The point - that I am making to the forum not to a particular individual - is that it is utterly incongruous to argue that after Tertullian says at the end of the preamble/introduction portion of Book Four i.e. the beginning of the discussion of the gospel section by section:
I now advance a step further, while I call to account, as I have promised, Marcion's gospel in his own version of it, with the design, even so, of proving it adulterated
and then
accepts the reading 'testimony unto you':
Accordingly (Jesus) added: "that it may be for a testimony unto you"----one, no doubt, whereby He would testify that He was not destroying the law, but fulfilling it; whereby, too, He would testify that it was He Himself who was foretold as about to undertake265 their sicknesses and infirmities. This very consistent and becoming explanation of "the testimony," that adulator of his own Christ, Marcion seeks to exclude under the cover of mercy and gentleness. (Adv Marc 4.9.10)
It is also utterly incongruous to hold that Epiphanius's claim that he too will:
hasten to present the material from his (Marcion's) own Gospel which is contradictory to his villainous tampering, so that those who are willing to read the work may have this as a training-ground in acuity, for the refutation of the strange doctrines of his invention.
and then
first on that list of falsifications is:
1. 'Go show thyself unto the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded—that this may be a testimony unto you,'34 instead of the Saviour's 'for a testimony unto them.'
Its not like this incongruity is 'hidden away' in the deep recesses of both texts.
It's the first example of 'adulteration' that comes from Epiphanius's list and
the first time Marcion is mentioned in conjunction with a textual reading from Luke (as opposed to that crazy 'cut stuff from Matthew business) in Adversus Marcionem as opposed to referencing something he said in the Antitheses which we have argued was the original angle of Justin's treatise. This should have been 'showtime' for the theory that you can reconstruct the gospel of Marcion from Tertullian and Epiphanius. It is nothing short of a fastball down the middle for that theory. The bat has to make contact with the ball.
If there were dozens of examples of 'a testimony unto you' it might be possible to argue that Epiphanius got the reading from somewhere other than Tertullian (or some other author down the chain of originality of Adversus Marcionem i.e. Irenaeus, Justin etc). But the plain simple fact that Tertullian cites the same reading and since dozens of modern scholars
learn to read Tertullian in such a way as to agree with Epiphanius (i.e. the 'every synoptic gospel reading in Adv Marc is Marcionite' deception) shows how
and where Epiphanius got the idea that 'testimony unto you' is a Marcionite reading - i.e. he was doing the same stupid thing that all those who would reconstruct the Marcionite gospel through Patristic reference did. Indeed he was their precursor
because of the deception in chapters 2 - 6.
Epiphanius was fooled into thinking that "testimony unto you' is a Marcionite reading the same way everyone else has been (albeit working from Irenaeus's original Greek text not Tertullian's later Latin version). Irenaeus's lost treatise was one of the pillars behind the syntagma appended to the Panarion. Chapters 2 - 6 are there to deceive the reader into 're-interpreting' the Justin-treatise that follows 'as if' every synoptic gospel reference derives from Marcion's gospel. It is the very intent of the editor to trick the reader into a
misunderstanding of the original material that follows. Justin cited the reading approvingly because it was in his gospel harmony. It's context is derived from Deuteronomy 31:19. There is no legal reason why the leper has to show himself to the priests. The point is that it is - as Justin intimates - proof that god has appeared to his people and proof that the people's turning away from him will be
testimony against them (viz. the destruction of Jerusalem).
If Adversus Marcionem was really about proving that Marcion adulterated the gospel of Luke
Tertullian would have hit that one out of the park - this the (alleged) first corruption of Epiphanius's equally dubious list of adulterations. But Adversus Marcionem accepts the reading and demonstrates that it is in harmony with the Law because that - rather than nonsense about Marcion adulterating Luke - was the original purpose and focus of the treatise Justin wrote.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote