EARLY HERESIES: The Marcionist Schism (c. 150)

During the 2nd Century, there existed a young theologian named Marcion of Sinope who was born in what is today the city of Sinop, Turkey the son of Philologus of Sinope, a bishop of Sinope who was known as being one of the Seventy Disciples mentioned in the Gospel of Luke as being sent on a mission by Christ himself and who is said to have been briefly mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans Chapter 16 as being saluted by Paul the Apostle. In his youth, it is said that he was excommunicated from the Christian church by his father in his native Sinope for reportedly “defiling a virgin” which then prompted his departure. What is then known of Marcion is that by 130 AD that he was already living in Rome. It is said that he was a shipowner and so great was his wealth that he was said to have gifted the Early Christian Church with $200,000 sesterces – which is said to be a large sum of money for the time. During those years, it is said that he fell in with a group of religious schismatics known as the gnostics who disputed and split from the main teaching of the Church – most notably in how they viewed God and Jesus Christ, and he fell under the influence of a Syrian gnostic teacher named Cerdo.

Marcion displaying his unauthorized biblical canon.

Regarding the Old Testament, it is said that while Marcion accepted its historical validity, he rejected the Old Testament as a testament to what he called an inferior God of bad character and its association with Judaism. Marcion believed that there were two opposite Gods – the Demiurge, the God of the Old Testament who he called the creator of evil things who took delight in wars and lawless characters, was warlike and had an unpleasant temper, and the God of the New Testament who was loving, graceful, good and superior to the former, who sent Jesus to put an end to the old law and the works of the Old Testament God as well as to save souls from the bondage of the Old Testament God. He taught that salvation was given to souls only, not to human bodies, who have adopted his doctrine, and he also taught that Jesus, while revealed as a man, manifest himself solely as an appearance, thus having no nativity or annunciation, and that he did not resurrect neither will he be coming back or judge sinners. He also taught that marriage was corrupt as he saw it as pushing Christians towards a sinful life and instead advocated for celibacy. It is said that he also taught that the Old Testament God even inhabited a physical body citing Genesis 3:8-9 wherein God was walking the Garden of Eden looking for Adam.

What made Marcion so controversial wasn’t simply his odd doctrine, but it was that he became the first person to codify a Christian canon. His so-called “gospel” consisted of two parts – the Evangelikon, which was simply an edited version of the Gospel of Luke with Marcion removing any mention of Christ’s annunciation, nativity, baptism, his relation to the Old Testament God, and genealogy, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and the Apostolikon, which was an edited selection of ten epistles written by Paul the Apostle – all in an effort to edit the gospel to fit his theological views and passing it off as Christ’s original gospel. Early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Smyrna and theologians such as Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian all denounced Marcion and his doctrine. Accordingly, he was accused of heresy and excommunicated from the Christian church in 144 AD and his $200,000 sesterces gift was also returned to him. Upon departing the church, he founded his own Marcionite church which at one time became a major rival to the Christian one. By the 150s, his church had expanded and captured the attention of other Church fathers such as Polycarp of Smyrna who reportedly, when meeting him in Rome, called him the first-born of Satan. A few years later, Marcion himself passed away, and while his church lasted for a few more generations, it also eventually faded away into the annals of history. His Christian canon, however, motivated the Christian church to put together an official Christian canon which still exists today as the Bible.