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Intro to the Bible: Session 4: The New Testament Cannon: Early Heresies 1) The early heresies forced the early church to define core beliefs and the core scriptures. 2) Marcionism a) Marcion was son of the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus, born c. A.D. 110, from wealthy parents. i) He is described as a ship owner. ii) Having fallen out with his father he travels to Rome, (1) Where, being a seafarer or ship owner and a great traveler, (a) He already may have been known (b) His wealth obtains him influence and position. b) Marcion was already a consecrated bishop. i) Probably an assistant or suffragan of his father at Sinope. ii) According to Tertullian he made the Roman community the gift of two hundred thousand sesterces soon after his arrival, a huge sum for those days, (1) The money was returned to him after his breach with the Church. c) Marcion is said to have asked the Roman presbyters the explanation of Matthew 9:16-17, i) Which he evidently wished to understand as expressing the incompatibility of the New Testament with the Old, ii) But they interpreted in an orthodox sense. d) His final breach with the Roman Church occurred in the autumn of 144, e) The Marcionites counted 115 years and 6 months from the time of Christ to the beginning of their sect. f) Justin Martyr in his first Apology (written about 150), describes Marcion's heresy as spread everywhere. i) These half a dozen years seem to many too short a time for such prodigious success and they believe that Marcion was active in Asia Minor long before he came to Rome. g) Date of death is not known. Marcionte churches existed until 800 A.D. 3) Marcionite Doctrine a) He wanted a Christianity untrammeled and undefiled by association with Judaism. b) The Old Testament was a scandal to the faithful i) A stumbling-block to the refined and intellectual gentiles (1) By its crudity and cruelty, and the Old Testament had to be set aside. c) Christianity was the New Covenant pure and simple. i) Abstract questions on the origin of evil or on the essence of the Godhead interested him little, d) The two great obstacles in his way he removed by drastic measures. i) He had to account for the existence of the Old Testament ii) Postulating a secondary deity, a “demiurgus” (1) Was god, in a sense, but not the supreme God; (2) he was just, rigidly just, he had his good qualities, (3) but he was not the good god, who was Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. iii) The relation between these two gods troubled Marcion little e) Marcion had secondly to account for those passages in the New Testament, which referred to the Old. i) He cut out all texts that were contrary to his dogma; ii) He created his own New Testament (1) With only one gospel, a mutilation of St. Luke, (2) Apostolicon containing ten epistles of St. Paul. f) The mantle of St. Paul had fallen on the shoulders of Marcion in his struggle with the Judaizers. i) The early church of his day was nothing but the Judaizers of the previous century. g) The pure Pauline Gospel had become corrupted i) Marcion, said that even the pillar Apostles, Peter, James, and John had betrayed their trust. 1 ii) He loved to speak of "false apostles", and lets his hearers infer who they were. h) Once the Old Testament has been completely got rid of, i) Marcion has no further desire for change. ii) He makes his purely New Testament Church as like the Early Church as possible, (1) Consistent with his deep seated Puritanism. i) The first description of Marcion's doctrine dates from Justin Martyr: i) "With the help of the devil Marcion has in every country contributed to blasphemy and the refusal to acknowledge the Creator of all the world as God". He recognizes another god, who, because he is essentially greater (than the World maker or Demiurge) has done greater deeds than he. The supreme God is just and righteous. The good God is all love, the inferior god gives way to fierce anger. Though less than the good god, yet the just god, as world creator, has his independent sphere of activity. They are not opposed as though the good God interferes in favor of men, for he alone is all-wise and all-powerful and loves mercy more than punishment. All men are indeed created by the Demiurge, but by special choice he elected the Jewish people as his own and thus became the god of the Jews." j) His theological outlook is limited to the Bible, k) His struggle with the Early Church seems a battle over what is authentic scripture. i) The Old Testament is true enough, ii) Moses and the Prophets are messengers of the Demiurge, iii) The