses probably consisted of rather precise statements from both the Old Testament and the Gospel. [Sebastian Moll Marcion p. 156 - 157]
Again, keep in mind that Irenaeus's specific claim is that Marcion adapted a pre-existent understanding developed by a certain 'Cerdo' by Marcion according to one gospel and then Luke was deliberately falsified according to these principles.  It gets sillier and sillier the more you look at the evidence.  Luke was clearly post-Marcion.

56. - Modern scholarly analysis:
For this Marcion relied upon the antitheses of Matt. 5:21-49, indicating that this book was probably issued (or revised) in Rome.[Richard Pervo, the Making of Paul p. 351]  
Some scholars have viewed the Antitheses (in Matthew) as attacks on the law or as enunciations of Jesus nullification of at least certain aspects of the Law. R. Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, trans. L. P. Smith and E. H. Lantero (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 89–90; Luz, Matthew: A Commentary, 1:228–30; G. Strecker, “Die Antitheses der Bergpredigt (Mt 5:21–48 par),” ZNW 69 (1978):71. This position is most often affirmed for Matt 5:38 - 42. See W. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1975), 133; Meier, Law and History, 157 (who describes Matt 5:38–42 as "the clearest and least disputable case of annulment in the antitheses) and F. Thielman, The Law and the New Testament: The Question of Continuity (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 49–60. [Charles Quarles Sermon on the Mount p. 105] 
The title “antitheses” seems to have first been used by Marcion; see Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 200. Betz argues that this last antithesis is intended to sum up the five previous antitheses; see ibid., 204–205. [Beth A. Berkowitz Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics Jewish Theological Seminary Execution and Invention p. 298]
Marcion was an early Christian theologian who was expelled from the Church for advocacy of this idea. Marcionite views, however, predate Marcion. Perhaps the earliest statement of the "heresy" may be found in Matthew 5:21-48. [New Outlook Vol 8 p. 679] 
Marcion also showed a discrepancy between the Hebrew and the Christian Bibles when he compared Exodus 21:23–25 and Matthew 5:38–45. Exodus 21:23–25 states: “If any harm follows [a crime], then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise" To Marcion, such laws were cruel and should not apply to Christians. He then compared the Exodus passage to Matthew 5:38–45, where Jesus specifically counters the law found in Exodus [Kevin Kaatz the Early Controversies and Growth of Christianity p. 50] 
With Marcion's Antitheses and Adda/Adimantus' adoption of that model, in both cases it appears that the task of problematising the status of the Jewish Bible was indicated not by any authority external to the text, but by the teachings of Jesus himself and the 'antitheses' in Mt. 5. 21-48, which indicated that the teaching of the Gospel superseded the injunctions of the Mosaic Law. Indeed, we know that Marcion's attentions were drawn to this section of the Gospel in particular; however, it is difficult to gauge the extent of the influence of this section in Matthew on Marcion's theological and literary model, with his apparent rejection of this gospel in toto in favor of Luke. Nevertheless, Marcion clearly paid close attention to this section, and he was drawn in particular to Mt. 5.17 158 the proof supplied by the Matthean antitheses indicates that Jesus did come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, although ol lovba'ioxai had tried to indicate otherwise.159 Identical concerns are evident in the exegetical work of Adimantus. Thus, beyond positing simple statements of comparison between Marcion's Antitheses and the work of Adimantus, the presence of the antithetical argument Ex. 21 . 24 v. Mt. 5. 38-40, in Adimantus' work (c. Adim. 8), together with the extensive treatment of Mt. 5. [157] Later Marcionite exegetes identified the antithetical pairing of Lk. 6. 29 and Ex. 21 . 24, as suggested by Mt. 5. 38-39; see A. von Harnack, Marcion, 280*-28 1. ls8 verse, see Tertullian, adv. Marc. IV. 7 (ed. E. Evans, 278-9); for the verse as a focus for Marcion's polemic, see adv. Marc. V. 14 (ed. E. Evans, 602-3): Dixerit Christus an non, Ego non veni legem disolvere sed implere, frustra de ista sententia neganda Pontus laboravit. Additional material concerning the heterodox reception of the vs. is provided by H. Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, 1 73-1 76. 159 See Adamantius, De recta in deum fide U. 15, cited in A. von Harnack, Marcion, 252, nt. 3 [Nicholas Baker-Brian Manichaeanism in the Later Roman Empire,  p. 56] 
Marcion's reading of the Old Testament convinced him that the principle of retributive justice found in the Old Testament could not be reconciled with that of love and goodness as represented by the God of the new cove¬nant (Tertullian, " Against Marcion," I., vi.; ANF, iii. 275). The creating God is just according to the maxim, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"; this maxim was expressly annulled by the good God (Matt. v. 38 39). [New Schaff-Herzog Encylopedia p. 179] 
Marcion did not create his system himself. Before him, Cerdo, according to Theodoret's account (Hceret. fabulce, i. 24), proved by the Gospels that the just God of the old covenant and the good God of the new are different beings ; and he founded this contrariety on the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 38-48 ; Luke vi. 27-38). [Frédéric Louis Godet Commentary on the Gospel of St Luke p. 6]
G) the gospel of Marcion referenced things 'according to Matthew' 

57. Matthew and Marcion agree that Jesus's first miracle was performed in Capernaum -

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus does not commence his preaching until after he takes up his residence in Capernaum. ~Matthew 4:13-17. Mark and Luke confirm this, but Matthew and Marcion were most likely from a common manuscript, as in the Gospel of John, Jesus is represented as performing his first miracle in Cana of Galilee, after which he traveled to Capernaum [E Christopher Reyes In His Name p. 230] 
John only thrice describes Jesus as "teaching," and only once as "teaching in synagogue." Comparing this with the frequency of the Synoptic traditions about Christ's teaching, we ought to be prepared to suppose that John attached special importance to this particular "teaching in synagogue" and some importance to the fact that it was at " Capernaum."This supposition is confirmed by the fact that John agrees with Luke in using the phrase "went down (or, came down) to Capernaum" to introduce (apparently) a new stage in the proclamation of the Gospel . It is also confirmed (not weakened) by the fact that the compiler of the Diatessaron omits the phrase in Luke , and not only the phrase, but also the context in John. That indicates for those at least who have studied the Diatessaron and its ways that in early times discussion was probably frequent about this "going down to Capernaum" and about the questions "Whence did He come down?" and "What did He do when He had come down ?" According to Tertullian, Marcion so mutilated the Gospel of Luke as to make it appear that Jesus came down "from heaven, straight to the synagogue" in Capernaum . Heracleon, dealing with the Johannine "going down to Capernaum," said that "the beginning of another dispensation was indicated, since 'went down' is not without significance." He added that Capernaum signifies "the uttermost parts of the Cosmos, the regions of matter into which He 'came-down .'" So far, Origen, who quotes Heracleon as above, might agree with Heracleon as to the inferior and negative character of the revelation at Capernaum. But he demurs to what Heracleon says concerning the following words "and there [i.e. at Capernaum] they abode not many days. And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up. . ." on which Heracleon says "By reason of the strange and alien nature of the place, He is not even said to have done or spoken anything in it [i.e. in Capernaum]." Yet Origen's only ground for demurring is that Mark and Luke relate, as occurring during this visit, the exorcism in the Capernaum Synagogue. To this Heracleon would have an obvious reply : "The Marcan exorcism could not have occurred during the Johannine visit to Capernaum; for Mark says clearly that what he relates about Capernaum took place after the Baptist's arrest ; John makes it no less clear that what he relates here about Capernaum took place before the Baptist's arrest." It is hardly possible to doubt that Heracleon is right at all events in calling attention to the fact that Jesus "is not even said to have done or spoken anything" in the first brief (Johannine) visit to Capernaum. But about the Evangelist's motive in thus recording an apparently resultless action of Christ there may very well be doubt or, at least, doubt at the first view of the subject. [Abbott Diatessarica III p. 99] [foot note] See Origen on Jn ii. 12 (Lomm. i. 291) quoting Heracleon to this effect. Origen himself says (Lomm. i. 288) that Capernaum means "field (agros) of Consolation." Jerome calls it (Onomast. 64) " ager vel villa consolationis." In his comment on Mt. iv. 13, viii. 5. Jerome is silent as to its meaning. Pseudo- Jerome, on Mk i. 21, calls it "villa consolationis. [Edwin Abbott the Fourfold Gospel p. 179]
58. the gospel of Marcion contained a variant of Matthew 5:3:
Ephraim quotes ' Blessed are the meek in their spirit ' : this is an inaccurate combination of Matt, v 5 and Matt, v 3, but neither element of the quotation is represented in the Lucan Beatitudes, accepted by Marcion. [Charles W Mitchell, S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan p. cxix]
from David Inglis, Tertullian then intersperses quotes from Isa 61 and 65 with vv. 6:21-22 (emphasis added): "Blessed are they that hunger, for they shall be filled." [6:21a] "Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh." [6:21b] As in v. 6:20b Tertullian uses the 3rd person rather than Lk’s 1st person, and he also omits “now” after both “hunger” and “weep,” but again Tertullian does not suggest that Marcion had changed any text. The parallel verses in both Mt and Thomas also have similar differences: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Mt 5:3] Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. [Mk 5:4] and again "Tertullian believes that the usual translation of “hoi ptōchoi” as “the poor,” does not correctly identify the people whom Jesus is blessing, and according to him, the meaning is: “Blessed are the beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” It is not completely clear what source Tertullian is quoting here, as he uses the 3rd person (the beggars, for theirs is …) as we see in Mt 5:3, while having “kingdom of God,” as in Lk. This makes it unlikely that he is quoting directly from either Mt or Lk."

59. the gospel of Marcion contained a variant of Matthew 5:17 (twice mentioned by the Marcionite Marcus in Adamantius) De recta in deum fide XV: "This is what the Judaists wrote the (version): 'I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill (it).' But Christ did not speak in this way; he said rather: 'I have not come to fulfill the law but to abolish (it). Also Isidore of Pelusium:
Take the gospel [or the evangelicon] of Marcion, and you will presently see at the very beginning a proof of their impudence. For they have left out our Lord's genealogy from and Abraham. And if you proceed a little farther, you will see another instance of their wickedness, in altering our Lord's words. "I came not," says he, "to destroy the law or the prophets." But they have ' made it thus: " Think ye, that I came to fulfil the law or the prophets? I am come to destroy, ' not to fulfil.'" [Isidore of Pelusium (Ep., 1, 371] 
For Marcion, Matthew 5:17 was proof that the Torah ['Law'] had been done away with the coming of [Jesus] and replaced it with grace. According to Marcion's interpretation of Matthew 5:17, Jesus said: “Think not that I have come to fulfill the Law but to abolish it." Today, most theologians agree that Marcion was a Heretic, who changed the original meaning of Scripture. The British scholar E. C. Blackman tells us that Marcion changed the meaning of Matthew 5:17 by “inverting the order of the clauses so as to give exactly an opposite sense." [Richard Rhoades, Faith of Ages p. 3] 
Schaff says that Marcion rewrote Matthew 5:17 to say, “I am come not to fulfill the law and the prophets, but to destroy them. [Randy Colver Heroes and Heretics in the Early Church p. 32] 
A well-attested verbal difference between the Gospel of Marcion and canonical Luke is in Gos. Mar. 16:17. Marcion's gospel apparently read: "But it is easier for heaven and earth to go away than for one of my words to fall.""2 In canonical Luke at this point we have: "It is easier for heaven and earth to go away, than for one stroke of the Torah to fall" (Luke 16:17). Later, however, canonical Luke and Marcion seem to agree on wording that supports Marcion's reading: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word remains forever" (Gos. Mar. 21:33 = Luke 21:33: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away"). For Marcion it is Jesus' words that are eternal; canonical Luke has two sayings, one supporting the eternality of Torah and one in agreement with Marcion." [Joseph Tyson, Marcion. p.45]
60. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 5:22 - Cerdon lived under Antoninus I and claimed that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and unknown to the prophets, was different from the creator of all and giverof Moses' law. And that the one was righteous, whilst the other one good. He says that [the just one] ordered in the law the excision of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, yet the good one ordered in the Gospels turning theother cheek to anyone who hits the right cheek, and to someone who wants to take one's tunic giving the mantle also (cf Matt 5:43, 44). And the utterly crack-brained one did not realise that in the law [God] also commanded people to bring back the wandering ox of the enemy (cf.Exod. 23:4), and to help the [enemy's] fallen animal to stand up (cf.Exod. 23:5), and not to overlook the enemy in need of help. And the one called 'good' by him [declared that] whoever calls his brother a fool is threatened by Gehenna (cf. 5.22). And showing himself [as] just, he said, 'for with the measure that you use it will be measured back to you' (Luke 6:38). Nevertheless, confuting these [things] is not a task for the present, the more so since the blasphemy is very easily detectable by those who read the Divine Scriptures. Now Marcion of Pontus, being educated in these things by Cerdon, was not content with the teaching transmitted to him, but augmented the impiety. [Theodore of Cyrrhus chapter 24 (PG 83 (172 - 177)]

61. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 5:43, 44 - Megethius: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt 5:43) [Pretty p. 35]  See Theodore of Cyrrhus Matthew 5:22 aboveAlso from David Inglis:

Tertullian begins his chapter 16 by quoting from most of vv. 6:27-29. Although the sense of these verses is the same as in Lk, he gives a shorter version of vv. 6:27-28: "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, and bless those which hate you, [6:27], and pray for them which calumniate [Latin ‘calumniantur’: falsely accuse or speak evil of] you. [6:28]" These two verses have a parallel at Mt 5:44, which in the KJV reads: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. In the NET this verse in Mt is much shorter, reading just: “But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” The NET adds this note: Most mss ([D] L [W] Θ Ë13 33 Ï lat) read “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” before “those who persecute you.” ... The shorter text is found in א B Ë1 pc sa, as well as several fathers and versional witnesses. In Lk the text is similar to the longer variant in Mt, except that “bless them that curse you” is swapped with “do good to them that hate you,” and Lk does not have: “and persecute you.” The longer variant in Mt is taken to be an assimilation to Lk, but this does not explain why anyone would swap the two phrases instead of just adding the text from Lk unchanged. Assuming that Marcion edited Lk we have a hard to explain omission plus a change of order, from: “do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you” to just ”bless those which hate you,” but it is also hard to see why aLk would make the reverse change if Lk is an expanded version of Mcg. However, if Mcg was earlier than Mt, then it is possible to see how two independent changes could occur: an expansion from Mcg (without a change of order) by aMt; and a later change of order by aLk."
62. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 5:45 (see previous discussion) Marcion, too, was acquainted with our Matthew. For according to Tertullian (Mark ii.7), he denied that Christ uttered the words contained in Matt. v. 45 (to be found in no other Gospel) ; also those in Matt. v. 17 (Tert. 4, 7, cf. 3, 2 and 12 seq.).[J. H. A. Ebrard The Gospel History p. 545]

63. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 6:25 - Megethius- "Christ distinctly says, No man can serve two masters." (Luke 16:13 has οἰκέτης = servant) [Pretty p. 45]

64. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 7:10 - David Inglis - Although Epiphanius states that Lk contains “the better teaching” he does not specifically identify any differences. For example, his quote from v. 11:11 does not contain “father,” as is the case in “one Greek manuscript, one OL manuscript, and the SSyr and CSyr” (BeDuhn) and also Adamantius 2.20:
“Would any of you, if his son should ask for bread, give him a stone? If he should desire a fish, would you give him a serpent? If he should want an egg, would you give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children…” 
The parallel in Mt also does not have “father,” but does have the ‘bread … stone’ clause, making it very close to the first part of the quote from Adamantius:
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? [Mt 7:9] Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? [Mt 7:10]
Epiphanius’ quote from Lk is very close to what both Mt and Adamantius would have had if the ‘bread … stone’ clause was not present, e.g:
… what man is there of you, whom if his son ask … a fish, will he give him a serpent?
65. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 7:17 After him arose his disciple, Marcion by name, from Pontus, the son of a bishop, who was expelled from the communion of the church because of the seduction of a certain virgin. Since it was said, "Every good tree bears good fruit, and an evil tree evil" [Matt 7:17], he ventured to assent to the heresy of Cerdo and to say the same things as the earlier heretic had said before [Pseudo-Tertullian 6.2 trans Robert McQueen Grant Second Century Christianity p. 78 - 79]
Pseudo-Tertullian (Against Heresies) 6.2 makes Marcion cite Matt. 7:17. Fil. 45.2 gives both citations, opening the possibility that this author knew Epiph as well as Hipp. Synt. Matt. 7:17 is referred to at Hipp. Refut. 10.19.3 and at Tert. Adv. Marc. 3.15.5; 4.11.10.[Frank Williams Epiphanius Panarion p. 295]
An evil tree cannot but bring forth evil fruits. In that case the flesh of Christ, being composed of things from the sky, consists of elements of sin, and is sinful by reason of its sinful origin, and will from its very nature be part of that substance, our substance, with which, as being sinful, they think shame to besmirch Christ. [Tertullian De Carne Christi 7]
66. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 7:18 - 20 Megethius the Marcionite  "Just what the Gospel says, 'An unsound tree cannot bear good fruit, neither can a sound tree bear bad fruit.' [Matt 7.18 De Recta in Deum Fide p. 74 Pretty translation]
Another verse with dualistic language (at least according to Marcion) can be found at Matthew 7:18–20:
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. 
For Marcion, there could be only two explanations: the good tree was the God found in the Christian Bible and the bad fruit was the Hebrew Bible while the bad tree was the Hebrew God and the good fruit, the Christian Bible. Another explanation was that the God of the Christian Bible could not do anything evil or warlike (“bearing bad fruit”). This passage from Matthew must have been central to Marcion's teachings, since Tertullian, at the beginning of his Against Marcion, states that Marcion had used Matthew 7:18 to justify his entire set of beliefs. [Kevin W. Kaatz Early Controversies and the Growth of Christianity p. 45] 
For Marcion, Jesus' teaching about two types of trees (Matt. 7:18) implied the existence of two gods—“one judicial, harsh, mighty in war; the other mild, placid, and simply good and excellent.” [Gregg Allision Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine p. 281] 
(Brent discussing the inscription on the statue of Hippolytus) But a comparison of the contents of Marcion's argument in Tertullian Contra Marcionem I with this title on the Statue shows that its lost contents must have approximated to a refutation of this particular heresy. Marcion's argument begins with Matt. 8,18, that is to say with the Parable of the Good and Bad Tree and its teaching that neque bona malos neque mala bonos proferatfructus. The parable is thus used to pose the mali quaestionem, "unde malum.' There can therefore be little doubt that the subject matter of the lost peri tagathou kai pothen to kakon was specifically a discussion of Marcion's heresy [Allen Brent Hippolytus p. 327]
67. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 9:16 - 17/Mark 2.21 - 22 - Marcus the Marcionite "The new one is not the same as the old, for the Saviour says again, "New wine they put into new wineskins, and both are preserved". The new commandment is not the complement of the old one, for the Saviour says again, "Nobody puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment" (Matt 9:16) Neither Christ nor the Apostle is the complement of the Law." [Matt 9:17, 9:16 De Recta in Deum Fide Pretty p. 95]
Mk. ii. 22 is the take-off text from which Marcion started his assault [Gerald Rendall The Epistle of James p. 120]
Epiphanius says that Marcion "put this question to the elders of that time: “Tell me, what is the meaning of, 'Men do not put new wine into old bottles, or a patch of new cloth unto an old garment; else it both taketh away the fullness, and agreeth not with the old. For a greater rent will be made.'” (Matt 9.16 - 17) [Frank Williams Panarion p. 295] "Marcion must have inquired of the Roman clergy how they explained the passage in Matt. ix.17, in order to elicit from their own mouth the avowal that the new wine of Christianity cannot be poured into the old bottles of Judaism without destroying them. [August Neander the History of the Christian Religion p. 194]
68. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 10:9 - Megethius: The Creator God commanded Moses when he was leaving the land of Egypt. "Be ready: gird your loins: put shoes on your feet have your staffs at your hands and your knapsacks on you carry way gold silver and all the other things from the Egyptians." But our good Lord when He was sending His disciples in to the world, said "Neither shoes on your feet, nor knapsack, nor two tunics, nor gold in your belts." [Matt 10:9 Pretty p. 51]
If the statement of Epiphanius is well founded, he proposed a question to the Roman clergy as to the explanation of Matthew ix. [August Neander General History of the Christian Religion p. 136]
69. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 10:24 - Tertullian cites the saying against Marcion in its specific Matthean form in the context of the common gospel amont the Marcionites which can leave little doubt as to its presence there.
You, however, are a disciple above his master, and a servant above his lord; you have a higher reach of discernment than his; you destroy what he requires.  I wish to examine whether you are at least honest in this, so as to have no longing for those things which you destroy." [Adv Marc 14.3.1] 
"Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors." [Adv Marc 4.2.1] 
for even if Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Marcion were an apostle, [Adv Marc 4.3.4]
Some persons believe Marcion. But "the disciple is not above his master." Apelles ought to have remembered this----a corrector of Marcion, although his disciple [Adv Marc 4.17.11]
and by poisonous doctrines to make (in opposition to the saying of the Lord) "the disciples above their Master." [Praescr 34] 
One can make a convincing case that the editor of Luke deliberately identified Luke as a disciple of Paul in order to subordinate the gospel.

70. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 10:32 - 33 from David Inglis, "Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: [12:8] But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. [12:9] Tertullian refers to the corresponding passage in Mcg as follows: But this conclusion I can draw also from the following words: "For I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before God." [12:8] … and this forewarning He offers, in order that He might subjoin a clause on the necessity of confessing Him: "Every one that denies me before men shall be denied before God" [12:9] … Tertullian quotes “before God” at the end of both verses, and Epiphanius confirms this shorter variant in v. 12:8: Instead of "he shall confess before the angels of God", Marcion says "before God". (Scholion 30) There is evidence that “the angels” was omitted in a very small number of mss. Willker reports the omission in 01*vid and 259, and that: According to the apparatus of NA, 01* omits [the angels] both times, verse 8 and 9. This is not correct. Timothy A. Brown confirmed this. The omission in verse 9 is also not in Tischendorf, Swanson and IGNTP. He also notes: Timothy A. Brown from the Sinaiticus transcription project wrote: "In verse 8 the letters twn ag are written by the first hand over an erasure. What the first hand originally wrote and then erased is not clear. The tou qu at the end of the line appears to have been written by a first hand and then reinforced by a later corrector since the article is certainly a first hand and traces of the associated nomen sacrum appear beneath the corrector's ink. - Amy Myshrall is the other transcriber in the Codex Sinaiticus Project. She has independently concluded the same correction scenario I've outlined above." The parallel verses in Mt read as follows: Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.[Mt 10:32] But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. [Mt 10:33] The existence of these verses makes it unlikely that Marcion removed “the angels of” from both verses to create the text that Tertullian saw. As noted by Willker: The omission is probably a harmonization to Mt. There is no reason why the angels should have been added secondarily. The omission by 01 is probably just accidental. It appears therefore that Tertullian saw in Mcg a version of v. 12:8-9 that is similar to what we see in Mt 10:32-33, except reading “God” rather than “my Father which is in heaven.” However, Epiphanius makes no comment regarding “Son of Man” in v. 12:8, nor anything regarding v. 12:9, so we assume that he still saw “God” in v. 12:8, but possibly saw the rest of these two verses as we now see them.

71. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 10:34 - 35 - Hunc quidem versum Marcion admixta Matthaei forma exhibet (Mt. 10, 34) [Friedrich Blass Euangelium secundum Lucam, sive Lucae ad Theophilum p. lii]
"Marcion," he says, " must needs alter, as if a sword could do anything but divide." But Marcion was right, and Tertullian, quoting from memory, had in mind the parallel passage in Matt. 10:34 [Marvin Vincent, a History of Textual Criticism p. 48]
The whole of verse 50 and the second half of verse 49 are lacking in Marcion. In their absence, a connection would no doubt be instituted ; the fire would be the inward war, and Luke would be reduced to Matthew (x. 34, 35) "Even more significantly, as Tertullian works his way through Marcion’s text there are indications that he does so without referring to his own text of Luke. Perhaps the clearest example of this fact is when Tertullian accuses Marcion of having changed μάχαιραν to διαμερισμόν in Luke 12:51. The problem is that the former is the reading of Matt 10:34 and never, apart from the corrector of the 13th century minuscule 1242, appears in Luke 12:51. If Tertullian were consistently checking his own text of Luke, it is difficult to imagine how such an error could have occurred. Tertullian apparently did not consult his own copy of Luke even when accusing Marcion of making an alteration. [Is Harnack a Jester, Christian Life Vol 22 - 23 p. 83]
72. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 10:37 - If, therefore, He made them “His mother and His brethren” who were not so, how could He deny them these relationships who really had them? Surely only on the condition of their deserts, and not by any disavowal of His near relatives; teaching them by His own actual example, that “whosoever preferred father or mother or brethren to the Word of God, was not a disciple worthy of Him.” (Matthew 10:37) [Adv Marc 4:19]
Nach Epiphanius (haer. 42, 3) muß man annehmen, daß Mark. 10,37 f. (bzw. die Matthäusparallele) in einem Marcionitischen Evangelien exemplar gestanden hat, und das ist auch nach Origenes wahrscheinlich (s. S. 252) [Harnack p. 81] 
73. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 11:2 - 3: MEG. I will offer you exact proof that the Christ of the Law and the Prophets belonged to another: John did not recognize Him (for it would be impossible for the prophet of the God of Creation to be ignorant of his own Christ: "Now when he had heard in prison the works of Christ, he sent his disciples to Him saying, "Are you He who is to come or look we for another?" [Matt 11:2 -3 De Recta in Deum Fide Pretty p; 70]
AD: (following what we just cited) If John had been inquiring about Christ he would have said "Are you the Christ?" whereas he asked "Are you he that is to come or look we for another?" In fact it is nonsense to inquire of those who are present, "Are you here?" [John the Baptist] was not ignorant of His presence. However because he was His forerunner he inquired whether he was to be that in the abode of the dead also. For he knew that He had stated "I go away and I will send the Paraclete" ... The master had received the disciples and wishing to given them proof, he proceeded to perform His works, and then said, "the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk, the dead rise again. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me." (Matt 11:5 - 6) So having received them, He began to instruct them through his works, that they might be convinced that he was indeed the Whole Truth. MEG: So alien are we to the Christ who has appeared and the Christ who has appeared to the Creator-God that Paul says "Christ has redeemed us." It is clear then that he redeemed aliens for no one even redeems those who are his own: he redeems aliens nor his own. Origen and Acts of Archelaus will support the Paraclete references were known to the Marcionites. [ibid p. 75]  More Matthew readings appear later in the mouth of Adamantius "But I want to establish more positively that Christ was announced by the Law and Prophets just as the Saviour Himself declared concerning John. He said, "this is he of whom it is written "Behold I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you!" Since then this promise came through the promise came through the Prophets so that the forerunner of the Lord was sent before His face - John who was to prepare the way of God - can Marcus and his party can show someone else before whom John was sent? If someone else came prior to Christ sent by the Creator God let them prove it (Pretty notes "but Megethius the colleague of Marcus had already denied that the Christ of the Law (and therefore the Creator God) had come) but if no one else appeared except our Lord Jesus Christ alone, and John went before his face, it is apparent that the promise given was fulfilled then and the Christ is from no other God other than Creator from whom the Law and Prophets also came. [ibid p. 100] 
"And if they say that the sole reason that Isu said concerning |xxxix John 'Blessed is he, if he is not offended in me,' (Matt 11:6) was in order that he might show that he did not communicate (lit. deliver over) to him that other (utterance) which he said concerning him, that he was not a reed—why did he say it ? But if the sole reason of his saying it was in order to show that John was true in his teaching, then he did not send to Isu, and Isu himself made him (i.e. the Evangelist) a liar who recorded that John sent to him, when (in reality) John did not send to him. And if what he said is true, namely that he sent to him, then is not John true ? And if Isu had wished to send to him (saying) 'I am He,' would he not have been going astray after him ? But he said 'Blessed is he if he is not offended in me.' Whom then do they call a stumbling-block ? Is it not he who turned back from (being) with him ? John therefore was one who believed in Isu, and on that account Isu sent (saying) 'Blessed is he if he remains steadfast and is not offended in me.' Or can it be that by means of the beatitude he actually wished to deceive John ? And was John deceived or not ? If he was not deceived, then the bribe of the Stranger was lost. And did not the Stranger know that his bribe would not be accepted by John ? And if he knew, why did he allow his bribe to be lost, that is to say, the bribe of that praise of his ? [Ephrem Against Marcion 1]
74. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 11:27  MEG. I will prove from the Scriptures that there is one God who is the Father of Christ, and another who is the Demiurge. The Demiurge was know to Adam and his contemporaries — this is made clear in the Scriptures. But the Father of Christ is unknown just as Christ Himself declared when he said of Him, "No one knew the Father except the Son neither does anyone know the son except the Father." [Matt 11:27 Pretty p. 53 he notes with this reading "He thus follows Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen and Eusebius. He also transposes the clauses with the textual authorities X, N, Irenaeus, Eusebius, and others"]
the formula (Luke x. 22) much more nearly resembling Matt. xi. 27, than the text of Marcion. Also ch. viii. 20, the studied omission of the words, " who is my mother ? " which Marcion had as well as Matt. xii. 48. Baur, Canon. Ev. pp. 410,507. [Robert Williams McKay the Study of the Rise and Progress of Christianity p. 109] In accordance with the above, the words recorded by Matthew 12,48, "Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren?" were, by Marcion, interpreted as meaning, I have no parents, " I was not born." — Tertull. Adv. Marc. 4, [Frederic Huidekuper Judaism at Rome p. 333]
The God whom Jesus called his Father was a God of love and mercy. Therefore, the Father revealed by Jesus could not be the God of the Old Testament. Marcion found proof of this in a saying of Jesus which survives in Matthew 11:27 and Luke 10:22, but which Marcion probably knew in the form: 'No one knew the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father and him to whom the Son chose to reveal (him)' (AH IV.6. 1). The Father, then, was not known before he was revealed by Jesus. As the God of the Old Testament had been known before Jesus, he could not be the Father of Jesus. [Dennis Minns Irenaeus p. 27] 
David Inglis - in Adv. Haer, IV 6, Irenaeus quotes the close parallel at Mt 11:27 and indicates that he knows v. 10:22, with both having the order that we currently see in Lk. Oddly, he also states that it was the same in Mk, although we have no ms evidence that this text was ever in Mk:: For the Lord, revealing Himself to His disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who imparts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the Jews, who imagined that they, had [the knowledge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected His Word, through whom God is made known, declared, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]." Thus hath Matthew set it down, and Luke in like manner, and Mark the very same; for John omits this passage. However, Irenaeus then states that he also knows a variant having the order quoted by Tertullian: They, however, who would be wiser than the apostles, write [the verse] in the following manner: “No man knew the Father, but the Son, nor the Son, but the Father, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him];” and they explain it as if the true God were known to none prior to our Lord’s advent; and that God who was announced by the prophets, they allege not to be the Father of Christ. Irenaeus does not state who “they” are, but he follows this with a reference to Christ appearing as man “in the times of Tiberius Cæsar,” which is possibly an oblique reference either to the opening words of Mcg, or an early version of Lk in which Lk 1-2 were not present. Given these quotes from Irenaeus and Justin, it is certain that Tertullian reported what he saw in Mcg, and, as he did not note this as a difference, it is also likely to be what he had in his copy of Lk, and so possibly this is “the gospel” that Justin was referring to. 

75. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 12:5 - from David Inglis - "Epiphanius quotes: “The Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath,” in Scholion 3, but does not suggest that this was because he saw any difference here. Tertullian spends the whole of his chapter 12 discussing the Sabbath, and refers to the term “Lord of the Sabbath” twice, first when introducing the topic, and later when he states that: ‘He was called "Lord of the Sabbath."’ However, this second mention comes after he refers to the healing of the withered hand. This appears to match Bezae (both d and D) in which v. 6:5 is positioned after v. 6:10, with the following text replacing v. 6:5: On the same day, seeing one working on the Sabbath, he said unto him, Man, if thou knowest what you doest, thou art blessed: but if thou dost not know thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law. Willker comments: This passage is generally referred to as Lk 6:5D, but D actually shifts verse 5 after verse 10. This way D has three incidents concerning Jesus and the Sabbath which are finished by the statement of Jesus' sovereignty over the Sabbath… Neither Tertullian nor Epiphanius refer to v. 6:5d, and the existence of this verse in Bezae where text based on Mt 12:5-7 might be expected instead lends additional weight to the possibility that the author of Mcg [aMcg], or perhaps the original aLk, did not know these verses from Mt. Klinghardt agrees that aMcg most likely did not know Mt 12:5-7: If Luke had read Matthew, an equivalent of Matt. 12:5-7 was to be expected between Luke 6:4 and 6:5. However, Tertullian (4.12) attests the whole pericope of the plucking of corn for Mcn and even alludes to parts of *6:4 (4.12.5) and *6:6-7 (4.12.9-10). Epiphanius, too, clearly read *6:3-4 in Mcn.37 Luke’s lack of an equivalent of Matt. 12:5-7 is, therefore, easily understandable if he followed Mcn, not Matthew.

76. the gospel of Marcion had Matthew 12:19 - Megethius "They are not equal in power. By no means! Christ says in the Gospel, "No one can enter into the evil man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the stronger man" [Pretty p. 43 This is Matt 12:29 Luke 11:21 reads instead “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe."

