Marcion's Apostolicon: The Pauline Epistles

(For details of the contents of the individual letters in Marcion's Apostolicon, see Galatians, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Romans, FirstThessalonians, SecondThessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, and Laodiceans respectively)

As described in more detail here, Marcion is considered to be the first person to have produced a collection of documents that are now part of the New Testament, although as Nathaniel Lardner states:

Marcion received only eleven books of the New Testament, and these strangely curtailed and altered. He divided them into two parts, calling the one the Gospel, and the other the Apostolicon. The former contained only one of the four gospels, viz. that of St. Luke, and this mutilated and altered, and even interpolated in a great variety of places. He would not allow it to be called the gospel of St. Luke, erasing the name of that evangelist from the beginning of his copy. (The works of Nathaniel Lardner, Volume 8, section 35)

The majority opinion of Marcion is that he created his Evangelion (his ‘Gospel of the Lord’) by editing Luke, and his Apostolikon by editing ten of the Pauline epistles, in order to ‘promote’ and support his theology. It is generally assumed that he rejected (i.e. by a positive act on his behalf) all other books of the Bible, although there is no evidence that, for example, he even knew of Acts, or the remaining Pauline or other epistles. Despite the strong condemnation of Marcion by Tertullian, Epiphanius, Origen, and many others who regarded him as a heretic who rejected the Old Testament and manipulated the New Testament to his own ends, what evidence there is (as opposed to mere opinion) can just as readily support the view that Marcion promoted an earlier form of Christianity, at a time when the power of the ‘orthodox’ Church had grown to the point where it was able to wage war against believers who did not follow the ‘party line’ by labeling them as heretics of one kind or another.

Although it is generally thought that Marcion created this edited collection of books to suit his theology, and that he rejected the other gospels and epistles, it is possible that he simply did not know at least some of them. As it appears that Cerdon also based his system around these same books, it is conceivable that Marcion instead based his theology on copies of them as used by Cerdon. Whether it was Cerdon or Marcion who edited them, or whether perhaps they were early or unfinished copies of Luke and some of the Pauline epistles, is unknown, although the prevailing view is that Marcion made the changes. Unfortunately, none of Marcion’s works have (as far as we know) survived to the present day, and therefore we have to rely on his detractors to determine what he wrote or believed. Nevertheless, Marcion played an important role in creating the New Testament as we know it today:

… the chief importance of Marcion in the second century lies in the reaction which he provoked among the leaders of the Apostolic Churches. Just as Marcion’s canon stimulated the more precise defining of the NT canon by the Catholic Church, not to supersede but to supplement the canon of the OT, so, more generally, Marcion’s teaching led the Catholic Church to define its faith more carefully, in terms calculated to exclude a Marcionite interpretation. (F.F. Bruce)

The Apostolicon

In addition to a gospel that most consider to be a shorter, edited, version of Luke, Marcion promoted a collection of versions of some of the Pauline epistles. As with Marcion’s gospel most people consider these to be edited versions of what we see as the Paulines, although it is possible that both the gospel and the epistles could be earlier versions of what we see in the New Testament. In a similar manner to which Tertullian analyzed Marcion’s Gospel of the Lord by comparing it with Luke’s gospel, in Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion) Book V he states that he will in the same way analyze Marcion’s Apostolicon by comparing it with the corresponding Pauline epistles:

Take now from my point of view the apostle [Tertullian's usual way of referring to Paul], in the same manner as you have received the Christ — the apostle shown to be as much mine as the Christ is. And here, too, we will fight within the same lines, and challenge our adversary on the mere ground of a simple rule, that even an apostle who is said not to belong to the Creator — nay, is displayed as in actual hostility to the Creator — can be fairly regarded as teaching nothing, knowing nothing, wishing nothing in favour of the Creator while it would be a first principle with him [Tertullian's adversary, i.e. Marcion] to set forth another god with as much eagerness as he would use in withdrawing us from the law of the Creator.

It is not at all likely that he would call men away from Judaism without showing them at the same time what was the god in whom he invited them to believe; because nobody could possibly pass from allegiance to the Creator without knowing to whom he had to cross over. For either Christ had already revealed another god — in which case the apostle's testimony would also follow to the same effect, for fear of his not being else regarded as an apostle of the god whom Christ had revealed, and because of the impropriety of his being concealed by the apostle who had been already revealed by Christ — or Christ had made no such revelation concerning God; then there was all the greater need why the apostle should reveal a God who could now be made known by no one else, and who would undoubtedly be left without any belief at all, if he were revealed not even by an apostle.

