Introduction
What was Marcion’s contribution to Christianity, especially to the New Testament Canon? Did he collect the first canon, or was his canon a reaction to an explicit or implicit canon already in existence? Casper Rene Gregory called Marcion “in every way the most active and influential man, bearing the name of Christian, between Paul and Origen.”1 Walter Bauer found in Marcion himself, “the first systematic collector of Paul’s literary remains.”2 John Knox (1942) suggested that Luke-Acts may have been written in the late second century to replace or counteract Marcion’s Luke.3 Floyd Filson wrote, “Of all the events that hastened the formation of the New Testament canon, none was so influential as the action of Marcion. We need not go so far as to say that Marcion created the idea of a New Testament canon, but his influence was certainly great.”4 Filson’s remarks probably correspond more closely with the events of history than the other remarks.
Life, Works and Theology
Relatively little is known about Marcion (d. c. 160) because his heresy was put down and his works were destroyed, or lost, or both. What is known of his life, writings and theology are found, or founded upon, the works of his enemies: Justin Martyr (110-165), Irenaeus (120-202), Epiphanius (ca. 315-403) and especially Tertullian5 (145-220) who encountered Marcion half a century after his death.6
Justin Martyr made the earliest known contemporary reference to Marcion in his Apology. Justin wrote,
And there is Marcion a man of Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator. And he, by the aid of the devils, has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the maker of this universe, and to assert that some other being, greater than He, has done greater works. All who take their opinions from these men, are, as we before said, called Christians.7
Irenaeus recorded Polycarp’s personal appellation for Marcion: “And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, “Dost thou know me?” “I do know thee, the first-born of Satan.””8
Tertullian named Marcion with other Gnostics, whom he regarded among the pagan philosophers, when he wrote the famous line, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?”9
Marcion was originally from Sinope, Pontus, Asia Minor where his father was bishop. He moved to Rome in the late 130’s, perhaps after being expelled by his father’s church. Marcion’s departure from Sinope may have been connected to his already formed, or forming, heretical theology. Or, as reported by Epiphanius, for seducing a girl.10 In Rome, Marcion became acquainted with Cerdo the Gnostic from Syria and fully formed his theology.11 He was expelled from the Roman church community in 144 for his views and subsequently began a new pseudo-Christian community that survived to the fifth century in Syria.
The lone written work of Marcion was Antitheses. This non-extant work was cited by Tertullian in Against Marcion. Marcion’s Antitheses sought to demonstrate the contradictions between the Hebrew Bible and Christian writings and the conflict between their two different Gods. Tertullian wrote, “These are Marcion’s Antitheses, or contradictory propositions, which aim at committing the gospel to a variance with the law, in order that from the diversity of the two documents which contain them, they may contend for a diversity of gods also.”12
In addition to writing Antitheses, Marcion also may have written, or influenced the writing of, what is called The Marcionite Prologues to the Letters of Paul.13 And of course, Marcion’s most important written contribution was his arrangement and redaction of his own closed canon.
Marcion’s theology was very similar to Gnostic theology in many ways. But he differed with mainline Gnosticism in several important ways as well.14 According to Knox, “Marcion was not primarily a Gnostic but a Paulinist.15 E. Furguson identified three significant differences between Marcion’s theology and Gnosticism: Marcion made written revelation alone his standard for truth. He encouraged the organization of the church, and he rejected speculation and allegory. The Gnostics, however, generally embraced allegory, and rejected church organization and written revelation.16 Knox represented common thinking when he summarized Marcion’s theology as follows:
(1) The Creator of the world, although a real God, must be distinguished from the higher god, unknown except as he was revealed in Christ; (2) The Creator of the world is a just God, but sever and harsh; the God whom Christ revealed is a Father, a God of love; (3) judgment is the prerogative of the Creator; redemption is the free gift of the God of love; (4) the Jewish Scriptures represent a true revelation of the Creator, but they do not speak of or for the God whom alone Christians ought to worship and from whom alone salvation from the present wicked world is to be received; (5) the revelation in Christ was intended not merely to supplement or ‘fulfil’ Judaism but entirely to displace it–the one had no connection with the other; (6) the Son of the Father did not actually take sinful flesh but only appeared to do so; (7) there is no resurrection of the flesh; and (8) Paul was the only true apostle, to whom Christ committed his gospel– other ‘apostles’ were false and had misled the church.17
Canon
According to Brooke Westcott, Marcion’s Canon is “the first of which there is any record.”18 Marcion’s Canon demonstrated a two-fold division: The Gospel and The Apostle.19 The Gospel was an highly edited version of Luke and The Apostle was composed of ten Pauline Epistles. Marcion’s arrangement of the letters in The Apostle were as follows: Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians combined, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians combined, Laodiceans (Ephesians), Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon.
