Does not this almost at once exclude the idea that they can be independent works?  If it does not, then let us compare the two in detail.  There is some disturbance and re-arrangement in the first chapter of Marcion’s Gospel, though the substance is that of the third Synoptic; but from this point onwards the two move step by step together but for the omissions and a single transposition (iv. 27 to xvii. 18).  Out of fifty-three sections peculiar to St. Luke—­from iv. 16 onwards—­all but eight were found also in Marcion’s Gospel.  They are found, too, in precisely the same order.  Curious and intricate as is the mosaic work of the third Gospel, all the intricacies of its pattern are reproduced in the Gospel of Marcion.  Where Luke makes an insertion in the groundstock of the narrative, there Marcion makes an insertion also; where Luke omits part of the narrative, Marcion does the same.  Among the documents peculiar to St. Luke are some of a very marked and individual character, which seem to have come from some private source of information.  Such, for instance, would be the document viii. 1-3, which introduces names so entirely unknown to the rest of the evangelical tradition as Joanna and Susanna [Endnote 215:1].  A trace of the same, or an allied document, appears in chap. xxiv, where we have again the name Joanna, and afterwards that of the obscure disciple Cleopas.  Again, the mention of Martha and Mary is common only to St. Luke and the fourth Gospel.  Zacchaeus is peculiar to St. Luke.  Yet, not only does each of the sections relating to these personages re-appear in Marcion’s Gospel, but it re-appears precisely at the same place.  A marked peculiarity in St. Luke’s Gospel is the ’great intercalation’ of discourses, ix. 51 to xviii. 14, evidently inserted without regard to chronological order.  Yet this peculiarity, too, is faithfully reproduced in the Gospel of Marcion with the same disregard of chronology—­the only change being the omission of about forty-one verses from a total of three hundred and eighty.  When Luke has the other two Synoptics against him, as in the insertions Matt. xiv. 3-12, Mark vi. 17-29, and again Matt. xx. 20-28, Mark x. 35-45, and Matt. xxi. 20-22, Mark xi. 20-26, Marcion has them against him too.  Where the third Synoptist breaks off from his companions (Luke ix. 17, 18) and leaves a gap, Marcion leaves one too.  It has been noticed as characteristic of St. Luke that, where he has recorded a similar incident before, he omits what might seem to be a repetition of it:  this characteristic is exactly reflected in Marcion, and that in regard to the very same incidents.  Then, wherever the patristic statements give us the opportunity of comparing Marcion’s text with the Synoptic—­and this they do very largely indeed—­the two are found to coincide with no greater variation than would be found between any two not directly related manuscripts of the same text.  It would be easy to multiply these points, and to carry them to any degree of detail; if more precise and particular evidence is needed it shall be forthcoming, but in the meantime I think it may be asserted with confidence that two alternatives only are possible.  Either Marcion’s Gospel is an abridgment of our present St. Luke, or else our present St. Luke is an expansion by interpolation of Marcion’s Gospel, or of a document co-extensive with it.  No third hypothesis is tenable.