Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] You now have from us a ready answer to the Antitheses. I pass now to demonstrating the corruption — meanwhile — of the gospel, which is certainly not Jewish but Pontic, and to laying out the order in which I mean to proceed. We establish, in the first place, that the evangelical instrument has the apostles as its authors, upon whom this office of promulgating the gospel was laid by the Lord himself; and if also apostolic men, these not alone, but along with the apostles and after the apostles — since the preaching of mere disciples might become suspect of ambition for glory, were it not backed by the authority of the masters, or rather of Christ, who made the masters apostles. [2] Thus, then, John and Matthew instill faith in us from among the apostles; Luke and Mark renew it from among the apostolic men — all setting out from the same rules, so far as concerns the one God the Creator and his Christ, born of a virgin, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. As for whether the arrangement of the narratives varies, that may be seen to, so long as they agree on the substance of the faith — on which point there is no agreement with Marcion. [3] Marcion, by contrast, assigns no author at all to his gospel — as if it were not permitted him to forge even a title, when it was no crime for him to overturn the very body of the work! And I might here already plant my foot, contending that a work deserves no recognition which cannot lift its own head, which offers no consistency, which promises no credibility through the fullness of a title and the due profession of an author. [4] But I prefer to engage on every front, and I do not conceal what can be understood from our own case. For among the commentators we possess, it appears Marcion chose Luke to mutilate. Now Luke was not an apostle but a man of apostolic standing, no master but rather one taught — certainly less than his master, and indeed as much later as he was a follower of a later apostle, Paul without doubt; so that even if Marcion had brought forward his gospel under the very name of Paul, the singularity of the document, deprived of the patronage of predecessors, would not suffice for its credibility. [5] For that gospel too would be required which Paul found, to which he gave his assent, with which he was soon eager to have his own agree — since it was for this very reason that he went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with the apostles and to consult with them, lest by chance he should have run, or be running, in vain — that is, lest he should not have believed according to them, and not be preaching the gospel according to them. In the end, when he had conferred with the authorities and they had agreed on the rule of faith, they joined right hands, and thereupon divided the offices of preaching, so that those should go to the Jews, and Paul to the Jews and to the nations. If, then, the very one who gave Luke his light chose to have the authority of his predecessors back both his faith and his preaching, how much more should I demand that same authority for Luke's gospel, which was necessary even for the gospel of Luke's own master?
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