MARCION - Online Information article about MARCION

MARCION  and THE MARCIONITE CHURCHES . In the

period between 130 and 18o A.D. the varied and complicated

Christian fellowships in the

Roman

Empire crystallized into

close and mutually exclusive societies—churches with fixed constitutions and

creeds,

schools with distinctive

esoteric doctrines, associations for

worship with

peculiar mysteries, and ascetic sects with

special rules of conduct . Of ecclesiastical organizations the most important, next to Catholicism, was the Marcionite Community . Like the

Catholic

Church, this

body professed to comprehend everything belonging to

Christianity . It admitted all believers without distinction of

age,

sex,

rank or culture . It was no

mere school for the learned, disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to

lay the

foundation of the Christian community on the pure

gospel, the

authentic institutes of

Christ . The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles of his

time . His undertaking thus resolved itself into a

reformation of Christen-dom . This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel, —Paul being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new

message of salvation as delivered by Christ . In Marcion's own view, therefore, the

founding of his church—to which he was first driven by opposition—amounts to a reformation of Christendom through a return to the gospel of Christ and to

Paul; nothing was to be accepted beyond that . This of itself shows that it is a

mistake to reckon Marcion among the Gnostics . A dualist he certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic .

For he ascribed salvation, not to " knowledge " but to " faith "; he appealed openly to the whole Christian

world; and he nowhere consciously added

foreign elements to the

revelation given through Christ . It is true that in many features his Christian system—if we may use the expression—resembles the so-called Gnostic systems; but the first

duty of the historian is to point out what Marcion plainly aimed at; only in the second

place have we to inquire how far the result corresponded with those purposes . The doctrines of Marcion and the

history of his churches from the 2nd to the 7th

century are known to us from the controversial

works of the Catholic fathers . From

Justin onwards, almost every eminent Church teacher takes some

notice of Marcion, while very many write extensive

treatises against him . The most important of those which have come down to us are the controversial pieces of

Irenaeus (in his

great

work against heretics),

Tertullian (Adv . Marc. i.—v.),

Hippolytus, Pseudo-

Origen Adamantius,

Epiphanius, and the Armenian Esnik.l From these works the contents of the Marcionite Gospel, and also the

text of Paul's epistles in Marcion's recension, can be settled with tolerable accuracy . His opponents, moreover, have preserved some expressions of his, with extracts from his

principal work; so that our knowledge of Marcion's views is in

part derived from the best

sources . Marcion was a wealthy shipowner, belonging to

Sinope in

Pontus . He appears to have been a convert from Paganism to Christianity, although it was asserted in later times that his

father had been a

bishop . That

report is probably as untrustworthy as another, that he was excommunicated from the Church for seducing a virgin . What we know for certain is that after the

death of

Hyginus, bishop of

Rome (or c . 139 A.D.), he arrived, in the course of his travels, at Rome, and made a

hand-some donation of

money to the

local church .

Even then, how-ever, the leading features of his peculiar

system must have been already thought out . At Rome he tried to gain

acceptance for them in the

college of presbyters and in the church; indeed he had previously made similar attempts in

Asia

Minor . But he now encountered such determined opposition from the

majority of the

congregation that he found it necessary to withdraw from the great church and establish in Rome a community of his own . This was about the

year 144 . The new society increased in the two following decades; and very soon numerous

sister-churches were flourishing in the

east and

west of the empire . Marcion took up his

residence permanently in Rome, but still undertook journeys for the

propagation of his opinions . In Rome he became acquainted with the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo, whose speculations influenced the development of the Marcionite

theology . Still Marcion seems never to have abandoned his

design of gaining over the whole Church to his gospel . The

proof of this -is found, partly in the fact that he tried to establish relations with

Polycarp of

Smyrna, from whom he got a

sharp rebuff, partly in a

legend to the effect that towards the end of his

life he sought readmission to the Church . Such, presumably, was the construction put in after times on his

earnest endeavour to unite Christians on the footing of the " pure gospel." When he died is not known, but his death can scarcely have been much later than the year 165 . The distinctive teaching of Marcion originated in a comparison of the Old Testament with the gospel of Christ and the theology of the apostle Paul . Its

motive was not cosmological or

meta-

physical, but religious and

historical .

