RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Marcianites Marcion, Marcionites
therefore to appear in the world in the person of Christ, but Marcion took no interest in the nature of the union between the two, though on this point he must be called a docetist (see Docetism; Gnosticism). In the Gospel" of St. Luke Marcion made an arbitrary change in the text in order to provide for an immediate appearance of God in the world: " In the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius God came down to, Capernaum and taught on the sabbath days." ^In order to influence the Jews, Christ attempted to adapt himself to their conditions, calling himself the Messiah; but in all his activity he showed himself the opposite of the demiurge; while the demiurge only approved of just persons, Christ called to himself publicans and sinners and those who were weary and heavy laden. According to the law lepers were unclean; Christ touched them. Elisha healed one individual by water; Christ healed many through his word. The demiurge sent bears against the children in order to avenge their mockery of Elisha,; Christ bade children to come unto him. The Messiah of the demiurge was sent to gather together the Jews of the dispersion, Christ is to free all men. Judaism is restricted to one people; all peoples furnish converts to Christianity. Jewish hopes are concerned with an earthly kingdom; Christ promises to his own .a kingdom heavenly and eternal. Only as time went on did the demiurge understand the significance of Christ's career. When he saw his law being rejected he abandoned the Messiah to the believers in the demiurge who crucified him. Here again his victory over the good God was only apparent. The dead Christ he sent down to Hades; but Christ preached and found believers even there who rejected the God of the Jews. The veiling of the sun at the time of the crucifixion was the work of the demiurge. The Messiah of the demiurge has still to appear and will establish an earthly kingdom to last 1,000 years, a realm opposed to the heavenly kingdom of Christ where those who have risen from the dead live and reign, released from the impediment of matter after laying aside their earthly bodies. But the good God continues to be the God of love. Those who do not follow him but cling to fellowship with the demiurge he refuses to punish; he simply gives them over to the demiurge in whose fire they will burn. For believers in the heavenly father there is no judgment; they exist in God's love and nothing seems more inconceivable to Marcion than the notion of a Christ returning for judgment.
In all these speculations there is one great fundamental thought, viz., the idea of the absolute originality and independence of Christianity. This was brought out in Marcion's dispute with 3. Relation the Roman presbyters, in which he
to Chris- quoted from Luke v. 36-37, vi. 43. In tianity and applying this to Christianity Marcion
the New indicated his conviction that its con- Testament, nection with Judaism should be entirely severed. For Marcion's New Testament see Canon of Scripture, II., 3, § 1. His position was that the original Christian records as they were handed down in the Church had either been intentionally falsified or been written by men
to whom the spirit of Christ was foreign. The first place in his class of false apostles was occupied by Peter, James, and John, and he was careful to support this position by citing the Epistle to the Galatians. For him Paul alone was the true apostle;' yet he disregarded the Jewish elements in Paulinism. The favorite Pauline antitheses between the law and the Gospel, anger and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life, were congenial to his thought and germane to his method. In Marcion's system the Gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ is given so much weight that it caused him to view the Church conception of the Gospel as an unpermissible falsification.
As to whether Marcion was a Gnostic or not it must be said that in many different directions he was distinct from the Gnostics, whose orientalism was absent from his system. He was not interested in religious philosophy, and rec-
4. His ognized no distinction between faith Affiliations and gnosis. The Gnostic division of and Signifi- classes with different standards of con-
cance. duct and different aims he did not accept, and the teaching concerning eons he entirely omitted . His work is chiefly important from the point of view of Christian ethics. All works of the creating God, he affirmed, were to be rejected. He preached the strictest asceticism, denied the lawfulness of marriage, and issued strict provisions in regard to fasting (Tertullian, " Against Marcion," I., xxix., IV., xvii., xxix., xxxiv., xxxviii., xliv., etc.). The type of his. propaganda also differed from the Gnostics' *\A purified church in which all were to have a place was his aim. He kept many of the church customs in their entirety, baptizing with water and with the trinitarian formula. He did not, however, distinguish between the baptized and catechumens (see Catechumenate), but it was especially his strict asceticism which opposed an obstacle to the growth of his party., Marcion was highly reverenced in his communities, being called the most holy master. His antitheses were given a canonical position. His popularity and his wide influence over the masses made his work the gravest danger to the Church in the second century. He exerted a power never attained by the Valentinians and other Gnostic groups, and was especially dreaded by the orthodox. Possibly the baptismal creed of Rome was prepared to counteract his teaching.
Many of Marcion's followers did not adhere
strictly to his teachings. Some of them agreed
with their master in recognizing two principles,
others insisted that there were three. Apelles, the
Marcionite about whom most is known
5. His (Tertullian, Prcescriptio, xxx.; ANF, School iii. 257), seems to have engaged in
and Sect, magical practises and paid great attention to visions, to the utterances of oracles, and to the prophetical revelations of a woman named Philumene, his companion. He differed also from Marcion in his metaphysical interests. His rule of faith began with the words: " There is one good God and one beginning and one power unnamable " (Epiphanius, Hcer., xliv. 1-2). But he denied with the Marcionites that the
Marcion, MarcioniteB Marcus Eremita