er, and attributes to him a certain picture of the Blessed
Virgin. Another such picture is preserved in the great church of S.
Maria Maggiore at Rome. The legend finds no support in early Christian
writers. At the same time, it bears witness to the fact that this
Gospel contains the elements of beauty in especial richness. It is the
work of St. Luke that inspired Fra Angelico's pictures of the
Annunciation, and the English hymn "Abide with me."

Although St. Irenaeus is the first writer who names St. Luke as the
author of the third Gospel, the Gospel is quoted by earlier writers.
Special mention must be made of (1) _Justin Martyr_. He records
several facts only found in this Gospel, _e.g._ Elisabeth as the mother
of John the Baptist, the census {66} under Quirinius, and the cry,
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." (2) _Celsus_, the pagan
philosopher, who opposed Christianity. He refers to the genealogy
which narrates that Jesus was descended from the first man. (3) The
_Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne_, written in A.D. 177. (4)
_Marcion_. He endeavoured to found a system of theology which he
pretended to be in accordance with the teaching of St. Paul. He
rejected the Old Testament as the work of an evil god, and asserted
that St. Paul was the only apostle who was free from the taint of
Judaism. The only Gospel which he kept was that according to St. Luke,
which he retained as agreeing with the teaching of St. Paul. The
contents of Marcion's Gospel can be largely discovered in Tertullian.
The differences which existed between Marcion's Gospel and our Luke can
be easily accounted for. Here, as in St. Paul's Epistles, he simply
altered the passages which did not agree with his own interpretation of
St. Paul's doctrine. For instance, in Luke xiii. 28, instead of
"Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob," he put "the righteous." The account
of our Lord's birth and infancy he omitted, because he did not believe
that our Lord's human body was thoroughly human and real. An
interesting modern parallel to Marcion's New Testament can be found in
England. At the beginning of the 19th century the English Unitarians
circulated large numbers of an English version of the New Testament in
which were altered all the passages in the English Authorised Version
which imply that Jesus is God. The translators of this Unitarian
version accepted the Gospels of the New Testament as genuine, although
they used unscru