We have laid down this as our first principle, because we wish at once to profess that we shall pursue the same method here in the apostle's case as we adopted before in Christ's case, to prove that he proclaimed no new god; that is, we shall draw our evidence from the epistles of St. Paul himself. Now, the garbled form in which we have found the heretic's Gospel will have already prepared us to expect to find the epistles also mutilated by him with like perverseness — and that even as respects their number.

It is clear from Tertullian’s final point above that, even before examining Marcion’s Apostolicon, he expected to find that Marcion had edited (“mutilated”) the Pauline originals, and in Panarion 42 it is obvious that Epiphanius is also quite sure that this is the case:

And in further opposition to this heresiarch I also attach, to this arrangement (of texts) which has been laboriously accumulated against him by myself, such other texts as I find in his works, as in an arbitrary version of the apostle Paul’s epistles; not all of them but some of them — (I have listed their names in the order of his Apostolic Canon at the end of the complete work) — and these mutilated as usual by his rascality. <(They are) remains of the truth which he preserves> as, to be honest, <there are> remains of the true Gospel in his Gospel in name which I have given above. All the same, he has adulterated everything with fearful ingenuity.

Following this biased beginning Epiphanius comments on each of Marcion’s versions of the Pauline epistles, and then concludes:

This is Marcion’s corrupt compilation, containing a version and form of the Gospel according to Luke, and an incomplete one of the apostle Paul — not of all his epistles but simply of Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Laodiceans, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, First and Second Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians. (There is no version) of First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews <in his scripture at all, and> even the epistles that are there <have been mutilated>, since they are not all there but are counterfeits. And <I found> that this compilation had been tampered with throughout, and had supplemental material added in certain passages — not for any use, but for inferior, harmful strange sayings against the sound faith, <fictitious> creatures of Marcion’s cracked brain.

Lardner lists the epistles in Marcion’s order, and supplies some additional context:

The ten epistles of St. Paul, as they are reckoned up by Epiphanius, and the order in which they are placed is as follows: The first in Marcion's Apostolicon was the epistle to the Galatians; the second, the first epistle to the Corinthians; The third, the second epistle to the Corinthians; the fourth was the epistle to the Romans: the fifth was the first to the Thessalonians; the sixth, the second to the same church; the seventh, the epistle to the Ephesians; the eighth, the epistle to the Colossians; the ninth, the epistle to Philemon; and the tenth, the epistle to the Philippians; Epiphanius hath also given us some fragments of that which is called the epistle to the Laodiceans.

It appears from what the Marcionite says, in the dialogue attributed to Origen, that the followers of that heresy read some passages in St. Paul's epistles different from the manner in which they were commonly read; for he observes, by way of answer to Adamantius the orthodox disputant, 'I do not believe your false Apostolicon;' and again, 'I give credit to my own Apostolicon.' In opposition to the former of these assertions of the Marcionite, viz. that the common way of reading St. Paul's epistles was false, Adamantius declares, that 'the Marcionite Apostolicon was ‘very much mutilated.'

According to Epiphanius Marcion did not include either the Pastorals (1st & 2nd Timothy, and Titus) or Hebrews. Tertullian noted almost exactly the same list of epistles in the Apostolicon, excluding only Laodiceans. He reported Philemon last, but from his text it seems likely that this was because it was the only one of these letters written to an individual, or perhaps it was the only one that (according to Tertullian) had not been altered by Marcion. It is not known why Marcion placed the epistles in this order, nor is it known why he did not include the Pastorals or Hebrews, but Tertullian believed this was a deliberate act by Marcion, based on the assumption that Marcion must have known all the Paulines:

I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man [Philemon], that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. Paul's) epistles.

As discussed in The Order of the Paulines, other orders (some with subsets of the epistles) are known to have existed, and there is no reason to suppose that Marcion chose his order for theological or dogmatic reasons. Also, it is quite possible that what we see as the order of the epistles is not original. Lardner comments as follows:

I must say something about the order of St. Paul's epistles severally. Our order is that of his thirteen epistles, which have been universally acknowledged, and then the epistle to the Hebrews, about which there had been doubts in the minds of many for a good while. Among the ancients there is some variety. To the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, Hebrews, Timothy, Titus, Philemon. So in the Festal Epistle of Athanasius, and in the Synopsis ascribed to him, and' in the catalogue of the council of Laodicea, and in the Alexandrian manuscript.

In others may be found our present order, as in the iambic poem of Amphilochius, the Syrian catalogue in Ebedjesu, Jerom, in his article of St. Paul, Augustine in his work of the Christian doctrine, (Ecumenius, and many others. Epiphanius, observing how Marcion had disturbed the order of St. Paul's epistles, says, that in some editions of the New Testament, the epistle to the Hebrews was the fourteenth, in others the tenth, being placed before the two epistles to Timothy, and the epistles to Titus and Philemon: and that in all good copies the epistle to the Romans was the first, not that to the Galatians, as Marcion had disposed them.