77. the gospel of Marcion likely made reference to Matthew 16:17 - The case of Peter escaped his (Marcion's) memory, who, although he was a man of the law, was not only chosen by the Lord, but also obtained the testimony of possessing knowledge which was given to him by the Father. (Matthew 16:17) [Tertullian Against Marcion 4:11]
“[T]he words of Jesus in Mt 16:17 bear a striking similarity to Paul’s words of his own revelation and commission by the risen Christ in Gl 1:12 and 16-17. Matthew is making the point that it was Peter and not Paul who experienced divine revelations and who was commissioned by Jesus to lead the church.” [David C Sim “Matthew’s anti-Paulinism: A neglected feature of Matthean studies,” HTS 58(2) (2002)See also, Sim, The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The history and social setting of the Matthean community (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1998) at 200-203)]
78. the gospel of Marcion 'betrays assimilation' to Matthew 18:6 - " Clement and Marcion (with the Old Latin) will then confirm each other, as showing that even at this early date the two passages, Matt. xxvi. 24 and Matt, xviii. 6 (Luke xvii. 2), had already begun to be combined. [Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century p. 68]
Marcion's Gospel (as witnessed by Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem H.35) appears to have conflated the two sayings as in the Clement passage [D. A. Hagner, 'The Sayings of Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr', in Gospel Perspectives p. 237]
79. the gospel of Marcion made reference to Matthew 19:3 - 8 
'As regards Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV, 34,' it seems 'very probable that Marcion, when dealing with Lk. 16:18, also considered and rejected Matt. 19:3- 8.' Here Harnack calls on the support of Zahn, op. cit. I, p. 670. [Formation of the Christian Canon p. 159] 
David Inglis, "Tertullian either refers to or quotes from all these verses. He agrees with Epiphanius regarding the beginning of v. 18:18, reading “a certain man” (or just “one”) instead of “a certain ruler,” although neither recognizes this as a difference, indicating that this was what they saw in Lk. This matches the parallels in Mt and Mk, as noted in the NET: Only Luke states this man is a ruler (cf. the parallels in Matt 19:16-22 and Mark 10:17-22, where the questioner is described only as “someone”). In v. 18:20b Tertullian gives the order of commandments as: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother." This is not the order found in either v. 18:20 or the parallel in Mk 10:19, but that found only in Mt 19:18. It seems very unlikely that Marcion would change the order found in Lk to that found in Mt, but a plausible explanation is that Mcg pre-dates Mt, and aMt used the order he saw in Mcg. A second point from the same verse suggesting that Mcg pre-dates Mt is raised by Klinghardt, who comments on v. 18:20 when discussing the fact that Mt 19:19b: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself is unique to Mt: … Like Luke 18:20, Mcn contained only the selection of Decalogue commandments but not the additional love commandment as Matt. 19:19 has it. As in previous examples, Klinghardt is using this as evidence that Lk did not have this text because Mcg (which does not have it either) predates Mt.
Marcion refers to additional passages: Mt. 19:12ff.—cited by Origen, Comm. on Matt. XV.1 on 19:12; Mt. 1:23 etc.—discussed by Tertullian, Adv. Marc.III.12f.; Mt. 19:3-8 discussed by Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV.34.1f.] and Blackman (Marcion, 48f.; he refers to further passages: Mt. 5:17 revised: Οὐκ ἤλθον πληρῶσαι τὸν νόμον ἀλλὰ καταλῦσαι (Adamantius, Dialogue 2:15); Mt. 20:20ff. (or Mk. 10:35ff.) alluded to (Origen reports that theMarcionites believed that Paul sat on the right hand of God and Marcionon the left Comm. on Luke 25); Mt. 23:8 (according to Ephraem, Song 24)]. [Peter Head The Foreign God p. 317]
The passage in Matthew:
The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. 
Heschel notes that this passage can be demonstrated to be associated with the 'two powers' and 'heavenly Torah' controversies in the second century as attested by early rabbinic literature.  Here is the passage in Tertullian Against Marcion 4:34 cited by Head:
Christ forbids divorce: his words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth one that is sent away by her husband, is no less an adulterer. So as to forbid divorce on this side as well, he makes unlawful the marriage of a divorced woman. Moses however permits divorce, in Deuteronomy: If any man hath taken a wife, and hath dwelt with her, and it come to pass that she find not favour with him because some unseemly thing hath been found in her, he shall write a bill of divorcement and give it into her hand and send her away from his house.a You notice the contrast between law and gospel, between Moses and Christ? To be sure I do. For you have not accepted that other gospel, of equal truth, and of the same Christ, in which while forbidding divorce he answers a particular question concerning it: Moses because of the hardness of your heart commanded to give a bill of divorcement, but from the beginning it was not so—because in fact he who made them male and female had said The two of them shall become one flesh.c What therefore God has joined together shall a man presume to put asunder? So by this answer he did two things: he set a guard upon Moses' regulation, as his own, and set in its proper context the Creator's ordinance, being the Creator's Christ. But seeing I have undertaken to confute you from those documents which you have accepted, I will meet you on this ground, as though Christ were mine. When he forbids divorce, while yet claiming as his father him who has joined together the male and the female, must he not rather have defended than abolished Moses' regulation? But now, let us suppose that this Christ is yours, giving opposite teaching to Moses and the Creator—provided that if I prove it was not opposite, I may claim him as mine. I maintain that he has here issued his prohibition of divorce under a certain condition—if any man sends away his wife with the intention of taking another. His words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife and marrieth another hath committed adultery, and whosoever marrieth one sent away by her husband is no less an adulterer— a woman sent away for the same reason for which her husband is not allowed to send her away, so that another may be taken: marrying a woman unlawfully sent away is like marrying one not sent away, and the man who does this is an adulterer. So the marriage not properly dissolved remains a marriage: and for her to marry while the marriage remains, is adultery. Thus if it was under these conditions that he prohibited sending away a wife, this was not a total prohibition: and this that he has not totally prohibited he has permitted under other conditions, where the reason for the prohibition is absent. Thus his teaching is not in opposition to Moses, for he in some form retains his regulation—I do not yet say he confirms it. If however you deny that divorce is in any way permitted by Christ, how comes it that you yourself make separation between married people? For you neither allow the conjunction of male and female, nor do you admit to the sacrament of baptism and the eucharist persons married elsewhere, unless they have made conspiracy between themselves against the fruit of matrimony, and so against the Creator himself. In any case, what in your view does a husband do if his wife has committed adultery? Will he keep her? But, you know, your own apostle does not permit the members of Christ to be joined to a harlot.d It appears then that divorce, when justified, has Christ's authority. 
Head seems to be arguing that - despite Marcion's appeal to Matthew 19:3 - 7 - their argument is invalidated because they are supposed to only use Luke. But despite Irenaeus's claims to the contrary, the Marcionites appealed not only to 'Matthew' (it was just a passage in their gospel) but also to Genesis 1 which appears in the gospel narrative. 

This is very interesting because Crouzel hints also that this section of text may not have been written by Tertullian because it contradicts his known position on marriage: 
Tertullien refuse d'accepter contre Marcion ce qui est une évidence, ressortant de Mt 19, 3-12 : l'attitude de Jésus envers la répudiation est différente de celle que Moïse a concédée à la dureté de cœur du peuple ancien. L'opiniâtreté du docteur africain à soutenir une thèse impossible n'aboutit qu'à obscurcir le raisonnement et semble prêter à Tertullien une thèse opposée à celle qu'il professe partout ailleurs. [Henri Crouzel L'Église primitive face au divorce p. 104] 
 Notice that no 'Paraclete' references appear throughout Against Marcion (contradicting Tertullian's beliefs) but here the attitude toward marriage is contradicted. The point seems to be - Marcionites you are contradicting yourselves because you are appealing to Matthew but you should only stay with Luke. The question though is, who is making up the rules? Is he a fair referee or part of the dispute? And is this a rigged game?

80. the gospel of Marcion made reference to Matthew 19:10 - Origen argues (princ. 2.5) for the goodness ofjustice, citing Paul, 'The law then is good and the commandment holy and just and good' (Rom. 7: 12). The Marcionites had claimed that Matt. 19: 10 refers to the father of Christ who is not the creator; but in the Psalms, God is described as 'good' and in John 17 : 2 5,Jesus addresses his father as 'just '. Origen's thought is dominated by the twin themes of divine unity and goodness. [Eric Osborn the Emergence of Christian Theology p. 138]

81. the gospel of Marcion made reference to Matthew 19:12 - "But before I come to the interpretation of this verse (Matt 19:12), it has yet to be said that Marcion, if he had acted with a little consistency, when he prohibited allegorical interpretations of the scripture, would have rejected these verses too as having not been said by the Savior; he would have had to consider that one would either have to accept (if one says that the Savior said this) that the one who has become a believer should dare to subject himself obediently to such things, or else, if it is not right to risk something like that, because it gives a bad reputation to the Word, one would not be able to believe that these words come from the Savior unless they could be interpreted allegorically."[Origen Commentary on Matthew 15.3]

82. the gospel of Marcion made reference to Matthew 19:13 - 14 - Megethius The prophet of the God of Creation told a bear to come out of the thicket and devour the children who met him but the good Lord says "let the children come to me for of such is the kingdom of heaven." [Pretty p. 58]

83. the gospel of Marcion acknowledged Matthew 19:21 - This must have been poor, for Marcion, following the counsel of Jesus given in Matthew 19:21, sold his goods and donated the proceeds to the Roman church. At first he won the hearts of the people. [Eduardo Hoornaert the Memory of the Christian People p. 99]

84. the gospel of Marcion included Matthew 20:20 - 24/Mark 10:35 - 40 - It is to the credit of Marcion that he claimed no finality for his work, and his later followers not only revised his theology, but also extended his Canon. Later Marcionites accepted the Pastoral Epistles, presumably interpreting the heresies against which they were directed either as Judaism or as Catholic Christianity.2 They accepted St. Matthew v, 17, though they altered its sense by reversing its clauses.3 The notion that St. Paul was seated on the right hand of Christ with Marcion on His left implies a knowledge of St. Mark x, 35-40, or St. Matthew xx, 20 - 4 or possibly both. The Marcionite interlocutor in the Dialogus de recta fide quotes two passages from the Fourth Gospel. [H E W Turner the Pattern of Christian Truth p. 174]

85. the gospel of Marcion referenced Matthew 23:8 - It is not clear that Marcion and his followers fully rejected all other New Testament writings; Ephraem the Syrian (Song 24. 1) claimed that the followers of Marcion had not rejected Matthew 23:8, and both John 13:34 and 15:19 are quoted by a Marcionite in Dialogue 2.16.20. [Everett Ferguson Encyclopedia of Early Christianity p. 206]


86. the gospel of Marcion resembled Matthew 24:1 - 13 instead of Luke - David Inglis, Again he falsified. “There shall not an hair of your head perish.” (Scholion 58) According to Roth, “Volkmar … considered ...12:6–7 and 21:18 possibly to be later additions,” and Baring-Gould wrote: "There shall not an hair of your head perish," omitted, perhaps, lest the God of heaven, whom Christ revealed, should appear to concern himself about the vile bodies of men, under the dominion of the God of this world; but more probably this verse did not exist in the original text. The awkwardness of its position has led many critics to reject it as an interpolation, and the fact of Marcion’s gospel being without it goes far to prove that the original Luke Gospel was without it. This passage has parallels at Mk 13:1-13 and Mt 24:1-13, and although Mt 24:9-12 vary in many details from the account in Mk and Lk, there is no evidence to suggest that Mcg and Lk varied here. However, while Mk 13:13a parallels vv. 21:17, there is no parallel to v. 21:18 in either Mk and Mt. In addition, v. 21:18 is omitted in the Curetonian Syriac ms (Sy-C). Both these points support the view given above that this verse could be an interpolation. Willker suggests that there is no obvious reason either to remove or insert this text: It is possible that the words have been omitted as harmonization to Mt, but this is improbable, because the following words are different in Mt and Lk. It is also possible that the words have been omitted as inappropriate at this place. There is no reason why the words should have been added secondarily. Although the evidence is inclusive, there does appear to be no reason why Marcion would want to remove this verse. Tertullian's lack of comment suggests that it was not in his copy of Lk. 

87. the gospel of Marcion betrays assimilation to Matthew 24:34 [Mt] 5.18 itself rests upon Mt. 24.34f or the source in which this originally stood. The close of 5.18, 4 till all things be accomplished,' does not amalgamate easily with the beginning of the verse, "Till heaven and earth pass away (one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away). Moreover it is difficult to see why the Law should cease to have validity the moment it is fulfilled in its entirety. But the closing sentence in [Mt] 24.34 is perfectly intelligible : "This generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. 'All these things' means here the premonitory signs of the end. 'Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.' Marcion has the same thought in his redaction of Luke 16.17: 'It is easier that heaven and earth shall pass away than one tittle should fall away from my words." For this canonical Luke has 'than for one tittle of the Law should fall.' But this can hardly have been what Lk. intended to say, for this verse stands between two verses which accentuate with the greatest possible emphasis the abolition of the law. [Encylopedia Biblica p. 1860]

88. the gospel of Marcion 'betrays assimilation' to Matthew 26:24 - " Clement and Marcion (with the Old Latin) will then confirm each other, as showing that even at this early date the two passages, Matt. xxvi. 24 and Matt, xviii. 6 (Luke xvii. 2), had already begun to be combined. [Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century p. 68] With respect to the "better for him if he had never been born" (Matt 26:24) reference earlier it would seem this is universally regarded as both being in the Diatessaronic tradition (Ephrem Commentary XIX, §1f and Marcion: Marcion-Tert. adds (after Xvo-iTtXti avrio) ' si natus non fuisset aut ' with all the best Old Latin MSS save the African e. The insertion is clearly an erroneous assimilation to Matt, xxvi 24 = Marc, xiv 2 1, and it serves to shew how soon processes of conflation between the Gospels began to affect the texts, even in passages that are not really parallel. [Journal of Theological Studies Vol 10. p. 181]

89. the gospel of Marcion referenced Matthew 28:19 - Accordingly, if Marcion consecrated the sacrament of baptism with the words of the gospel, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," [Matt 28:19] the sacrament was complete, although his faith expressed under the same words, seeing that he held opinions not taught by the Catholic truth, was not complete, but stained with the falsity of fables. For under these same words, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," not Marcion only, or Valentinus, or Arius, or Eunomius, but the carnal babes of the Church themselves (to whom the apostle said, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal"), if they could be individually asked for an accurate exposition of their opinions, would probably show a diversity of opinions as numerous as the persons who held them, "for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." [Augustine Against the Donatists Chapter 20]


I) the gospel of Marcion was associated with John 

90. Marcion wrote the Gospel as John's secretary  "The Gospel of John was revealed and given to the Churches by John whilst he was still alive in his body, as Papias, called the Hierapolitan, the beloved disciple of John, has reported in his five books of “Exegetics". (he who) wrote down the Gospel, John dictating correctly the true (evangel), (was) Marcion the heretic. Having been disapproved by him for holding contrary views, he was expelled by John. He had, however, brought him writings, or letters, from the brethren who were in the Pontus." [tr. Robert Eisler]

The anti-Marcionite prologue to John has come down to us in a rather corrupt Latin version. It informs us that the Gospel of John was published while John was still alive, and was written down at John’s dictation by Papias, a man from Hierapolis and one of John’s near disciples. As for Marcion, he had been expelled by John himself. This information, the prologue argues, derives from the five exegetical books of Papias himself: the reference is to his Exegesis of the Dominical Logia, which survived into the Middle Ages in some libraries in Europe, but which is, regrettably, no longer extant.

