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MARCION

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 693 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MARCION and THE MARCIONITE CHURCHES. In the See also:

period between 130 and 18o A.D. the varied and complicated See also:Christian fellowships in the See also:Roman See also:Empire crystallized into See also:close and mutually exclusive See also:societies—churches with fixed constitutions and See also:creeds, See also:schools with distinctive See also:esoteric doctrines, associations for See also:worship with See also:peculiar mysteries, and ascetic sects with See also:special rules of conduct. Of ecclesiastical organizations the most important, next to Catholicism, was the Marcionite Community. Like the See also:Catholic See also:Church, this See also:body professed to comprehend everything belonging to See also:Christianity. It admitted all believers without distinction of See also:age, See also:sex, See also:rank or culture. It was no See also:mere school for the learned, disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to See also:lay the See also:foundation of the Christian community on the pure See also:gospel, the See also:authentic institutes of See also:Christ. The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles of his See also:time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into a See also:reformation of Christen-dom. This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel, —See also:Paul being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new See also:message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In Marcion's own view, therefore, the See also: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 See also: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 See also:

world; and he nowhere consciously added See also:foreign elements to the See also:revelation given through Christ. It is true that in many features his Christian See also:system—if we may use the expression—resembles the so-called Gnostic systems; but the first See also:duty of the historian is to point out what Marcion plainly aimed at; only in the second See also:place have we to inquire how far the result corresponded with those purposes. The doctrines of Marcion and the See also:history of his churches from the 2nd to the 7th See also:century are known to us from the controversial See also:works of the Catholic fathers. From See also:Justin onwards, almost every eminent Church teacher takes some See also:notice of Marcion, while very many write extensive See also:treatises against him. The most important of those which have come down to us are the controversial pieces of See also:Irenaeus (in his See also:great See also:work against heretics), See also:Tertullian (Adv. Marc. i.—v.), See also:Hippolytus, Pseudo-See also:Origen Adamantius, See also:Epiphanius, and the Armenian Esnik.l From these works the contents of the Marcionite Gospel, and also the See also: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 See also:principal work; so that our knowledge of Marcion's views is in See also:part derived from the best See also:sources. Marcion was a wealthy shipowner, belonging to See also:Sinope in See also:Pontus. He appears to have been a convert from Paganism to Christianity, although it was asserted in later times that his See also:father had been a See also:bishop. That See also: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 See also:death of See also:Hyginus, bishop of See also:Rome (or c. 139 A.D.), he arrived, in the course of his travels, at Rome, and made a See also:hand-some donation of See also:money to the See also: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 See also:

acceptance for them in the See also:college of presbyters and in the church; indeed he had previously made similar attempts in See also:Asia See also:Minor. But he now encountered such determined opposition from the See also:majority of the See also: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 See also:year 144. The new society increased in the two following decades; and very soon numerous See also:sister-churches were flourishing in the See also:east and See also:west of the empire. Marcion took up his See also:residence permanently in Rome, but still undertook journeys for the See also:propagation of his opinions. In Rome he became acquainted with the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo, whose speculations influenced the development of the Marcionite See also:theology. Still Marcion seems never to have abandoned his See also:design of gaining over the whole Church to his gospel. The See also:proof of this -is found, partly in the fact that he tried to establish relations with See also:Polycarp of See also:Smyrna, from whom he got a See also:sharp rebuff, partly in a See also:legend to the effect that towards the end of his See also:life he sought readmission to the Church. Such, presumably, was the construction put in after times on his See also: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 See also:motive was not cosmological or See also:meta-See also:physical, but religious and See also:historical.

