Marcionism
Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system originating with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around 144. Marcion was an early Christian theologian, evangelist, and an important figure in early Christianity. He was the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus. About the middle of the 2nd century he traveled to Rome, where he joined the Syrian gnostic Cerdo.
Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent deity, the Demiurge or creator deity, identified with Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus.
Marcion's canon, possibly the first Christian biblical canon ever compiled, consisted of eleven books: the Gospel of Marcion, which was a shorter version of the Gospel of Luke, and ten Pauline epistles. Marcion's canon rejected the entire Old Testament, along with all other epistles and gospels of what would become the 27-book canon of the New Testament, which during his life had yet to be compiled.
Marcionism was denounced by its opponents as heresy and written against by the Church Fathers – notably by Tertullian in his five-book treatise Adversus Marcionem, in about 208. Marcion's writings are lost, though they were widely read and numerous manuscripts must have existed. Even so, many scholars say it is possible to reconstruct and deduce a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion.
History
According to Tertullian and other writers of early proto-orthodox Christianity, the movement known as Marcionism began with the teachings and excommunication of Marcion around 144. Marcion was reportedly a wealthy shipowner, the son of a bishop of Sinope of Pontus, Anatolia. He arrived in Rome c. 140, soon after the Bar Kokhba revolt. The organization continued for some centuries later outside the Byzantine Empire in areas which later would be dominated by Manichaeism, particularly as the Sasanian Empire.Schism within Marcionism
By the reign of emperor Commodus, Marcionism was divided into various opinions with various leaders; among whom was Apelles, whom Rhodo describes as "priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledges one principle, but says that the prophecies are from an opposing principle, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene, who was possessed by a demon". However, "others, among whom were Potitus and Basilicus, held to two principles, as did Marcion himself. Others consider that there are not only two, but three natures. Of these, Syneros was the leader and chief.”In the early 3rd century, a splinter group of Marcionites was established by Prepon the Syrian, who claimed the existence of an intermediate spiritual entity between the good and evil gods.
Teachings
The premise of Marcionism is that the ministry of Jesus is incompatible with the actions of God in the Old Testament. Focusing on the Pauline traditions, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially any association with Israelite religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth. He further regarded the arguments of Paul regarding Law and Gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life, as the essence of religious truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two principles, the righteous and wrathful God of the Old Testament, who is at the same time identical with the creator of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is only love and mercy.Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the material world he created was defective, a place of suffering; the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious demiurge.
In Marcionite belief, Jesus was not a Jewish Messiah, but a spiritual entity that was sent by the Monad to reveal the truth about existence, thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly trap of the demiurge. Marcion called God 'the Stranger God', or 'the Alien God' in some translations, as this deity had not had any previous interactions with the world, and was wholly unknown. See also the Unknown God of Hellenism and the Areopagus sermon.
Various popular sources count Marcion among the Gnostics. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church puts it, "it is clear that he would have had little sympathy with their mythological speculations". In 1911 Henry Wace stated:
A primary difference between Marcionites and Gnostics was that the Gnostics based their theology on secret wisdom of which they claimed to be in possession. In contrast, Marcion based his theology on the contents of the Letters of Paul and the recorded sayings of Jesus—in other words, an argument from scripture, with Marcion defining what was and was not scripture. Also, the Christology of the Marcionites is thought to have been primarily Docetic, denying the human nature of Jesus. This may have been due to the Marcionites' unwillingness to believe that Jesus was the son of both God the Father and the demiurge. Scholars of Early Christianity disagree on whether to classify Marcion as a Gnostic: Adolf von Harnack does not classify Marcion as a Gnostic, whereas G. R. S. Mead does. Harnack argued that Marcion was not a Gnostic in the strict sense because Marcion rejected elaborate creation myths, and did not claim to have special revelation or secret knowledge. Mead claimed Marcionism makes certain points of contact with Gnosticism in its view that the creator of the material world is not the true deity, rejection of materialism and affirmation of a transcendent, purely good spiritual realm in opposition to the evil physical realm, the belief the "True" God sent Jesus to save humanity, the central role of Jesus in revealing the requirements of salvation, the belief Paul had a special place in the transmission of this "wisdom", and its docetism. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Marcion:
Marcionism shows the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on Christianity and presents a moral critique of the Old Testament from the standpoint of Platonism. According to Harnack, the sect may have led other Christians to introduce a formal statement of beliefs into their liturgy and to formulate a canon of authoritative Scripture of their own, thus eventually producing the current canon of the New Testament.
Marcion is believed to have imposed a severe morality on his followers, some of whom suffered in the persecution. In particular, he refused to re-admit those who recanted their faith under Roman persecution; see also lapsi.
Marcionite canon
claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament. Marcion is said to have gathered scriptures from Jewish tradition, and juxtaposed these against the sayings and teachings of Jesus in a work entitled the Antithesis. Besides the Antithesis, the Testament of the Marcionites was also composed of a Gospel of Christ which was Marcion's version of Luke, and that the Marcionites attributed to Paul, that was different in a number of ways from the version that is now regarded as canonical. It seems to have lacked all prophecies of Christ's coming, as well as the Infancy account, the baptism, and the verses were more terse in general. It also included ten of the Pauline epistles, in the following order: Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians.Marcion's Apostolikon did not include the Pastoral epistles or the Epistle to the Hebrews. According to the Muratorian canon, it included a Marcionite pseudo-Paul's epistle to the Alexandrians and an epistle to the Laodiceans. The contents of this Marcionite Epistle to the Laodiceans are unknown. Some scholars equate it with the Epistle to the Ephesians, because the latter originally did not contain the words 'in Ephesus', and because it is the only non-pastoral Pauline epistle missing from the Marcionite canon, suggesting Laodiceans was simply Ephesians under another name. The Epistle to the Alexandrians is not known from any other source; Marcion himself appears to have never mentioned it.
In bringing together these texts, Marcion redacted what is perhaps the first New Testament canon on record, which he called the Gospel and the Apostolikon, which reflects his belief in the writings of Jesus and the apostle Paul respectively. An English language reconstruction of the content of the Evangelion and Apostolikon attested in Patristic sources was published by Jason David BeDuhn in 2013.
The Prologues to the Pauline Epistles, found in several older Latin codices, are now widely believed to have been written by Marcion or one of his followers. Harnack makes the following claim:
Conversely, several early Latin codices contain Anti-Marcionite Prologues to the Gospels.
Comparison
Reaction to Marcion by early Christians
According to a remark by Origen, Marcion "prohibited allegorical interpretations of the scripture". Tertullian disputed this in his treatise against Marcion.Tertullian, along with Epiphanius of Salamis, also charged that Marcion set aside the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and used Luke alone. Tertullian cited Luke 6:43–45 and Luke 5:36–38, in theorizing that Marcion set about to recover the authentic teachings of Jesus. Irenaeus claimed,
Tertullian also attacked this view in De Carne Christi.
Polycarp, according to Irenaus in his work, Adversus Haereses, had an encounter with Marcion:
Hippolytus reported that Marcion's phantasmal Christ was "revealed as a man, though not a man", and did not really die on the cross. However, Ernest Evans, in editing this work, observes: