The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments RemainBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Apocryphal Gospels
12. Luke viii. 19: “Then came to him his mother and his brethren,” &c.,
omitted; but the next verse, “And it was told him by certain which said,
Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.” This
cannot be admitted as a mutilation by Marcion. Had he cut out verse 19, he
would also have removed verse 20. Rather is verse 19 an amplification of
the original text. The “saying” of Jesus was known in the “Asiatic”
churches; and when Luke wove it into the text of his Gospel, he introduced
it with the words, “Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and
could not come at him for the press,” words not necessary, but deducible
from the preserved text, and useful as introducing it.
13. Luke x. 21: “In that hour he rejoiced in the spirit, and said, I
praise and thank thee, Lord of heaven, that those things which are hidden
from the wise and prudent thou hast revealed to babes.” The version in
Luke’s Gospel may have been tampered with by Marcion, lest God should
appear harsh in hiding “those things from the wise and prudent.” But it is
more likely that Marcion’s text is the correct one. Why should Christ
thank God that he has hidden the truth from the wise and prudent? The
reading in Marcion’s Gospel is not only a better one, but it also appears
to be an independent one. He has, “I praise and thank thee.” The received
text differs in different codices; in some, Jesus rejoices “in the
Spirit;” in others, “in the Holy Spirit.”
14. Luke x. 22: “All things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man
hath known the Father save the Son, nor the Son save the Father, and he to
whom the Son hath revealed him.” No doctrinal purpose was effected by the
change. It is therefore probable that the Sinope Gospel ran as in
Marcion’s text.
15. Luke x. 25: “Doing what shall I obtain life?” “eternal” being omitted,
it is thought, lest Jesus should seem to teach that eternal life was to be
obtained by fulfilling the Law.(462) But Marcion did not alter the same
question when asked by the ruler, in Luke xviii. 18; for then Christ,
after he has referred him to the Law, goes on to impose on him a higher
law—that of love. But “eternal” may be an addition to Luke’s text in the
second edition.
16. The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer differs in Marcion’s Gospel
from that in St. Luke. Marcion has, “Father! may thy Holy Spirit come to
us, Thy kingdom come,” &c., instead of, “Father! (which art in heaven—not
in the most ancient copies of St. Luke) Hallowed be thy name,” &c. No
purpose was served by this difference; and we must not attribute to
Marcion in this instance wilful alteration of the sacred text. It is
apparent that several versions of the Lord’s Prayer existed in the first
age of the Church, and that this was the form in which it was accepted and
used in Pontus, perhaps throughout Asia Minor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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