andrew of caesarea and the apocalypse in the ancient church of the ...

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some described as a heavily edited version of Luke. It also bore similarities to Mark in that it
contained no birth narratives and it omitted precious "words of the Lord," such as the Lord's
prayer. It also appeared to contain some material from Matthew. Marcion's gospel clearly
followed the synoptic tradition and took an overt stance against the gospel of John. 106
The period of Marcion's activity represents a stage in the development of the canon
during which tampering with a gospel text was a possibility not so unthinkable as to be
entirely rejected, not even by a presbyter such as Marcion. But at same time the text had
reached a sufficiently fixed form that his version was clearly seen as a rédaction so extensive
that it was denounced by the majority of Christians. This is confirmed by Tertullian who
complains that Marcion's gospel is merely a mutilated recension of Luke's gospel which had
been preserved in the apostolic churches. 108 Irenaeus also complains about the material which
Marcion had removed from Luke's gospel. 109 Marcion's activities generated a great deal of
controversy, and prompted discussions about why Christians retained the Jewish Scriptures at
ail and which Christian writings were authoritative. Marcion probably sparked the first real
stimulus toward the formation of a specifically Christian canon.
Another example from the mid-second century, Tatian and his activities, confirms the
status of Christian writings during this period. Tatian had corne to Rome from Syria. Then
after returning to the East around 170, he produced a gospel version which combined the four
gospels into one continuous Syriac narrative called Diatessaron, literally "through four," or
four-fold. The fact that Tatian, like Marcion before him, felt free to rework the gospels in this
way shows that he and others did not consider the gospels Scripture, although their contents
10 Farmer and Farkasfalvy, 59.
107 Harnack believes that the texts could not hâve been fixed before 150 and that this is certainly proof that even
the gospels had not attained "full canonical authority." History ofDogma, 42.
108 Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.5. Against Marcion, trans. Peter Holmes, Latin Chhstianity: Its Founder,
Tertullian, éd. Alan Menzies, Ante-Nicene Fathers séries, vol. III (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., reprint, 1989.)
109 Irenaeus, Against Hérésies 3.14.4. Irenaeus, Against Hérésies, trans. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, eds. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers séries, vol. I. (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
reprinted 1989.)