The Jesus Memoirs

Now that I have gone through some of the primary sources on Marcion, I want to take some time to read the scholarship on Marcion’s Gospel and how it can be used in the study of the Synoptic Problem in more depth. I hope to return with some thoughts about this in a few months from now. As my teaching semester will begin in the near future, my posting here will be a little more sporadic until I get to this new series. I probably will share some upcoming publications and the sessions that I have organized for the “Paul and Pauline Literature” section for SBL International. I will also come up with some themes for the section for the annual conference in November.

I want to update my post on Marcion and add links to quotations from translations of the primary sources. According to Tertullian, Marcion was a wealthy ship-owner who donated a generous sum of money to the Christ assemblies in Rome, but his gift was rejected along with him. Although Tertullian claims that Marcion was excommunicated by the bishop Eleutherus (ca. 174-189), in his later work he states that Marcion was active in Rome during the reign of Antoninus Pius between 138-161 CE and provides precise calculations (115 years, 6 and a half months) between the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius (ca. 29 CE) and the reign of Antoninus as the time that separated Christ from Marcion. Epiphanius claimed that Marcion fled from Pontus after his father, the local bishop, expelled him for sexual immorality, and travelled to Rome after the death of the Roman bishop Hyginus (ca. 138-142 CE). He adds that the Roman Christians likewise would not admit him into their congregations, so Marcion fell under the influence of the teacher Cerdo. The link between Marcion and Cerdo goes back to Irenaeus and whatever traditions were known to him. Irenaeus also claims that Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, rebuked Marcion, and he may have assumed that this meeting took place when Polycarp was in Rome to meet the Roman bishop Anicetus (157-168 CE). Justin Martyr, Marcion’s contemporary and a fellow Christian teacher in Rome, expresses surprise that Marcion was still actively preaching and had such a worldwide influence in the early 150s CE. There is scholarly debate over whether Justin’s testimony can be used to establish an earlier influential ministry for Marcion predating his arrival in Rome. There is further debate over whether there are any implicit references to Marcion pre-dating Justin, and also whether there is any historical value in the fourth or fifth century so-called “Anti-Marcionite Prologue” to John’s Gospel that claims that the Evangelist John expelled Marcion (note also its claim that Papias, the author of the “Exoterics”, wrote the Fourth Gospel at John’s dictation!). Regardless of the precise dates of Marcion’s ministry, he evidently went on to found a threateningly successful rival movement that lasted for centuries, which was all the more impressive since celibacy was a requirement and thus there were not new children born into the Marcionite churches. One of his most famous disciples was Apelles, who also differed with his teacher on some major points.

As the heresiologists portray him, Marcion sharply divided the Creator (the “demiurge” or “craftsman”) of the Hebrew Scriptures from the supreme deity who sent Jesus into the world to offer salvation from the Creator’s wrath. Marcion’s Creator is sometimes characterized as just or righteous in some of the heresiological sources available, despite the Creator’s capriciousness and violence, and as evil in other heresiological sources. This Creator will fulfill the promises to His chosen people to raise up the Messiah, a ruler in the line of King David who is not to be identified as Jesus. Jesus’s heavenly Father, on the other hand, is characterized as “good” and as a redeemer rather than a judge. Marcion contrasted the actions of both deities in his work Antitheses. Marcion is accused in the heresiological sources of claiming that Jesus only “appeared” in the flesh (i.e. docetism) and descended from heaven as an adult in the reign of Tiberius, but evidently his flesh was real enough that Jesus lived a human life and suffered on the cross. A number of heresiologists highlight Marcion’s denials of the future resurrection of the body and demand for celibacy among other ascetic practices, since the body fashioned by the Creator and bodily activities would be put to an end and only souls would be saved, and Marcion’s story about Christ’s descent to Hades and offer of salvation to the villains of the Jewish Scriptures. Finally, the last accusation levelled at Marcion is that he only accepted the Gospel of Luke (though without its title) and ten of Paul’s letters in a collection entitled the Apostolokon as authoritative writings, but also that he allegedly edited and abbreviated these texts. For instance, it is commonly stated that Marcion cut Luke’s birth narrative, and Tertullian and Epiphanius present detailed cases that Marcion mutilated his Gospel and epistles so that they would agree with his theology and yet failed to remove several passages that seemingly contradicted his theology.

