The Teaching of Marcion

 'Marcion’s heretical teaching has filled the whole world.’ (adv Marc. 19, Harnack p19) wrote Tertullian, the early church father.

Marcion believed in a Duality – on the one side the ever-vindictive, mass-murdering crual and petty tyrant, - and on the other hand, the Prince of Peace. As Marcion so rightly observed, even from the most elevating and comforting words of the OT ‘there peers forth, now unmasked, the frightful countenance of te cruel god of the Jews’ (A Harnack, Marcion Gospel of the Alien god 1990, p22)

Marcion was a native of Sinope, a Greek commercial city on the Black Sea, born around 85 AD. He may have been excommunicated by his own father because he had seduced a virgin. He journeyed to Asia Minor maybe Ephesus and met Bishop Polycarp, who said ‘I recognize you as the firstborn of Satan,’ thus rejecting Marcion’s dualism. He then journeyed to Rome, in his own ship. He gave the Roman Christian church 200,000 sesterces. He wanted to purge the new church of undue Judaistic elements. It is probable that he began composing his great work Antitheses while in Rome, to argue for two different gods. A formal hearing was held in AD144 where Marcion based his argument on Luke 6:43 (‘the good and the corrupt tree’)and 5:36 (new wine, old wineskins’) concerning how the new gospel was not a fulfilment of the OT but stood in antithesis to it. His argument was rejected as ‘the worst kind of heresy’ and his 200,000 sesterces returned. 

His church spread through all the provinces of the empire – he was no sectarian, but he established one great church. His Antitheses probably began with the gripping cry of jubilation: ‘O wonder beyond wonders, rapture, power, and amazement is it, that one can say nothing at all about the gospel, nor even conceive of it, nor compare it with anything’ – which text, because of its fairly meaningless content, was presumably allowed to endure. Otherwise all trace of his writings have vanished forever from the world. From his critics however it is reckoned he often used the word ‘new’ as in: ‘new God’ ‘the new kingdom’ Christ as ‘new master and proprietor of the elements,’ ‘new miracle’  ‘a novel institution of Christ’ in cancelling the Sabbath commandment, ‘new benevolence of Christ’ etc. 

The Marcionite church became well-established around Asia Minor and around 140 AD was a formidable challenge to the early church. It counted time from the date when Marcion had broken in Rome with the Judaistic church and called Marcion ‘The Bishop.’

 

 Marcion alluded to the theft of Egyptian gold and silver vessels by the departing Hebrews as showing the ethically-depraved deity guiding them. His view of the OT was that it did have some things in it that were inspired by Christ, however in general a fiery angel who fell away from the deity and became ‘superintendent of evil’ (‘praeses mali’) had spoken to Moses out of a burning bush and led astray the Jewish people: The same fiery angel, the gainsayer and lying spirit, is the source of the book of lies, the Old Testament, which is full of fables, absurdities, contradictions and factual and logical impossibilities.’ (Harnack p.120)

It required all of the energy of the early church to suppress the Marcionite churches. For example in the 5^th century there were whole Marcionite villages in Cyprus (E. Blackman, Marcion and his Influence, p.4) Marcionites allowed women to hold office in a church. His church was anti-heirarchical, all members were equal.

 Marcion was elevated to a saint (!) in 2012, by the 'under-one-heaven' people. (Pactum De Singularis Caelum)

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Here are some quotes from 'The Arch-Heretic Marcion' by Sebastian Moll, 2010.

Marcion allowed female priests.

'Marcion's original distinction was between an evil and a good God.'

The testimony of anti-Marcion writings 'leaves no doubt that what their opponent actually had in  mind was a wicked deity.'

'Marcion based his view of his evil God completely on Old Testament testimony.'

'Whenever Marcion does mention the lapses of the patriarchs or other Old testament figure, it is only to discredit their God'

'the Old Testament God in fact lacks all the qualities of a truly divine being'

Marcion accepted the OT prophecy of a messiah 'just as the Jews did' and agreed that this was still to come - in accordance with the literal meaning of the OT prophecy, as a great political and military leader, a warrior who was destined 'to re-establish the Jewish state,' whereas JC had a completely different agenda.

Marcion's two gods exist 'in direct and unequivocal opposition to one another, or to use an originally Marcionist term, they exist antithetically.'

'The Marcionites saw an opposition between the things Jesus Christ did for the salvation of those who received him, and all the evil which was inflicted by the Old Testament God on those who disobeyed him.'

The Marcionites would 'bring forward words of contrast between the good God and the evil God.'

Marcion quoted the Book of Isaiah 'It is I who create evil' and in the parable of the good and bad tree he saw this deity as the 'bad tree that brings forth bad fruit.'

There were Marcionite Psalms and hymns for services, that have been lost.

              The Church Fathers did not agree, and took the view that 'No matter how many crimes they [the Hebrews] commit, they still are the apples of god's eye.' (Tiffany, p.51) 

                       Priestly wealth 

The priestswere entitled to:

11.     every sin and trespass offering (Neh 18:9);

22.     parts of other offerings (Lev 7:30-34);

33.     the first fruits of the corn harvest, the grape harvest, the fig harvest, the pomegranate harvest, the olive harvest, and the honey harvest (Dt 26:1);

44.     “all the best of the oil and all the best of the vintage and corn” to make up between a sixtieth and a fortieth (Num 18:12);

55.     of the remainder, a tenth aside for the temple functionaries called Levites, and the temples had to give a tenth of this to the priests (Num 18:20;

66.     every twentieth loaf baked (Num 15:17);

77.     every firstborn calf or its value in cash (Num 18:15);

88.     a family’s first born son had to be “redeemed” at a month old by payment of 5 shekels (at least �50-100, about double in dollars) (Num18:16)

99.     From any animal killed for a family’s own consumption, “the shoulder, the two cheeks and the maw” (Dt 18:3);

110.any ox, ass, maidservant or manservant devoted to god (Num 18:14);

111.any restitution made for an injustice went to the priest when the person wronged could not receive it (Num 5:5);

Summarising:

112.Fear the Lord and honour the priest, and give him his portion, as it is commanded thee: the firstfruits, and the trespass offering, and the gift of the shoulders, and the sacrifice of sanctification, and the firstfruits of the holy things.    Ecc 7:31