Section 15 (Page cxlvii)
MARCION. cxlvii need only be referred to the notes, as these different His triple peculiarities are observed in the text. principle.
One more system has been described to us by Irenaeus, which in most points is in direct antagonism with the various systems that we have been considering.
These have been seen to combine the different intellectual and religious systems known to the second century ; Marcion, a native of ^inope in Pontus, now of historic interest, who came to Rome in the Pontificate of Anicetus, took the opposite course of evolving a spurious Christianity by a kind of centrifugal process, that eliminated not only every
'heathen and 3Jewish element, but every Christian doctrine and tradition, that clashed with his notions of the truths that any Eevelation from the good God ought to teach.
Gnosticism however had taken such deep hold upon the thinking mind, that even Marcion could not wholly evade its grasp ; in fact, he was indebted for his first theosophical notions to Cerdon the Gnostic.
So we observe again, the God of the Jews is Demiurge, but he is associated with 4 two others, the Good Deity of the Christian Revelation, and the Evil God of heathenism, which last was also the quickening principle of his fourth ap-^ij, an eternally subsisting matter.
The statements of the 6 Old Testa ment were considered to be inconsistent with the characters
1 Epiphanids, Ilcer. 49.
* Still his idea is referred to Stoicism 6 He wrote his work entitled Anti theses, to mark this contrast.
It con by Tebtcllian, Prater.
7; see p. 352, n.
1; and by Hifpolttus to Empesisted apparently in a citation of pas sages from the Old Testament, that docles, n.
134, 1.
3 His hatred of Judaism led him to offended his notionB of the Truth and Goodness and Mercy of the Gospel.
So Badb, Wir written daker nur to viel, prescribe a rigid fast upon the Sabbathdast es tick in den Antiiheten urn, den day.
In Epiphanius, Hcer.
42, for vnarelav Si Kal ri aiffiarov Knp&TTCi, Gegematz der OerechtigJeeit det WeUsch&pfers, und der Qitte det wdhren Gotta, und die Durchfuhrung deuelben, durck tint Reihc einander gegenulergetteUter read, kotA tA edppaTov ; for compare the sequel, tA Si crdfifiaTOV vyffTtiei.
4 Epiph.
Host.
42.
See p. 216, 2.
Compare also Ctpbian ad Jubai, 2.
Vind.
Calk. in. 226.
Satze det A. und N. T. handelte.
Ohr.
Gnosis, p. 150. k
cxlviii MARCION.
Docetio of 'Goodness, Wisdom, and Power, that are alone suitable v>ewa' tn the God of the Gospel.
The distinctive attribute of the God of the Jews was a hard severe justice, connected rather with the notion of punishment for disobedience than with the reward of virtue.
And what the Law, emanating from Demiurge, was to the Jews, the works of nature, that is, of the plastic, though evil principle, were to the heathen ; but both the one and the other 1 were subordinate to the Supreme Deity of Christians.
The good Deity of Marcion, without any previous pre paration by type or prophecy, revealed himself in the 3fifteenth year of Tiberius, when Christ being sent down
fi*sa7*' ky him from heaven to earth to instruct mankind, appeared first at Capernaum in Galilee.
But the Marcionite Christology was purely Docetic; matter was so wholly evil, that the Christ was in no sense brought into constitutional con tact with it ; and whereas most of the preceding Gnostic theories attempted to evade the difficulty, by imagining the illapse of some Mon or heavenly principle, into an ordi nary body of flesh ; Marcion on the other hand asserted that Christ as a phantasm descended from heaven and p. 217, 3. received nothing from earth, and 4 was in no sense born of woman.
Consistently with this the heretic 5 rescinded the genealogy of Christ in the opening of St Luke's Gospel, 11. 78. which he then made the basis of his own, as having been composed under the eye of St Paul, the zealous opponent,
1 See Tkrtdll. c. Mare. II. 5. inro/xeUiarra, oflre rd0os, &\\a t$ Sokcw.
3 Inquiunt Marcionilce, Dew nosier, Phil. X.
19. etui non ab initio, etsi non per conditio5 Maehcera non stylo urns est. Tert. nem, ted per semet ipsum revelatus est in Prater.