Some of the information provided by the anti-Marcionite prologue is clearly mistaken. It is overwhelmingly doubtful that John excommunicated Marcion: the chronology is stretched too thin. Moreover, as Bruce (p. 10) points out, Papias for his part may have said that the churches or certain disciples ‘wrote down’ what John said, and was subsequently misquoted as meaning ‘I wrote down‘, since in Greek the latter is formally indistinguishable from ‘they wrote down’. Even so, there is no doubt in this document that John himself was responsible for the Fourth Gospel.

Not only Irenaeus, but Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian as well, provide firm second-century evidence for the belief that the apostle John wrote the Gospel. According to Eusebius (H. E. VI. xiv. 7), Clement wrote: ‘But that John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the Gospels, was urged on by his disciples, and, divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.’ A more enigmatic, and in its details less believable, version of the same development is preserved in the Muratorian Canon, the earliest orthodox list of New Testament books to come down to us, probably from the end of the second century. It tells us not only that John’s fellow-disciples and bishops urged him to write, but that by a dream or prophecy it was revealed to Andrew that John should in fact take up the task, writing in his own name, but that the others should review his work and contribute to it. Most scholars take this to be someone’s deduction from John 21:24.

Some indirect evidence is in certain respects still more impressive. Tatian, a student of Justin Martyr, composed the first ‘harmony’ of the fourfold Gospel: he took the books apart and weaved them together into one continuous narrative. This Diatessaron (as it is called), first prepared in Greek, exerted enormous influence in its Syriac translation. But the crucial point to observe is that it is the Gospel of John that provides the framework into which the other three Gospels are fitted. That could not have been the case had there been questions about the authenticity of the book.

Indeed, by the end of the second century the only people who denied Johannine authorship to the Fourth Gospel were the so-called Alogoi– a substantivized adjective meaning ‘witless ones’, but used by the orthodox as a pun to refer to those who rejected the logos (‘Word’: cf. notes on 1:1) doctrine expounded in the Fourth Gospel, and therefore the Fourth Gospel itself. Further, an elder by the name of Gaius in the Roman church, who was one of the Alogoi, maintained orthodoxy at every point except in his rejection of John’s Gospel and the Apocalypse. At least part of his motivation, however, was his virulent opposition to Montanism, an uncontrolled ‘charismatic’ movement arising in the middle of the second century that was wont to claim that its leader, Montanus, was the mouthpiece of the promised Paraclete. Since all of the Paraclete sayings that refer to the Spirit are found in John’s Gospel (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7–15), Gaius did not need much persuading to side with the Alogoi on this point.

Certainly from the end of the second century on, there is virtual agreement in the church as to the authority, canonicity and authorship of the Gospel of John. An argument from silence in this case proves impressive (because we would otherwise have expected the person in question to make a lot of noise!): ‘it is most significant that Eusebius, who had access to many works which are now lost, speaks without reserve of the fourth Gospel as the unquestioned work of St. John’ (Westcott, 1. lix). The silence is ‘most significant’ precisely because it was Eusebius’ concern to discuss the doubtful cases.
It should not be thought that the differences between John and the Synoptics (§ I, above) were unnoticed by the early church Fathers (cf. Wiles, pp. 13–40). The remark of Clement of Alexandria, to the effect that John composed ‘a spiritual Gospel’, is teasing. It certainly does not mean ‘spiritual’ as opposed to ‘historical’; it may mean ’allegorical’ or ‘symbol-laden’. Irenaeus (Against Heresies ii. 22. 3) appeals to the length of Jesus’ ministry in John’s chronology to combat connections that gnostics drew between Jesus’ passion, which they claimed took place in the twelfth month after his baptism, and the twelfth aeon, important in their cosmology. Eusebius, Epiphanius and Augustine set themselves the task of explaining other difficulties between John and the Synoptics, sometimes resorting to tortuous ingenuity. Origen does not think that the chronologies can be reconciled at the historical level, but argues that material falsehood may be the means, through allegory, of preserving and presenting spiritual truth. Theodore, by contrast, seeks to resolve chronological difficulties by arguing that the Synoptics do not really present a chronology with which to conflict: much of their presentation is piecemeal, and can be fitted into the Johannine schema. If there are differences between John and the Synoptics on the passion, for instance, it must be remembered not only that John was actually present for much of the period (unlike the other disciples, who had fled), but that any complex event remembered by a variety of people is bound to be described in independent but complementary fashion. This proves, in Theodore’s view, that the witnesses were not in collusion, and are therefore all the more credible. Thus, his attempts at resolution operate at the historical level.[D A Carlson An Introduction to the New Testament p. 231]
Vinzent on the same passage:
For a very long time, Papias' Fragment 21 (in the J. Kürzinger-edition, one of the first projects in which I was involved as a very young student), has rarely attracted scholarship - I noticed that already when I drew up the annotated bibliography (spanning just Kürzinger's period of his publication and reception to the date of publication of this edition and translation, the latter two done by R.M. Hübner). But it is probably an important document, and it has something to say about Marcion.

The text derives from the "Incipit argumentum secundum Iohannem" of Vat. Reg. lat. 14 (Kürzinger, 124). Now, for days recently, I have struggled again with this text, as given in our two recent editions, that of the mentioned Josef Kürzinger (a.o.), Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Regensburg, 1983); and the other that appeared almost simultaneously, the one done by Körtner: Ulrich H.J. Körtner, Papias von Hierapolis, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 133 (Göttingen, 1983).

The text in both editions is almost identical (the more precise one in Kürzinger is given here):
Evangelium Iohannis manifestatum et datum est ecclesiis ab Iohanne adhuc in corpore constituto, sicut Papias nomine Hierapolitanus, discipulus Iohannis carus, in exotericis id est in extremis quinque libris retulit. Descripsit vero Evangelium dictante Iohanne recte.

Verum Martion hereticus, cum ab eo fuisset improbatus eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus est a Iohanne. Is vero scripta vel epistolas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus, qui in Ponto fuerunt.

The German translation of Hübner reads:
Das Evangelium des Johannes ist noch zu seinen Lebzeiten veröffentlicht und den Gemeinden übergeben worden, wie Papias (mit Namen Hierapolitaner), der vertraute Schüler des Johannes in seinen Ausführungen (?), nämlich in den letzten (?) fünf Büchern berichtet hat. Er schrieb das Evangelium nach dem Diktat des Johannes richtig nieder.

Der Häretiker Markion jedoch wurde, nachdem er von ihm wegen seiner gegensätzlichen Meinungen gerügt worden war, von Johannes abgesetzt. Dieser hatte Schriften oder Briefe zu ihm überbracht von den Brüdern, die in Pontus waren.

Körtner translates the same text as follows:
Das Johannesevangelium ist den Gemeinden von Johannes, als er noch am Leben war, offenbart und gegeben worden, wie Papias, genannt der Hierapolitaner, ein lieber Schüler des Johannes, in seinen exoterischen (exegetischen?), das heißt in den allerletzten (äußeren?) fünf Büchern berichtete hat. Er schrieb sogar das Evangelium nach dem Diktat des Johannes fehlerfrei auf. Indessen ist der Ketzer Marcion, der von ihm (= Papias?) verworfen wurde, weil er die Gegensätze wahrnahm, (auch) durch Johannes widerlegt worden. Er (= Marcion?) hat ihm (= Papias?) nämlich Schriften oder Briefe von den Brüdern mitgebracht, die in Pontus lebten.

Körtner remarked already (Ibid. 253, note 133), that it is unklear, "to whom to refer the last argument of the fragment", and it "remains extremely dubious why the [earlier] editors of the fragments of Papias left out the last sentences or, as in K. Bihlmeyer they were set in brackets. 'In the final sentence„He“ (Is) seemes to refer to Marcion as subject' (J.A. Kleist, ACW 6, p. 210, note 46). R. Annad, SJTh 9, 1956, S. 60 reads: '... VERUM. MARCION HERETICUS ... ABIECTUS EST: AB IOHANNE ...' The dark words 'ab eo' and 'ad eum', then in both cases mean Papias. On this more reluctant is W.R. Schoedel, The Apostolic Fathers V, S. 122.“

When we study this text, we notice that not only the end of it is dark. To date, the opening of the sentence with "descripsit vero" is unclear as well, because it is not obvious who the subject of this verb is. When we read the text, as printed (and as read in Pitra and the manuscript), one would need to take John as the subject, of whom it was said before that he had published and distributed his Gospel - but the text adds "dictante Iohanne" which excludes him from being the subject of "descripsit". If not John, do we have to take Papias as its subject? However, the previous sentence is given in passive form and Papias only appears in the subordinate clause, so that the descripsit-sentence is somehow unconnected. Even more so is what follows and introduces Marcion, the heretic. What has Marcion to do with the previous argument? And what has the writing down or the description to do with the fact that John rejects Marcion? And again, what in this context is the meaning of "contraria"?

To start with the easier, the latter task. It seems to me that in the context of Marcion "contraria" are not simply opposing views or ideas, but the "Antitheses" of Marcion that he put before his Gospel in the published version. If this were so, then John had read Marcion’s Antitheses together with his Gospel and, as a result of the former, rejected him (eo quod contraria sentiebat). If this were so – according to this text, of course – we might be able to solve the riddles of the first part. Already in the year, 1938 Robert Eisler suggested a slightly different interpunction.

Robert Eisler, The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel(London, 1938), 156:
Evangelium Iohannis manifestatum et datum est ecclesiis ab Iohanne adhuc in corpore constituto sicut Papias nomine hierapolitanus, discipulus Iohannis carus in exegeticis quinque libris retulit. Descripsit vero evangelium, dictante Iohanne recte verum Marcion hereticus. Cum ab eo fuisset improbatus, eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus est ab Iohanne. Is vero scripta vel epistolas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus, qui in Ponto fuerunt.

Here my own translation:
The Gospel of John, even during his lifetime, was published and distributed to the churches, as Papias, called the Hierpolitan, the beloved disciple of John, has reported in his explications (?), namely the last (?) five books. But Marcion, the heretic, described/wrote down the/a Gospel, while John dictated correctly the true one. Since he [Marcion] has been disapproved by him [John], for him [John] having got to know the Antitheses of him [Marcion], John rebuked him. He [Marcion], indeed, had brought him writings or letters from the brethren who were in Pontus.

"Descripsit" is, unfortunately, an ambiguous term. It can mean "describe", and if so here, then Marcion described the Gospel (of John), if, however, it means "wrote down", then we would need to understand that Marcion wrote down a Gospel – there are several indications that the second variant seems the correct one here: Whereas in the case of the Gospel of John the specification is given, there is no such detailing for Marcion’s text (hence, it is not to be referred to John), while it is added that John "dictated correctly the true one [Gospel]". If one opts for the first variant, then Marcion had criticized the Gospel of John as he did the others of being plagiarisms (aemulationes), pointing apparently to Luke and Matthew. If we follow the second variant, then the text differentiates between the written down Gospel of Marcion and the true, correctly dictated one of John without telling us who, in fact, wrote it down. We only know that John himself had published and distributed it. Or shall one combine the two varants, as Eisler did who believed that Marcion was the scribe of John who wrote down what John dictated correctly, but then usshered his "contraria" which made John rebuke him. The latter version, however, seems to me to go beyond the text, as the writing down in itself is not negatively connotated in the text, only the voicing of the "contraria". That it seems to be about the opposition between the correctly dictated text of John, the true Gospel, and Marcion’s own Gospel, qualifying all others as untrue by the added Antitheses is indicated by the following clause, which underlines, again, that Marcion gave John writings or letters from the Brothers in Pontus, hence Marcion’s and Marcionite works. Whichever way one may read this Incipit, the text defends John who dictated, published and distributed his own Gospel as the true and correct one, while the Antitheses of Marcion and with these their author are being rejected. At the same time, supported by Papias, John’s product is highlighted as an authentic Gospel. The hint at the correct dictation may counter-argue Marcion’s accusation of plagiarism.

