Luke's party on the Resurrection

Justin Martyr wrote two Apologys and the Dialogue with Trypho. Another work is ascribed: On The Resurrection. Philip Schaff's 1910 encyclopaedia, which Wikipedia plagiarises, records acceptance of the former and doubt on Resurrection.

In external witness, some Palestinian monk compiled a "Sacra Parallela" under the Marwânids. This "SP" circulated in Melkite circles, surviving Yazîd II's iconoclasm - and also bypassing the Greeks'. The Byzantines later took hold of a copy, the Greek world apparently already lacking a copy of On The Resurrection on its own. One copy is Parisinus Graecus 923: heavily illuminated. So the move to Constantinople likely happened in the 800s, with the lifting of iconoclasm.

Here is a translation. As I read this, the essay is an apologetic on Christianity's behalf against humanist Greeks and also against Christ-curious Greeks who see "the Resurrection" as "spiritual" - as symbolic. Its scriptures are Mark and Luke, and Acts 1:9. That Jesus returned from the grave is demonstrated ch. 9 from an extensive paraphrase of the Emmaus episode in Luke 24. (And not, or at least not solely, from Ignatius' parallel tradition.)

I detect Johannine theology, such as John 1 proclaiming Christ as the Logos, which Justin's first Apology shares. I also detect a parallel to 2 John 7 in its insistence that the Son came in the flesh, although that parallel would work better with Smyrnaeans. Likewise, the nails are in Ignatius Smyrnaeans 1, Justin Trypho 97, and John: Justin cites the nails from the Psalm, and Ignatius outside his quote from the Gospel. Luke does not note the nails.

But excepting where the anecdote parallels Ignatius, I nowhere see John's narrative. I also see no Matthew. The real Justin knew Matthew and Luke and Mark, independently and through a commentary-tradition which conflated these. (Justin may, further, have owned a cheat-sheet of Jesus' logia: like "Thomas" but orthodox. Such florilegia came out of the commentaries.)

Conclusion: Justin did not write On The Resurrection.

But equally, this one cannot belong to those who kept all four Gospels, as did Irenaeus and the Byzantines. As it quotes Isaiah and Genesis, I cannot see Marcion's hand in it. Further, as it quotes older Jewish standardised texts, its parallels with Luke's Gospel-and-Acts aren't from the ahadith even in such more-or-less accepted collections as Papias. The Greeks would have dismissed such as hearsay. These parallels are quotes from Luke's corpus as we have it today.

This essay is early, preceding Justin and even Marcion. Justin would have accepted the essay's standpoint that Christ is the Logos incarnate.

2 John ends with a promise to visit the Chosen Lady, and to say more. Those comments are currently not extant; 2 John is what our canon has collected. One can imagine that a Ready Defence of v. 7 would be the main topic of discussion. One can further imagine that such notes became a brief in the defence of the physical risen Christ; otherwise, why even bother copying 2 John, without a full argument to back it up.

2 John, I think, exists to introduce and promote John's Gospel. On The Resurrection, for a Greek philosophical audience, means to promote Luke's.