The single instance of the perverted sense assigned to [Greek: kataelthen] in iv.

31 must needs go a long way.

Marcion evidently intends the word to be taken in a transcendental sense of the emanation and descent to earth of the Aeon Christus [Endnote 219:1].

It is impossible to think that this sense is more original than the plain historical use of the word by St.Luke, or to mistake the dogmatic motive in the heretical recension.

There is also an evident reason for the omission of the first chapters which relate the human birth of Christ, which Marcion denied, and one somewhat less evident, though highly probable, for the omission of the account of the Baptist's ministry, John being regarded as the finisher of the Old Testament dispensation--the work of the Demiurge.