In the gospel he found a See also:

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 See also:blind obedience, fear and outward righteousness. Overpowered by the See also:majesty and novelty of the Christian message of salvation, too conscientious to See also:rest satisfied with the See also:ordinary attempts at the See also: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 See also:late See also:production, and contains many speculations that cannot be charged upon Marcion himself.See also:hypothesis of two Gods: the just God of the See also:law (the God of the See also:Jews, who is also the Creator of the world), and the See also:good God, the Father of Jesus Christ. Paradoxes in the history of See also: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 See also:radical See also: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 See also:Lord of See also:heaven and See also:earth, the gospel is turned upside down. The See also:assumption of two Gods necessarily led to cosmological speculations. Under the See also:influence of Cerdo, Marcion carried out his ethical See also:dualism in the See also:sphere of cosmology; but the fact that his system is not See also:free from contradictions is the best proof that all along religious knowledge, and not philosophical, had the See also:chief values in his eyes. The See also:main outlines of his teaching are as follows. See also:Man is, in spirit, soul and body, a creature of the just and wrathful god.

This god created man from 15X0 (See also:

matter),2 and imposed on him a strict law. Since no one could keep this law, the whole human See also:race See also:fell under the curse, temporal and eternal, of the See also: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 See also:order to redeem-men. Clothed in a visionary body, in the likeness of a man of See also:thirty years old, the Son made his See also:appearance in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and preached in the See also:synagogue at See also:Capernaum. But none of the Jewish See also:people understood him. Even the disciples whom he See also:chose did not recognize his true nature, but mistook him for the See also:Messiah promised by the Demiurge through the prophets, who as See also:warrior and See also: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 See also:cross. By that See also:act, however, he pronounced his own See also:doom. For the risen Christ appeared before him in his See also:glory, and charged him with having acted contrary to his own law. To make amends for this See also: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, See also:purchased from him by the death of Christ. Christ then proceeded to the underworld to deliver the See also:spirits of the departed.

It was not the Old Testament See also:

saints, however, but only sinners and malefactors like See also:Cain, See also:Esau and See also:Saul, who obeyed his See also:summons. The prophets and patriarchs, having been often deceived by the Demiurge, suspected a See also:trick and would not avail themselves of the promised salvation, remaining content with the See also:bliss of being in See also: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 See also:original apostles with their Judaistic doctrines, and founded small congregations of true Christians. But the See also:preaching of the false Jewish Christians gained the upper hand; See also: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 See also:spurious gospels, purging the real gospel (the Gospel of See also: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 See also:Noetus and Praxeas (see See also:Neander, Church Hist. H. 143).—[ED.] the Pauline epistles.1 He likewise composed a See also: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 See also:

trust in the good God, and his crucified Son, renounce their See also: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 See also:gnosticism on Marcion —that only the spirit of man is saved by the good God; the body, because material, perishes. Accordingly his See also: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 See also:marriage, and free himself from the body by strict See also: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 See also:contradiction. According to Marcion, the good God never See also: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 See also:judge them, but merely removes them from His presence. Then they fall under the See also:power of the Demiurge, who—rewards them for their fidelity?

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

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 See also:plain that dualism here terminates in the See also:idea of the See also: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 See also: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 See also:devil; while a third party, like See also:Apelles, the most distinguished of Marcion's pupils, saw in the Demiurge only an apostate See also:angel of the good God—thus returning to monotheism. The See also: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 See also:stone which had stood over the See also:doorway of a See also:house in a Syrian See also:village. From the beginning of the 4th century they began to See also:die out in the West, or rather they fell a See also:prey to See also: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 See also:

Paulicians and See also:Bogomils arose; and in so far as the western Cathari, and the antinomian and anticlerical sects 1 Marcion was the earliest See also:critical student of the New Testament See also:canon and text. It is noteworthy that he refused to admit the genuineness of the See also:Pastoral Epistles and said that the See also:letter to the See also: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. See also:Harnack, History of See also:Dogma, i. 266, 286; F. Loofa, Dogmengeschichte pp. '11–114; G.

See also:

Kruger, See also:Early Christian Literature, and See also:art. in Hauck-See also:Herzog's Realencyklopadie per Prot. Theol. and Kirche, xii. ; F. J. Foakes See also:Jackson's Christian Difficulties of the Second and Twentieth Centuries, is a study of Marcion and his relation to See also:modern thought. (A.

End of Article: MARCION

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