[359:1] As to the defects of the present edition, see Tischendorf, Prolegomena to Vetus Testamentum Graece juxta LXX Interpretes, p. liii:  ’Eae vero (collationes) quemadmodum in editis habentur non modo universae graviter differunt inter se fide atque accuratione, sed ad ipsos principales testes tam negligenter tamque male factae sunt ut etiam atque etiam dolendum sit tantos numos rara liberalitate per Angliam suppeditatos criticae sacrae parum profuisse.’  Similarly Credner, in regard to the use of the Codex Alexandrinus, Beitraege, ii. 16:  ’Wahrhaft unbegreiflich und unverzeihlich ist es, dass die Herausgeber der kostbaren Kritischen Ausgabe der LXX, welcher zu Oxford vor wenigen Jahren vollendet und von Holmes und Parsons besorgt worden ist, statt cine sorgfaeltige Vergleichung des in London aufbewahrten Cod.  Alex. zu veranstalten, sich lediglich auf die Ausgabe von Grabe beschraenkt haben, dessen Kritik vielfach nicht einmal verstanden worden ist.’

APPENDIX.

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MARCION’S GOSPEL.

If the reader should happen to possess the work of Roensch, Das Neue Testament Tertullian’s, to which allusion has frequently been made above, and will simply glance over the pages, noting the references, from Luke iv. 16 to the end of the Gospel, I do not think he will need any other proof of the sufficiency of the grounds for the reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel, so as at least to admit of a decision as to whether it was our present St. Luke or not.

Failing this, it may be well to give a brief example of the kind of data available, going back straight to the original authorities themselves.

For this purpose we will take the first chapter that Marcion preserved entire, Luke v, and set forth in full such fragments of it as have come down to us.

We take up the argument of Tertullian at the point where he begins to treat of this chapter.

In the fourth book of the treatise against Marcion Tertullian begins by dealing with the Antitheses (a sort of criticism by Marcion on what he regarded as the Judaising portions of the Canonical Gospel), and then, in general terms, with the actual Gospel which Marcion used.  From the general he descends to the particular, and in c.6 Tertullian pledges himself to show in detail, that even in those parts of the Gospel which Marcion retained there was enough to refute his own system.

Marcion’s Gospel began with the descent of Jesus upon Capernaum in the fifteenth year of Tiberias.  Tertullian makes points out of this, also from the account of His preaching in the synagogue and of the expulsion of the devil.  After this incident Marcion’s Gospel represented our Lord as retiring into solitude.  It did this as it would appear in words very similar to those of the Canonical Gospel.  I place side by side the language of Tertullian with that of the Vulgate (Codex Fuldensis, as given by Tregelles).  I have also compared the translation in the two codd., Vercellensis and Veronensis, of the Old Latin in Bianchini’s edition.  It will be remembered however that Tertullian is admitted to have Marcion’s (and not the Canonical) Gospel before him, and he probably translates directly from that.