Marcion

“ 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 metaphysical, 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. ”

“ The disciples of Marcion, moreover, may possibly be able, while recognising the goodness of our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise of the Divine Being, on those very grounds whereby we have proved it to be unworthy in the case of their god. ”

“ For Marcion does not in any wise admit the resurrection of the flesh, and it is only the salvation of the soul which he promises; consequently the question which he raises is not concerning the sort of body, but the very substance thereof. Notwithstanding, [14] he is most plainly refuted even from what the apostle advances respecting the quality of the body, in answer to those who ask, “How are the dead raised up? with what body do they come?” For as he treated of the sort of body, he of course ipso facto proclaimed in the argument that it was a body which would rise again. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Chapter IV.—Another Instance of Marcion’s Tampering with St. Paul’s Text. The Fulness of Time, Announced by the Apostle, Foretold by the Prophets. Mosaic Rites Abrogated by the Creator Himself. Marcion’s Tricks About Abraham’s Name. The Creator, by His Christ, the Fountain of the Grace and the Liberty Which St. Paul Announced. Marcion’s Docetism Refuted.
“But,” says he, “I speak after the manner of men: when we were children, we were placed in bondage under the elements of the world.” ”

“ Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found. ”

“ Nothing, however, in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the waggon-life [18] of the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud, [19] (of Pontus) colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay [20] more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled [21] by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. ”

“ It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription is read by each man’s conscience. ”

“ It has been supposed by critics that he omitted this narrative purposely, because his Christ was descended from the highest God, had no part with the world of the Demiurge, and had therefore no earthly mother.455 But if so, why did Marcion suffer the words, “Thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee” (Luke viii. 20) , to remain in his Gospel?
And it does not appear that Marcion denied the incarnation in toto, and went to the full extreme of Docetic doctrine. On the contrary, he taught that Christ deceived the God of this World, by coming into it as a man. ”

“ Antitheses of Marcion can be reconstructed from refutation of, ii. 209; his dictum that Marcion can never prove existence of highest God, ii. 210 n. 2; on Marcion’s anti-Jewish views, ii. 211; on Marcion’s dealings with Pauline Epistles, ii. 212; controversy between Marcion and T. recommended to Modernists (Foakes-Jackson) , ii. 215 n. 1; says Marcionites sect largest but one, ii. 216; his sophistry in refutation of Marcion, ii. 218; quotes Lucian the Marcionite’s doctrine on resurrection, ii. 220; “Mithras is my crown,” ii. ”

“ For he has already quenched and despised the thing which he destroys, and is unable to forbid what he has despised. [21] It is then incumbent on Marcion now to display in his church that spirit of his god which must not be quenched, and the prophesyings which must not be despised. And since he has made such a display as he thinks fit, let him know that we shall challenge it whatever it may be to the rule [22] of the grace and power of the Spirit and the prophets—namely, to foretell the future, to reveal the secrets of the heart, and to explain mysteries. ”

“ While we are expelling from this rank (of Deity) a god who has no evidence to show for himself which is so proper and God-worthy as the testimony of the Creator, Marcion’s most shameless followers with haughty impertinence fall upon the Creator’s works to destroy them. To be sure, say they, the world is a grand work, worthy of a God. ”

“ If by the Creator it be taken away, by Him also shall it be given. If by Marcion’s god it be given, by Marcion’s god also will it be taken away. Now, for whatever reason He threatens the “deprivation,” it will not be the work of a god who knows not how to threaten, because incapable of anger. ”

“ Marcion is said to have recognized as his sources of Christian doctrine, besides tradition, a single Gospel and ten Epistles of Paul, which in his collection stood in the following order;—Epistle to Galatians, Corinthians (2) , Romans, Thessalonians (2) , Ephesians (which he had with
[81]
the superscription "to the Laodiceans") , (1) Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. (2) None of the other books which now form part of the canonical New Testament were either mentioned or recognized by Marcion. ”

“ As no one ventures to argue that Marcion limited the providence of God to the ravens, and to the grass, but excluded the sparrows and the hair, no dogmatic reason can be assigned for the omission of the one, whilst the other is retained. ”

“ This is a foolish objection; and my answer to it is, that its author fails to consider that quite as strong an objection might be urged against the (superior) god of Marcion: he too is called god, but is not on that account proved to be divine, as neither are angels nor men, the Creator’s handiwork. If an identity of names affords a presumption in support of equality of condition, how often do worthless menials strut insolently in the names of kings—your Alexanders, Cæsars, and Pompeys! ”

“ I require to know of Marcion the origin of his apostle [3] even—I, who am to some degree a new disciple, [4] the follower of no other master; who at the same time [5] can believe nothing, except that nothing ought to be believed hastily [6] (and that I may further say is hastily believed, which is believed without any examination [7] of its beginning) ; in short, I who have the best reason possible for bringing this inquiry to a most careful solution, [8] since a man is affirmed to me to be an apostle whom I do not find mentioned in the Gospel in the catalogue [9] of the apostles. ”

