The Arch-Heretic Marcion (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament)

Marcion is unanimously acknowledged to be one of the most important and most intriguing figures of the Early Church. In spite of this importance, there is no comprehensive up-to-date study on his life and thought. Thus, the desire to fill this gap within the academic world - which is inconvenient for both students and professors alike - has been the inspiration for writing this thesis. However, this work does not only aim at providing a complete study on Marcion for the twenty-first century, but also at ridding scholarship from several severe misconceptions regarding the arch-heretic. The main argument of Sebastian Moll's study is that previous scholarship has turned Marcion's exegesis of Scripture upside down. He did not find the inspiration for his doctrine in the teachings of the Apostle Paul, it is the Old Testament and its portrait of an inconsistent, vengeful and cruel God which forms the centre of his doctrine. Marcion does not understand the Old Testament in the light of the New, he interprets the New Testament in the light of the Old. This insight casts a new light on Marcion's place within the history of the Church, as the initiator of a fundamental crisis of the Old Testament in the second century. But not only did he have an enormous influence on Christian exegesis, he also stands at the beginning of the epochal fight between orthodoxy and heresy. As the first man to ever officially break with the Church for doctrinal reasons, and whose biography would become a stereotype for future heresiologists, Marcion can rightfully claim the title of 'arch-heretic'. Abbreviations of Patristic Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. Robert Smith Wilson, Marcion: A Study of a Second-Century Heretic, 1932 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. Edwin Cyrill Blackman, Marcion and his Influence, 1948 . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Barbara Aland, „Marcion: Versuch einer neuen Interpretation“, 1973 . . 6 4. Joseph Hoffmann, Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity, 1984 . . . 6 5. Gerhard May (ed.), Marcion and his Impact on Church History, 2002 . . 8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 I. Problems of Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1. Polycarp’s Second Letter to the Philippians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2. Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3. The Elder in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 4. The Carmen adversus Marcionitas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 II. Marcion’s Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 1. Where and when was Marcion born? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2. Was Marcion raised a Christian? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3. What did Marcion’s education and professional career look like? . . . . . 28 4. Where and when did Marcion start his movement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 5. What was Marcion’s relation to Cerdo? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6. How and when did Marcion actually break with the Church?. . . . . . . . 43 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 III. Marcion’s Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 1. The Evil God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 1.1 The Development of Marcionite Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1.2 The Evil God as the God of the Old Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 2. The Good God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 2.1 The Testimony of the Gospel (according to Luke) . . . . . . . . . . . 64 2.2 The Testimony of Paul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3. Parallels to Gnosticism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 3.1 Traits which link Marcion to the Gnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 3.2 Traits which separate Marcion from the Gnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 IV. Marcion’s Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 1. The Old Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 1.1 Marcion’s Literalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 2. The New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 2.1 The Conspiracy Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 2.2 The Corpus Paulinum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 2.2.1 Marcion’s Use of Paul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 2.2.2 The Content of Marcion’s Apostolikon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 2.3 The Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 3. Marcion’s Canon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 V. Marcion’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 1. The Antitheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 2. The Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 3. Marcionite Psalms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 4. The so-called ‘Pro-Evangelium’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 VI. Marcion’s Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 1. The Structure of Marcion’s Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 1.1 Sacraments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 1.2 Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 1.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 2. Marcion’s Position within his Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 3. The Members of Marcion’s Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 3.1 Membership Profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 3.2 Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 4. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 VII. Marcion’s Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 1. The Old Testament before Marcion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 1.1 The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 120–140) . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 1.2 The Letter of Barnabas (ca. 130–138) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 2. The Old Testament after Marcion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 2.1 Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora (ca. 150) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 2.2 Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (ca. 160) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 2.3 Apelles’ Syllogisms (ca. 160–170) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 3. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 1. Texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 2. Secondary Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Index of Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Index of Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Marcion is unanimously acknowledged to be one of the most important and most intriguing figures of the Early Church. In spite of this importance, there is no comprehensive up-to-date study on his life and thought. With the present work, Sebastian Moll attempts to fill this inconvenient gap. His main argument is that previous scholarship has turned Marcion's exegesis of Scripture upside down. He did not find the inspiration for his doctrine in the teachings of the Apostle Paul, it is the Old Testament and its portrait of an inconsistent, vengeful and cruel God which forms the centre of his theology. Marcion does not understand the Old Testament in the light of the New, he interprets the New Testament in the light of the Old. This insight casts a new light on Marcion's place within the history of the Church, as the initiator of a fundamental crisis of the Old Testament in the second century. --Book Jacket HauptbeschreibungMarcion is unanimously acknowledged to be one of the most important and most intriguing figures of the Early Church. In spite of this importance, there is no comprehensive up-to-date study on his life and thought. Thus, the desire to fill this gap within the academic world - which is inconvenient for both students and professors alike - has been the inspiration for writing this thesis. However, this work does not only aim at providing a complete study on Marcion for the twenty-first century, but also at ridding scholarship from several severe misconceptions regarding the arch- Hauptbeschreibung Marcion is unanimously acknowledged to be one of the most important and most intriguing figures of the Early Church. In spite of this importance, there is no comprehensive up-to-date study on his life and thought. Thus, the desire to fill this gap within the academic world - which is inconvenient for both students and professors alike - has been the inspiration for writing this thesis. However, this work does not only aim at providing a complete study on Marcion for the twenty-first century, but also at ridding scholarship from several severe misconceptions regardi Problems Of Sources -- Marcion's Life -- Marcion's Gods -- Marcion's Bible -- Marcion's Works -- Marcion's Church -- Marcion's Time. Sebastian Moll. Originally Presented As The Author's Thesis (ph. D.)--university Of Edinburgh, 2009. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [163]-171) And Indexes.