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otfe Church, they were perhaps the most dangerous foe
CSiristiaiiity has ever known. The subject will be
treated under the following heads: I. Life of Marcion;
II. Doctrine and Discipline; III. History; IV, Muti-
lation of the New Testament; V. Anti-Marcionlte
Writers.
I. Life op Marcion. — Marcion was son of the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus, bom c. a. d. 110, evidently from wealthy parents. He is described as tm&rfp, naudems, a shipowner, by Rhodon and TertuUian, who wrote about a generation after his death. Epiphanius (Hseres., XLII, ii) relates that Marcion in ms youth
Erofessed to lead a life of chastity and asceticism, ut in spite of his professions fell into sin with a young maiden. In consequence his father, the bishop, cast him out of the Church. He besought his father for reconciliation, i. e. to be admitted to ecclesiastical penance, but the bishop stood firm in his refusal. Not Deing able to bear with the laughter and contempt of his fellow townsmen, he secretly left Sinope and trav- elled to Rome. The story of Marcion's sin is rejected by many modern scholars (e. g. G. KrOger) as a piece of malicious gossip of which tney say Epiphanius was fond; others see in the young maiden but a metaphor for the Church, the then young bride of Christ, whom Marcion violated by his heresy, though he made great professions of bodily chastity and austerity. No accu- sations of impurity are brought against Marcion by earlier church writers, and Marcioir s austerity seems aclmowledged as a fact. Irenseus states that Marcion flourished under Pope Anicetus (c. 155-166) [invalmt 9ub Aniceto]. Thougn this period may mark Marcion's greatest success in Rome, it is certain that he arrived &ere earlier, i. c. a. d. 140, after the death of Hyginus, who died that year and apparently before the accession of Pius I. Epiphanius says that Marcion sought ad- mittance into the Roman Church but was refused. The reason given was that they could not admit one who had been expelled by his own bishop without previous communication with that authority. This story has likewise been pointed out as extremely unlikely, im- plying, as it does, that the great Roman Church pro- fessed itself incompetent to override the decision of a local bishop in Pontus. It must be borne in mind, however, that Marcion arrived at Rome sede vacante, "after the death of Hyginus", and that such an answer sounds natural enough on the lips of presbyters as yet without a bishop.
Moreover it is obvious that Marcion was already a consecrated bishop. A layman could not have dis-
Euted on Scripture with the presbyters as he did, nor ave threatened shortly after his arrival: " I will divide your Church and cause within her a division, which will ]&at for ever", as Marcion is said to have done; a layman could not have founded a vast and world-wide institution, of which the main characteristic was that it was episcopalian; a layman would not have been proudly referred to for centuries by his disciples as their first bishop, a claim not disputed by any of their adversaries, though many and extensive works were written against them; a ia3rman would not have been permanently cast out of the Church without hope of reconciliation by his own father, notwithstanding his entreaties, for a sin of fornication, nor therefore nave become an object of laughter to his heathen fellow townsmen, if we accept the story of Epiphanius. A la3rnian would not have been disappointed that he was not made bishop shortly after his arrival in a city whose see was vacant, as Marcion is said to have lx?en on his arrival at Rome after the death of Hyginus.
This stoiy has been held up as the height of absurd- ity and so it would be, if we ignored the facts that Marcion was a bishop, and that according to TertuUian (De Praescr., xxx) he made the Roman community the gift of two hundred thousand sesterces soon after his arrival. This extraordinary gift of £1400 (7000 dol- lars), a huge sum for those days, may be ascribed to
the first fervour of faith, but is at least as oatim%
ascribed to a lively hope. The money was returned to
him after lus breach with the Church. This again ia
more natural if it was made with a tacit condition,
than if it was absolute and the outcome of pure chal^
ity. Lastly the report that Marcion on his arrival at
Itome had to hand in or to renew a oonf ession of faith
(Tert., "De Praescr.", xxx; "Adv. Mar.", I, xx; "De
came Christ! ", ii) fits in naturally with the suppositioo
of his being a bishop, but would be, as G. KrCkger points
out, unheard of in the case of a layman.
We can take it for granted then that Marcion was a bishop, probably an assistant or suffragan of his fa- ther at Sinope. Having fallen out with his father he travels to Rome, where, being a seafarer or shipowner and a great traveller, he may already have been known and where his wealth obtains him influence and position. If Tertullian supposes him to have been ad- mitted to the Roman Church and Epiphanius B&ys that he was refused admittance, the two statements can easily be reconciled if we understand the former of mere membership or communion, the latter of the ac- ceptance of his claims. His episcopal dignity has received mention at least in two early writers, wno speak of him as having "from bishop become an apostate" (Optatus of Mileve, IV, v), and of his followers as being sur named after a bishop instead of being called Christians after Christ (Adamantius, " DiaL", I, ed. Sande Bakhuysen). Marcion is said to have asked the Roman presbyters the explanation of Matt., ix, 16, 17, whicn he evidently wished to understand as expressing the incompatibility of the New Testament with the Old, but which they interpreted in an ortho- dox sense. His final breach with the Roman Churdi occurred in the autumn of 144, for the Marcionites counted 115 years and 6) months from the time of Christ to the beginning of their sect. Tertullian roughly speaks of a hundred years and more. Mar- cion seems to have made common cause with Cerdo (q. v.), the Syrian Gnostic, who was at the time in Rome ; that his doctrine was actually derived from that Gnostic seems unlikely. Irenseus relates (Adv. Hser., Ill, iii) that St. Polycarp meeting Marcion in Rmne was asked by him: Dost thou reco|^ize us? and gave answer: I recognize thee as the nrst-bom of Satan. This meeting must have hanpened in 154, by which time Marcion had displayed a great and successful activity, for St. Justin Martyr in his ^ First Apology (written about 150), describes Marcion 's heresy as spread everywhere. These half a dozen years seem to many too short a time for such prodigious success, and they believe that Marcion was active in Asia Minor long l)efore he came to Rome. Clement of Alexandria (Strom., VII, vii, 106) calls him the older contempo- rary of Basilides and Valentinus, but if so, he must have been a middle-aged man when he came to Rome, and a
Previous propaganda in the East is not impoMssible. hat the Chronicle of Edessa places the beginning of Marcionism in 138, strongly favours this view. Ter- tullian relates in 207 (the date of his Adv. Marc., IV, iv) that Marcion professed penitence and accepted as condition of his readmittance into the Chiu-ch that he should bring hack to the fold those whom he had led astray, but death prevented his carrying this out. The precise date of his death is not known.
II. Doctrine and Discipline. — We must distin- guish between the doctrine of Marcion himself and that of his followers. Marcion was no Gnostic dreamer. He wanted a Christianity untrammelled and undefiled by association with Judaism. Chris- tianity was the New Covenant pure and simple Ab- stract questions on the origin of evil or on the essence of the Godhead interested him httle, but the Old Tes- tament was a scandal to the faithful and a stumbling- block to the refined and intellectual Gentiles by its cru- dity and cruelty, and the Old Testament had to be set aside. The two great obstacles in his way he removed
