What Did Marcion Believe?

few of the so-called ancient Christian Heretics were as famous and as hated as marcian a teacher who started a wildly popular Christian movement in the early 2nd Century CE most of what we know about marcian come from his greatest critics Christian authors that just hated his guts so what did marcian teach that made the church fathers hate him this much now marcian is known for two main things one developing a two God theology where you have an evil Creator God described in the Old Testament called the Demi urge and a benevolent supreme god who sent Jesus Christ to subvert the will of this demiurge marcian is also known for being perhaps the first one to develop a new testament Canon our main sources about Marian's life and teachings include tertullians adarus Maron and epiphanius as panarion and bunches of other guys also talk about marcian now all of these authors offer extensive information about marcian like he was born in the Black Sea region he was probably raised by a Christian and he moved to Rome sometime in the 2 Century where he gained a huge following now some of these texts disagree on their details like where marcian actually was born or when exactly he moved to Rome but one thing they do agree on they all really hated marcian this means everything we know about marcian comes from hostile sources we don't have any manuscripts of Marian's texts and except for some possible quotations we don't have any archaeological evidence of marcionite theology or marcian churches so when epiphanius calls him a scheming Serpent and when tertullian says he is more ill- conducted than the wild beasts of his barbarous homeland take this with a little grain of salt maybe marcian was a bad dude and maybe he did seduce young virgins and trick people into believing his theology but we really have no way of knowing this because everything we know about him comes from these heavily biased sources what we can do as historians is try to read between the lines trying to parse between what marcian actually taught and what are just exaggerations so let's start with something that everyone seems to agree on Marian's theology was deeply dualistic something that we could call ditheism belief in two Gods one evil God that he called the demiurge the God that he believed created the whole universe and is described in the Hebrew Bible and a good supreme god that sends Jesus to give Humanity the knowledge necessary to escape the demiurge now this might sound really weird to us but let's try to piece together Marian's thought process so this makes a little more sense first of all marcian was a St Paul Fanboy so he really liked how Paul describes God Paul talks a lot about a loving God who sends Jesus Christ to justify Humanity of all their sins Paul also writes a lot about the Jewish law and a simplistic reading of Paul might lead you to believe that he doesn't really like the Jewish law the book of Galatians for example was Marian's favorite book and Paul spends most of his time in this text arguing that Christians don't really need to follow the Torah he says things like before Faith came we were held captive under the the law imprisoned until the coming Faith would be revealed so imagine a Paul Fanboy reading this text and then going to read the Hebrew Bible where the law actually comes from when marcian read the Hebrew Bible the god described in those books sounded so different from the god that Paul describes marcian concluded that it must be a completely separate God this was a god of dispassionate Justice passing burdensome laws and judging Humanity by those laws with impunity marcian also claimed that the god of the Hebrew Bible was an in ior God a God who at times seemed to be unaware of certain things who wasn't all knowing this demiurge according to marcian just had way too many flaws to be the Supreme Being just look at the world he created with all its disease and degradation whoever sent Jesus Christ must have been a previously unknown God a loving merciful god described by Paul who wanted Humanity to throw off the law and the shackles of the demiurge so at first marcian theology sounds a little weird to our modern ears which are so accustomed to modern Christian Orthodoxy and monotheism but when you consider the problems that arise from a non- allegorical reading of the god described by Paul and a non- allegorical reading of the god described in the Hebrew Bible Marian's two God theology starts to make a little more sense the theologies in the Hebrew Bible and Paul's Epistles are different as we should expect from texts that were written centuries apart from each other this leads to Marian's other famous contribution to early Christianity marcian might be one of the first Christians to develop a new testament can Canon that is to say one of the first ones to decide which text should be considered authoritative scripture and which one should be rejected I talk more about the development of the New Testament canon in an earlier video check it out here and you can imagine what Marian's Canon looked like he really didn't like the Hebrew Bible and he really liked Paul so Marian's Cannon consisted of 10 of Paul's Epistles and an altered version of the Gospel of Luke pretty sure compared to our modern New Testament Cannon of 27 books according to marcian Paul was the only legitimate Apostle guys like Peter James and John they did not have a true understanding of Jesus or the supreme god but there was a problem Paul seems to be a monotheist he quotes the Hebrew Bible all the time and he seems to think that the god of the Hebrew Bible is also the god of Jesus since marcian saw Yahweh as the demiurge he concluded that Paul's Epistles must have been corrupted anytime Paul seems to respect the Hebrew Bible this must be proof that guys like Peter were going in and trying to rej judaize the scriptures thus marcian edited out Jewish sounding bits from Paul's Epistles to what he considered was an earlier more pure form of the text he does the same thing to the Gospel of Luke irenaeus writes besides all this marcian mutilated The Gospel According to Luke discarding all that is written about the birth of the Lord and discarding also many of the Lord's discourses containing teachings in which it is most clearly written that the Lord confessed his father as the maker of the universe irenaeus's quote does seem to fit Marian's theology ology the birth of Jesus would be a really scandalous story to whoever thinks Jesus didn't really have a human body and who thinks the material world was created by this evil demiurge marcian was doing this very early in Christian history in the early 2nd Century CE only a few decades after the last New Testament books were written so many scholars see this as one of the first if not the first effort to create a new testament marcian wasn't the only one editing Christian texts in a world without copyright law or without printing presses Christian texts were being copied and forged and corrupted all the time if your belief system was founded on sacred texts you had a vested interest to make sure that those texts were the right ones and that they were in their purest form many scholars actually think that Marian's Canon catalyzed other Christian groups to form their own cannons threatened by marcian and his followers they needed to form their own set of authoritative texts if this is true marcian may be one of the most influential figures of early Christianity even though many Christians saw him as a heretic and even though his movement eventually did fizzle out he may have catalyzed other early Christian authorities to form and solidify their own theologies and to solidify their own New Testament cannons which would include affirming the Hebrew Bible as authoritative and the god of the Hebrews as the god of Jesus not bad for a guy that was hated by all the church Fathers as always thanks for liking and subscribing and I'll see you next time

Channel: ReligionForBreakfast

Views: 346,818

Keywords: Marcion, What did Marcion Believe?, Christianity, Religious Studies, Gnostic, Gnosticism, Demiurge, Religion for Breakfast, Marcionism, Marcionite, Heresy, Heretic, Early Christianity, Church History, Varieties of early Christianity

Id: CXkqIW4EMRI

Length: 7min 38sec (458 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2016