Marcionism

Overview

Marcionism refers to the teaching of the second-century Christian teacher Marcion (c. 85–c. 160) and the group that followed him (the Marcionites). Marcion was born in Sinope, a port city in the region of Pontus in Asia Minor. According to the accounts of the Church Fathers (the leading theologians of the early church), he was a wealthy shipowner. Around 140 he went to Rome and made a large donation to the church. His teaching, however, became controversial, and around 144 he was excommunicated (stripped of membership and expelled) from the Roman church; his donation is reported to have been returned to him. He then established a separate church organization. These churches spread to various parts of the Mediterranean world and for a time became a major force.

None of Marcion's own writings survive. His life and thought must therefore be reconstructed from the works of the Church Fathers who refuted him, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian. For this reason, scholars differ in their interpretation of the details.

Principal Teachings

• Two Gods: Marcion regarded the God of the Old Testament, who gave the Law and created the world, and the good God, who sent Jesus Christ and revealed love and mercy, as distinct beings. He is reported to have set the differences between the Old Testament and the gospel side by side in a work called the Antitheses ("Contrasts"). Accounts differ as to whether he regarded the God of the Old Testament as an "evil god" or as a "lesser god" concerned only with justice.
• Rejection of the Old Testament: He maintained that the Old Testament had been given only to the Jews and therefore could no longer be used by the church. In effect, his thought tended toward separating Christianity entirely from Judaism.
• His own canon: He accepted as Scripture only a single gospel, an edited form of the Gospel of Luke, and ten Pauline epistles. Among the Pauline letters, he excluded the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus). He held that Paul alone was the true apostle. His list is regarded as the earliest recorded New Testament canon.
• Denial of Christ's flesh: He is widely regarded as having tended toward Docetism, the view that Christ was not truly human but only appeared to be so.

Relationship to Gnosticism

Irenaeus recorded that Marcion carried on the teaching of Cerdo, a teacher active in Rome. Marcionism resembles Gnosticism in its low estimation of the Creator and the material world, and for this reason it is sometimes presented as a branch of Gnosticism. Because it formed a distinct church body, however, many historians distinguish it from Gnosticism.

The Church's Response and Influence

The Fathers of the early church condemned Marcion as a heretic and refuted his teaching. They clearly affirmed that the Creator and the Savior are one and the same God, and that the Old and New Testaments bear witness to the same God. A widely cited view holds that Marcion's promulgation of his own list of scriptures prompted the church to define its canon (the scriptures officially recognized by the church). The extent of this influence, however, remains a subject of scholarly debate.

Usage in the Korean Church

Marcionism is a movement that died out in antiquity. No instance has been identified of a Korean denomination or interdenominational body adopting a specific resolution concerning it. In the Korean church, it is treated as a leading example of an ancient heresy in church history courses and in serialized articles on early church heresies in Christian media. In addition, contemporary proposals to discard the Old Testament and adopt only the New Testament as Scripture, on grounds such as the Old Testament's accounts of violence, are sometimes called "neo-Marcionism."