Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/563

Rh M A R M A R 535 Demiurge, took pity on the wretched, condemned race of men. He sent His Son (whom Marcion probably regarded as a manifestation of the supreme God Himself) down to this earth in order to redeem men. Clothed in a visionary body, in the likeness of a man of thirty years old, the Son made His appearance in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and preached in the synagogue at Capernaum. But none of the Jewish people understood Him. Even the disciples whom He chose did not recognize His true nature, but mis took Him for the Messiah promised by the Demiurge through the prophets, who as warrior and king was to come and set up the Jewish empire. The Demiurge him self did not suspect who the stranger was ; nevertheless he became angry with Him, and, although Jesus had punctually fulfilled his law, caused Him to be nailed to the cross. By that act, however, he pronounced his own doom. For the risen Christ appeared before him in His glory, and charged him with having acted contrary to his own law. To make amends for this crime, the Demiurge had now to deliver up to the good God the souls of those who were to be redeemed ; they are, as it were, purchased from him by the death of Christ. Christ then proceeded to the underworld to deliver the spirits of the departed. It was not the Old Testament saints, however, but only sinners and malefactors who obeyed His summons. Then, to gain the living, Christ raised up Paul as His apostle. He alone understood the gospel, and recognized the difference between the just God and the good. Accord ingly, he opposed the original apostles with their Judaistic doctrines, and founded small congregations of true Christians. But the preaching of the false Jewish Christians gained the upper hand; nay, they even falsified the evangelical oracles and the letters of Paul. Marcion himself was the next raised up by the good God, to proclaim once more the true gospel. This he did by setting aside the spurious gospels, purging the real Gospel (the Gospel of Luke) from supposed Judaizing interpolations, and restoring the true text of the Pauline epistles. He likewise composed a book, called the Antitheses, in which he proved the disparity of the two gods, from a comparison of the Old Testament with the evangelical writings. On the basis of these writings Marcion proclaimed the true Christianity, and founded churches. He taught that all who put their trust in the good God, and His crucified Son, renounce their allegiance to the Demiurge, and approve themselves by good works of love, shall be saved. But he taught further and here we trace the influence of the current Gnosticism on Marcion that only the spirit of man is saved by the good God ; the body, because material, perishes. Accordingly his ethics also were thoroughly dualistic. By the &quot; works of the Demiurge,&quot; which the Christian is to flee, he meant the whole &quot;service of the perishable.&quot; The Christian must shun everything sensual, and especially marriage, and free himself from the body by strict asceticism. The original ethical contrast of &quot;good&quot; and &quot;just &quot; is thus transformed into the cosmo- logical contrast of &quot;spirit&quot; and &quot; matter.&quot; The good Grod appears as the god of spirit, the Old Testament god as the god of matter. That is Gnosticism ; but it is at the same time illogical. For, since, according to Marcion, the spirit of man is derived, not from the good, but from the just God, it is impossible to see why the spiritual should yet be more closely related to the good God, than the material. There is yet another direction in which the system ends with a contradiction. According to Marcion, the good Go:l never judges, but everywhere manifests His goodness, is, therefore, not to be feared, but simply to be loved, as a father. But here the question occurs, What becomes of tho men who do not believe the gospel? Marcion answers, The good God does not judge them, but merely removes them from His presence. Then they fall under the power of the Demiurge, who rewards them for their fidelity ] No, says Marcion, but on the contrary punishes them in his hell ! The contradiction here is palpable ; and at the same time the antithesis of &quot;just&quot; and &quot;good&quot; ultimately vanishes. For the Demiurge now appears as an inferior being, who in reality executes the purposes of the good God. It is plain that dualism here terminates in the idea of the sole supremacy of the good God. It is not surprising, therefore, that even in the 2d century the disciples of Marcion diverged in several directions. Eigorous asceticism, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the recognition of the &quot; new God&quot; remained common to all Marcionites, who, moreover, like the catholics, lived together in close communities ruled by bishops and presbyters (although their constitution was originally very loose, and sought to avoid every appearance of &quot;legality&quot;). Some, however, accepted three first principles (the evil, the just, the good) ; others held by two, but regarded the Demiurge as the god of evil, .e., the devil ; while a third party, like Apelles, the most dis tinguished of Marcion s pupils, saw in the Demiurge only an apostate angel of the good God, thus returning to monotheism. The. golden age of the Marcionite churches falls between the years 150 and 250. During that time they were really dangerous to the great church ; for in fact they maintained certain genuine Christian ideas, which the catholic church had forgotten. From the beginning of the 4th century they began to die out in the West ; or rather they fell a prey to Manicliseism. In the East also many Marcionites went over to the Manichseans ; but there they survived much longer. They can be traced down to the 7th century, and then they seem to vanish. But it was unquestionably from Marcionite impulses that the new sects of the Paulicians and Bogomiles arose ; and in so far as the western Katharoi, and the autinomian and anti clerical sects of the 13th century are connected with these, they also may be included in the history of Marcionitism. Literature. Baur, Die Gnosis, 1835 ; Moller, Gcschichte der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche, 1860 ; Lipsius, Gnosticismus, 1860 ; Harnack, Zur Qucllcnkritik dcr Gcschichte dcs Gnosticismus, 1873, and in the Zeitschrift f. hist. Theol., 1874; Harnack, De Apellis gnosi monarchies,, 1874 ; Lipsius, Quellen der dltcsten Ketzergeschichte, 1875 ; Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies, 1875 ; Harnack, Zur Gcschichte der Marcionitischcn Kirchen (Hilgenfeld s Zeitschrift, 1876). Of the numerous works on Marcion s Gospel and Apostolos lists will be found in any introduction to the New Testament or history of the canon. The following are the ascertained results of criticism : (1) Marcion was the first to make a canonical collection of New Testament writings ; (2) his Gospel is to be regarded as a reconstruction, and not as the basis, of our canonical Gospel of Luke. (A. HA. ) MARCO POLO. See POLO. MARCUS, the successor of Pope Sylvester I., according to the Liberian catalogue, had a pontificate of eight months and twenty days, from January 18 to October 7, 336. Of his character or history nothing is recorded. He was suc ceeded by Julius I. MARLuN&quot;, a town of Turkish Kurdistan, the seat of a governor dependent on the pasha of Diarbekir, is situated in 37 20 N. lat. and 41 E. long., about 60 miles south east of Diarbekir, at a height of 3900 feet above the sea. Climbing the southern side of a steep conical hill (of soft limestone) in such a way that the roofs of the lower tier of houses serve as a-street for those immediately above, Mardin presents a very picturesque appearance; and on the summit of the hill, which affords an unusually wide view over the Mesopotamian plain, stand the ruins of the famous castle Kal ah Shuhbd (Maride and Marde in Latin, and similarly in Syriac), which, at least from the time of the Romans, played an important part in the history of this region. The Arabian geographers characterize it as