The evidence for this arrangement is Tertullian’s order of criticism in Against Marcion Book V, and the Marcionite Prologues to the Letters of Paul found in many Latin manuscripts.20 In Book V, Tertullian devoted Chapters 2-4 to Galatians, Chapters 5-10 to First Corinthians, Chapters 11-14 to Second Corinthians, Chapter 15 to First Thessalonians, Chapter 16 to Second Thessalonians, Chapters 17-18 to Laodiceans-Ephesians,21 Chapter 19 to Colossians, Chapter 20 to Philippians, and Chapter 21 to Philemon.22 Since Marcion’s Canon or texts are not extant, the order in which Tertullian interacted with Marcion must suffice as primary evidence for Marcion’s content and arrangement.
The above evidence concerning the content and arrangement of Marcion’s Canon is strengthened by Epiphanius. Epiphanius explicitly indicated the order in which ten of Paul’s letters came in Marcion’s Bible. The content and arrangement were the same as that implied by Tertullian with one exception: Philippians and Philemon were inverted.23
There were several significant omissions in Marcion’s Luke. Four of the most prominent omissions were the birth narrative of Jesus (1:1-2:52), the record of John the Baptist, the genealogy of Jesus, and the temptation narrative (3:1b-4-15).24
There were also omissions in the Pauline corpus. Some scholars suggested that Marcion’s base text was lacking. Others suggested that Marcion purposefully omitted parts of the texts because of his theology. And some scholars provided for both. Westcott did not believe Marcion altered the Pauline Epistles. He wrote, “Marcion preserved without alteration the text which he found in his Manuscript.”25
In Marcion’s Canon, eight of Paul’s ten epistles were basically the same as modern texts. Galatians and Romans, however were very different. Marcion’s Galatians lacked Paul’s interaction with Peter and James in Jerusalem (1:18-24), the account of Abraham’s faithfulness (3:6-9), and other passages: 2:6-9a; 3:1-12,14a,15-25; 4:27-30. Romans did not contain 1:17b, 1:19-21, 3:31-4:25, 8:19-22, 9:1-33, 10:5-11:32, and all of chapters 15 and 16.26
Conclusion
Marcion was very influential in the formation of the New Testament Canon even though his influence was a negative one. His most important contribution may have been to virtually guarantee that the Pauline Epistles would eventually enjoy the same status as the Gospels.27 Marcion’s critics were forced to decide about the Pauline works and their relationship to the Gospels, which were already held in high esteem.
The study of Marcion’s Canon may not produce clear, unrefutable evidence of the existence of an orthodox closed canon in the middle of the second century, but Marcion’s divergence from the norm presupposes a norm. His canon implied an already existing practice by the Roman church to collect and derive doctrines from the Gospels and the Pauline epistles. Westcott was probably correct when he wrote,
There is indeed no evidence to shew that any definite Canon of the Apostolic writings was already published in Asia Minor when Marcion’s appeared; but the minute and varied hints which have been already collected tend to prove that if it were not expressly fixed it was yet implicitly determined by the practice of the Church.28
Leave a Reply