Although Lardner only notes that Hebrews was sometimes in a different position, the mss evidence shows that there was considerably more variation than Lardner knew, and so while Marcion might have re-arranged the epistles this is simply supposition, and it is just as likely that he knew them in the order in which he presented them in his Apostolicon.

As with Marcion’s Gospel of the Lord, the primary witnesses to the contents of his versions of the Pauline epistles are Tertullian and Epiphanius, and almost all the problems associated with their testimony regarding Marcion’s Gospel apply equally to the epistles. For example, in The Latin Text of Luke in Marcion and Tertullian, Higgins writes:

The many differences in vocabulary between the quotations from Luke in Adv. Marc. IV and in Tertullian's other writings, supported by Tertullian's choice of other words in discussing the passages quoted in Adv. Marc. IV, point to his use of two translations, the Marcionite (M) and the Catholic (T).
The clear European nature of the Latin of the quotations in Adv. Marc. IV compared with Tertullian's other quotations cannot be explained on the hypothesis that he translated all these passages from the Greek himself.
T, while not identical with the Cyprianic text, is much more African than M, and may be regarded as an earlier form of the African translation.
M is quite independent of the African, while its affinities with the European are very marked. Its kinship with the European is, in fact, clearer than that of T with the African.
M, while strongly European in colouring, also possesses some distinctive features, and is to some extent independent of the European translations as well as of the African.

These conclusions agree exactly with those drawn by von Soden from his similar study of Tertullian's quotations from Paul.

Other issues that arise when evaluating the writings of Tertullian and Epiphanius are described in Reconstructing Marcion's Gospel and Textual Considerations, and in general also apply to the epistles.

Evidence of Absence?

One of the main differences we face when it comes to comparing Marcion’s Evangelion (or Euangelion) with his Apostolicon (the Pauline epistles) is the comparatively much greater evidence we have for the text of Marcion’s gospel (a version of Luke) than for his version of the Pauline’s. While Luke contains 1151 verses, the Paulines for which Marcion has a version contain 1791 verses, or approximately 56% more. However, Epiphanius has 78 scholia containing comments on Luke, but only 39 on the Paulines, and Tertullian has almost no comments on several of them. The overall effect is that a much greater proportion of the text of Marcion’s versions of the Paulines is unattested than is the case for his version of Luke.

This then naturally leads to the question of what (if anything) we can deduce from the unattested portions of the text of the Paulines. Some people would say “nothing,” but as discussed in: ‘Reconstructing Marcion's Gospel, Is Absence of Evidence (from Tertullian & Epiphanius) Evidence of Absence?’ this is not completely true, and we can use patterns in the comments from Tertullian and Epiphanius to make some defensible statements on the general nature of the unattested portions of the text. For example, consider those epistles about which Tertullian comments that Marcion had made no changes: Assuming that Tertullian was not mistaken, then although we cannot be sure which known variants (if any) he saw in the text, we can at least be sure that (except where there are known variants in the extant mss in which complete verses are omitted) that all the verses of those epistles existed in Marcion’s versions.

Now, consider those epistles about which Tertullian comments on only one item in the text of the epistle. In this situation Tertullian does not actually state that there were no differences or reasons to comment on the rest of the text, so are we justified in making the assumption that there were no differences in the epistle other than the single one that is mentioned? Or, should we instead just make no assumptions about the rest of the epistle, because Tertullian may have missed other differences, or simply chosen not to comment on other differences that he did see? Given that Tertullian was actively trying to find differences so that he could attack Marcion it is unlikely that he would deliberately ignore any that he found, and if we were to assume that Tertullian himself made mistakes then we would have to doubt all of his testimony, which would mean this whole exercise would be pointless.

Consequently, if we are to undertake any reconstruction of Tertullian's comments the only valid position to take is that he did not make any mistakes, and the same logic applies to Epiphanius: The only reasonable stance to take regarding text in Marcion’s version of an epistle that is unattested (by anyone) is to say that no one who commented on that epistle saw any difference between the unattested text in the Pauline version and that in the Apostolicon.

