Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/701

 BC^ROIONITES

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MA&OIOMim

Syneros and Lucanus or Lucianus. Of the first we know nothing beyond the mention of him in Rhodon : of the second we possess more information, ana Epiphanius has devoted a whole chapter to his refuta- tion. Both Origen and Epiphanius, however, seem to know of Lucanus' sect only bv hearsay; it was there- fore probably extinct towards the end of the third century. Tertullian (de Resur. Cam., ii) says that he outdid even Marcion in denying the resurrection not only of the body but also of the soul, only admitting the resurrection of some tertium quid {irvtvfia as op- posed to ^ux^ ?) . Tertullian says that he had Lucanus' teaching in view when writing his " De Anima ". It is possible that Lucanus taught transmigration of souls; according to Epiphanius some Marcionites of his day maintained it. Though Lucanus' particular sect may have soon died out, the doctrine comprised in the three principles was long maintained by Marcionites. In St. Hippolytus' time (c. 225) it was held by an Assyrian called Prepon, who wrote in defence of it a work called " Bardesanes the Armenian " (Hipp., "Adv. HaBr.", VII, xxxi) . Adamantius in his " Dialogue" (see below) introduces a probably fictitious Marcionite doc- trine of three principles, and Epiphanius evidently puts it forward as the prominent Marcionite doctrine of his day (374). The doctrine of the One Principle only, of which the Jewish god is a creature, was mam- tained by the notorious Apelles, who, though once a disciple of Marcion himself, became more of a Gnostic th^ of a Marcionist. He was accompanied by a girl called Philumena, a sort of clairvoyante who dabbled in magic, and who claimed frequent visions of Christ and St. Paul, appearing under the form of a boy. Tertullian calls this Philumena a prostitute, and ac- cuses Apelles of unchastity, but Khodon, who had known Apelles personally, refers to him as " venerable in behaviour and age". Tertullian often attacks him in writings ("De Pra?scr.", Ixvii; "Adv. Marc.," Ill, g. 11, IV, 17) and even wrote a work against him: "Adversus Apclleiacos", which is unfortunately lost, though once known to St. Hippolytus and St. Augus- tine. Some fragments of Apelles have been collected by A. Hamack (first in "Texte u. Unters.", VI, 3, 1890, and then ibid., XX, or new ser.^ V, 3, 1900), who wrote "De Apelles Gnosi Monarchica" (I^ipzig, 1874), though Apelles emphatically repudiated Mar- don's two gods and acknowledged " One good God, one Beginning and one Power beyond all description (djrarar6/ia<rro}).

This "Holy and Good God above", according to him, took no notice of things below, but made another god, who made the world. Nor is this creator-god the only emanation of the Supreme God; there is a fire- angel or fire-god (" Igneus Prajses mali " according to Tertullian, "De Came", viii) who tampered with the souls of men; there is a Jewish god, a law-god, who presumably wrote the Old Testament, which Apelles neld to be a lying production. Possibly, however, the fire-god and the law-god were but manifestations of the creator-god. Apelles wrote an extensive work called ^vWoyia/Mt to prove the untrustworthiness of the Old Testament, of which Origen quotes a charac- teristic fragment (In Gen., II, ii). Apelles' Antido- cetism has been referred to above. Of other followers of Marcion the names only are known. The Marcion- ites differed from the Gnostic Christians in that they thought it unlawful to deny their religion in times of persecution, nobly vying with Catholics in shedding their blood for the name of Christ. Marcionite martyrs are not infrequently referred to in Eusebius' "Church History" (IV, xv, xlvi; V, xvi, xxi; VII, xii). Their nimiber and influence seem always to have l^cen less in the West than in the East, and in the West they soon died out. Epiphanius, however, testifies that in the East in A. D. 374 they had deceived "a vast numlwr of men" and were found "not onlv in Rome and Italy but in Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Syria, Cj'prus and the

Thebaid and even in Persia ". And Hieodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in the Province of the Euphrates from 423 to 458, in his letter to Domno, the Patriarch of Antioch, refers with just pride to his having converted one thou- sand Marcionites in his scattered diocese. Not far from Theodoret's diocese, near Damascus, an inscrip- tion was found of a Marcionite church, showing that m ▲. D. 318-319 Marcionites possessed fretMlom of wor- ship (Le Boss and Waddington, " Inscr. Grec", Paris, 1870). Constantine (Eusebius, "Vita", III, Ixiv) for- bade all public and private worship of Marcionism. Though the Paulicians are always designated by their adversaries as Manich^ans, and though their adoption of Manichsean principles seems imdeniable, yet ao-* cording to Petrus Siculus, who lived amongst Paulh cians (868-^869) in Tibrike and is therefore a trust- worthy witness, their founder, Constantine the Armenian, on receiving Marcion's Gosp>el and Apostol- • icon from a deacon in Syria, handed it to his followers, who at first at least kept it as their Bible and repudi- ated all writings of Mani. The refutation of Marcion- ism by the Armenian Archpriest Eznic in the fif^ century shows the Marcionites to have been still numerous in Armenia at that time (Eznik, " Refuta- tion of the Sects ", ly, Ger. tr., J. M. Schmid, Vienna, 19G0). Ermoni maintains that Eznik's descriptiim of Marcion's doctrine still represents the ancient form thereof, but this is not acknowledged by other scholars ("Marcion dans la Utt^rat. Armlnienne" in "Revue de I'Or. Chr^t.", I).

IV. Mutilation op the New Testament. — Mar- cion's name appears prominently in the discussion cC two important questions, that of the Apostles' Creed and that of the Canon of the New Testament. It is maintained by recent scholars that the Apostles' Creed was drawn up in the Roman Church in opposition to Marcionism (cf. F. Kattenbusch, "Das Apost. Sym- bol", Leipzig, 1900; A. C. McGiffert, "The Apostles' Creed", New York, 1902). Passing over this point, Marcion's attitude towards the New Testament must be further explained. His cardinal doctrine was the opposition of the Old Testament to the New, and this doctrine he had amply illustrated in his great (lost) work 'Avrt^^crets or "Contrasts". In order^ however. to make the contrast perfect he had to omit much ol the New Testament writings and to manipulate the rest. He took one Gospel out of the four, and ac- cepted only ten epistles of St. Paul. Marcion's Gospd was based on our canonical St. Luke with omission ol the first two chapters. The text has been as far as possible restored by Th. Zahn. "Geschichte d. N.T. kanons", II, 455^494, from all available sources, es- pecially Epiphanius, who made a collection oi 78 passages. Marcion's changes mainly consist in omis- sions, where he modifies the text. The modifications are slight, thus: " I give thee thanks, Father, God of heaven and earth ", is changed to "I give thanks, Fa- ther, Lord of heaven ". " O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken", is changed into: "O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that I have told you." Sometimes slight adcli- tions are made : " We found this one subverting our na- tion" (the accusation of the Jews before Pilate) re- ceives the addition: "and destroying the law and the grophets". A similar process was followed with the Ipistle of St. Paul. By the omission of a single prepo- sition Marcion had coined a text in favour of his doo^ trine out of Ephes., iii, 10: "the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden /r<>m the god who created all things " (omitting ip before 0ef). However cleverly the changes were made, CathoUes continued to press Marcion even with the texts which he retained in his New Testament, hence the continual need of further modifications. The Epistles of St. Paul which he received were, first of all, Galatians, which he considered the charter of Marcionism, then Corinthians I and II, Romans I and II, Thessalonians,