...
All of
these features of the post-Marcionite canon of the Western text answer
or solve problems which were acute in Rome in the middle of the Second
Century. The Western Text is therefore likely a Roman
creation, because it is clearly responding to the challenges of
Valentinus and Marcion and others who had such an impact there in the
mid-second century: this would appear to be one case where the
oft-dangerous dictum post hoc, ergo propter hoc would seem to hold true.
The origin of the Western text in Rome becomes more plausible when seen
against the background of the grand design of Catholic Rome to throw up
three dikes in order to protect the true religion:
- The Apostolic confession of faith,
written by the disciples of Jesus, which was once a simple baptismal
creed in Rome;
- an Apostolic Canon of inspired and
authentic writings about Jesus Christ linked with the Septuagint
- The apostolic Succession of the Bishops,
which guaranteed the truth of tradition and a correct interpretation of
the Bible
....
to the three pillars above, one might add a fourth pillar to Roman
Christianity:
the
creation of an authoritative redaction of the scriptures in the
"Western" text, a text which was specifically pointed at her
opponents.
Seen in this historical context, the
Western text appears to be both Roman (it answers the controversies so
acute there) and Catholic (its answers/solutions are those which became
normative in geographically Western Christianity). The
process of creating and introducing the "western” text was
virtually complete about the year 200, for both Ireneus and Tertullian
have a typically "Western" text.
Gilles Quispel - Marcion and the Text of the New Testament (JSTOR)