Chapter and Verse

In order to make it easy to locate Pauline parallels within Marcion’s Apostolicon, all references here to Marcion’s text use the modern chapter and verse numbers from the equivalent Pauline text. However. it should be noted that Tertullian and Epiphanius never saw these divisions in either, since the chapter divisions first appeared in the 13th century, and our verse divisions were added to the New Testament in the 16th century. Gordon Fee makes this point in his preface to ‘The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised Edition:’

A third, probably less significant, change from the first edition is related to another passion engendered from many years of teaching, writing, and listening to sermons — namely, to eliminate the language of “chapter and verse,” a system of numbers absolutely essential for “finding things” but otherwise totally foreign to the first-century author. Paul wrote words put into sentences, which in the present written culture also require paragraphs. But he did not write “verses,” language that has inherently, but not purposefully, created a misguided use of Scripture that would be foreign to the original authors.

Consequently, although chapter and verse reference are used here, there is no reason to expect that any differences between the Marcionite and Pauline versions reported by either Tertullian or Epiphanius should respect our verse boundaries. This is not to say that they saw no boundaries at all. For example, the mss they had in front of them may have been written using colometric lines. However, whatever ‘paragraph’ or other boundaries they saw it may mean that they include text from more than one of our verses, or only part of what we see as a verse, when quoting.

Epiphanius sometimes identifies a passage omitted by Marcion by quoting just the initial clause or phrase of the passage. Although it is tempting to identify the passage as ending at the following verse boundary, this may be incorrect, as Epiphanius may have been referring to text encompassing more than one of our verses. Identifying the exact location of the end of any text to which he refers is also not helped by his practice of sometimes quoting just the beginning of a passage and then marking the rest with the phrase (translated as) “and so on,” leaving it up to us to identify where the passage referred to ended.

Despite the above points, it is nevertheless convenient to locate Marcion’s text by referring to the verses containing the text in modern Bibles, and so it should always be remembered that a phrase such as: “Epiphanius saw Galatians (or Romans, Ephesians, etc.) A:B in Marcion’s version” should be interpreted as: “Epiphanius saw in Marcion's version text that we currently see in Galatians (or Romans, Ephesians, etc.) A:B.” However, this language should not be taken to suggest any particular directionality between the originals of Marcion’s version and any other part of the Bible. In the rest of this document the Marcionite version of an epistle will in places be distinguished from the Pauline version as follows:

The Pauline epistles will be referred to either by their usual name: Romans, First Corinthians, Galatians, etc., or their common abbreviations: Rom, 1Cor, Gal, etc.
The Marcionite versions of the epistles will be referred to by the above abbreviations, preceded by ‘Mc,’ so McRom, Mc1Cor, McGal, etc.

Despite the difficultly of knowing exactly what Marcion’s epistles contained, it is nevertheless useful to use an existing reconstruction as a ‘base’ for the comparison, and to then use that to comment on places where other reconstructions differ, or where the text is simply uncertain. However, unlike the situation regarding the analysis of Marcion’s Gospel, in which this technique was used, there is nothing like the same ‘coverage’ of the text of Marcion’s Apolosticon by Tertullian, Epiphanius, et al. In particular, Epiphanius quotes from very little of Marcion’s versions of the Paulines. Consequently, in the following pages there is no attempt to determine the complete text of the Apolosticon, but instead to note places where there is evidence that it differed from what we see today.

The English language text of the Paulines is taken from the King James Version (KJV), chosen simply because of the similarities to the words used in the translations of the two reconstructions of Marcion, and not for any theological reasons. Textual comments, variants, etc. from the ‘New English Translation’ (NET) and other sources are included for clarification.

Common Items

At the beginning of his commentary on Marcion's version of First Corinthians (1 Cor), Tertullian notes Paul’s standard way of beginning the epistles:

My preliminary remarks on the preceding epistle [Galatians] called me away from treating of its superscription, for I was sure that another opportunity would occur for considering the matter, it being of constant recurrence, and in the same form too, in every epistle. The point, then, is, that it is not (the usual) health which the apostle prescribes for those to whom he writes, but "grace” and “peace." … Now, when he announces these blessings as "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus," he uses titles that are common to both, and which are also adapted to the mystery of our faith; …

Paul begins his letters by identifying himself, sometimes people who are with him (or are perhaps known to the recipients), and (usually) the recipients themselves, before a standard form of blessings to the recipients that exists in all the Paulines that have versions in the Apostolicon, in the majority of cases exactly as found in Rom 1:7b.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although some translations have slight variations in the order seen in the first part of the blessing in the epistles, the Greek is the same in all cases. However, there are some variations in word order in some mss in the latter part of the blessing in Romans, First Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, and First Thessalonians, none of which are noted by Tertullian. The Pastorals differ slightly more, all having “Grace, mercy, and peace,” which is also not noted by Tertullian.

