Before Luke? Reading Adversus Marcionem as Inherited Exegesis” — Chapter 35

 

Argumentative function (PRIMARY).	Gospel citation in Latin + identification.	Old Testament scripture in Latin + reference.
Harmony/logia-compatible interpretive scholion	"Vae dicit auctori scandalorum… expedisse ei si natus non fuisset, aut si molino saxo ad collum deligato praecipitatus esset in profundum… quam unum ex illis modicis… scandalizasset" [Gospel: harmonized/uncertain]	(—) (implicit typology) talio iudicii pro scandalo discipulorum
Prophetic fulfillment exegesis independent of specific gospel wording	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	"Qui tetigerit vos, ac si pupillam oculi mei tangat" (Zech 2:8)
Prophetic fulfillment exegesis independent of specific gospel wording	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	"Non odies fratrem tuum in animo tuo, traductione traduces proximum tuum… et non sumes propter illum delictum" (Lev 19:17); (implicit typology) “pecora… si errantia… reducas fratri” (Exod 23:4)
Harmony/logia-compatible interpretive scholion	"veniam des fratri in te delinquenti… etiam septies" [Gospel: harmonized/uncertain]	(implicit typology) latior remissio creatoris: “in infinitum… nec petenti… sed et non petenti” (implicit typology; cf. Lev 19:18)
Redactional anti-Marcionite framing (secondary “Luke vs Marcion” encoding)	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	(implicit typology) “Marcionis morositatem legis opponere… Christum aemulum eius affirmet”
Distinctively Lukan-dependent argument	"ire iussos ut se ostenderent sacerdotibus… in itinere purgavit" [Gospel: Luke]	(implicit typology) “Lex leprosorum…” (Lev 13–14)
Distinctively Lukan-dependent argument	"multos tunc fuisse leprosos apud Israelem in diebus Helisaei… nisi Naaman Syrum" [Gospel: Luke]	(implicit typology) Naaman Syrus (2 Kgs 5)
Harmony/logia-compatible interpretive scholion	"Ite, ostendite vos sacerdotibus" [Gospel: Luke]	(implicit typology) oboedientia legis ut via ad remedium: “secundum legem iussi… obaudierant” (implicit typology: Lev 13–14)
Composite harmonized tradition (multiple gospel streams conflated)	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	(implicit typology) schisma Samariae: “ex novem tribubus… per Achiam prophetam… Hieroboam” (implicit typology: 1 Kgs 11–12)
Composite harmonized tradition (multiple gospel streams conflated)	"Nae tu maior sis…"; "Patres nostri in isto monte adoraverunt… vos dicitis quia Hierosolymis oportet adorare" [Gospel: John]	"Vae… qui confident in monte Samariae" (Amos 6:1)
Redactional anti-Marcionite framing (secondary “Luke vs Marcion” encoding)	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	(implicit typology) “subiciens Samaritam Iudaeo… quoniam ex Iudaeis salus… tota… promissio tribui Iudae Christus fuit”
Distinctively Lukan-dependent argument	"Fides tua te salvum fecit" [Gospel: Luke]	(implicit typology) “non mandat offerre munus ex lege… gloriam deo reddens” (implicit typology: Lev 14)
Distinctively Lukan-dependent argument	"Non venit… regnum dei cum observatione… nec dicunt, Ecce hic, ecce illic: ecce enim regnum dei intra vos est" [Gospel: Luke]	(—)
Prophetic fulfillment exegesis independent of specific gospel wording	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	"Praeceptum… non est… longe a te… Non est in caelo… nec ultra mare… Prope te est verbum, in ore tuo, et in corde tuo, et in manibus tuis facere illud" (Deut 30:11 sqq.)
Composite harmonized tradition (multiple gospel streams conflated)	"filium hominis ante multa pati et reprobari oportere" [Gospel: Luke/harmonized/uncertain]	(—)
Composite harmonized tradition (multiple gospel streams conflated)	"Lapis… quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, iste factus est in caput anguli: a domino factum est hoc" [Gospel: harmonized/uncertain]	"Lapis… quem reprobaverunt…" (Ps 118:22)
Composite harmonized tradition (multiple gospel streams conflated)	(—) [No explicit gospel wording; narrative/argument only]	(implicit typology) “diebus Noe et Loth… meminisse uxoris Loth” (implicit typology: Gen 6–9; 19:15–26)