38.
Cf. p. 4, n. 3.
The reader Christo Jem.
Tsbt. c. Marc. I.
19. may compare the abstract made by 3 Tert. c. Marc.
1. 19, iv.
7. Epiph.
Epiphaniub, (cf. also Beer.
42, 9) of Hot.
42.
Hipp. Phil. vn.
31. the several texts from St Luke, and 4 See the sense attached to the term from the Pauline Epistles, that were pcalrTit by Marcion, p. 217, 3.
Comaltered by the heresiarch to suit his pare also Hippolytus, lis tvdpwiroi/ <j>aviews, also the Marcionite Gospel in vtvTa \{yw oAk ttna Mpurrov, (to! lis the Codex Apocryph. ofTHlLO, I. tvoapKQV ioK-qcu TretpTivbra, oOre yheiriy
MARCION. cxlix as he considered, of the Law of the Jews.
Like the Hatred of Encratita?, and the Therapeutse of Egypt, he forbade ™*da[ 'the use of animal food; and his views of the inherent Deimurge" malignity of matter caused him to deny the resurrection p21sof the body ; and to assert the metensomatosis of the soul giph. hk. as a purifying mean ; he also condemned marriage as tend ing to extend the dominion of evil; and he was so far a 2detestator nuptiarum, as to refuse baptism to all who were still sunder the marriage-vow.
He affected to cele brate the Eucharist, but it was as the Encratitse or Hydroparastatse, using only *the element of water for the cup, and in presence of the catechumens.
He also was led by
the exigencies of his own case, to declare that Baptism for the complete remission of sins might be 'repeated indefi nitely.
Irenseus says that some few martyrs had been n. sea. taken from among the ranks of heresy, though he refers the fact to accident; he may not improbably refer to followers of Marcion, to whom Clement of Alexandria alluded, 6if Bishop Kaye is right, when he spoke of cer tain heretics who courted martyrdom through hatred of the Demiurge.
In this as in many other heretical and spurious forms of Christianity, faith was supposed to have some secret mysterious charm that ensured the salvation of even the most reprobate ; and Christ, by his descent into Hell, deli vered from the receptacle of the departed the souls of Cain, Esau, Core, Dathan, Abiram, &c, who believed his 1 <rwXi!eis •yapetv, tckvovv, &Tt\eoBai * pvcr^pia Si Sij$ev Tap' airf inppu/idruv (Ik i 0eis titruriv els periTeX«Vai t<3v KaTTfXpvpAvuv ipihvrav Xijif/w t<kj tuttois.
Again, T4 fSptipara vSan Si toi/tou iv rots p.v<rrr)ptots XPV'
TapaiTtiaSat toi>i iavrov pad-rrrat SiSirat.
Epiphan.
Hot. 42.
VKtt, 1va pii <pdyto<ri aiSpi rt Xttyavov 5 06 pbvov Si Trap' a&rtp tv \ovrpbv ipvXVi T°v S-rtpuovpyou KeKoXatrpivrjs.
StSoraij AXXA Kal toil rpiwv Xoirrpivv, Kal Hipp. Ph. VII.
30.
(riKcuia, ?|e<m StSdvai Tap' avroit rif * Tebt. c. Marc. iv. 29. f}ov\op.(vtp.
Ibid.
' Neminem tingit niti calibem ant 6 -Strom, iv.
Bp. Kate on Clem. tpadonem, morti nut repudio baptUma Al. p.
176. reservat.
Ib. c. Marc. iv.
11. cf.
34.
cl MARCION.
Marcionite preaching ; while the souls of the Just under preceding !_ dispensations still continued firm in their former belief, and were left as Spirits in prison.
