Gnostics repudiated the canonical Apostolic writ- ings, they sought in many instances to secure authority for their Gospels'by attributing them to Apostles or to others well known in Apostolic times. Besides those mentioned below, there were Gospels of Matthias, of Bartholomeiv, of A ndreiv, of Barna- bas ; and even the name of Judas Iscariot was associated with the authorship of the GospeL Gnostic Gospels sometimes bore the name of the founder of the school (Valentinus, Basilides, Cerin- thus), but in these cases the writer of the Gospel claimed to have received his information from some Apostle or follower of an Apostle. OT names were also attached to some Gospels ; Epiphanius (Hcer. 26. 2) refers to a Gospel of En-. For whatever knowledge we have (jf these Giisjjels, readers are referred to Hofmann's article (PllE^ i. 661ft'.) or to Tasker's article (I.e. 437 f.).
B. 1. Gospel of Marcion.— Shortly before the middle of the 2nd cent. , Marcion, a native of Pontus, settled in Komo, whore he dovoted liimsolf to the work of purifying; the ('lunrli fidin .ill .Icwish in- fluences. Till- UlHlrrlyili;^ |ililiri|,lc nl lii- system
tween the (iod of the (JT and tlie tiod i7t the NT. Only in Christ was the true God made known. He, accordingly, rejected the OT, and prepared for the Churches which he founded a canon of NT writings, divided into ' the (iosjiel ' and ' the Apostle.' The original Apostles, he maint-ained, had misunderstood the teaching of Christ; only Paul had grasped the true significance of the gospel. Into his canon he admitteil ten Epistles of Paul, largely expurgated, and one Gospel, which he claimed to be the Pauline Gospel (rb tvayyiXibv fiov, Ro 2"'). This Gospel, according to the testi- mony of early Church writers, was the Gospel of Luke, from which great omissions had been made to free it from all Jewish colouring. All citations from the OT were cut out, and everything else which looked with favour on the Jews. From the quotations given by Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others, it is possible to reconstruct Marcion's Oosjiel. The wh..le of the Inf.'i.icv nnrrntive, the l!:il.tisni,:iiiil tlic'rriii|it.-ili..ii \M'r,' .'.iiiil f iM. iiiithing nf llii' iir^i tliii'i' cliiiiitci- HI l.iikr Itiii'j ict.ained
Jesus comineiices with 4'^, and troiii tliat point to the end of the Gospel larger or smaller portions are excised, amounting in all to over 120 verses. Among the passages excluded are the parables of the Prodigal Son and of tlic >vi,kr,l Husbandmen. In all, including the onlis^i(.ll.■. ..i thf liist three chajiters and ji.irt c,f Ihe Imiitli, nm' liiid that Marcion's (Jospel was shorter tliaii Luke's by fully 300 verses.
Against all Patristic testimony some critics (Semler and Eichhorn in the 18th cent., Baur, Ritschl, and Schwegler in the 19th) maintjiined the priority of Marcions (iospel to that of Luke. The traditional view was, Iiowcmt. m. ciiiiiplutcly vindi- cated by HilgenlcM and X.dkiuar. tl.al Eitschl retracted. In our own ciiniiliy, mhiicm hat later, the battle was refonulil, wiili I lie same result. The author of Sitpcnin/iirn/ /.'■/ii/iuii revived the theory of Marcion's oiii^inalily, ami called forth a reply by Dr. Sanday {Guijn/.s In the Second Century, ch. viii.), in which he conclusively proved, to the satisfaction of his opponent, that Luke's Gospel was from one hand, the same characteristics of style being evident in Marcion's Gospel and in the sections of Luke not found in it.
Where the text of Marcion differs from Luke, there is evidence in some cases to show that the variance is due, not to any arbitrary change made by Marcion in the interest of his peculiar views, but to the copy of the Third Gospel which lay before him. The readings of Marcion thus de-
680 G0SPP:LS (APOCRYPHAL)
GOSPELS (APOCRYPHAL)
serve consideration in the study of Textual Criti- cism.
LiTERATUEK.— Zahn, AT Kan. i. 674 ff., ii. 409 ff.; Sanday, G<ispeLi in the Second Century, ch. viii., art, *Luke, Gospel oi' (Hastings' DB iii. lUSf.); Salmon, Introd. to ST, 186 9. ; West- cott, Canon oj ST, 314 If.
B. 2. Gospel of the Twelve Apostles. — Anions; the heretical attempts to write the liistory of Jesus, Origen in liLs Humily on Lk I'"'- mentions ' the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles ' {to itriyeypati- Hivov tQi> SuideKo. eiayyiXiov). That this Gospel is the same as one which Epiphanius {ffmr. 30. 3) describes as ' The Gospel according to Matthew ' in use among the Gnostic Ebionites, is clear from the fact that in the opening passage quoted by Epi- phanius we liave the call of the twelve Apostles, of whom Matthew is specially addressed ('and thee, Mattliew, I called, while thou wast sitting at the seat of custom'). Epiphanius further states that the Ebionites called their Gospel ' The Gospel ac- cording to the Hebrews,' a reference which may rest on a confusion on the part of Epiphanius (as Harnack thinks), but more probably is quite accu- rate. Nothing seems more likely than that the Gnostic Jewish-Christian sect, acquainted with the tradition that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, should have claimed that their Gospel was the Gospel of Matthew, and, accordingly, the ! Hebrew Gospel (Hennecke, NT Apokr. 24). If this be so, we liave an explanation of tlie error into whicli Jerome fell when he identified the Gospel according to the Hebrews \fith the Gospel 'accord- ing to the Apostks' in use among the Nazarenes (c. Pelag. iii. 2). That these two Gospels were entirely different is apparent from the widely divergent accounts of the Baptism, — the one inci- dent, common to both, described in their extant fragments.