In the gospel he found a

God revealed who is goodness and love, and who desires faith and love from men . This God he could not discover in the Old Testament; on the contrary, he saw there the revelation of a just, stern, jealous, wrathful and variable God, who requires from his servants

blind obedience, fear and outward righteousness . Overpowered by the

majesty and novelty of the Christian message of salvation, too conscientious to

rest satisfied with the

ordinary attempts at the

solution of difficulties, while prevented by the limitations of his time from reaching an historical insight into the relation of Christianity to the Old Testament and to Judaism, he believed that he expressed Paul's view by the Esnik's presentation of the Marcionite system is a

late

production, and contains many speculations that cannot be charged upon Marcion himself.

hypothesis of two Gods: the just God of the

law (the God of the

Jews, who is also the Creator of the world), and the

good God, the Father of Jesus Christ . Paradoxes in the history of

religion and revelation which Paul draws out, and which Marcion's contemporaries passed by as utterly incomprehensible, are here made the foundation of an ethico-dualistic conception of history and of religion . It may be said that in the 2nd century only one Christian—Marcion—took the trouble to understand Paul; but it must be added that he misunderstood him . The profound reflections of the apostle on the

radical

antithesis of law and gospel, works and faith, were not appreciated in the 2nd century . Marcion alone perceived their decisive religious importance, and with them confronted the legalizing, and in this sense judaizing, tendencies of his Christian contemporaries . But the Pauline ideas lost their truth under his treatment; for, when it is denied that the God of redemption is at the same time the almighty

Lord of

heaven and

earth, the gospel is turned upside down . The

assumption of two Gods necessarily led to cosmological speculations . Under the

influence of Cerdo, Marcion carried out his ethical

dualism in the

sphere of cosmology; but the fact that his system is not

free from contradictions is the best proof that all along religious knowledge, and not philosophical, had the

chief values in his eyes . The

main outlines of his teaching are as follows .

Man is, in spirit, soul and body, a creature of the just and wrathful god .

This god created man from 15X0 (

matter),2 and imposed on him a strict law . Since no one could keep this law, the whole human

race

fell under the curse, temporal and eternal, of the

Demiurge . Then a higher God, hitherto unknown, and concealed even from the Demiurge, took pity on the wretched, condemned race of men . He sent his Son (whom Marcion probably regarded as a manifestation of the supreme God Him-self) 3 down to this earth in

order to redeem-men . Clothed in a visionary body, in the likeness of a man of

thirty years old, the Son made his

appearance in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and preached in the

synagogue at

Capernaum . But none of the Jewish

people understood him . Even the disciples whom he

chose did not recognize his true nature, but mistook him for the

Messiah promised by the Demiurge through the prophets, who as

warrior and

king was to come and set up the Jewish empire . The Demiurge himself did not suspect who the stranger was; nevertheless he became angry with him, and, although Jesus had punctually fulfilled his law, caused him. to be nailed to the

cross . By that

act, however, he pronounced his own

doom . For the risen Christ appeared before him in his

glory, and charged him with having acted contrary to his own law . To make amends for this

crime, the Demiurge had now to deliver up to the good God the souls of those who were to be redeemed; they are, as it were,

purchased from him by the death of Christ . Christ then proceeded to the underworld to deliver the

spirits of the departed .

It was not the Old Testament

saints, however, but only sinners and malefactors like

Cain,

Esau and

Saul, who obeyed his

summons . The prophets and patriarchs, having been often deceived by the Demiurge, suspected a

trick and would not avail themselves of the promised salvation, remaining content with the

bliss of being in

Abraham's bosom . Then, to gain the living, Christ raised up Paul as his apostle . He alone under-stood the gospel, and recognized the difference between the just God and the good . Accordingly, he opposed the

original apostles with their Judaistic doctrines, and founded small congregations of true Christians . But the

preaching of the false Jewish Christians gained the upper hand;

nay, they even falsified the evangelical oracles and the letters of Paul . Marcion himself was the next raised up by the good God, to proclaim once more the true gospel . This he did by setting aside the

spurious gospels, purging the real gospel (the Gospel of

Luke) from sup-posed judaizing interpolations, and restoring the true text 'of 2 On the relation of matter to the Creator, Marcion himself seems not to have speculated, though his followers may have done so . Marcion's teaching at this point forestalls the patripassian christology of

Noetus and Praxeas (see

Neander, Church Hist . H . 143).—[ED.] the Pauline epistles.1 He likewise composed a

book, called the Antitheses,2 in which he proved the disparity of the two Gods, from a comparison of the Old Testament with the evangelical writings . On the basis of these writings Marcion proclaimed the true Christianity, and founded churches .