That we have to do, indeed, with information by Papias is supported by the way Papias describes the working of Mark and Matthew. In both cases, Papias is concerned with correctness and order, so with Mark, he criticizes him of incorrectly writing down, what Peter has preached, and with regards to Matthew he insists that Matthew had followed the right (corrected?) order. Papias endorses that John dictated correctly, but that Marcion in his Antitheses must have criticized him and challenged the truth of it.
91. the gospel of Luke still betrays that its author 'incorporated' material from John - Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (XIH-XXI): Introduction, Translation, and Notes, AB 29a (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), 1000,
claimed that the verse is "obviously an addition to the narrative, but in our opinion a redactor's addition, not a later scribe's." He goes on to say "Much of the language of Luke xxiv 12 is non-Lucan in style, and the redactor may have borrowed it from an earlier form of the Johannine tradition (where Peter but not the Beloved Disciple was mentioned). If this is true, Luke xxiv 12 does not Luke (xxiv. 12) does not speak of John, not a few have said that Luke mentions a second visit of Peter alone. The cause of this visit, it is said, was the message given him by Mary Magdalene after she saw the Lord (so Jones) ; but McClellan makes the constitute an independent witness to the story of the disciples' visit to the tomb. The other verse, Luke xxiv 24, is more important; for although it appears in the context of the Emmaus narrative, it is part of a summary of post-resurrectional happenings that may have come to Luke partially formed." Marcion's canon and the Johannine corpus were at any rate comparable in one respect: they contained only writings in which there was just one theology - or for which one could postulate the same theology.
and again:
Marcion was not the first to develop the idea of such a two-part canon. Rather, it already appears implicitly in the Johannine corpus. Here we have a collection of writings which belongs together in theology and linguistic style (modern analysts were the first to be able to note the subtle differences between the Gospel and the Letters of John). Here for the first time the two most important genres of the New Testament canon - gospel and letter - were combined in a single collection of writings which emerged with an authoritative claim: the Gospel of John seeks to be the authentic and true testimony to Jesus.[Gerd Theissen, Religion of the Early Church p. 263]
92. Tertullian never says that Marcion rejected John's gospel and assumes John and he were contemporaries (and in fact John knew Marcion) -We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator. [Adv Marc 4.5] except that this opinion too will have had other inventors, those so to speak premature and abortive Marcionites whom the apostle John pronounced antichrists, who denied that Christ was come in the flesh [Adv Marc 3.8] For out of those authors whom we possess (Matthew, John, Mark and Luke just mentioned), Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate [Adv Marc 4.2] I think a strong circumstantial case can be made that Tertullian assumes Marcion was familiar with the contents of the gospel of John - (a) John knew of the Marcionites thus Marcion's followers (b) they claimed to know the Apocalypse wasn't by John assumes personal knowledge of what John wrote (no mention of a rejection of the gospel) and (c) it is assumed only that the Marcionites corrupted Luke. The context seems to be that Marcion was aware of material from all four gospels and the association with Luke develops only because of Irenaeus's artificial division of four 'heretical types' according to his artificial canon of 'four gospels.' In other words, it is a literary contrivance.

93. the gospel of Marcion, like the Diatessaron, likely began with what is not referred to as the Prologue of John - Harnack suggested that the Irenaean passage (Adv. haer. 3.11.2) may indicate Marcion's opposition to the Fourth Gospel [Tuomas Rasimus the Legacy of John p. 154]
John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part, when he says, "He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [things], and His own [people] received Him not." But according to Marcion, and those like him, neither was the world made by Him; nor did He come to His own things, but to those of another (Adv. haer. 3.11.2) may indicate Marcion's opposition to the Fourth Gospel [Harnack Das Evangelium von frenden Gott 1996 p. 251]. 
I think Harnack's point is that Marcion might have known the introduction but one can turn that same argument around and argue that Irenaeus is attacking the Marcionites because they used the introduction. Why else does someone cite author X against heretic Y: "John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part, when he says, "He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [things], and His own [people] received Him not." But according to Marcion, and those like him, neither was the world made by Him; nor did He come to His own things, but to those of another" (Adv. haer. 3.11.2) may indicate Marcion's opposition to the Fourth Gospel [Harnack Das Evangelium von frenden Gott 1996 p. 251] The arguments from Luke take the same shape over and over again in Tertullian - Luke said X but Marcion believed Y, Paul said X but it contradicts the Marcionites who say Y. I will amend 70 to reflect my interpretation of the passage as a variation of what was suggested by Harnack. I will also revisit Rasimus.

94. the gospel of Marcion made reference to John 13:34 - MK. The Saviour clearly says, "A new commandment I give to you"(Jn 13:34 Petty's note Intriguingly Marcus again quotes from a gospel outside of Marcion's Luke as he does further on cf. the next note) [Pretty p. 95]

95. the gospel of Marcion made reference to John 14:16 - 17- The apostle Paul warns against inordinate and irrational love when he says of himself, "I fear that someone might have an opinion of me above what he sees or hears from me, and that the greatness of the revelations might exalt me," and so on. (2 Cor 12:6-7) Paul feared that even he might fall into this error. So he was unwilling to state everything about himself that he knew. He wanted no one to think more of him than he saw or, going beyond the limits of honor, to say what had been said about john, that "he was the Christ." Some people said this even about Dositheus, the heresiarch of the Samaritans; others said it also about judas the Galilean. Finally, some people burst forth into such great audacity of love that they invented new and unheard of exaggerations about Paul. For, some say this, that the passage in Scripture that speaks of "sitting at the Savior's right and left" (Mk 10:38) applies to Paul and Marcion: Paul sits at his right hand and Marcion at his left. Others read the passage, "I shall send you an advocate, the Spirit of Truth," (Jn 14:16) and are unwilling to understand a third person besides the Father and the Son, a divine and exalted nature. They take it to mean the apostle Paul. Do not all of these seem to you to have loved more than is fitting and, while they admired the virtue of each, to have lost moderation in love?" [Origen, Homilies on Luke 23]

The 'others' are clearly 'other Marcionites,' other than the 'official' claim that they only used Luke which is confirmed by the Acts of Archelaus where the bishop of Harran, Archelaus (the man who serves 'Marcion' viz Marcellus) repeatedly declares:
for our Lord Jesus Christ says of this Paraclete, He shall receive of mine. Him therefore He selected as an acceptable vessel; and He sent this Paul to us [AA 34] 
the Paraclete, could not come into any other, but could only come upon ... the sainted Paul. For he is a chosen vessel, He says, unto me, to bear my name before kings and the Gentiles. The apostle himself, too, states the same thing in his first epistle, where he says: According to the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. And again: For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me by word and deed. I am the last of all the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle. But by the grace of God I am what I am. And it, is his wish to have to deal with those who sought the proof of that Christ who spoke in him, for this reason, that the Paraclete was in him: and as having obtained His gift of grace, and as being enriched with magnificent, honour, he says: For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you; for strength is made perfect in weakness. Again, that it was the Paraclete Himself who was in Paul, is indicated by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel, when He says: If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray my Father, and He shall give you another Comforter. In these words He points to the Paraclete Himself, for He speaks of another Comforter. And hence we have given credit to Paul, and have hearkened to him when he says, Or do you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me? and when he expresses himself in similar terms, of which we have already spoken above. [AA 35] 
So then Christ, our most patient Lord, has through all these years borne with a perversion of the preaching about himself, until, if you please, Marcion should come to his rescue. [Tertullian Adv Marc 1.20] As corrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberius to those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes to light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time, repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without Marcion to protect them. [Adv Marc 4.4] "the type of the Paraclete, Paul became the Apostle of the Resurrection" (ho Paulos anastaseōs Apostolos gegonen) [Theodotos 23]

Mani clearly grew out of the Marcionite interpretation (for he claims he is the Paraclete in the text. So too Muhammad for they all used the same 'Diatessaronic' gospel text which identified the Paraclete as a person rather than the Holy Spirit. One must also suspect that pre-canonical Montanists similarly used a Diatessaronic gospel with this understanding.

"Certain followers of Marcion identified the 'other Paraclete' of Jo. 14,16 with St. Paul; cf. H.B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London, 1912), 65-66 Certain followers of Marcion identified the 'other Paraclete' of Jo. 14,16 with St. Paul; cf. H.B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London, 1912), 65-66 In his Homilies on Luke 25,5, after discussing the Marcionite exaltation of Paul, Origen says that "Others read the passage, 'I shall send you an advocate, the Spirit of Truth' [Jn 14,16-17] and... they take it to mean the apostle Paul" (trans. J. Lienhard, Origen) [Rosenstiel the Apocalypse of Paul p. 151]

95. the gospel of Marcion made reference to John 15:19 - Mark the Marcionite He does not call the world nor its creatures good. He says "If you were of this world the world would love its own." (Jn 15:19) [Pretty p. 106]

96. the gospel of Marcion made reference to things found only in John 17:2- the gospel of Marcion made reference to John 17:2 - Again Origen argues (princ. 2.5) for the goodness ofjustice, citing Paul, 'The law then is good and the commandment holy and just and good' (Rom. 7: 12). The Marcionites had claimed that Matt. 19: 10 refers to the father of Christ who is not the creator; but in the Psalms, God is described as 'good' and in John 17 : 2 5,Jesus addresses his father as 'just '. Origen's thought is dominated by the twin themes of divine unity and goodness. [Eric Osborn the Emergence of Christian Theology p. 138]

J) the gospel of Marcion was 'according to Mark'

97. - the Marcionite canon had the gospel 'according to Mark' and the epistles of Paul -
When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets). For none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to Mark. But (the real author of the system) is Empedocles, son of Meto, a native of Agrigentum. And (Marcion) despoiled this (philosopher), and imagined that up to the present would pass undetected his transference, under the same expressions, of the arrangement of his entire heresy from Sicily into the evangelical narratives. [Philosophumena 7:18] 
Dieter Roth in his dissertation notes the implications of the statement - regarding "Hippolytus’s comment apparently calling Marcion’s Gospel “Mark” in Haer. 7.30.1." Raschke developed a thesis that this passage makes clear Marcion's gospel was really 'according to Mark.' More to follow about that but for now: Videtur autem Hippolytus hac appellatione [6 KoA.o/?o8aKxv\os] ideo usus esse, ut simul alluderet ad mutilatum quo Marcion uteretur evangelium, quod, cum Lucae esset, Hippolytus prave Marco adscribebat. Idem, cum Paulum Marco consociet, Marcioneum Novi Foederis canonem complectitur universum [Duncker] But even so, it does not seem to have occurred to Duncker, to whom we owe the note, to question the literal meaning of the epithet altogether ; he simply treats the metaphorical allusion to the ' curtailed ', or more exactly ' curt-fingered' character of Mark's Gospel, as secondary (ut simul alluderet). Yet surely, when we reflect on it for a moment, Hippolytus cannot have meant in such a solemn argumentative context to introduce suddenly and without explanation a reference to 'a personal peculiarity which had impressed itself on the memory of the Roman Church ' (Swete, op. cit. p. xxii). The very persistence of such a detail in the local tradition down to Hippolytus' day is not very likely ; nor would it in any case be introduced in this passing way into a treatise meant also for circulation beyond Rome. Surely the term is meant in a self-explanatory sense, obvious to all who knew Mark's Gospel, transferring to the Evangelist himself an epithet proper to his work, which seemed but a ' curtailed ' account of Christ's ministry, when compared with the fuller Matthew and Luke — curtailed especially at the extremities, the beginning and the end. That this is the true view is further shewn by the divergent stories found in different prefaces to the Vulgate, as to the exact sense in which Mark was literally 'curt-fingered'. Such divergence betrays their nature as glosses upon the simple epithet, the ultimate origin of which may well be the passage in Hippolytus. Thus I think we may bid good-bye to these stories as to Mark's physical peculiarity, while we gain instead fresh evidence as to how hard a fight Mark's Gospel had to wage with religious praejudicia."[Journal of Theological Studies vol 6]

