A Source Book for Ancient Church History. Joseph Cullen Ayer

Marcion has been commonly treated apart from the Gnostics on account of the large use he made of the Pauline writings. By some he has even been regarded as a champion of Pauline ideas which had failed to hold a place in Christian thought. This opinion of Marcion is being modified under the influence of a larger knowledge of Gnosticism. At the bottom Marcion's doctrine was thoroughly Gnostic, though he differed from the vast majority of Gnostics in that his interest seems to have been primarily ethical rather than speculative. His school maintained itself for some centuries after undergoing some minor modifications. Marcion was teaching at Rome, AD 140. The aspersions upon his moral character must be taken with caution, as it had already become a common practice to blacken the character of theological opponents, regardless of the truth, a custom which has not yet wholly disappeared.

       Additional source material: Justin Martyr, Apol., I. 26, 58; Irenæus, III. 12:12 ff. The most important source is Tertullian's elaborate Adversus Marcionem, especially I, 1 f., 29; III, 8. 11.

      (a) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 27: 1–3. (MSG, 7:687.)

       The system of Cerdo and Marcion.

      [pg 103]

      Ch. 1. A certain Cerdo, who had taken his fundamental ideas from those who were with Simon [i.e., Simon Magus], and who was in Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place from the Apostles in the episcopal succession, taught that the God who was preached by the law and the prophets is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former is known, but the latter is unknown; and the former is righteous, but the other is good.

      Ch. 2. And Marcion of Pontus succeeded him and developed a school, blaspheming shamelessly Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets; saying that He is maker of evils and a lover of wars, inconstant in purpose and inconsistent with Himself. He said, however, that Jesus came from the Father, who is above the God who made the world, into Judea in the time of Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, and was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judea, destroying the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world and whom he also called Cosmocrator. In addition to this, he mutilated the Gospel which is according to Luke, and removed all that refers to the generation of the Lord, removing also many things from the teaching in the Lord's discourses, in which the Lord is recorded as very plainly confessing that the founder of this universe is His Father; and thus Marcion persuaded his disciples that he himself is truer than the Apostles who delivered the Gospel; delivering to them not the Gospel but a part of the Gospel. But in the same manner he also mutilated the epistles of the Apostle Paul, removing all that is plainly said by the Apostle concerning that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all that the Apostle taught by quotation from the prophetical writings which foretold the coming of the Lord.

      Ch. 3. He taught that salvation would be only of the souls of those who should receive his doctrine, and that it is impossible for the body to partake of salvation, because it was taken from the earth.

      [pg 104]

      (b) Tertullian, Adv. Marcion., I, 19; IV, 2, 3. (MSL, 2: 293. 393.)

       Tertullian's great work against Marcion is his most important and most carefully written polemical treatise. He revised it three times. The first book of the present revision dates from AD 207; the other books cannot be dated except conjecturally. In spite of the openly displayed hostile animus of the writer, it can be used with confidence when controlled by reference to other sources.

      I, 19. Marcion's special and principal work is the separation of the law and the Gospel; and his disciples will not be able to deny that in this they have their best means by which they are initiated into, and confirmed in, this heresy. For these are Marcion's antitheses—that is, contradictory propositions; and they aim at putting the Gospel at variance with the law, that from the diversity of the statements of the two documents they may argue for a diversity of gods, also.

      IV, 2. With Marcion the mystery of the Christian religion dates from the discipleship of Luke. Since, however, it was under way previously, it must have had its authentic materials by means of which it found its way down to Luke; and by aid of the testimony which it bore Luke himself becomes admissible.

      IV, 3. Well, but because Marcion finds the Epistle to the Galatians by Paul, who rebukes even Apostles for “not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel” [Gal. 2:14], as well as accuses certain false apostles of being perverters of the Gospel of Christ, he attempts to destroy the standing of those gospels which are published as genuine and under the names of Apostles, or of apostolic men, to secure, forsooth, for his own gospel the credit he takes away from them.

      (c) Rhodon, in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 13. (MSG, 20:459.)

      At this time Rhodon, a native of Asia, who, as he himself states, had been instructed at Rome by Tatian, with whom we have already become acquainted, wrote excellent books, and published among the rest one against the heresy of Marcion which, he says, was in his time divided into various [pg 105] sects; and he describes those who occasioned the division and refutes carefully the falsehood devised by each. But hear what he writes: “Therefore also they have fallen into disagreement among themselves, and maintain inconsistent opinions. For Apelles, one of their herd, priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledged one principle [i.e., source of existence], but says that the prophecies were from an opposing spirit. And he was persuaded of the truth of this by the responses of a demoniac maiden named Philumene. But others hold to two principles, as does the mariner Marcion himself, among these are Potitus and Basiliscus. These, following the wolf of Pontus and, like him, unable to discover the divisions of things, became reckless, and without any proof baldly asserted two principles. Again, others of them drifted into worse error and assumed not only two, but three, natures. Of these Syneros is the leader and chief, as those say who defend his teaching.”

      § 24. Encratites

      Asceticism is a wide-spread phenomenon in nearly all religions. It is to be found in apostolic Christianity. In the early Church it was regarded as a matter in the option of the Christian who was aiming at the religious life [see above, § 16]. The characteristic of the Encratites was their insistence upon asceticism as essential to Christian living. They were therefore associated, and with abundant historical justification, with Gnosticism.

       Additional source material: Clement of Alexandria, Strom., III, passim; Eusebius, Hist. Ec., IV, 29, cf. the many references in the notes to McGiffert's edition, PNF.

      (a) Hippolytus, VIII, 13. (MSG, 16:3368.)

       See above, § 19, c.

      Others, however, styling themselves Encratites, acknowledge some things concerning God and Christ in like manner [pg 106] with the Church, but in respect to their mode of life they pass their time inflated with pride; thinking that by meats they glorify themselves, they abstain from animal food, are water drinkers, and, forbidding to marry, they devote the rest of their life to habits of asceticism.

      (b) Irenæus, Adv. Hær. I, 28. (MSG, 7:690.)

      Many offshoots of numerous heresies have already been formed from those heresies which we have described. … By way of example, let us say there are those springing from Saturninus and Marcion, who are called Encratites [i.e., self-controlled], who preached the unmarried state, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly condemning Him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. Some of those reckoned as belonging to them have also introduced abstinence from animal food, being ungrateful to God who created all things. They deny, also, the salvation of him who was first created. It is but recently that this opinion has been discovered among them, since a certain man named Tatian first introduced the blasphemy. He had been a hearer of Justin's, and as long as he continued with him he expressed no such views; but after his martyrdom [circa AD 165] he separated from the Church, and having become excited and puffed up by the thought of being a teacher, as