He taught that all who put their

trust in the good God, and his crucified Son, renounce their

allegiance to the Demiurge, and approve themselves by good works of love, shall be saved . But he taught further—and here we trace the influence of the current

gnosticism on Marcion —that only the spirit of man is saved by the good God; the body, because material, perishes . Accordingly his

ethics also were thoroughly dualistic . By the " works of the Demiurge," which the Christian is to flee, he meant the whole " service of the perishable." The Christian must' shun everything sensual, and especially

marriage, and free himself from the body by strict

asceticism . The original ethical contrast of " good " and " just " is thus transformed into the cosmological contrast of " spirit " and " matter." The good God appears as the god of spirit, the Old Testament God as the god of matter . That is Gnosticism; but it is at the same time illogical . For, since; according to Marcion, the spirit of man is derived, not from the good, but from the just God, it is impossible to see why the spiritual should yet be more closely related to the good God than the material . There is yet another direction in which the system ends with a

contradiction . According to Marcion, the good God never

judges, but everywhere manifests His goodness—is, therefore, not to be feared, but simply to be loved, as a father . But here the question occurs, What becomes of the men who do not believe the gospel ? Marcion answers, The good God does not

judge them, but merely removes them from His presence . Then they fall under the

power of the Demiurge, who—rewards them for their fidelity ?

No, says Marcion, but on the contrary—punishes them in his

hell ! The contradiction here is palpable; and at the same time the antithesis of " just " and " good " ultimately vanishes . For the Demiurge now appears as an inferior being, who in reality executes the purposes of the good God . It is

plain that dualism here terminates in the

idea of the

sole supremacy of the good God . It is not surprising, therefore, that even in the 2nd century the disciples of Marcion diverged in several directions . Rigorous asceticism, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the recognition of the " new God " remained

common to all Marcionites, who, moreover, like the Catholics, lived together in close communities ruled by bishops and presbyters (although their constitution was originally very loose, and sought to avoid every appearance of " legality ") . Some, however, accepted three first principles (the evil, the just, the good) ; others held by two, but regarded the Demiurge as the god of evil, i.e. the

devil; while a third party, like

Apelles, the most distinguished of Marcion's pupils, saw in the Demiurge only an apostate

angel of the good God—thus returning to monotheism . The

golden age of the Marcionite churches falls between the years 150 and 250 . During that time they were really dangerous to the great Church; for in fact they maintained certain genuine Christian ideas, which the Catholic Church had forgotten . The earliest inscription (A.D . 318) on a Christian place of worship is Marcionite, and was found on a

stone which had stood over the

doorway of a

house in a Syrian

village . From the beginning of the 4th century they began to

die out in the West, or rather they fell a

prey to

Manichaeism .

In the East also many Marcionites went over to the Manichaeans; but there they survived much longer . They can be traced down to the 7th century, and then they seem to vanish . But it was unquestionably from Marcionite impulses that the new sects of the

Paulicians and

Bogomils arose; and in so far as the western Cathari, and the antinomian and anticlerical sects 1 Marcion was the earliest

critical student of the New Testament

canon and text . It is noteworthy that he refused to admit the genuineness of the

Pastoral Epistles and said that the

letter to the

Ephesians was really addressed to the Laodiceans (Tertullian, Adv . Marc. v . II, 21).—(ED.) 2 Some have seen a reference to this work in i Tim. vi . 20.—(ED.)of the 13th century are connected with these, they also may be included in the history of Marcionitism . See A .

Harnack, History of

Dogma, i . 266, 286; F . Loofa, Dogmengeschichte pp . '11–114; G .

Kruger,

Early Christian Literature, and

art. in Hauck-

Herzog's Realencyklopadie per Prot . Theol. and Kirche, xii . ; F . J . Foakes

Jackson's Christian Difficulties of the Second and Twentieth Centuries, is a study of Marcion and his relation to

modern thought . (A .