Finally, in Hebrews (which Tertullian believed was written by Barnabas) there is nothing even close to any of Paul’s ‘standard’ beginning, as is confirmed when following his comment on Philemon he ends his discussion of the Pauline epistles with no mention of Hebrews, writing:

… he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. Paul's) epistles.

From the above we can take it that, in addition to anything he wrote when discussing the Marcionite version of a specific epistle, Tertullian saw Paul’s introductory text unchanged in all cases.

A point that has been noted by several people is that, from the verses to which Tertullian refers (or more often, those to which he does NOT refer) it appears that he, and in a few cases Epiphanius, saw shorter versions of the epistles (the Pauline and/or Marcionite versions) than we do. There are a number of theories as to why this may be the case, with several suggesting interpolations in the epistles rather than omissions by Marcion. Peter Kirby has provided a useful list of these places (longer than four verses), together with comments and possible explanations:

(a) Gal 1:18-24 (so Harnack, Schmid, and BeDuhn)

(b) Gal 3:15b-25 (so Harnack, only Gal 3:15b-16 for BeDuhn and Gal 3:15b-18 for Schmid)

(d) Rom 9:4-10:1 (Tertullian remarks on this)

(e) Rom 10:5-11:32 (Tertullian remarks on this)

(f) Rom 15:1-16:27 (Origen remarks on this, but Tertullian doesn’t say it’s a falsification)

(g) 1 Cor 15:5-11a (Price’s interpolation hypothesis)

(h) 2 Cor 6:14-7:1a (a common interpolation hypothesis)

(i) 2 Cor 8:1-9:15 (a common interpolation hypothesis)

(j) Rom 13:1-7 (a common interpolation hypothesis)

(k) 1 Thess 5:1-11 (Friedrich’s interpolation hypothesis)

Although (a) isn’t explicitly noted as absent by Tertullian, there is general agreement about its absence in Marcion’s text. Only (b) through (e) are explicitly remarked on by Tertullian as being blatant omissions in the text of Marcion’s Apostolikon. Notably, (f) is not, suggesting that Tertullian’s text of Paul shared the omission of the last two chapters of Romans with Marcion’s. The same explanation is offered by BeDuhn for (i), where Tertullian quotes nothing from them in any of his own works, let alone in refutation of Marcion.

The rest of the suggestions may not represent true absences in Marcion’s Paul, as they are basically hypothetical absences in the text of Paul himself. But even if all of them did, they — (g), (h), (j), and (k) — amount to only 30 verses altogether. It’s plausible that Tertullian might pass over in silence this small collection of omissions, together with a larger collection of smaller omissions. On the other hand, some might take Tertullian’s harsh remarks elsewhere over much smaller matters as an indication that their texts substantially agreed regarding (g), (h), (j), (k), and any other stretch of verses so large (whatever merit may remain in the interpolation hypotheses regarding the original text).

Our survey has found that there is indeed some reason to find shorter readings in Marcion’s text of Paul. However, we cannot prove anything regarding an extensively reduced form of Paul’s letters in Marcion. Tertullian’s text actually agrees with Marcion’s regarding some lengthy shorter readings, such as Romans 15-16 and possibly 2 Corinthians 8-9.

Apart from the possibility of Gal 3:15-25 suggested by Harnack (but controverted by Schmid and BeDuhn), the lengthiest confirmed differences seem mostly confined to a few passages of Romans (1:19-2:1 or 2:3-11, 9:4-10:1, and 10:5-11:32). Tertullian indeed remarks that Marcion’s omissions were evident “especially in this epistle.” Yet the largest differences that receive comment from Tertullian are all within the same two sections of Romans (1:18-2:29 and chapters 9-11) that have been suspected of interpolations in any case. The same is true for several other, shorter potential omissions.

In the pages listed below that discuss the contents of each of Marcion’s versions of the epistles, highlighting and references to equivalent Pauline verses have been added to quoted text where applicable. The English language text of the Paulines is taken from the King James Version (KJV), chosen simply because of the similarities to the words used in the English translations of the two reconstructions of Marcion, and not for any theological reasons. Although English is used in order to make the discussions here accessible to most people, the original Greek or Latin will be given where needed for clarification, for example textual comments, variants, etc. from the ‘New English Translation’ (NET) and other sources. All verse references refer to the epistle under discussion unless otherwise specified. Where particular verses from the epistle are not shown or otherwise detailed, it is generally for one of three reasons:

There is no mention of these verses by Tertullian, Epiphanius, or other sources, as being present in the Apostolicon, and there is no other evidence regarding their presence.
The verses are mentioned, but Marcion’s text is reported as being the same as Paul’s, and Tertullian or Epiphanius are just using these verses to indicate how they go against Marcion’s beliefs;
The differences between the Marcionite and Pauline readings have no effect on the meaning of the passage, or are so small as to be inconsequential.