The chapter moves in two rhythms: brief logia that assume a circulating dominical dossier, and extended narrative-exegetical argumentation that leans on a distinctively Lukan sequence. The opening “Vae” against the author of scandals, with the millstone and the “modici,” functions as a transferable warning whose force lies in judicial reciprocity rather than in any uniquely Lukan diction; it is immediately aligned with the creator’s affective protection of “pupillam oculi mei” (Zech 2:8), so that the punitive threat is read as the posture of the same judge who guards his own. The subsequent material on correcting a sinning brother and refusing hatred is driven not by gospel phrasing but by Levitical and pentateuchal obligations (“Non odies fratrem tuum…”; the recovery of a brother’s errant animal). Even the note on forgiving “septies,” while cast as a dominical mandate, is treated as a lower register of a more expansive creatorly ethic that refuses to keep memory of a brother’s malice and grants remission even unasked; the logic is ethical-theological rather than text-critical, and can be detached from any fixed gospel wording without loss of its argumentative function.

The leper complex, by contrast, is structurally Lukan. The episode of “decem leprosi,” the command “Ite, ostendite vos sacerdotibus,” the healing “in itinere,” the one grateful Samaritan, and the seal “Fides tua te salvum fecit” together create a narrative scaffold that Tertullian exploits to rebut a Marcionite claim of rivalry with the law. Yet the rebuttal is not primarily a defense of a Lukan text against another text; it is a claim that differential modes of healing do not entail different gods, because divine operation “per semetipsum… sive per filium” may legitimately outshine vicarious prophetic operation. The appeal to Naaman and Elisha, introduced with the Lukan reminiscence (“multos… leprosos… nisi Naaman Syrum”), is deployed as a comparative argument about Israel’s diffidence and pride: the miracle statistics are made to serve a moral diagnosis of Israel’s failure to “decucurrisse ad deum operantem in prophetis,” rather than to establish a textual dependence on Luke as such.

The most programmatic “anti-Marcionite” encoding appears where the law is made to interpret the gospel scene. “Ite, ostendite vos sacerdotibus” is defended as a deliberate subjection of Samaritan schism to Jerusalem’s priesthood and temple, framed through Samaria’s historical rupture and through the Johannine Samaritan dialogue about mountains, wells, and the proper place of worship. Here the chapter assumes a composite gospel horizon: Luke’s ten lepers are read alongside John 4, and the prophetic “Vae… qui confident in monte Samariae” (Amos 6:1) supplies the creator’s prior stance toward Samaritan confidence. The legal-rhetorical point, however, is not that Luke as a book must be vindicated, but that the creator’s economy can simultaneously command a legal display (“ostendite… sacerdotibus”) and then, once obedience has manifested recognition of Jerusalem as “matrix religionis,” grant a remedial act “sine legis ordine” as a faith-justification. The law is thus treated as a typological pedagogue whose “arcanum” signifies Christ as the true examiner of human stains, while its manifest prescriptions can still be honored in narrative time.

The pericope on the kingdom’s arrival is distinctly Lukan in phrasing (“Non venit… cum observatione… intra vos est”), but the interpretive engine is Deuteronomic: “Praeceptum… prope te est verbum, in ore tuo, et in corde tuo, et in manibus tuis facere illud.” Tertullian’s move is to construe “intra vos” as a moral and practical proximity—“in manu, in potestate vestra”—so that the kingdom is keyed to obedience, not to spatial spectacle. This is precisely the kind of harmony/logia-compatible scholion that can migrate: Luke provides the surface antithesis (“Ecce hic… ecce illic”), but Deut 30 supplies the controlling semantic frame for proximity, accessibility, and enactment.

The final complex (suffering and rejection of the Son of Man; the rejected stone; the days of Noah and Lot; the warning to remember Lot’s wife) reinforces that the chapter’s eschatology remains judicial and thus creator-aligned. The citation of the stone (“Lapis… quem reprobaverunt…”) is anchored in the Psalm itself, while Noah–Lot typology and Lot’s wife serve as creatorly exempla of punished contempt for precept. In this section the “Luke-text” framing is again secondary to inherited exegetical logic: rejection followed by exaltation is drawn from a Davidic aenigma, and the terror of the advent is justified by old-world judgments. The argument would still work if detached from Luke as a fixed text, because its decisive warrants are prophetic and pentateuchal typologies (Zech 2; Lev 19; Deut 30; Ps 118; Genesis narratives) that are used to construe dominical sayings and scenes as manifestations of a single divine economy rather than as tokens of a particular evangelist’s wording.