Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem the Syrian on the Diatessaron

deal with the Nativity, for the Marcionite had no such account in his gospel; but it turned upon the words ‘he went, as his custom was, into the synagogue.’ And it was argued, not improperly, by the opponents of Marcion that these words were inconsistent with the theory of a sudden lapse from heaven. Accordingly, as I have elsewhere suggested¹, the text of the Gospel at this point shews signs of having been tampered with in certain copies with a view to meeting the difficulty, either by getting rid of the ‘custom’ or by proving it to refer to other people or by erasing the words ‘where he had been brought up.’ Now it is interesting to find that the very words of Marcion on this point are preserved to us by Ephrem. And it appears that Marcion objects to this disputed word consuetudo custom. The passage is as follows (Mösinger, p. 128):

Matt. xiii. 54. He came into his own city and taught them in their synagogues....This was written to confound the Marcionites: [because, that is, by teaching in his native place and by teaching in their synagogues the scripture implies previous residence and habitual teaching.]...Luke iv. 16. After these things he entered into their synagogue, as his custom was, on the Sabbath-day. [Here Marcion is supposed to intervene;] whence arises the custom to him who had only just arrived? He had but just come into Galilee: nor had he [even on the orthodox shewing] begun to preach outside the synagogue, [in which case the custom of preaching would have been established] but he began in the synagogue, (and we must either admit) as their worship requires, that he preached to them concerning their God, [the creator of the world] or else he would have had to preach outside the synagogues. [But if he preached about their God to them then this must have been what provoked their anger; nothing had passed between them before], and his visit to Bethsaida [so, according to Marcion, and not Nazareth] was only marked on their side by the suggestion that the physician should heal himself. This is not sufficient to explain their anger and their desire to throw him from the rock. [We must, therefore, allow that he had said things to them about their God, which provoked them, and this must have been the first occasion upon which such things were said.]

To which Ephrem replies (i) that if Christ had been in the habit of preaching against the God of the Old Testament, traces of it would be found elsewhere in the Gospel; (ii) that the very

¹ A Study of Codex Bezae, p. 232.