Evidence from Epiphanius

Epiphanius, in his Panarion, lists numerous "falsificatons" that Marcion supposedly made to the gospel of Luke.  It's hard to tell when he's talking about a different version of a pericope, or the absence of it altogether.  We can sometimes get this information from Tertullian and other authors, but sometimes it can't be completely determined.

At any rate, two of these textually divergent passages are mentioned right after one another in Panarion: the blind man of Jericho, and the third prediction of the passion (Panarion 42.11.6.51-52).  Epiphanius doesn't tell us how Marcion's story of the blind man differed from Luke's, and Tertullian doesn't help us much.  The third prediction seems to have been missing from Marcion's gospel entirely--Epiphanius states it was "falsified in its entirety" and Tertullian doesn't discuss it at all.  Furthermore, in Scholion 52 of that same book (Panarion 42) Epiphanius explains in more detail that Marcion "concealed the lines".  This could mean they were missing altogether, though it could also mean that something else was in their place.



Here are the passages in GLk, in their Marcionite order:

Lk 18:35-43 [Blind Man of Jericho]
Lk 18:31-34 [Third Prediction]

Notice they're in reversed order in Panarion than they are in GLk.  The Lukan order is of course:

Lk 18:31-34 [Third Prediction]
Lk 18:35-43 [Blind Man of Jericho]

They appear in the same order in GMk as in GLk:

Mk 10:32-34 [Third Prediction]
[Pericope of the Greatest and Least, Mk 10:35-45]
Mk 10:46-52 [Blind Man of Jericho]

Now, this is very interesting because...this is right where the Secret Mark passages are found.  The first is found between 10:34 and 10:35, and the second is found at Mk 10:46.  What's most remarkable is the fact that the Secret Mark passages are framed by "falsified" passages in Marcion, and that the Markan intervening material--the greatest/least discussion with James and John--has been moved in GLuke (to Lk 22:24-30).  And how very odd that the Matthean version of this pericope begins wih the mother of James and John kneeling before Jesus to ask him for a favor--just as the sister of the dead man does at the beginning of Secret Mark 1. 

The combined strength of these coincidences seems to point to something much more complicated, yet systematic, than a simple forgery by a 20th century scholar with an axe to grind.