And to anyone who argues that the Marcionites had Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 I ask them this - how can Tertullian say the Marcionites rejected details in Acts which are confirmed by Galatians? This is the thing that people ignore. No, I acknowledge, Tertullian does not say that the Marcionite text did not have Galatians 1:9 - 2:10. However he says elsewhere that 'heretics' - presumably Marcionites - said that 'the apostle' Paul had superior knowledge, knew the new better god, wrote a better secret gospel and Peter by contrast was condemned for his inferior knowledge, inferior gospel, veneration of the inferior god. If these points aren't explicit they certainly are implicit in the Prescription. It is worth noting that such an understanding is also implicit if we follow the argument in Agaisnt Marcion Book 5 regarding the Epistle to the Galatians.
I have read and reread Book 5 to the point that I am familiar with a number of strange anomalies in the text including:
1. a strange change from 'even if an angel preaches to you another gospel' to 'even if we or an angel preaches another gospel.' The reason 'we' is added to the text of Galatians 1:8 is clearly because the editor wants to deny the Marcionite reading of the material outlined previously - i.e. that Paul had one gospel and Peter another. The 'we' clearly means 'the Church as a whole' i.e. Paul and Peter, Paul and the Jerusalem Church. The story that emerges in Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 is from that POV designed to make clear that one gospel was shared by both communities which is simply ludicrous and fake beyond belief. When Irenaeus reconstructs the 'fourfold gospel' there is a 'Jewish gospel' (= Matthew) which seems to be distinct from the gospel of the Pauline community (= Luke). Under no circumstance does it make any sense that Paul could have gone to the Jerusalem Church and agreed they shared one gospel if 'gospel' here is taken to mean written gospel. I acknowledge that this is not the way modern scholars understand 'gospel' in Galatians chapters 1 and 2. But this is the only way that Tertullian can be understood to use the term gospel. In chapter 1 of Book 5 "I must with the best of reasons approach this inquiry with uneasiness when I find one affirmed to be an apostle, of whom in the list
of the apostles in the gospel I find no trace." The meaning of 'gospel' here is clear - it is a written gospel. Similarly at the end of the chapter we hear Tertullian reference 'mutilations of the gospel' among the Marcionites. The use of 'gospel' begins and ends as a written gospel. So when Tertullian reports that the Marcionites argue there are two gospels associated with two gods - the new god and the Creator - further associated with two different communities of Christ, those associated with Paul and Peter it is obvious what the addition of the 'history' in Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 is intended to do. The orthodox editor of the Pauline Epistle of Galatians is making absolutely plain that the Marcionite version of history is 'disproved' by the epistle. 'Look at the Epistle to the Galatians' Tertullian says, 'it disproves your claim about two gospels associated with Peter and Paul.'
2. Tertullian's argument that Galatians 1:9 - 2:11 agrees with Acts so this is why the Marcionites deny Acts. I can't stress how senseless this argument would be if scholars assume that 1:9 - 2:10 was shared by the Marcionites in their letter. What would denying Acts do for their case if Galatians alone was sufficient to debunk their claim that Paul is talking about two gospels associated with two gods and two communities associated with Peter and Paul? The orthodox Epistle to the Galatians denies this understanding of the Marcionites. I would counter that it does this because a later editor added the material between Galatians 1:8 and 2:11 which make plain that Peter was condemned because he was doing exactly what Paul said the angel would do - preach a different gospel. The Marcionites understood Paul to have written the first gospel - not by Luke but by his own hand so when he says 'my gospel' he means 'my written gospel.' Step by step the orthodox went out of their way to make it seem there was agreement between the various sects in the beginning. The unanimity eventually becomes more complicated by the fact that the existence of four separate gospels end up being taken as 'one gospel' - something which doesn't make sense given Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 so the idea of an oral gospel and a written gospel are layered on top of this original conception. But notice how whenever Tertullian references the Marcionites and their denial of Acts makes plain at least implicitly that they had no biographical information about Paul in their letters - especially Galatians. We read in chapter one:
If these figurative mysteries do not please you, certainly the Acts of the Apostles have handed down to me this history of Paul, nor can you deny it. From them I prove that the persecutor became an apostle, not from men, nor by a man: from them I am led even to believe him: by their means I dislodge you from your claim to him, and have no fear of you when you ask, And do you then deny that Paul is an apostle? I speak no evil against him whom I retain for myself. If I deny, it is to force you to prove. If I deny, it is to enforce my claim that he is mine. Otherwise, if you have your eye on our belief, accept the evidence on which it depends. If you challenge us to adopt yours, tell us the facts on which it is founded. Either prove that the things you believe really are so: or else, if you have no proof, how can you believe? [AM 5.1]
This is consistent throughout Against Marcion. If the Marcionites accepted Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 it would be checkmate here. Ah, you deny Acts but you accept Galatians. Look at what Galatians says about Paul. Yet Tertullian never says this because the Marcionites did not accept these verses.