It is difficult to reconstruct Marcion’s biography, beliefs, and practices from the polemical comments of his opponents such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, Epiphanius of Salamis, Ephrem of Nisibis, and others that I have not covered on this blog (e.g., the Poem against the Marcionites). Unfortunately, his own writings did not survive apart from fragmentary quotations and allusions, and there is a great deal of current scholarly debate over whether Marcion edited his Gospel and epistles (and, if so, to what extent) or inherited different versions of them. In the following bibliography, you can see just a sample of monographs in English on Marcion’s life, with links to online articles written by the authors in brackets:

• Harnack, Adolf. Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God. Durham: Labyrinth, 1989 (the German original is available online).
• Hoffman, R. Joseph. Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity: An Essay on the Development of Radical Paulinist Theology in the Second Century. Chicago: Scholars Press, 1984.
• Lieu, Judith M. Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 (see also her “Marcion and the Idea of Heresy” for the online Bible and Interpretation journal).
• Litwa, M. David. Marcion: The Gospel of a Wholly Good God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2025 (see his blog and course on Marcion).
• Moll, Sebastian. The Arch-Heretic Marcion. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010 (see his “A New Portrait of Marcion” for the online journal Bible and Interpretation)

There are also summaries and bibliographies on Marcion’s Gospel and Apostolikon at the e-clavis Christian Apocrypha compiled by Mark G. Bilby and Markus Vinzent. Bilby has provided normalized datasets of the reconstructions of Marcion’s Gospel produced by August Hahn, Theodore Zahn, Adolf von Harnack, Kenji Tsutsui, Dieter T. Roth, Andrea Nicolotti, Jason BeDuhn, and Matthias Klinghardt that can be accessed from the e-clavis entry on Marcion’s Gospel. BeDuhn has also written “Marcion and the Invention of the New Testament” for the online journal Bible and Interpretation and Judith Lieu reviewed Dieter Roth’s book in her article “Marcion and the Ideology of Texts” at the online Marginalia review of Books. Please let me know of other articles or book reviews that are available online that I can add to this post.

Although there are more ancient sources on Marcion that I could cover, I would like to conclude with some quotes from the fourth-century Syriac theologian Ephrem of Nisibis (ca. 306-373 CE). The quotes are taken from the following translation in the public domain: C. W. Mitchell, S. Ephraem’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardasian: Volume II: The Discourse Called of Domnus and Six Other Writings (London: Williams and Norgate, 1921). These quotes target Marcion’s distinction between his god (i.e. the “Stranger” or “the Good One”) and the “Maker” (i.e. “the Just One”) and beliefs that Jesus (i.e. ISU) only “appeared” to be human and to suffer on the cross, was not sent by the God of the Jewish Scriptures nor is the messianic “Son of David” prophesied therein, changed the Law of Moses, and paid a ransom to the Maker so that human souls may be reclaimed by the Stranger while their human bodies are destroyed.

“And Marcion, though he introduced a ‘Stranger,’ nevertheless, (while) he was crying out all the [time?] about the […] of the ‘Maker’ and about His preaching and about the people that is His, yet our Scriptures that are in the hands of the Marcionites were bearing witness of [our] behalf.” (Against Marcion 1, p. xxv) [Added note: Judith Lieu in Marcion and the Making of a Heretic points out that “preaching” appears to be a typographical error and it should be translated “treachery” on p. 168n.83]

“The followers (?) of Marcion say concerning each of these things, that is, concerning the justice of the Just One and concerning the grace of their own (God), that it did not come and bring relief to the just of this world (?).” (Against Marcion 1, p. xxv)

“And if thou sayest that ISU was actually crucified, thou sayest that it seemed so (?), and not the truth. And if thou addest that He also went down to Sheol and ascended, thou sayest (it) without believing (it). For thou does not confess the [coming of life of] the body” (Against Marcion 1, p. xxxvii)

“But nevertheless if our Lord was David’s Son, as all the prophets bear witness, and if He was not David’s Son, as David too testifies and our Lord also confirms, on your account then it was said that He is not David’s Son, so that this very Strangeness to which ye have recourse might be found within the Scriptures, in order that your error might be hampered from running (abroad) throughout the world.” (Against Marcion II, p. liii).