98. the gospel of Marcion had Mark 6:41 - 49:
Volker Lukas notes that Tertullian Adv Marc 4.20.1 only cites verse 25 from Luke 8:22 - 25: One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” Yet Lukas makes the interesting observation that Tertullian's cites from Mark or John the idea that the disciples say Jesus on the waters: but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, [Mark 6:49] So we read him note: Jesu Stillung des Seesturms liegt nach Tertullian also genau auf der Linie der Taten der Diener des Schöpfers, ja seine Leistung sei nicht größer als die von diesen vollbrachten Taten. Dieser findet sich aber gar nicht in Lk (sondern Mk 6,49; Jon 6, 1 9), so dass Tertullian offenbar beabsichtigt, das einschlägige Motiv der Beherrschung der Elemente durch Jesus, den Christus des Schöpfergottes, noch ein wenig weiter zu. [Volker Lukas Rhetorik und literarischer "Kampf": Tertullians p. 266] 
Now Tertullian's original statement: Now who is this, that commands even the winds and the sea? [Luke 8:25] Some new ruler, perhaps, and impropriator of the elements which have belonged to that Creator who is now subdued and dispossessed? By no means. Those elements had recognized their author, even as they had of old been accustomed to obey his servants. Look at Exodus, Marcion: see how Moses' rod gave orders to the Red Sea, a much greater matter than all the ponds in Judaea, so that it was split to the bottom, was made firm with equal amazement on either side, and by a route through its midst let the people pass through on dry feet: and again at the command of the same rod its nature returned, and the flowing together of the waters overwhelmed the Egyptian host. To that Work also the south winds gave service. Read how for the dividing off of one tribe by lot there was a sword at their crossing of Jordan, after Joshua had clearly enjoined its current from above and below to stand still as the prophets passed over. What say you to this? If Christ belongs to you, you will not find him more powerful than these servants of the Creator. Now I might have been content with these instances, but that a prophecy of this actual walking upon the sea had anticipated Christ's action. When he crosses the sea, there is
a psalm being fulfilled, The Lord is upon many waters. When he scatters its waves, Habakkuk is being fulfilled, Scattering the waters by his passage.d When at his rebuke the sea is stricken down, Nahum too is made complete, He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, along with those winds, of course, by which it was disquieted. By what evidence will you have me prove that Christ is mine? By the Creator's acts or by his prophets? [Tertullian 4.20] 
The passage in Tertullian Adversus Marcionem is understood to refer to Mark in Oden's compilation

99. the gospel of Marcion had Mark 8:38 - It is, however, a jealous God whom He here presents to me one who returns evil for evil. "For whosoever," says He, "shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed." Now to none but my Christ can be assigned the occasion of such a shame as this. His whole course was so exposed to shame as to open a way for even the taunts of heretics, declaiming with all the bitterness in their power against the utter disgrace of His birth and bringing-up, and the unworthiness of His very flesh [Adv Marc 4.21]
In Adversus Marcionem IV.21 Tertullian must be quoting not Mark but Luke, since his argument is intended to confound Marcion with Marcion's own gospel. The theme is the shame Christ endured through accepting the conditions of ordinary human birth, life and death
Qui confusus, inquit, mei fuerit, et ego confundar eius. Quando nec con- fusionis materia conveniat nisi meo Christo, cuius ordo magis pudendus, ut etiam haereticorum conviciis pateat, omnem nati- vitatis et educationis foeditatem et ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem quanta amaritudine possunt perorantibus
There is no room here for a reference either to my words or to my people, and they do not appear. It is worth noting that at Mk 8.38 the extraordinary Old Latin MS. k actually reads:
Qui autem me confessus fuerit et meos in natione adultera et peccatrice et filios [sic] hominis confundetur ilium cum venerit in claritate patris sui cum angelis Sanctis.
A corrector has erased et meos ; and of course confessus is an error for confusus (arising under the influence of Matthew 10.32; Luke 12.8) [C K Barrett On Paul: Essays on His Life, Work, and Influence in the Early Church p. 127] 
Qui confusus, inquit, mei fuerit, et ego confundar eius. Quando nec con- fusionis materia conveniat nisi meo Christo, cuius ordo magis pudendus, ut etiam haereticorum conviciis pateat, omnem nati- vitatis et educationis foeditatem et ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem quanta amaritudine possunt perorantibus. 
100. the gospel of Marcion's description of the Eucharist most closely resembles 'according to Mark' - Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, "This is my body," that is, the figure of my body… He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the covenant to be sealed in His blood, affirms the reality of His body… In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah… Mk 14:22-25 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take it: this is my body. [c.f. v. 22:19a] And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. [c.f. v. 22:17] And he said unto them, This is my blood of the covenant, [c.f. v. 22:20b] which is shed for many. [c.f. v. 22:20c] Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, [c.f. v. 22:18a] until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. [c.f. v. 22:18b]

K) Harnack gives thirty four examples of 'textual assimilations' of the gospel of Marcion to Matthew and Mark - 
As Wilson notes "this text of Luke which Marcion found in (?) Rome was already assimilated to Matthew and Mark. Harnack gives a list of thirty-four such assimilations in Marcion which have no other Western attestation. But it is a characteristic of all witnesses to the Western text to present unique readings ; these need not therefore be Marcion's own." [Robert Smith Wilson Marcion p. 145]
Harnack believes that these readings have no significance, since most of them are simply western readings, frequent in D the old Latin. (It may be added that many of Marcion's readings, as given by Harnack, later turn up in the Byzantine text). Frequently these western and Marcionite readings conform the text of Luke to Matthew and Mark. Knox points out that this does not necessarily mean that Marcion got his textual tradition from Rome; "western" merely means "unrevised local texts," and in his second edition Harnack admitted that Marcion may have obtained his text in the east. But this does not solve the problem whether the western and Marcionite text is in these passages more or less original than our neutral text. There are three possibilities, (a) that Marcion's recension is actually earlier and for that reason closer to the readings of Mark and Q, (b) that Marcion's Luke was already affected by the "wild western" tendency, and (c) that Tertullian and others unconsciously corrupted their evidence in a Western direction. Now, if the textual peculiarities are to be accounted for on Knox's theory, an ecclesiastical recension of Luke-Acts was made in the second century, but it was very soon affected by the text of Luke's older form, and Acts also underwent a great deal of textual change almost immediately. This is, of course, not impossible. On the other hand, a simpler explanation is possible if Luke- Acts, substantially in its present form, was completed about the year 100. In both east and west, the text of Luke was much affected by Matthew and Mark, and it was manuscripts of type that Marcion utilized. Even if Marcion made use of a shorter recension of Luke, it may have undergone such textual change. [Anglican Theological Review Mercer p. 234]
These examples include

101. - Mark 2:28 - The words “likewise those of the Pharisees” may be an editorial addition (they were omitted in Marcion's text of Lk.; cf. also on Mk. 2:18). [Emil Gottlieb Heinrich Kraeling The Clarified New Testament p. 212]
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135

N) Marcion added things to his gospel which was Mark

136. "we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets). For none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to Mark. But (the real author of the system) is Empedocles, son of Meto, a native of Agrigentum. And (Marcion) despoiled this (philosopher), and imagined that up to the present would pass undetected his transference, under the same expressions, of the arrangement of his entire heresy from Sicily into the evangelical narratives. For bear with me, O Marcion: as you have instituted a comparison of what is good and evil, I also to-day will institute a comparison following up your own tenets, as you suppose them to be." [Philosophumena 7.18]

O) Tertullian argues from a harmonized source against Marcion (aside from 'cut' references)

137. Matthew 5:42 - from David Inglis, "After commenting on vv. 6:27-28 Tertullian quotes v. 6:29, although the text given is not exactly as we see it, mainly resulting from Tertullian preceding it with “and bids us, on the contrary:” "to him who smites us on the one cheek, to offer the other also, and to give up our coat to him that takes away our cloak." [6:29] However, Tertullian has the active “to give up our coat” instead of the passive “forbid not to take thy coat,” which is similar to the parallel at Mt 5:40b, which has: “and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also,” although here “cloak” and “coat” are reversed.

138.  Matthew 5:45 - sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good;

139. Matthew 9:19 - David Inglis, “I besought thy disciples.” But in addition to, “And they could not cast it out,” [9:40] he had “And he said unto them, ‘O faithless generation, how long shall I suffer you’?” [9:41] (Scholion 19) As has been previously reported, Epiphanius does not always quote whole verses, and this may be the case here. He does not indicate that anything is missing from Mcg, but instead is just questioning the use of “how long.” In combination, Tertullian and Epiphanius refer to almost all of vv. 9:40-41, albeit with slight variations. Like Tertullian, Epiphanius does not mention vv. 9:37-39 and 9:42-43, which could mean that these verses were not present in Mcg. However, vv. 9:40-41a on their own would make little sense. In addition, the whole passage has parallels in both Mt and Mk, making it almost certain that the rest of the passage existed in Mcg. Both Tertullian and Epiphanius quote “O faithless generation” rather than “O faithless and perverse generation,” so it is virtually certain that this is what they saw in Mcg. As neither suggest that Marcion had omitted anything here it is highly likely that this is also what they saw in Lk, as in the parallel at Mk 9:19 in most mss (P45 and W have both words, possibly as an assimilation to Mt or Lk).

140. Matthew 10:10 for the workman is worthy of his meat.

141. Matthew 10:10 - It is conceivable that Tertullian did not see vv. 10:2, 3 and 9 in Mcg, and perhaps the prohibition on carrying purse and scrip in v. 10:4a. He does state that “Christ commanded His disciples not to carry even a staff for their journey,” which could be a reference back to v. 9:3, but given the mention of “Christ” rather than “Marcion’s Christ” is more likely to be taken from Mt 10:10a.

142. Matthew 10:37 whosoever preferred father or mother or brethren to the Word of God, was not a disciple worthy of Him.

143. Matthew 12:1 -  Tertullian, according to David Inglis "mentions that the disciples had been hungry, as we see in Mt 12:1 but not Lk, but does not refer to them eating, agreeing with Mk 2:23. Despite these differences Tertullian does not indicate that he saw any variation in Marcion's gospel.'

144. Matthew 12:32 - David Inglis, And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. [12:10] Epiphanius does not mention this verse, but Tertullian quotes it in his chapter 28: "Whosoever shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him." [12:10] [Qui dixerit in filium hominis, remittetur illi, qui autem dixerit in spiritum sanctum, non remittetur ei] Tertullian has “shall speak against” in two places, instead of “shall speak a word against” and “blasphemeth against.” This is similar to Bezae, which has: And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this age, nor in that to come. [12:10] [et omnis qui dixerit uerbum in filium hominis dimittetur illi in spm autem sanctum non demittetur illi neque in saeculo hoc neque in futuro] The addition at the end of the verse in Bezae makes it very close to the parallel in Mt: And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. [Mt 12:32] With the exception noted above, it appears that Mcg had these verses essentially as we see them. Interestingly it appears here that v. 12:10 in Bezae is closest to the parallel in Mt, suggesting perhaps that this was the original form in Lk, with the final clause being omitted in Mcg, with ‘blasphemeth’ then finally replacing ‘speaking against.’ In v. 12:10 Jesus states that anyone who speaks “against the Son of man” will be forgiven, but blaspheming “against the Holy Ghost” will not. This is similar to Mk 3:28-29, but here Jesus says that “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness.” Mt then appears to conflate Mk and Lk, but although both Mk and Lk refer only to blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, Mt has both that blasphemy (Mt 12:31) and speaking (Mt 12:32) against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven, with the latter being superfluous. However, this oddity is readily explainable if Mt is conflating Mk and Mcg, because in Mcg v. 12:10b has: “shall speak against the Holy Ghost.” Mt 12:31b (blaspheming) therefore comes from Mk 3:39a, while Mt 12:32b (speaking against) comes from Mcg. Lk then removes the redundant text in Mt, leaving just speaking against the Son of man, and blaspheming against the Holy Ghost in v. 12:10. 

145. Matthew 12:48 - Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?

146. Matthew 13:11 - 13 - David Inglis, "at the beginning of Adv. Haer. IV.29, Irenaeus appears to indicate that vv. 8:9-10 was not present in the Gospel used by the Marcionites: But, say they, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants [Ex 9:35]. Those, then, who allege such difficulties, do not read in the Gospel that passage where the Lord replied to the disciples, when they asked Him, Why do You speak unto them in parables? [8:9?] Because it is given unto you to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; but to them I speak in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear, understanding they may not understand; [8:10?] in order that the prophecy of Isaiah regarding them may be fulfilled, saying, Make the heart of this people gross and make their ears dull, and blind their eyes. But blessed are your eyes, which see the things that you see; and your ears, which hear what you hear [Isa 6:10] The gospel text that Irenaeus quotes is much closer to Mt 13:11-13 than to vv. 8:9-10 (although it is not quite the same as either), so it is not certain what source he is quoting. For example, if Mt was his source then why did he omit Mt 13:11b-12, and does “understanding they may not understand” actually reflect v. 24:45 instead? 

