Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/958

Rh 944 MARCION. or in the Old Testament the same love which was manifested in the Gospel of Christ. He accord- ingly made the Creator, the God of the Old Tes- tament, the author of evils, " malorum factorem," according to the statement of Irenaeus (Adv. Haeres. i. 29), by which he meant that he was the author, not of moral evil, but of suffering. The old dispensation was, according to him, given by the Creator, who chose out the Jews as his own people, and promised to them a Messiah. Jesus was not this Messiah, but the son of the '* unseen and unnamed " God, and had appeared on earth in the outward form of man, possibly a mere phantasm, to deliver souls, and to upset the dominion of the Creator; and Marcion further supposed that, when he descended into Hades, he had delivered, not those who in the Old Testament were regarded as saints, such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, &c., who were apprehensive of some delusion and would not believe, but rather those who had rejected or disobeyed the Creator, such as Cain, Esau, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The other doctrines of Marcion were such as naturally flowed from this prominent feature of his system. He condemned marriage, and admitted none who were living in the married state to bap- tism ; for he did not think it right to enlarge, by propagation, a race born in subjection to the harsh rule of the Creator. (Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. '6.) His followers did not hesitate to brave martyrdom, and boasted of the number of their martyrs. He denied the resurrection of the body ; and, accord- ing to the very questionable authority of Epipha- nius, believed in transmigration. He admitted persons to baptism, Epiphanius says, three times, apparently requiring a repetition of it after any great sin ; but as TertuUian does not notice this threefold baptism, it was probably introduced after Marcion's time. His followers permitted women to baptize probably those of their own sex, and allowed catechumens to be present at the celebra- tion of the mysteries. According to Chrysostom, when a catechumen died they baptized another person for him ; but even Tillemont supposes that this was not their original practice. They fasted on the Sabbath, out of opposition to the Creator, who had rested on that day. It was a necessary consequence of these views that Marcion should reject a considerable part of the New Testament. The Old Testament he re- garded as a communication from the Creator to his people the Jews, not only separate from Christianity, but opposed to it. He acknowledged but one Gospel, formed by the mutilation of the Gospel of St. Luke, which, it may be reasonably supposed, he believed he was restoring, by such mutilation, to its original purity. He rejected the greater part of the fo;ir first chapters, commencing his gospel with the words, " In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar God came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he taught on the Sabbath," &c. (as in Luke, iv. 31, &c.). He omitted all those passages in our Lord's discourses in which he recognised the Creator as his father. He received the following Epistles of Paul : — to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephe- sians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalo- nians, and Philemon, and acknowledged certain portions of a supposed Epistle of Paul to the Lao- <iiceaii$ ; but the Epistles which he received were, according to Epiphanius, whose testimony in this MARCIUS. respect there is no reason to doubt, mutilated and corrupted. Marcion, besides his edition, if we may so term it, of the New Testiiment, compiled a work entitled Antithesis^ consisting of passages from the Old and from the New Testament which he judged to be mutually contradictory. This work was examined and answered by TertuUian, in his fourth book against Marcion. TertuUian also cites {De Came Chrisii, c. 2) an epistle of Marcion, but without further describing it. (Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, IL cc. ; TertuUian, Adv. Marcion. Lihri V. de Praescript. llaeret. passim ; Epiphan. Pananum. Haeres. xlii ; the numerous other passages in an- cient writers have been collected by Ittigius, de Haeresiarchts, sect. ii. c. 7 ; Tillemont, Meinoires, vol. ii. p. 266, &c. ; Beausobre, Hist, de Ma?n- cMisme, liv. iv. ch. v. — viii.; and Lardner, Hist, of Heretics, b. ii. ch. x. See also Neander, Church History (by Rose), vol. ii. p, 119, &c. ; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 128, vol. i. p. .54, ed. Oxford, 1740— 42.) [J. C. M.] MA'RCIUS, an Italian seer, whose prophetic verses {Ourmina Marciana) were first discovered by M. Atilius, the praetor, in B.C. 213. They were written in Latin, and two extracts from them are given by Livy, one containing a prophecy of the defeat of the Romans at Cannae, and the second, commanding the institution of the Ludi Apollinares. (Liv. xxv. 12 ; Macrob. Sat. i. 17.) The Marcian prophecies were subsequently pre- served in the Capitol along with the Sibylline books, under the guard of the same officers as had charge of the latter. (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 72.) Livy (/. c), Macrobius {I. c.),and Pliny {H. N. vii. 33), speak of only one person of this name ; but Cicero {de Div. i. 40, ii. 55) and Servius (/. c.) make mention of two brothers, the Marcii. It may well admit of doubt whether this Marcius ever existed ; and it is certainly quite useless to inquire into the time at which he lived. (Hartung, Die Religion der Homer, vol. i. p. 129 ; Gottling, Geschichte der Romisch. Staatsoerfassu7ig, p. 213; Niebuhr, /7«si, of Rome, vol. i. n. 688.) Modern scholars have attempted to restore to a metrical form the pro- phecies of Marcius preserved by Livy. (Comp: Hermann, Elem. Doctr. Metr. iii. 9. § 7 ; Duntzer and Lersch, De Vers. Sat. p. 38.) MA'RCIUS. I. C. or Cn. Marcius, tribune of the plebs, B. c. 389, the year after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, brought Q. Fabius to trial, because, in opposition to the law of nations, he had fought against the Gauls, to whom he had been sent as an ambassador. (Liv. vi. 1.) 2. C. Marcius, tribune of the plebs b. c. 311, brought forward with his colleague, L. Atilius, the law which is detailed elsewhere. [Atilius, No. 2.J (Liv. ix. 30.) He is probably the same as the C. Marcius, who was chosen in b. c. 300 among the first plebeian augurs. (Liv. x. 9.) 3. M'. Marcius, aedile of the plebs, was the first person who gave corn to the people at one as for the modius. His date is quite uncertain. (Plin. //. N. viii. 3. s. 4.) 4. Q. and M. March, tribunes of the soldiers of the second legion, fell in battle against the Boii in B. c. 193. (Liv. xxxv. 5.) MA'RCIUS, ANCUS. [Ancus Marcius.] MARCIUS AGRIPPA. [Agrippa.] MA'RCIUS LIVIANUS TURBO. [Turbo.] MA'RCIUS MACER. [Macer.] MA'RCIUS MARCELLUS. [Makckllus.]