The analyses of the individual epistles in the Apostolicon are listed below in the order in which they were presented by Marcion:

Galatians, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Romans, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, Laodiceans

Two Apostolicons?

The majority opinion regarding Marcion’s Apostolicon is that he edited the collection of Pauline epistles to support his theological agenda, and the primary evidence we have for this is that Tertullian and Epiphanius (and almost all Church Fathers who pronounced on the matter) said so, using the evidence of the text of Marcion’s version of Luke and the Paulines to support their views. The problem is that a dispassionate analysis of this evidence does not support their conclusions. For example, we know that the Apostolicon did not include either the Pastorals or Hebrews, but any suggestion that Marcion deliberately excluded them is simply an opinion, as there is no evidence that he even knew these epistles, and, as described in The Order of the Paulines, there are other collections of the Paulines in which these epistles are also not present.

There is also the issue that, as also with his Gospel of the Lord, Marcion promoted a version of the Paulines that is surprisingly bad at supporting his own theology. Even Epiphanius comments on the number of places at which Marcion is contradicted by ‘his own’ text:

This is my <treatise>, prefaced in the foregoing selections from the scripture which is still preserved in Marcion’s own canon. Anyone who examines its collection (of texts) must be struck with awe at the dispensations of <the> bountiful God. If every matter is attested and established by three witnesses, how has God granted me, by a dispensation, to put together here, as I said, a sheer total of 78 testimonies from the Gospel, and 40 from the Apostle? And these are preserved in Marcion to this day and <not> disputed, so that there are 118 altogether, and all contradicting Marcion’s own opinion — as though in the person of the Lord’s name through eighteen, and in the name of the blessing on its right through the hundred. And in addition to these <he is refuted> in another, further testimony, <the one> outside of the Gospel and The Apostle. For the utter wretch Marcion did not see fit to quote this testimony from Ephesians but from Laodiceans, which is not in the Apostle. Since, among his many failures, the oaf foolishly does not read these testimonies, he pathetically does not see the refutation that awaits him, although it is on record every day.

Epiphanius is stating that Marcion’s own views are refuted in more than a hundred places in ‘his’ versions of Luke’s gospel and Paul’s epistles. Nevertheless, he does not suggest that this might be because what we know as Marcion’s Evangelion and Apostolicon may not have been the product of Marcion himself, but instead might be the text of existing documents that Marcion had previously become aware of. It is certainly the case that, although we know of several differences in the text of the epistles in the Apostolicon and the corresponding Pauline versions, there is no evidence (other than the previously mentioned opinions) that Marcion created the differences by editing the Paulines themselves. In fact, what evidence there is points in the other direction, and we see that Tertullian and Epiphanius actually contradict each other as to the differences they saw in several of the epistles, suggesting one or the other was lying, or mistaken, or perhaps that Tertullian and Epiphanius saw different versions of the Apostolicon. Lardner comments:

Another thing also proper to be observed is, that with respect to four of the epistles which Marcion received in his Apostolicon, viz. the two to the Thessalonians, that to the Philippians, and that to Philemon, Epiphanius has asserted they were so totally corrupted that he quoted nothing from them for that reason. Whereas Tertullian quotes several passages from the three former, which are the same as in our former copies, and which one would from thence imagine were admitted in that genuine state by this heretic; and the variations which he accuses him of making in these three are but trifling. With respect to the epistle to Philemon he also expressly says, that this epistle alone has had an advantage from its brevity, for hereby it has escaped the falsifying hands of Marcion.

Oddly, these differences in their testimonies appear to be ignored by most commentators, perhaps on the assumption that either Tertullian or Epiphanius were mistaken. However, some appear to assume (on no evidence) deliberate falsification. For example, in his introduction to the version of Philemon in the Apostolicon in ‘The First New Testament,’ Jason D. BeDuhn writes (emphasis added):

As in the case of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, so with Philemon, Epiphanius says, “I likewise make no selections from it, since in Marcion it is distorted.” (Pan. 42.12.1). No weight should be given to this claim. Tertullian, in contrast, says, “This epistle alone has so profited by its brevity as to escape Marcion’s falsifying hands” (Marc. 5.21.1).

It should be noted that BeDuhn here fails to mention any differences in Philippians (Php), which Epiphanius also states he will not comment on because it is distorted. Instead, BeDuhn writes: “None of our sources mention any omissions.”

