Volume II Part 10 (1/2)
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There is no evidence whatever that Marcion had any knowledge of the other canonical Gospels in any form.(1) None of his writings are extant, and no direct a.s.sertion is made even by the Fathers that he knew them, although from their dogmatic point of view they a.s.sume that these Gospels existed from the very first, and therefore insinuate that as he only recognized one Gospel, he rejected the rest.(2) When Irenaeus says: ”He persuaded his disciples that he himself was more veracious than were the apostles who handed down the Gospel, though he delivered to them not the Gospel, but part of the Gospel,”(3) it is quite clear that he speaks of the Gospel--the good tidings--Christianity--and not of specific written Gospels. In another pa.s.sage which is referred to by Apologists, Irenaeus says of the Marcionites that they have a.s.serted: ”That even the apostles proclaimed the Gospel still under the influence of Jewish sentiments; but that they themselves are more sound and more judicious than the apostles. Wherefore also Marcion and his followers have had recourse to mutilating the Scriptures, not recognizing some books at all, but curtailing the Gospel according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul; these they say are alone authentic which they themselves have abbreviated.”(4)
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These remarks chiefly refer to the followers of Marcion, and as we have shown, when treating of Valentinus, Irenaeus is expressly writing against members of heretical sects living in his own day and not of the founders of those sects.(1) The Marcionites of the time of Irenaeus no doubt deliberately rejected the Gospels, but it does, not by any means follow that Marcion himself knew anything of them. As yet we have not met with any evidence even of their existence.
The evidence of Tertullian is not a whit more valuable. In the pa.s.sage usually cited, he says: ”But Marcion, lighting upon the Epistle of Paul to the Gaia-tians, in which he reproaches even Apostles for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, as well as accuses certain false Apostles of perverting the Gospel of Christ, tries with all his might to destroy the status of those Gospels which are put forth as genuine and under the name of Apostles or at least of contemporaries of the Apostles, in order, be it known, to confer upon his own the credit which he takes from them.”(2) Now here again it is clear that Tertullian is simply applying, by inference, Marcion's views with regard to the preaching of the Gospel by the two parties in the Church, represented by the Apostle Paul and the ”pillar” Apostles whose leaning to Jewish doctrines he condemned, to the written Gospels recognized in his day though not in Marcion's. ”It is uncertain,” says even Canon Westcott,
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”whether Tertullian in the pa.s.sage quoted speaks from a knowledge of what Marcion may have written on the subject, or simply from his own point of sight.”(1) Any doubt is, however, removed on examining the context, for Tertullian proceeds to argue that if Paul censured Peter, John and James, it was for changing their company from respect of persons, and similarly, ”if false apostles crept in,” they betrayed their character by insisting on Jewish observances. ”So that it was _not on account of their preaching_, but of their conversation that they were pointed out by Paul,”(2) and he goes on to argue that if Marcion thus accuses Apostles of having depraved the Gospel by their dissimulation, he accuses Christ in accusing those whom Christ selected.(3) It is palpable, therefore, that Marcion, in whatever he may have written, referred to the preaching of the Gospel, or Christianity, by Apostles who retained their Jewish prejudices in favour of circ.u.mcision and legal observances, and not to written Gospels. Tertullian merely a.s.sumes, with his usual audacity, that the Church had the four Gospels from the very first, and therefore that Marcion, who had only one Gospel, knew the others and deliberately rejected them.
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CHAPTER VIII. TATIAN--DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH
From Marcion we now turn to Tatian, another so-called heretic leader.
Tatian, an a.s.syrian by birth,(1) embraced Christianity and became a disciple of Justin Martyr(2) in Rome, sharing with him, as it seems, the persecution excited by Crescens the Cynic(3) to which Justin fell a victim. After the death of Justin, Tatian, who till then had continued thoroughly orthodox, left Rome, and joined the sect of the Encrat.i.tes, of which, however, he was not the founder,(4) and became the leading exponent of their austere and ascetic doctrines.(5)
The only one of his writings which is still extant is his ”Oration to the Greeks”[------]. This work was written after the death of Justin, for in it he refers to that event,(6) and it is generally dated between
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a. d. 170-175. (l) Teschendorf does not a.s.sert that there is any quotation in this address taken from the Synoptic Gospels;(2) and Canon Westcott only affirms that it contains a clear reference” to ”a parable recorded by St. Matthew,” and he excuses the slightness of this evidence by adding: ”The absence of more explicit testimony to the books of the New Testament is to be accounted for by the style of his writing, and not by his unworthy estimate of their importance.”(3) This remark is without foundation, as we know nothing whatever with regard to Tatian's estimate of any such books.
