The Gospel of Luke as a Late Second Century "Trojan Horse"

[Secret Alias]

So Matthew is not a forgery of Mark. Luke isn't a forgery of Mark according to your understanding. If there was an assignment to produce gospels in an ancient university and Mark left his desk first and deposited his gospel with the instructor and then Matthew came after and did the same with his and so too Luke, the excuse about the "Holy Spirit" inspiring all of them would be accepted? Perhaps there is a line between plagiarism and forgery. It's hair splitting.

[Secret Alias]

Marcion is accused by the Church Fathers of forgery not plagiarism correct?

[StephenGoranson]

"Secret Mark" is "realer"?
Get real.
Show why.

[Secret Alias]

I say "realer" in quotes because it's more reasonable to suggest that the ancient world was shaped by forgeries of Mark rather than by a forgery of a forgery, like Luke. Marcionism was a significant and influential tradition, and just because Irenaeus claims that Marcion forged Luke doesn't automatically make it true. If Marcion had forged Luke to establish the Marcionite tradition, that tradition would be completely invalidated—which was, of course, Irenaeus's original intention in making such a claim.

[Secret Alias]

And just for clarification. Marcion was accused of forgery, not plagiarism, by early Church Fathers. They alleged that Marcion altered or "mutilated" the scriptures, particularly the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline Epistles, to suit his theological views.

In Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion), Tertullian explicitly accuses Marcion of editing and distorting the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul. Tertullian claimed that Marcion “mutilated” the Gospel by removing passages that didn’t align with his belief in a non-creator God who was separate from the God of the Old Testament. Tertullian saw this as an intentional corruption of scripture to fit Marcion's theological agenda. He also speaks of his "stealing" of the epistles of Paul. Tertullian says Marcion “plundered” the Gospel of Luke, implying that Marcion committed a type of literary forgery by altering the text and removing parts that didn’t suit his doctrines.

In Against Heresies (Book I, Chapter 27), Irenaeus accuses Marcion of mutilating the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul to remove references to the Jewish God and the connection between Jesus and Jewish prophecy. Irenaeus considered Marcion's version of the scriptures to be a falsified and incomplete version of the true texts.

In Panarion, Epiphanius also accuses Marcion of falsifying scripture, specifically editing the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s epistles to reflect his dualistic theology, where the creator God of the Old Testament was evil and distinct from the benevolent God revealed by Jesus.

The facts are that the Church Fathers accused Marcion of textual corruption and intentional alteration, which they saw as a deliberate manipulation of sacred texts. The charge of "forgery" here relates to the claim that Marcion modified pre-existing writings (especially Luke and Paul’s letters) to fit his own beliefs, which orthodox Christians viewed as a distortion of the original Christian message.

[StephenGoranson]

So you say a "forgery" of "Mark" is "realer" than "Mark"?

[John2]

Why would the author of Luke need to justify or explain why he is compiling yet another gospel narrative? The mention of "many" who have undertaken this task implies that there were already numerous circulating accounts of Jesus's life, leaving us to wonder: why did Luke feel the need to produce another one?

The need for Luke's gospel is stated in 1:3 ("having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you"). In other words, Luke was doing Theophilus a favor by "carefully investigating" the many accounts about Jesus that existed, so that he wouldn't have to sort through them all himself, the same way that Eusebius had "carefully investigated" earlier Christian writings and wrote an "orderly account" of Christian history for Christians of his time.

And just like Eusebius certainly didn't intend to replace the earlier Christian writings he used and was just giving his spin on them, Luke wasn't trying to replace earlier gospels and was only giving an "orderly account" of them (i.e., putting his spin on them) for Christians of his time.

What makes this more intriguing is that early Christian heretics, particularly the Marcionites, were said to have had their own version of the Gospel, which was a shorter version of Luke's Gospel. The orthodox Church accused Marcion of corrupting the true Gospel, but this raises an interesting question: if Luke's Gospel itself admits to being built on earlier narratives, is it really that different from what Marcion did? One might even argue that Luke is providing a sanitized, orthodox version of earlier, more radical teachings, essentially engaging in the same process of "corruption" but in reverse—shaping the tradition to fit an orthodox narrative.

My understanding is that Marcionites did not try to pass off their gospel as being built on earlier writings like Luke does. In that respect, I'd say Luke is being more honest by saying "this is my take on earlier writings," whereas Marconites said, "we have the one and only true gospel, the way it was originally written before all of you other people corrupted it."

I think we both agree that Papias did not know Luke, and I think he knew Mark and Matthew more or less as we have them. And that would make these two gospels earlier than Marcion, since Eusebius mentions Papias in EH 3 no later than Trajan's time, and he discusses Marcion in EH 4 and places him in Antoninus' time. So to me whatever gospel Marcionites used seems later than the sources that Luke used (Mark, Matthew -one or more of the multiple versions of it that Papias said existed- and Josephus).

What if Luke's Gospel is, in fact, a reaction to—or even a rewriting of—earlier texts like the Marcionite Gospel?

You would first have to demonstrate that the Marcionite gospel was an earlier text. It seems later than Mark and Matthew to me. My guess is that Marcion and Luke rewrote the Ebionite Matthew and that this is why their gospels seemed similar to church writers (with the Ebionite Matthew itself being a translation and rewrite of the original Hebrew Matthew). In this scenario, Luke gets a point for being honest about his use of earlier sources.

[Secret Alias]

So you say a "forgery" of "Mark" is "realer" than "Mark"?

I think I said, whether by the incorporation of modern textual criticism (as you would contend) or because an ancient writer was privy to Papias's statements about Mark, the Letter to Theodore witnesses what actually happened in antiquity rather than Irenaeus who essentially made up a story about the forgery of a forgery (Luke) to discredit the Marcionite tradition and perhaps to counter pre-existent Marcionite claims that the orthodox canon was a forgery.

The Marcionites said that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John purport to have been written by the apostles and disciples but they weren't really by those people. Not sure if that is forgery or pseudepigraphal writing or what the difference is between the two. They said that Acts was a forgery I think. Counterfeit codex, I think was their wording.

[StephenGoranson]

SA, above, in part:

"....the Letter to Theodore witnesses what actually happened in antiquity...."

Just, wow.

[Secret Alias]

"....the Letter to Theodore witnesses what actually happened in antiquity...."

"whether by the incorporation of modern textual criticism (as you would contend) or because an ancient writer was privy to Papias's statements about Mark." What's wrong with that?