remarks, as well as direct statements, have too often been the only indications guiding the patient explorers and, in the absence of certain information, the silence of the angry Fathers has been made the basis for important conclusions. It is evident that not only is such a procedure necessarily uncertain and insecure, but that it rests upon assumptions with regard to the intelligence, care and accuracy of Tertullian and Epiphanius, which are not sufficiently justified by that part of their treatment of Marcion's text which we can examine and appreciate. And when all these doubtful landmarks have failed, too many passages have been left to the mere judgment of critics, as to whether they were too opposed to Marcion's system to have been retained by him, or too favourable to have been omitted. The reconstructed texts, as might be expected, differ from each other, and one Editor finds the results of his predecessors incomplete or unsatisfactory,1 although naturally at each successive attempt, the materials previously collected and adopted have contributed to an apparently more complete result. After complaining of the incompleteness and uncertainty of the statements of Tertullian and Epiphanius, Ritschl affirms that they furnish so little solid material on which to base a hypothesis, that rather by means of a hypothesis must we determine the remains of the Gospel from Tertullian.(3) Hilgenfeld quotes this with approval, and adds, that at least Ritschl's opinion is so far right, that all the facts of the case can no longer be settled from external data, and that the general view regarding the {102}