Irenaeus (who is the source of this material copied out into Latin by Tertullian) makes a very similar argument in Against Heresies 3 where he writes:
But again, we allege the same against those who do not recognise Paul as an apostle: that they should either reject the other words of the Gospel which we have come to know through Luke alone, and not make use of them; or else, if they do receive all these, they must necessarily admit also that testimony concerning Paul, when he (Luke) tells us that the Lord spoke at first to him from heaven: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? I am Jesus Christ, whom thou persecutest; "(6) and then to Ananias, saying regarding him: "Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name among the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him, from this time, how great things he must suffer for My name's sake."(7) Those, therefore, who do not accept of him [as a teacher], who was chosen by God for this purpose, that he might boldly bear His name, as being sent to the forementioned nations, do despise the election of God, and separate themselves from the company of the apostles. For neither can they contend that Paul was no apostle, when he was chosen for this purpose; nor can they prove Luke guilty of falsehood, when he proclaims the truth to us with all diligence. It may be, indeed, that it was with this view that God set forth very many Gospel truths, through Luke's instrumentality, which all should esteem it necessary to use, in order that all persons, following his subsequent testimony, which treats upon the acts and the doctrine of the apostles, and holding the unadulterated rule of truth, may be saved. His testimony, therefore, is true, and the doctrine of the apostles is open and stedfast, holding nothing in reserve; nor did they teach one set of doctrines in private, and another in public ... For when it has been manifestly declared, that they who were the preachers of the truth and the apostles of liberty termed no one else God, or named him Lord, except the only true God the Father, and His Word, who has the pre-eminence in all things; it shall then be clearly proved, that they (the apostles) confessed as the Lord God Him who was the Creator of heaven and earth, who also spoke with Moses, gave to him the dispensation of the law, and who called the fathers; and that they knew no other. The opinion of the apostles, therefore, and of those (Marks and Luke) who learned from their words, concerning God, has been made manifest.
It simply boggles the mind that Tertullian or Irenaeus could have ignored the reality that Galatians 1:9 - 2:10 was 'checkmate' against the Marcionites. There would be no need to bring in Acts and the importance of Luke to this discussion if Paul plainly confessed who he was and his dealings with the Jerusalem Church in Galatians.
Rather the historical situation was:
1. the Marcionites were the established authorities about 'the apostle' Paul
2. their edition of the Pauline letters had no or little biographical information about 'the apostle' (as the citation from AM 5.1 above)
3. their version of Galatians therefore did not contain 1:9 - 2:10 and rather made the direct connection between the anathematized 'angel from heaven' in 1.8 with the 'condemned' Peter in 2.11
So strong was the Marcionite portrait of Paul, the two gospels associated with two gods venerated in two different Christian communities (one of Paul the other of Peter) and the like that it took the tag team of Acts and Galatians 1.9 - 2.10 to overcome it. In other words, Acts wasn't enough. They had to make it seem as if Paul 'confessed' the same truth, the same account of what happened in Antioch with Acts in order to subvert the tradition.