Markus Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels

Early on in Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Markus Vinzent bemoans "the separation of New Testament and Patristic Studies," which, in his opinion, stemmed at least partially from "a fundamentalist, non-historical reading of the New Testament itself and the growing dominance of such reading at that time" (1).Against this state of affairs, Vinzent hopes that Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels will "shed some more rational light on a still dark period of the beginnings of Christianity" (vii), namely, the time of Marcion and those he directly interacted with.In the process, Vinzent combines an examination of patristic material with text-critical concerns.Utilizing those two lines of study, together with a discussion of the Synoptic problem, he comes to the following conclusion: "All witnesses, including Mark, have integrated the one source Marcion.The comparison speaks strongly of Marcion as their common source" (274).Although Marcion did not necessarily create items wholesale, Vinzent argues that Marcion nevertheless essentially "created the new literary genre of the 'Gospel'"; indeed, Marcion's own work (which was subsequently copied and modified by others before Marcion's own second edition) "had no historical precedent in the combination of Christ's sayings and narratives to draw upon" (277).The following paragraphs will provide an overview of his chapters and argumentation, after which a few points of analysis will be offered.2Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels consists of four chapters of varying length.The first chapter, "Marcion, His Gospel and the Gospels in the Sources," is by far the longest section of the book.Within this chapter, Vinzent interacts with a wide range of key patristic and early church sources (with one important omission, as we will argue later), ranging all the way from the work of "An Unknown Asian Presbyter" (preserved only in Irenaeus, Against the Heresies) to Justin Martyr's writings that mention Marcion, to Irenaeus's own work against Marcion.While examining these sources for any discussion of Marcion or the Gospels, Vinzent pursues a few key lines of argumentation.At certain points, he stresses that the concept of Marcion as a "mutilator" of Scripture only occurs significantly later (i.e., compared to earlier interactions with Marcion).Thus, for example, in his discussion of Irenaeus's work, Vinzent argues that when Irenaeus cites the early source, the "Presbyter," there is no indication that Marcion has "mutilated" or "circumcised" any part of Scripture; only when Irenaeus is on his own do we see the emergence of such arguments (69).Likewise, when discussing Tatians critique of Marcion, he stresses that "not a word, however, do we read about Marcion's Gospel" (52).On the basis of his survey, Vinzent states, "In the early days, nobody knows of Marcion as having relied upon or altered an earlier Gospel" (133).3In a similar vein, when discussing Justin Martyr's interaction with Marcion, Vinzent stresses that the earliest dialogue between the two reads more like "a theological debate, not necessarily in an open confrontation" (10).Yet Justin's later works tell a different story; indeed, one can see in Justin's writings "a development of the discussion of Marcion (and later also others) which proceeds from a critical address (Ad Marcionem), to a differentiating between others whom the Emperor should persecute and Justin's own followers who should be