147. Matthew 13:14 Ye shall hear with the ear, but ye shall not understand.

148. Matthew 15:14 - the blind man leads the blind down into the ditch. [Adv Marc 4.17] from David Inglis, Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. [Mt 15:14] This parallel suggests that here Tertullian might be quoting Mt 15:14b, but his lack of reference to Mt 15:14a and addition of v. 6:40a instead makes this unlikely. It should also be noted that there is a parallel in Thomas, with saying 34 being essentially the same as Tertullian’s variant of v. 6:39: Jesus said, "If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit." And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? [6:39] The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. [6:40] Tertulian quotes: “a blind man will lead a blind man into the ditch." and "the disciple is not above his master." While the second quote is clearly v. 6:40a, the first is a variant in which the questions in v. 6:39 are turned into a statement. Although this short parable has no parallel in Mk, v. 6:39 does have a parallel in Mt. 

149. Matthew 16:17 but also obtained the testimony of possessing knowledge which was given to him by the Father.

150. Matthew 17.5 - David Inglis, “Out of the cloud, a voice, This is my beloved son” [9:35] (Scholion 18) In neither case does Epiphanius state that he found a difference in Mcg. Instead, he is using these verses to show that by leaving these words Marcion shows that his Jesus knew who the men “in glory” were, and that his ‘god’ (the demiurge) was not just master above heaven. The reading “my beloved son” is found in the majority of mss (including D), as well as in the parallels at Mk 9:7 and Mt 17:5, although P45, P75, 01, B, L, Q, X, f1, 579, 892, 1241, 1342, pc, Lat(b, c, e, f, q, r1, vg), Sy-S, Sy-Hmg, Co, arabMS have “my chosen one” instead. As it is unlikely that Marcion would assimilate Mcg to either Mk or Mt, it appears that “my beloved son” is the original reading in Lk.

151. Matthew 18:24 - Tertullian says his teaching to be “like” infants - "But, behold, Christ takes905 infants, and teaches how all ought to be like them, if they ever wish to be greater" (Adv Marc 4.23)  [Ray Embry, the Enigma p. 103]

152. Tertullian argues from Matt 18:17 to correct Marcion's interpretation - In Luke 5:30 and 19:9b he may have considered two tax collectors, Levi and Zacchaeus, as Gentiles, for at the first text Tertullian speaks of "Gentiles and tax collectors" rather than "tax collectors and sinners," perhaps thinking of Levi as a gentile (ethnicus). At the second text he specifically refers to Zacchaeus as a Gentile (allo- phylus).39 [39] Ibid. 189* and 227* = Tertullian 4.11.2; 37.1. Conceivably these alterations (or quotations from memory) are due to Tertullian rather than Marcion. The expression "Gentile and tax collector" occurs in Matt. 18:17, which Marcion did not accept. [Robert McQueen Grant Heresy and Criticism p. 134]

153. Matthew 26:24 … if he had not been born.

154. Matthew 26:67 - 68 David Inglis, In Elenchus 68 he then confirms what he saw, and comments:  That “they that held,” “mocked,” “smite,” “strike,” and “Prophesy, who is it that smote thee,” was not appearance, but indicative of tangibility and physical reality, is plain to everyone, Marcion, even if you have gone blind and will not acknowledge God’s plain truth. The KJV has all the actions mentioned by Epiphanius, but between Jesus being ‘smote’ and ‘struck,’ it also has Jesus being blindfolded. As Epiphanius does not mention the blindfolding, and this action is definitely “indicative of tangibility and physical reality,” it seems certain that he did not see it in Mcg. This is similar to the parallels in both Mk and Mt, in which Jesus is hit but not blindfolded: And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands, and to say unto him, Prophesy: [Mk 14:65] Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands, Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee? [Mt 26:67-68] The lack of the blindfolding in Mt (and the slightly different ‘covering’ in Mk) makes it likely that in Mcg it was not an omission by Marcion, but that this was what was in whatever ms formed the basis of Mcg.



P) Epiphanius cites from a harmonized source against Marcion 

155.  "But for his refutation out of his own mouth, Marcion says, “It came to pass on one of those days, as he taught in the temple, they sought to lay hands on him and they were afraid,” as we read in the next paragraph [Scholion], 54. (e) How he got from Jericho to the temple will be learned from the journey itself and the length of the road. But this should make it plain that the crook concealed what happened on the road, and what the Savior himself said in the temple before this saying, I mean (that he said), “My house shall be called an house of prayer” (Matt 21:13) and so on, as the prophecy [Isa 56:7] runs. [Epiphanius Panarion Elenchus 54]

Q) Adamantius cites from a harmonized source against Marcion

156. the Marcionite gospel had parallel material to Matthew 7:2, 10:33, 10:34? - Adamantius (citing from Marcion's NT cf. 824a and immediately after saying) "I have your Apostolikon here) If, however, judgement comes from the Good God the Good God is revealed as judge. Where, then, do we place the Scripture that says, "For whatever a man sows, that also will he reap?"(Gal 6:7) Where, pray, do we set the Saviour's declaration, "The measure you give will be the measure you get" (Matt 7:2): and "Whoever denies Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven" (Matt 10:33). Also, "I also came not to bring peace but a sword" (Matt 10:34). This too "I came not to bring peace but fire" (Luke 12:49) and this "woe to you scribes" (Matt 23:13ff) [Pretty p. 81]

157. the Marcionite gospel had parallel material to Matthew 7:9, 13:31, 33, 47?  Adamantius (immediately after a citation from the Marcionite gospel by the Marcionite representative) I will give you the Saviour's own words, as (110) recorded in the Gospel: "Would any of you, if his son should ask for bread, give him a stone? f [If he should desire a fish, would you give him a serpent?]133 If he should want an egg, would you give him a scorpion? If he should want an egg, would you give him a scorpion? If you then though are evil know to given good gifts to you children ..." [Matt. 7:9 - 11; Lk 11:12 - 13] Since Christ acknowledges the bread, the egg, and the fish, which are products of the Creator God, to be good gifts most certainly He desires their Maker; through them to be thought as good also for a tree is known by its fruit. When again the Saviour says "The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed" or "leaven" or "a drag net" [Matt 13:31, 33, 47] or to some such things which are products of the Creator God and which the Lord says, the Kingdom of God resembles, let Marcus and his friends ponder what sort of conception they have of the Kingdom of God, if they stigmatize these things as evil! If the grain of mustard seed and the other products are evil (as they claim a product of the evil god is) it is obvious that the Kingdom of Heaven which resembles them must be likewise. Then why do we desire it, if it is evil? But if the Kingdom of Heaven is good, the grain of mustard seed and all the other products that the good Kingdom of God resembles must be Good too. (Marcus does not deny the sayings in what follows) [Pretty p. 107]

158. the Marcionite gospel had parallel material to Matt 3:9; 7:15, 16?  Adamantius However, I am going to show from the Gospel that Christ is speaking of men possessing free will, and not of principles! He says this, "They come to you in the sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them." And again he says "A good man out of the good treasure produces that which is evil. For our of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. For from the heart proceed evil thoughts." [Matt 7:15 - 16] You see the Saviour says that from the one human nature both good and evil are brought forth. Megethius: He does not say this about human beings. Eutr: What kind of proof; clearer than this are you looking for? Adamantius: You claim Megethius that natures are unchangeable. But it reads in the Gospel "of stones to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt 3:9) The Apostle Paul also writes "me who before was a blasphemer a persecuting and an insolent man" What kind of a tree was he, good or bad. Answer please! Megethius I am not inquiring about Paul. Adamantius: He was a persecutor at first after this he became an apostle. How was it then that the "bad tree" became "good." if a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit? Moreover what kind of a "tree" was Judas at first? [Pretty p. 75 - 76]

159. the Marcionite gospel had Matt 26:24?  - the previous example ends abruptly in the surviving Dialogue. At this point Megethius is cut off and Markus introduced. But a compelling argument can be made (and has been made) that the argument continues on page 59 so:

Adamantius: It was just in such a way that Judas was punished when he had acted wickedly towards the Lord. Christ Himself declared "Alas to the man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had not been born or if when he was born he had been tied to a great millstone and drowned to the depth of the sea." [Matt 26:24; 18:6] You will also find that the prophets often had mercy on many people - even to the extent of raising the dead! For example the Shunammite when she besought the prophet, received back her dead son alive. It has been clearly demonstrated then that the prophets and Christ own one and the same God. If he is one, and as you say, He is known to the good only without being just why does he command Judas, wickedly unjust to be justly cast into the sea. I think that the punishment of sinners belongs to the nature of a just God and not to One who is 'good' after your fashion. A good who is merely 'good' and not at the same time just ought not to punish anyone but if He does punish, He will at the same time be just. This must also be pointed out it is obvious that the just God, the Creator, had no occasion to punish Judas for he had received no injury from him. No more could the Devil, for Judas had not hurt him, rather the opposite - he had anointed him. Instead, the Devil sees Someone brought to death by Judas — One whom he feared and to whom he called out: "Leave me alone! Have you come to torment me before the time?" [Matt 8:29] Nor is it likely that Judas was punished by the Good Christ, "for a good (man) never punishes." Which then of the three do you consider punished Judas? It has been established that the Just God did not punish, for He was not wronged nor suffered any harm. If He did punish , He must have been appointed to carry out justice by Him who had been injured. If the Devil punished Judas, he will be just, and not evil for he who condemned the wicked betrayer would be just. So he will be just and wicked. But if Christ punished it would be contrary to your argument 'a good (God) never punishes.' So if He punished He will be just - but not good!" What is more, listen to the Apostle when he says "Every one receives from Christ either good or evil."
Megethius. Where is there similarity? The prophet killed, but Christ saved. [Pretty p. 59 - 60]

160. the Marcionite gospel had Matthew 7:23; 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30?  Adamantius: Now it says in the Gospel writing, "Depart from me you who work lawlessness into the outer darkness! There will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth" [Matt 7:23] So you see that the Gospel agrees with the Law. Megethius In what respect does it agree? Eutr: Surely this must be so! What Christ stretched out His hands to achieve had already been established in the Law. He gave orders to love one's enemies, while the Law commanded men not to retaliate against enemies; on the contrary it demanded that not even an ox or ass should be overlooked. And most certainly Christ will hate as enemies those who practice evil! Does he not say "Depart from me? This is not love - to repel [and drive out] enemies [into the outer darkness].
Megethius: 'The prophet of the God of Creation, so that he might destroy more of the enemy, stopped the sun from setting until he should finish slaying those who were fighting against the people. But the Lord, because He is good, says, “Let not the sun go down upon your anger."
Adamantius: So far as those are concerned who wrongly brought upon their masters, it has been shown that their destruction was just; consequently Christ also gave orders that one who had lived a bad life should be cast “into the outer darkness! there it will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28) [Pretty p. 55 - 56]

If you look at the discussion in Tertullian it is clear that Marcion is accused of 'cutting Luke' at this exact point too i.e. where Adamantius curtails his citation:
and again when they tell the tale of how they have eaten and drunk in his presence, and he has taught in their streets, he will continue, Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth: where? outside, of course, where those will be who were shut out when the door was shut to by him. [Tert Adv Marc 4.30] 
Indeed Epiphanius says that Marcion 'cut the passage' right here:
In chap. xiii. he omitted the first five verses, whilst in the 28th verse of the same chapter, where we read, "When ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out," he read (by altering, adding, and transposing), "When ye shall see all the just in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves cast out, and bound without, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." He likewise excluded all the remaining verses of this chapter. [Holmes's note at the end of Schaff's translation]
So now we see how many of the alleged 'curtailments' of Luke are found in other gospels.
This is a point made over and over again by Schmid and others. But what they fail to mention forcefully enough is that it is only Irenaeus assertion that Marcion 'cut' Luke that causes anyone to doubt the obvious implications of this repeated occurrence (especially with western readings of Mark as Williams notes over and over again). Irenaeus is not telling the truth.

It is quite easy to explain. Irenaeus is setting up a 'creation' - the idea that each of the four gospels testifies to the true form of the gospel in various communities. So Matthew is the Jewish Christian gospel (even though he has to lie about its attestation by Papias). So too John is the 'true' gospel of the Valentinian community and now that Luke is the true Marcionite gospel. Instead of allowing us to see here that Marcion's text simply agrees with Matthew Irenaeus lying reframes the situation so as to allow for all the readings he inserted into Luke to 'testify against' or 'disprove' Marcion. In other words, we have demonstrated the purpose of Irenaeus's editing effort.


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