It must be stated, however, that both Volkmar(5) and Hilgenfeld(6) consider that the representations of {98} Tertullian and Epiphanius supplement each other and enable the contents of Marcion's Gospel to be ascertained with tolerable certainty. Yet a few pages earlier Volkmar had pointed out that: "The ground for a certain fixture of the text of the Marcionitish Gospel, however, seems completely taken away by the fact that Tertullian and Epiphanius, in their statements regarding its state, not merely repeatedly seem to, but in part actually do, directly contradict each other."(1) Hahn endeavours to explain some of these contradictions by imagining that later Marcionites had altered the text of their Gospel, and that Epiphanius had the one form and Tertullian another;(2) but such a doubt only renders the whole of the statements regarding the work more uncertain and insecure. That it is not without some reason, however, appears from the charge which Tertullian brings against the disciples of Marcion: "for they daily alter it (their Gospel) as they are daily refuted by us."(3) In fact, we have no assurance whatever that the work upon which Tertullian and Epiphanius base their charge against Marcion of falsification and mutilation of Luke was Marcion's original Gospel at all, and we certainly have no historical evidence on the point.(4) The question even arises, whether Tertullian, and indeed Epiphanius, had Marcion's Gospel in any shape before them when they wrote, or merely his work the {99} "Antitheses."(1) In commencing his onslaught on Marcion's Gospel, Terlullian says: "Marcion seems (videtur) to have selected Luke, to mutilate it."(2) This is the first serious introduction of his "mutilation hypothesis," which he thenceforward presses with so much assurance, but the expression is very uncertain for so decided a controversialist, if he had been able to speak more positively.(3) We have seen that it is admitted that Epiphanius wrote without again comparing the Gospel of Marcion with Luke, and it is also conceded that Tertullian at least had not the Canonical Gospel, but in professing to quote Luke evidently does so from memory, and approximates his text to Matthew, with which Gospel, like most of the Fathers, he was better acquainted. This may be illustrated by the fact that both Tertullian and Epiphanius reproach Marcion with erasing passages from the Gospel of Luke, which never were in Luke at all.(4) In one place Tertullian says: "Marcion, you must also remove this from the Gospel: 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,'(3) and: 'It is not meet to take the children's bread, and give it to dogs,'(6) in order, be it known, that Christ may not seem to be an Israelite."(7) The "Great African" {100}