The Law and the Prophets of course were rejected by him ; as were 1the Gospels with the exception of S. Luke's ; also the Acts of the Apostles ; the Pauline epistles, though much abridged, were still retained ; while he quoted as from the Epistle to the Laodiceans, a slight amplification of Eph. iv. 5, 6 :
Efy Kvptos, n'ta TTtcrTis, eu fiairTicrna, eh XpiaTov, eh Geos Kal iraTijp iravratVy
eni iravTwv Kal $td ivavrwv, Kal ev iraoiv.
Altogether therefore, we may look upon the Marcionite
ideas as the attempt of a self-constituted reformer, to purge away the presumptive remains of Judaism from the Christian religion ; at the same time it was distinguished from other Gnostic systems having the same direction, by a more complete emancipation from every form of heathen ism.
The importance of this heretical outbreak may be imagined from the fact, that having originated before the middle of the second century, it still survived 2 after the 1 Compare the reproachful term apaxlir/ia iv avrfi e'* alwva.
Epiph. plied by him to S. Mark, Hipp. Ph. vn.
Hcer.
41.
This statement certainly 30, cited Vol.
II. p.
6, notes.
His reads like the truth, and in the same Gospel after S. Luke, in one volume, degree Tertullian's account (Prater. and the Pauline Epistles in a second, 30) withdraws into the region of imconstituted his canon of Scripture, rot!probability ; he relates that Marciok rais Si rats Sv<rl /3i/j\o<s Kexprjrai. contributed to the common stock of the Epiph. Hot.
42.
Roman church
sesterces, which * 1) Si atpeats (ri Kal vvv fv re 'Pii/iff were restored to him on his ejection.
Kal h r-g 'IraXla, iv Afyrfjrrif) re Kal iv According to Epiphanius he came to TlaXaiarlvu, iv 'Apo/Sto re Kal iv rtf Rome under the known ban of excom2vpla, iv KvTTfXfi re Kal OrjflatSi, 06 fi'riv munication.
It has been supposed dXXd xal iv t% Hf/xrtSi, xal iv aXXoit that the history may relate to Cerdo.
Tii7rois ciploKerat.
Epiph.
Hcer.
42.
Lardnkb, Hat. of Her. ix.
But The heretic was to this extent as good Tertullian speaks of Eleutherus as as his word ; when excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome, who succeeded his own father, the bishop of some to that see, certainly not before A. D. church in Pontus, he went to Rome, 170; and Maroion had studied under and having been refused communion Cerdon, and had already begun to with that church, he uttered the threat, spread his poison at Rome, thirty years ffX'ffw iKK\ri<rlai> v/iuv, Kal 0aXiS before.
MARCION. cli middle of the fourth, notwithstanding the severe edict of the Vitality 'emperor Constantine. Justin Martyr wrote a treatise against sect, this heresy ; Irenseus contemplated a similar work, though it seems never to have been written; and "Tertullian, hav ing composed two previous treatises, wrote in the third instance his five books c. Marcionem; which however are no very complete exposition either of the opinions in question, or of the arguments necessary to meet them.
There is also a short account of the Marcionite tenets in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus ; it traces them back, more fancifully perhaps than truly, to the great eclectic of antiquity, Empedocles ; still it is interesting.
The foregoing exposition of the remote origin, the rise, and results of the principal branches of the Gnostic heresy, may enable the reader to understand better the various statements of Irenams as they occur; and it is hoped that these observations will not be deemed more diffuse than necessary, in treating upon a subject that includes within its grasp the entire history of 3 ancient philo sophical speculation.
1 a.d. 330.
Euseb. in Tit.
Cotut. peratum, pleniore postea compositione in.
64, 65, gives the edict which derescideram, &c. c. Mart. I. I. clares their conventicles to be confis8 yeyhvtun hi ko.t' airrbv w X/ji<rcated, with their books; but the very thwwv iroXXo! ixiv koX 4\Xoi, alperticol rigour of this edict possibly gave rehi ix rijt xaXalas <f>i\oao<t>lasirqyfiivat. newed vitality to an otherwise dying PoRPHTB. v.
Plot.
16, and TEBIDLL. sect.
Prascr.
Beer. J:
Iptct denique hceraes * Primum opusculum, quasi proa pkilotophia tubomantttr.