I am at a loss to understand how BeDuhn can so totally dismiss what Epiphanius states regarding 1 and 2 Thes, Php, and Philemon, especially when he uses Epiphanius as one of his two prime witnesses to the text of both Marcion’s Apostolicon and his Evangelion. It appears that he believes Epiphanius when it suits him, but dismisses him when he does not, because (it seems) he cannot conceive of a situation under which Tertullian might not be telling the truth here, or even that Tertullian and Epiphanius might both be correct.

How are we to deal with the epistles for which the evidence is inconsistent? For example, in case of Philemon we know two contradictory things regarding the version in the Apostolicon: Tertullian tells us that Marcion had not changed anything, while Epiphanius tells us that Marcion had changed so much that he was not going to comment at all. If we (reasonably) assume that what Tertullian saw as the text of Philemon was the same as in Marcion’s version (McPhm), then what did Epiphanius see around 170 years later? Either Tertullian and Epiphanius each saw different versions of Philemon, or they saw different versions of McPhm. As there are some known variants in Philemon, could these account for the very different comments from Tertullian and Epiphanius?

The NET notes variants in just five out of the 25 verses in Philemon (vv. 1,6,11,12,25) four of which involve just a one word difference. Even if Epiphanius saw all these differences between Philemon and McPhm this could not account for the “completely distorted form” that he saw in the Apostolicon. These same small differences could also not account for Tertullian and Epiphanius instead seeing the same text in McPhm, but differences in Philemon that would make McPhm appear to be “completely distorted” in comparison. Instead, assuming that Epiphanius actually did see the differences he claims, either McPhm existed in two very different forms, or Philemon itself did.

Whichever is the case, similar reasoning must then be applied to First and Second Thessalonians and Philippians, i.e. that either Tertullian and Epiphanius saw two very different versions of the Pauline’s, or very different versions of the Apostolicon. There is also another major difference that BeDuhn (strangely, given his comments above) does not similarly dismiss: Epiphanius states that, in addition to including Ephesians, what he knew as the Apostolicon finished with an additional epistle named Laodiceans. In contrast Tertullian makes no mention of this epistle, but instead states that in what he knew as the Apostolicon Ephesians was referred to as Laodiceans. As we have no evidence to suggest that variants in the Pauline versions of the epistles could account for differences of this magnitude, these points instead indicate that there were two quite different versions of ‘Marcion’s Apostolicon.’

Conclusions

The evidence of Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius, et al testifies to the existence of a version (or more accurately, two versions) of Paul’s epistles attributed to Marcion and/or the Marcionites, but, considered dispassionately, provides no information as to how the Apostolicon came to be created.

Unless we are prepared to believe that Epiphanius either lied, or saw a vastly different version of the Paulines (for which there is no evidence) to that seen by Tertullian, then Epiphanius saw a much later version of the Apostolicon than that seen by Tertullian. Whatever is the reality, as Epiphanius’ evidence is nearly two centuries later than that of Tertullian, it cannot be trusted so far as attempting to recover the original text of the Apostolicon is concerned, although it does appear to provide evidence for the existence of a later version of the Apostolicon in which First and Second Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon were very different to those seen by Tertullian.

What we are then left with is that Tertullian testifies that the Apostolicon contains versions of First and Second Corinthians, First and Second Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians that were either almost identical to or contained only small differences (mainly omissions) from the Paulines, but versions of Galatians and Romans that were significantly shorter. In several instances the portions of the text ‘missing’ from the Apostolicon have been suspected of being interpolations, suggesting that rather than Marcion having removed the 'missing' text, his Apostolicon instead most likely contained earlier versions of what we know as the Pauline epistles. Kirby concludes:

In agreement with the investigations of other research (regarding the particular textual variants noted as present in Marcion’s text and regarding the various passages retained by Marcion), this study particularly in the shorter readings of Marcion’s text finds some confirmation of the hypothesis that Marcion’s text of Paul can be regarded as a valuable witness to the early stage of transmission with little to no detectable redaction taking place at Marcion’s hands.

References

· Adamantius: Dialogue on the True Faith in God, Dialogue on the True Faith in God, translated by Robert A. Pretty, 1997

· Anonymous: A concise view of the Scriptures (1824) and A View of the Scriptures, and of Natural Knowledge (1838)

· BeDuhn, Jason D: The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon, 2013

· Blunt, John Henry, Dictionary of sects, heresies, ecclesiastical parties, and schools of religious thought, 1874

· Carrigan, Cky J: Marcion and Marcionite Gnosticism, 11/96

· Case, Shirley Jackson: To Whom Was "Ephesians" Written?,The Biblical World, Vol. 38, No. 5 (Nov., 1911)

· Cassels, Walter Richard: Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry Into the Reality of Divine Revelation, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7

