In 394, Epiphanius claimed that after beginnings as an ascetic, Marcion seduced a virgin and was accordingly excommunicated by his father, prompting him to leave his home town.

A primary difference between Marcionites and Gnostics was that the Gnostics based their theology on secret wisdom ( as, for example, Valentinius who claimed to receive the secret wisdom from Theudas who received it direct from Paul ) of which they claimed to be in possession, whereas Marcion based his theology on the contents of the Letters of Paul and the recorded sayings of Jesus — in other words, an argument from scripture, with Marcion defining what was and was not scripture.

Tertullian claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament.

This lost gospel is probably the document whence Clement of Alexandria quoted several passages, saying that they were borrowed from the traditions of Matthias, Paradoseis (" Paradoxes "), the testimony of which he claimed to have been invoked by the heretics Valentinus, Marcion, and Basilides.

The Prologues to the Pauline Epistles ( which are not a part of the text, but short introductory sentences as one might find in modern study Bibles ), found in several older Latin codices, are now widely believed to have been written by Marcion or one of his followers.

Knowing then, brethren, of what kind of heresy was Marcion ... From others who used this very gospel — I mean from the successors of those who started it, whom we call Docetae, for most of its ideas are of their school — from them, I say, I borrowed it, and was able to go through it, and to find that most of it belonged to the right teaching of the Saviour, but some things were additions.

Justin may have preferred the designation " memoirs of the apostles " as a contrast to the " gospel " of his contemporary Marcion to emphasize the connections between the historical testimony of the gospels and the Old Testament prophecies which Marcion rejected.

One of the earliest attempts at solidifying a canon was made by Marcion, circa 140 AD, who accepted only a modified version of Luke ( the Gospel of Marcion ) and ten of Paul's letters, while rejecting the Old Testament entirely.

Examples of the Western text are found in Codex Bezae, Codex Claromontanus, Codex Washingtonianus, the Old Latin ( i. e., Latin translations made prior to the Vulgate ), as well as in quotations by Marcion, Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Cyprian.

* Marcion proclaims that the Old Testament is incompatible with Christianity.

According to most interpretations of Matthew 5: 17, 18, 19, and 20, and most Christian views of the Old Covenant, these new interpretations of the Law and Prophets are not opposed to the Old Testament, which was the position of Marcion, but form Jesus ' new teachings which bring about salvation, and hence must be adhered to, as emphasized in Matthew 7: 24-27 towards the end of the sermon.

Antithesis was the name given by Marcion to a document in which he contrasted the Old Testament with the New Testament.

Study of the Jewish Scriptures, along with received writings circulating in the nascent Church, led Marcion to conclude that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the actions of the god of the Old Testament, Yahweh.

This dual-god notion allowed Marcion to reconcile supposed contradictions between Old Covenant theology and the Gospel message proclaimed by Jesus.

According to Marcion, the god of the Old Testament, whom he called the Demiurge, the creator of the material universe, is a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, whose law represents legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins through suffering and death.

Marcion also produced his Antitheses contrasting the Demiurge of the Old Testament with the Heavenly Father of the New Testament.

Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially any association with the Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth.

Most Christians agree with Marcion that the Old Testament's alleged approval of genocide and murder are inappropriate models to follow today.

The Cathar movement, historically and in modern times, reject the Old Testament for the reasons Marcion enunciated.

Marcion opposed the use of the Old Testament and most books of the New Testament that were not written by the apostle Paul.

: The first great heretic broke drastically with the faith of the early church in abandoning the doctrine of the imminent, personal return of Christ … Marcion did not believe in a real incarnation, and consequently there was no logical place in his system for a real Second Coming … Marcion expected the majority of mankind to be lost … he denied the validity of the Old Testament and its Law … As the first great heretic, Marcion developed and perfected his heterodox system before orthodoxy had fully defined itself … Marcion represents a movement that so radically transformed the Christian doctrine of God and Christ that it can hardly be said to be Christian.