The supposed ”clear reference” is as follows: ”For by means of a certain hidden treasure [------] he made himself lord of all that we possess, in digging for which though we were covered with dust, yet we give it the occasion of falling into our hands and abiding with us.”(4) This is claimed as a reference to Matt. xiii. 44: ”The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hidden [------] in the field, which a man found and hid, and for his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field.” So faint a similarity could not prove anything, but it is evident that there are decided differences here. Were the probability fifty times greater than it is that Tatian had in his mind the parable, which is reported in our first Gospel, nothing could be more unwarrantable than the deduction that he must have derived it from our Matthew, and not from any other of the numerous Gospels which we know to have early been in circulation. Ewald ascribes the parable in Matthew originally to the ”Spruchsammlung” or collection of Discourses, the second of the four works out of which he considers our first Synoptic to have been compiled.(1) As evidence even for the existence of our first canonical Gospel, no such anonymous allusion could have the slightest value.
Although neither Tischendorf nor Canon Westcott think it worth while to refer to it, some apologists claim another pa.s.sage in the Oration as a reference to our third Synoptic. ”Laugh ye: nevertheless you shall weep.”(2) This is compared with Luke vi. 25: ”Woe unto you that laugh now: for ye shall mourn and weep,”(3) Here again, it is impossible to trace a reference in the words of Tatian specially to our third Gospel, and manifestly nothing could be more foolish than to build upon such vague similarity any hypothesis of Tatian's acquaintance with Luke. If there be one part of the Gospel which was more known than another in the first ages of Christianity, it was the Sermon on the Mount, and there can be no doubt that many evangelical works now lost contained versions of it. Ewald likewise a.s.signs this pa.s.sage of Luke originally to the Spruchsammlung,4 and no one can doubt that the saying was recorded long before the writer of the third Gospel
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undertook to compile evangelical history, as so many had done before him.
Further on, however, Canon Westcott says: ”it can be gathered from Clement of Alexandria... that he (Tatian) endeavoured to derive authority for his peculiar opinions from the Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, and probably from the Epistle to the Ephesians, and the Gospel of St. Matthew.”(1) The allusion here is to a pa.s.sage in the Stromata of Clement, in which reference is supposed by the apologist to be made to Tatian. No writer, however, is named, and Clement merely introduces his remark by the words: ”a certain person,” [------] and then proceeds to give his application of the Saviour's words ”not to treasure upon earth where moth and rust corrupt” [------].(2) The parallel pa.s.sage in Matthew vi. 19, reads: ”Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,” [------].
Canon Westcott, it is true, merely suggests that ”probably” this may be ascribed to Tatian, but it is almost absolutely certain that it was not attributed to him by Clement. Tatian is several times referred to in the course of the same chapter, and his words are continued by the use of [------] or [------], and it is in the highest degree improbable that Clement should introduce another quotation from him in such immediate context by the vague and distant reference ”a certain person” [------].
On the other hand reference is made in the chapter to
1 On the Canon, p. 279. [In the 4th edition Dr. Westcott has altered the ”probably” of the above sentence to ”perhaps,”
and in a note has added: ”These two last references are from an anonymous citation [------] which has been commonly a.s.signed to Tatian.” P. 318, n. 1.]
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other writers and sects, to one of whom with infinitely greater propriety this expression applies. No weight, therefore, could be attached to any such pa.s.sage in connection with Tatian. Moreover the quotation not only does not agree with our Synoptic, but may much more probably have been derived from the Gospel according to the Hebrews.(1) It will be remembered that Justin Martyr quotes the same pa.s.sage, with the same omission of ”[------],” from a Gospel different from our Synoptics.(2)
Tatian, however, is claimed by apologists as a witness for the existence of our Gospels--more than this he could not possibly be--princ.i.p.ally on the ground that his Gospel was called by some Diatessaron [------] or ”by four,” and it is a.s.sumed to have been a harmony of four Gospels. The work is no longer extant and, as we shall see, our information regarding it is of the scantiest and most unsatisfactory description. Critics have arrived at very various conclusions with regard to the composition of the work. Some of course affirm, with more or less of hesitation nevertheless, that it was nothing else than a harmony of our four canonical Gospels;(3) many of these, however, are constrained to admit that it was also partly based upon the Gospel according to the Hebrews.(4) Some maintain that it was
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