· The Catholic Encyclopedia: Marcionites and Marcion

· Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata, Book 1, Chapter xxi, section 145, The Stromata, Book IV

· Clement (of Rome?): The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 46–61

· Colwell, E.C: Hort Redivivus: A Plea and a Program

· Das, A. Andrew: Solving the Romans Debate, Fortress Press, 2006

· Detering, Hermann: The Original Version of the Epistle to the Galatians. Explanations., Seite 66, 2003

· Eadie, John: Commentary on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians

· Early Christian Writings.com: Marcion

· e-Catena: Compiled Allusions to the NT in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

· Ehrman, Bart D: The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 2011, pp 223-224

· Ephrem: Fragments of the commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron, 1895, by J. Rendel Harris

· Epiphanius, Panarion 42: The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book 1 (Sects 1-46), and Books 2 and 3, De Fide: Second, revised edition translated by Frank Williams, 2007

· Evans, E: An appendix listing the major omissions and alterations by Marcion, based on Harnack, Marcion, pp. 183*-240*.

· Fuller, R.H: The New Testament in Current Study (London: SCM, 1963), p. 87.

· Gill, John: An Exposition of the New Testament (3 vols., 1746-8)

· The Gnostic Society Library: Gnostic Scriptures and Fragments Marcion: Gospel of the Lord and Other Writings

· Harnack, Adolf Von: Marcion, History of Dogma. Marcion’s attempt to set aside the Old Testament foundation of Christianity, to purify tradition, and to reform Christendom on the basis of the Pauline Gospel.

· Head, Peter M: The Foreign God and the Sudden Christ: Theology and Christology in Marcion's Gospel Redaction

· Hippolytus: The Refutation of all Heresies, Book VII

· Hort, F.J.A: The New Testament in the original Greek: By Brooke Foss Westcott, Fenton John Anthony Hort: Appendix; Notes on Select Readings. p68

· Ignatius: The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 3

· Irenaeus: Against Heresies: I.27, III.3, III.14, IV.23, and IV.29

· Justin Martyr, et al: Simon Magus [Simon the Sorceror], The Catholic Encyclopedia. Also the Dialogue with Trypho and the First Apology

· Knox, John: Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon, and On the Vocabulary of Marcion's Gospel

· Kirby, Peter: Marcion’s Shorter Readings of Paul

· Lardner, Nathaniel: The works of Nathaniel Lardner, Volume 8, section 35 . Here Lardner details Epiphanius’ statements regarding differences between Luke and Mcg. This is in fact the main source of information used by Dr. Holmes in his note. Also Volume 6, on the Paulines.

· Lieu, Judith M.: Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century, 2015

· Longenecker, Richard N: Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul's Most Famous Letter, p20-21

· Mahar Daniel: The Marcionite Research Library

· McKim, Donald: The Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters

· Mead, G.R.S: Fragments of a Faith Forgotten 3rd Edition 1931, pp.241-249

· Metzger, Bruce: A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, and The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance

· Moll, Sebastian: The Arch-Heretic Marcion WUNT 250; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010

· Musurillo, Herbert: The Problem of the Itala, from Theological Studies

· NET: Comments from the ‘New English Translation’ (NET Bible) of Luke

· NTCanon.org: The Development of the Canon of the New Testament: Marcion and the Marcionites

· O’Reilly, Allan: Manuscript Evidence for Disputed Verses, Taken from appendix 2, III: "O Biblios The Book,"

· Petersen, William L: Patristic and Text-Critical Studies: The Collected Essays of William L. Petersen (1950-2006)

· Quispel, Gilles: Marcion and the Text of the New Testament, Vigiliae Christianae V53, #4, 1998

· Roberts, Alexander & Donaldson, Sir James (Ed): The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume III, Latin Christianity: its founder, Tertullian

· Robertson: Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament

· Salmon, George, D.D.: Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 1897

· Schneemelcher, Wilhelm: New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2: Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses and Related Subjects, 1992

· Terry, Bruce: A Student's Guide to New Testament Textual Variants

· Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion) Book V, On the Flesh of Christ (De Carne Christi), Against Praxeas, Of Patience, On Repentence, and On Modesty

· Vridar (Neil Godfrey): Paul’s Letter to the Romans – the creation of the canonical edition according to Couchoud, also Epistle to the Galatians — Couchoud’s view

· Waltz, Robert: The Western Non-Interpolations and New Testament Manuscripts.

· Whedon, Daniel: Commentary on the Bible, Matthew 26

· White, Ellen G: The Divine-Human Nature of Christ

· Wikipedia: Marcion of Sinope, Gospel of Marcion