Marcion, the son of a bishop of Pontus, became a conspicuous heretic in the second century, and there was a book called "Marcion's Gospel," which has long furnished a field for criticism. He was a Pauline heretic, denouncing the Jewish party which insisted upon dragging Jewish observances into Christianity. He went to Rome about A.D. 139-142, and taught there some twenty years. His opinions were widely disseminated. His collection of apostolic writings, which is the oldest of which we have any trace, includes (says our author) a single Gospel and ten Epistles of Paul--viz., Galatians, Corinthians (2), Romans, Thessalonians (2), Ephesians (in the superscription of which there is, "to the Laodiceans)," Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. The Gospel of Marcion is not extant, but it is referred to by his opponents, who affirmed that his evangelical work was an audaciously mutilated version of Luke's Gospel. Our author gives a brief account of the various opinions which have prevailed about the book during the last hundred years, and considers the discussion upon it far from closed. Is it a mutilation of Luke, or an independent work derived from the same source as his, or is it a more primitive version of that Gospel? Whence are the materials from which the portions of the text extant are derived? Tertullian and Epiphanius denounced Marcion's heresy. The former called him "impious and sacrilegious," which, our author says, implies anything but fair and legitimate criticism. I remark, Did he deserve the epithets? Would Paul, who tells the Colossians to "beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ," have been less emphatic in his denunciations in such a case? Marcion was more Pauline than Petrine, but would Paul have failed to censure in the strongest language such a misrepresentation of Jehovah and the Old Testament economy as Marcion disseminated? Can our author's assertion be absolutely true that "Tertullian and Epiphanius were only dogmatical, and not in the least critical"? How could they be otherwise than to a certain extent critical? They were not critics in the way of taking nothing for granted, after the modern fashion; but they must have weighed, compared, and tested Marcion's views while writing against them. "The spirit of the age," he says, "was indeed so uncritical, that not even the canonical text could awaken it into activity." This is a sentence which suggests that the position in the Church of the canonical text was so evident, that to question it was then unwarrantable, as, indeed, it has continued to be to this day. The combined internal and external evidences harmonising with the believer's consciousness, his necessities, and his aspirations, were sufficient to preclude sceptical and captious criticism.