THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
(1845-48), First Congregational Church, Nashua, X. H. (1S4S-54), First Congregational Church, Woburn, .Mass. (1S55-61, 1876-93), and Clinton Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia (1861-76). After 1893 he was pastor emeritus of the First Congregational Church, Woburn. In theology he advocated " practical, common-sense interpretation of the Gospel of Christ." He wrote Religion for Heart and Home (Woburn, Mass., 1858); Walks and Homes of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1866); Night Scenes in the Bible (1S6S); Our Father's House (1869); Home Life in the Bible (1S73); From Dark to Dawn (1878); Days of the Son of Man (1SS1); The First Khedive: Lessons in the Life of Joseph (Philadelphia, 1887); Morning Light in Many Lands (Boston, 1891). .Several of his works were translated into Swedish and German.
MARCIANITES. See Messalians.
MARCION, MARCIONITES.
Marcion's Life (§ 1).
His System (§ 2).
.Relation to Christianity and the New Testament (§ 3).
His Affiliations and Significance (§ 4).
His School and Sect (§ 5).
The facts of the early career of Marcion are difficult to establish, partly because of the tendency of ecclesiastical writers, from whom information of him is gained, to believe and report damaging stories concerning heretics. The principal sources for his life are the writings of Justin Martyr, i. Marcion's Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Life. Tertullian, and these writers are not in entire accord. His birthplace is given as Sinope, in Paphlagonia, on the Euxine, and he is described as a shipmaster of Pontus: Tertullian tells of his coming from Pontus (c. 140) and joining the Christian community at Rome, in the first warmth of his faith making them a present of 200,000 sestertii (Tertullian, " Against Marcion," iv. 4; Prcescriptio, xxx.; ANF, iii. 349, 257). He speaks of his differences with the Roman community, of his excommunication, of the return of his gift, and of his attaching himself afterward to the Gnostic teacher Cerdo (q.v.). According to the same authority the Marcionites dated the time of their master's separation from the Church 115 years and six months from the time of Christ (" Against Marcion," i. 19; ANF, iii. 285). This would be the autumn of 144. Justin in his first apology written about 150 (chaps, xxvi., Iviii.) notices the great activity of Marcion. Irenseus {Host. III., iv. 3) speaks of Marcion's flourishing under the episcopate of Anicetus (154-165) and tells how Polycarp met Marcion and addressed him as the first-born of Satan {Haer III., iii. 4, iv. 3). These give the few certain facts in regard to Marcion's life, his separation from the church in 144, his study of Gnosticism, and his foundation of a separate Christian community.
Of the genesis of Marcion's thought tradition gives only a slight insight. He was a disciple of Cerdo, and, according to Irenaus, Cerdo taught that the God announced in the law and the prophets could not be the father of Jesus Christ. The one was known and the other unknown; one was only
just, the other good. On this basis Marcion erected and developed his idea of the complete and absolute distinction between Christian- 2. His ity and Judaism. , His comprehen- System. sive work bore the title " Antitheses," and was a semi-dogmatic treatise contrasting contradictory sentences from the law and the Gospel. Tertullian made industrious use of this work in his reply to Marcion. Origen knew of it, perhaps, and also Ephraem, but Epiphanius and Hippolytus did not use it. Antithetical sentences were used as the chief arguments, but they were fortified by examples taken from other passages^ Marcion's teaching is especially remarkable for its lack of interest in metaphysical questions. It is certain, however, that he did not regard the Cosmos as the creation of the supreme God; it was the production of a demiurge. " Marcion has with the help of demons in all countries largely contributed to the expression of blasphemies and to the refusal to recognize as God the creator of our world. He acknowledges another God who because he is essentially greater has done greater deeds than the other " (Justin Martyr, I., xxvi; cf. ANF, i. 171). Marcion differs entirely from Valentinus in failing to discuss eons. Marcion's thought concerns itself entirely with the religious records of the Jews and the Christians^ His demiurge is the creator and lord of all men, who has, however, a chosen people, and is theGod of the Jews, the God of the Old Testament. Marcion's reading of the Old Testament convinced him that the principle of retributive justice found in the Old Testament could not be reconciled with that of love and goodness as represented by the God of the new covenant (Tertullian, " Against Marcion," I., vi.; ANF, iii. 275). The creating God is just according to the maxim, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"; this maxim was expressly annulled by the good God (Matt. v. 38-39). The God of creation caused fire to come down from heaven, the good God in Christ forbade his disciples from doing this (II Kings i. ; Luke ix. 54-55); stealing was encouraged by the God of creation of the Old Testament (Ex. xii. 35-36) and forbidden in the New; the creation God is neither omnipotent nor omniscient; he had to investigate what Adam was doing and find out what was going on in Sodom. s The good God knows all things and is all-powerful. Th* Old Testament with its ceremonial law and its low standard of morality is quite fitted to the creation God, but neither he nor his book should have recognition among Christians. Marcion did not employ the allegorical method of interpretation, he accepted the letter of the Old Testament with its miracles and its prophecies. * He acknowledged that the creation God was to feend a Messiah to collect the chosen people in his kingdom to rule over the whole earth and to exercise judgment upon heathen and sinners. It is at this point that the good God is introduced; before this he was unknown in the world of the demiurge Vho did not even suspect his existence, but the plan of the demiurge the good God could not allow to be carried out. H<" wishes to be merciful to sinners and to free all from the bonds of the God of the Jews. He determined