MARCION, HERETIC. — Born in Pontus around 85, died in Rome in the second half of the 2nd century. Nothing certain is known about his private life, but he seems to have been a shipowner (Tertullian, De praescr. 30, calls him: nauclerus), a profession that was lucrative in that period (v. M. Rostovtzeff, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im römischen Kaiserreich, II, Leipzig n.d., p. 367 ff) and which explains how «in primo calore fidei»
The way in which Harnack described the relations between Cerdo and M. is unsatisfactory. Harnack sought to deny M.’s relations with Gnosticism, but this attempt was unsuccessful. The idea of the foreign God is not characteristic of M. alone; moreover, for Gnosticism as a whole, the distinction between a just God and an unjust one is not exclusive to M. either (cf. Didymus, De Trinit., III, 42: PG 39, 992, with regard to Menander and Satornilus), and M.’s point of departure in his discussion with the Roman presbyters—the Gospel similitude of the good and bad tree (Tertullian, Adv. Marc., I, 2)—can be explained only by a Gnostic tradition that identified the two trees in paradise with those in the Gospel parable; M.’s relationship with Gnosticism is therefore undeniable. To what extent M. upheld Gnostic speculations (for example, those attributed to him by the Armenian Ezeki) cannot be said with certainty, but it is not plausible that M. was a “biblicist,” as Harnack considers him. In the book by I. Bidez and Fr. Cumont, Les mages hellénisés (I, Paris 1938, p. 231), the affinity of certain Iranian ideas with those of M. is noted. On the other hand, the absolute authority that M. attributes to St. Paul (in opposition to the Twelve) can be explained only by the Gnostic theory that Paul was “pneumatikos” by nature (cf. Didymus, in PG 39, 1672). For the Marcionites, Paul sits at the right hand and M. at the left hand of God (Origen, In Luc. hom., 25, ed. Rauer, Leipzig 1930, p. 162, 6 ff.), and this means that both Paul and M. are by nature “pneumatikoi,” that is, members of the good tree. M. is the author of a work entitled Anthitheseis, in which the God of the Old Testament is set in opposition to that of the New Testament. The book apparently also bore the name Proevangelium. An attempt to reconstruct the content of the work is found in Harnack, Marbion (2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 256 ff.). Here too, for example, in the polemic against insects (cf. Harnack, op. cit., p. 270), Iranian ideas can be detected, as likewise in the theory that the demiurge knew nothing of the existence of the supreme God (cf. Zatsparāmi, 1, in Zaehner, in Bulletin of the School of Orient. Studies, 9 [1937-39], p. 577). The work emphasizes the “novelty” of the Gospel and sets forth the thesis that, whereas the Demiurge was known to Adam and the others, the Father of Christ was unknown. The God of the Old Testament is just, that of the New Testament good; the former warlike, the latter peaceful; the former created this visible world, the latter created nothing or created only the invisible world; the former desires sacrifices, the latter is content with hymns and praises. M. never tired of speaking ill of the present creation, which, according to him, was a “quid malum,” produced from an evil matter (hyle) by a “just” demiurge (Clement of Alexandria, Strom., III, 3, 12). The patriarchs and prophets knew nothing of the good God, identified with Christ (the Spirit), who in the fifteenth year of Tiberius manifested himself in the form of an apparent body and who, in his descent to the dead, did not liberate the just, but Cain, the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and so forth. This Jesus, who is “foreign” in the world of the Creator, remained unknown even to his disciples, who maintained contacts with the Jewish religion and with the world of the Creator. M. therefore considered it necessary to reconstruct, on the basis of Luke, a new Gospel, alongside which he placed, in his canon of the New Testament, passages selected from the Pauline epistles, purged according to the tendency of his doctrine. This Gospel is that of Paul, who was called by God after the failure of the Twelve. It may be hypothesized that M.’s own vocation had likewise become necessary after the obscuring of Pauline doctrine in the Church. Perhaps M. was aware of the theory of a continuing prophetic succession, as is evident in the preaching of Mani. According to the Kephalai of the Manichaeans, after Paul other “just men” appear, seeking to remedy the evils of the Church. M. has been considered in this connection, and it is possible that the doctrine set forth in the Kephalai is based on an assertion by M. himself. The Marcionite sect admitted among its adherents only those who abstained from sexual relations within marriage, practiced severe fasts and abstinence from wine and meat, and performed other ascetic works; they wore black garments of penitence. On the history of the sect cf. Harnack, op. cit., p. 153 ff.; on its ramifications as well, p. 177 ff.
« ADVERSUS MARCIONEM ». — A poem in five books against the heresy of M., wrongly attributed to Tertullian.
The original manuscript that served G. Fabricius for the first edition (Basel 1563) is lost. For the reconstruction of the text, two centones attributed to a Victorinus in the codex Vat. Regin. 582 (9th–10th centuries) are important. The poem teaches nothing new about M. and indeed contains errors. Its date is much debated. Whereas K. Holl (Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, III, Tübingen 1928, p. 13 ff.) placed it in the 5th century (ca. 475–525), M. Müller (Untersuchungen zum Carmen adversus Marcionem, Leipzig 1936) once again argued for the 4th century. But Holl’s strong arguments do not appear to have been refuted. Isidore of Seville (De viris illustr., 8) knew of a Victorinus episcopus who had composed « versibus duo opuscula admodum brevia », one against the Manichaeans and the other against the Marcionites. It does not seem possible to identify Victorinus’s opusculum admodum breve with the present Carmen adversus Marcionem in five books. According to Holl, the author lived in Gaul.