He also refers to the law as the ' instructor ' or ' tutor ' of the Jewish people, and as the beginning of God's work of turning people back to Himself, rather than as something opposed to God this being opposed to the works of Marcion who stated that the God of the Old Testament and law was the devil or demiurge.

Beginning with Marcion of Sinope, the interpretation of this phrase has been much disputed, including views of abrogation of Old Covenant laws.

The lack of any internal references to Ephesus in the early manuscripts led Marcion, a second-century heretical Gnostic who created the first New Testament canon, to believe that the letter was actually addressed to the church at Laodicea.

Adolf Harnack in Origin of the New Testament ( 1914 ) observed that the church gradually formulated its New Testament canon in response to the challenge posed by Marcion.

Marcion was the first to propose a New Testament canon.

Marcion and the New Testament 1942 ISBN 0-404-16183-9

It also included ten of the Pauline Epistles ( but not the Pastoral Epistles or the Epistle to the Hebrews, and, according to the Muratonian canon, included a Marcionite pseudo-Paul's epistle to the Alexandrians and an epistle to the Laodiceans ) In bringing together these texts, Marcion redacted what is perhaps the first New Testament canon on record, which he called the Gospel and the Apostolikon, which reflects his belief in the writings of Jesus and the apostle Paul respectively.

Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the heart ; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer -- only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him ; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his.

Eusebius implies that other works were in circulation ; from St Irenaeus he knows of the apology " Against Marcion ," and from Justin's " Apology " of a " Refutation of all Heresies ".

The Against Marcion is lost, as is the Refutation of all Heresies to which Justin himself refers in Apology, i. 26 ; Hegesippus, besides perhaps Irenaeus and Tertullian, seems to have used it.

* Marcion of Sinope is excommunicated ; a sect, Marcionism, grows out of his beliefs.

Cerdo, another Gnostic and predecessor of Marcion, also lived at Rome in the reign of Hyginus ; by confessing his errors and recanting he succeeded in obtaining readmission into the bosom of the Church, but eventually he fell back into the heresies and was expelled from the Church.

It was assumed that this 4th century opinion represented the Christianity of the Twelve Apostles ; Paulinism was originally a heresy, and a schism from the Jewish Christianity of James and Peter and the rest ; Marcion was a leader of the Pauline sect in its survival in the 2nd century, using only the Pauline Gospel, St. Luke ( in its original form ), and the Epistles of St. Paul ( without the Pastoral Epistles ).

Marcion, by contrast, held that the Heavenly Father ( the father of Jesus Christ ) was an utterly alien god ; he had no part in making the world, nor any connection with it.

Marcion's canon consisted of eleven books: A gospel consisting of ten sections from the Gospel of Luke edited by Marcion ; and ten of Paul's epistles.

* Mead, G. R. S., Gospel of Marcion Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, London and Benares, 1900 ; 3rd Edition 1931.

# against that of Marcion ;

He is clearly quoting a writer who was at Rome in the time of Anicetus and made a list of popes A list which has some curious agreements with Epiphanius in that it extends only to Anicetus, is found in the poem of Pseudo-Tertullian against Marcion ; apparently Epiphanius has mistaken Marcion for " Marcellina ".

( This is a separate question to Marcion's " canon ", which included only edited versions of Luke and the Pauline epistles ; according to Tertullian, Marcion " omitted " the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pastoral Epistles.

Though as Paul is traditionally considered to have died in 67 and Marcion was born in 110, it has been argued that it is quite implausible for the two to ever have met ; this also applies to Simon Magus who was said by the Book of Acts to have been teaching during the time of Simon Peter, and was said to have died during Peter's preaching ( Clement of Rome attests to Peter himself dying before 90 ).

There are two possible relationships between Marcion's gospel and the Gospel of Luke ; either Marcion revised a previously existing Gospel of Luke to fit his own agenda or else his " Gospel of the Lord " pre-dated the Gospel of Luke as we have it today and was in fact the basis for it.