Jewish Messiah is sure to come and found a millennial kingdom for the Jews on earth, iv) But the Jewish messiah has nothing whatever to do with the Christ of God. (1) The Invisible, Indescribable, Good God (2) Formerly unknown to the creator as well as to his creatures, (a) Has revealed Himself in Christ. (3) Christ is indeed the Son of God, but he is also simply "God" without further qualification; l) To Marcion however Christ was God Manifest not God Incarnate. i) His Christology rejects the Infancy and childhood of Christ at all; ii) Marcion's Savior is what Tertullian mockingly says: (1) "Suddenly a Son, suddenly Sent, suddenly Christ!" iii) Marcion admitted no prophecy of the Coming of Christ whatever; (1) The Jewish prophets foretold a Jewish Messiah only, (a) This Messiah had not yet appeared. iv) Marcion used the story of the three angels, who ate, walked, and conversed with Abraham and yet had no real human body, v) Marcion would prefer to accept even a supposed birth rather than a real body. m) To Marcion matter and flesh are not essentially evil, i) But are contemptible things, a mere production of the Demiurge, ii) It was inconceivable that God should really have made them His own. n) Christ's life on earth was a continual contrast to the conduct of the Demiurge. i) Some of the contrasts are cleverly staged: (1) The Demiurge sent bears to devour children for childish merriment (Kings)-- Christ asked children come to Him and He blessed them; (2) The Demiurge in his law declared lepers unclean and banished them — but Christ touched and healed them. ii) Christ's supposed passion and death was the work of the Demiurge, (1) Who, in revenge for Christ's abolition of the Jewish law delivered Him up to hell. (2) But even in hell Christ overcame the Demiurge by preaching to the spirits in Limbo, (3) And by His resurrection He founded the true Kingdom of the Good God. 2 iii) Epiphanius says that Marcionites believed that in Limbo Christ brought salvation to Cain, Core, Dathan and Abiron, Esau, and the Gentiles, but left in damnation all Old Testament saints. iv) Marcion denied the resurrection of the body, (1) "For flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God", v) Denied the second coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead, (1) The good God, being all goodness, does not punish those who reject Him; (2) He simply leaves them to the Demiurge, who will cast them into everlasting fire. o) How did Marcionites live? i) Rejection of marriage (1) He baptized only those who were not living in matrimony: virgins, widows, celibates, and eunuchs all others remained catechumens. ii) He used water in baptism, anointed his faithful with oil and gave milk and honey to the catechumens. iii) Epiphanius says they fasted on Saturday out of a spirit of opposition to the Jewish God, who made the Sabbath a day of rejoicing. p) Challenges to the church i) Marcion defined his own canon ii) It forced the church to come to grips with the Old Testament iii) And to define their own canon iv) He raised questions on the nature of God v) The nature of Christ (Human/Divine/Hybrid/Both?) vi) The nature of resurrection vii) Christian attitude to the world and the flesh. 4) Montanism a) Montanism was an early Christian movement of the late 2nd century, i) Referred to by the name of its founder, Montanus, ii) Originally known by its followers as the “New Prophecy. “ b) Originated in Phrygia, a province of Asia Minor, i) Flourished throughout the region, ii) Spread rapidly to other regions in the Roman Empire iii) It persisted in some isolated places into the 6th century. c) Although it came to be labeled a heresy, i) The movement held similar views about the basic tenets of Christian doctrine to those of the wider Christian Church. ii) It was a prophetic movement that called for a reliance on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and a more conservative personal ethic. iii) Parallels have been drawn between Montanism and modern day movements such as Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement d) History i) Montanus first began his prophetic activity, sometime between AD 135 and AD 177. ii) Montanus was a recent convert when he first began prophesying, iii) He believed he was a prophet of God and that the Paraclete spoke through him. iv) Montanus proclaimed the towns of Pepuza and Tymion in west-central Phrygia as the site of the New Jerusalem, making the larger Pepuza his headquarters. v) He had two female colleagues, Prisca and Maximilla, (1) Claimed the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

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