“ His kingdom. Then, no doubt, he would terminate his course, and then (if ever) [16] be worthy of belief; for else, if his work has been already perfected, it would be in vain for him to come, for there would indeed be nothing that he could further accomplish.
Footnotes ↑ Your God.↑ Ipse.↑ Ejus (i.e. Marcionis) Dominum, meaning Marcion’s God, who had not yet been revealed.↑ The Creator and His Christ, as rivals of Marcion’s.↑ He twits Marcion with introducing his Christ on the scene too soon. He ought to have waited until the Creator’s Christ (prophesied of through the Old Testament) had come. ”

“ Absurdity of Supposing that Marcion’s Christ Could Have Given the Power of Treading on Serpents and Scorpions.
He chose also seventy other missionaries [1] besides the twelve. Now why, if the twelve followed the number of the twelve fountains of Elim, [2] should not the seventy correspond to the like number of the palms of that place? [3] Whatever be the Antitheses of the comparison, it is a diversity in the causes, not in the powers, which has mainly produced them. But if one does not keep in view the diversity of the causes, [4] he is very apt to infer a difference of powers. ”

“ It was the misfortune of Marcion to live in an age when Christianity had passed out of the pure morality of its infancy, when, untroubled by complicated questions of dogma, simple faith and pious enthusiasm had been the one great bond of Christian brotherhood, into a phase of ecclesiastical development in which religion was fast degenerating into theology, and complicated doctrines were rapidly assuming that rampant attitude which led to so much bitterness, persecution, and schism. ”

“ He must be either the Creator, or (as Marcion would be loth to admit) One like the Creator—“with whom it is a righteous thing to recompense tribulation to them who afflict us, and to ourselves, who are afflicted, rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed as coming from heaven with the angels of His might and in flaming fire.” ”

“ Concerning Marcion, who is a far more conspicuous personage, it will be necessary to speak more particularly. He has left a mark on the text of Scripture of which traces are distinctly recognizable at the present day [457] . A great deal more is known about him than about any other individual of his school. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus wrote against him: besides Origen and Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian in the West [458] , and Epiphanius in the East, elaborately refuted his teaching, and give us large information as to his method of handling Scripture. ”

“ I am, moreover, astonished when he says that “a candle is not usually hidden,” [11] who had hidden himself—a greater and more needful light—during so long a time; and when he promises that “everything shall be brought out of its secrecy and made manifest,” [12] who hitherto has kept his god in obscurity, waiting (I suppose) until Marcion be born. We now come to the most strenuously-plied argument of all those who call in question the Lord’s nativity. They say that He testifies Himself to His not having been born, when He asks, “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?” ”

“ 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 narrative of the Temptation is not in Marcion's Gospel. It can have been no omission of his, for it would have tallied admirably with his doctrine. He held that the God of this world believed Christ at first to be the Messiah, but finally was undeceived. In the narrative of the Temptation the devil offers Christ all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. He takes the position which in Marcion's scheme was occupied by the Demiurge. ”

“ Now, one cannot wonder that He forbade “premeditation,” who actually Himself received from the Father the ability of uttering words in season: “The Lord hath given to me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season (to him that is weary) ;” [20] except that Marcion introduces to us a Christ who is not subject to the Father. That persecutions from one’s nearest friends are predicted, and calumny out of hatred to His name, [21] I need not again refer to. ”

“ Now how will he be proved to have been before all things, who appeared after all things? Who can tell whether he had a prior existence, when he has found no proof that he had any existence at all? In what way also could it have “pleased (the Father) that in Him should all fulness dwell?” [12] For, to begin with, what fulness is that which is not comprised of the constituents which Marcion has removed from it,—even those that were “created in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth,” whether angels or men? which is not made of the things that are visible and invisible? ”

“ What equally good defence of such a number has Marcion’s Christ to show? It is impossible that anything can be shown to have been done by him unconnectedly, [18] which cannot be shown to have been done by my Christ in connection (with preceding types) . ”

“ Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle’s language, when he says, “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ?” [31] We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance—that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ. The shadow, therefore, is His to whom belongs the body also ”

“ Likeness of Sinful Flesh. No Docetism in It. Resurrection of Our Real Bodies. A Wide Chasm Made in the Epistle by Marcion’s Erasure. When the Jews are Upbraided by the Apostle for Their Misconduct to God; Inasmuch as that God Was the Creator, a Proof is in Fact Given that St. Paul’s God Was the Creator. The Precepts at the End of the Epistle, Which Marcion Allowed, Shown to Be in Exact Accordance with the Creator’s Scriptures.
If the Father “sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” [1] it must not therefore be said that the flesh which He seemed to have was but a phantom. ”