“If the organs of the body suffice for the gifts of the Good (God), O Marcion, that is to say, the eye for His light, and the ear for His voice, why then does the body not live at last? But if the body does not suffice for these good things at the last, no[thing] else in the world suffices for them. Therefore neither is the heart sufficient for knowledge of the Stranger, nor hearing for the study (lit. reading) of Him. Moreover, as to the fact that the souls do not sin in the Kingdom, is it because of their nature, which is good, that they do not sin? And how then did the evil body change the good nature? But if the Stranger changes them there, though they are evil, what sin did the body commit so as to be deprived of this desirable change? But if the souls are good there, is it because they enter the region that they are good, or are they good from the point where they stripped off their bodies? If this desirable state be due to the place, let the body also enter into it, and likewise all men [in whom] are sins…” (Against Marcion 3, p. liv)

“But if ‘in His law our Lord was a stranger, but in His actions one of the household,’ this is (a description of) the foolish Marcion, who is partly inside and partly outside… For the Marcionites preach two things concerning our Lord which are at variance with each other, for ‘He abrogated the former laws and healed injured organs.’ But here this man, whoever he may be, is seen to be alien to the creation in virtue of his teaching and akin to it in virtue of his activity.” (Against Marcion 3, pp. lvii, lviii)

“For consider that the One who is good cannot shew mercy save to those who have transgressed His just law, for if He had compassion with regard to the law of another He has defected from goodness and also ignored justice, so as to incline altogether towards iniquity. For that Stranger who becomes the pardoner of debts necessarily wrongs the creditor. ‘But,’ it is said, ‘He paid our debt by His death.’ But know that we owed a real debt: if therefore he died in reality, He also paid our debt in reality; but if it was in appearance that He died, that debt of ours was also paid in by a fraud. Yet know that the Good One was also pleased by this deception, that He should come and pay our debt by a fraud. Yet He who is just and mighty is not mocked, for in virtue of His justice He does not act wrongly and in virtue of His might He is not mocked. For the Just One would not act wrongly so as to come, when our debt has been paid, and demand the paid debt afresh, nor again would the Mighty One be mocked, so to allow His real possessions to be snatched from Him, without receiving anything in exchange for His real possessions. ‘But,’ it is said, ‘though the Just One is mighty, the Good One is nevertheless mightier than He.’ If therefore He overcame Him by might, how do they bring in the term “purchase”? [Call] Him therefore a doer of violence and not a purchaser.” (Against Marcion 3, p. lx)

“These are the two things from which the Marcionites have defected, for they are not willing to call our Lord ‘the Maker,’ nor (do they admit) that He was (sent) by the Maker.” (Against Marcion 3, p. lxiv)

The last source that I will discuss in this series on the primary sources on Marcion is the Dialogue of Adamantius or On the True Faith in God (De Recta in Deum Fide). For an English translation, see Robert A. Pretty, Adamantius: Dialogue on the True Faith in God (ed. Garry W. Tompf; Leuven: Peeters, 1997). This source presents a debate between the Catholic Christian Adamantius and rival Christians, two of whom are represented as Marcionites (i.e. Megethius and Marcus). The text is more a window into the theology of later Marcionites and attributes different theological positions to Megethius and Marcion, for the former thinker distinguishes the good God from the just Demiurge (“craftsman”) or creator God of the Jews and both from the evil one while the latter thinker accepts that there is only a good God and an evil creator God. The text can also be used to cautiously reconstruct some of the contents of the Gospel and Apostolicon (i.e. collection of Paul’s epistles) that the Marcionites in the late third or early fourth century CE were using, since verses from both feature in the debate. However, there were a few comments about Marcion that struck me that I will reproduce here:

“Marcion was my bishop” (Pretty, p. 48).

Megethius makes this comment in the midst of a debate over whether it is appropriate for Christians to be named after particular apostles or bishops. Adamantius gets Megethius to admit that Paul was superior to Marcion, and this allows Adamantius to show that it would be inappropriate to name Christians after Paul since Paul insisted that Christ followers were not baptized into his name in 1 Corinthians (pp. 47-48).

“AD [Adamantius]: Who is the writer of this Gospel which you said is one?

MEG [Megethius]: Christ.

AD: Did the Lord Himself write that He was crucified, and rose on the third day? Does He write in this way?

MEG: The Apostle Paul added that.

AD: Was Paul present at the crucifixion of Christ?

MEG: He himself plainly wrote the Gospel.” (Pretty, p. 46)

The claim that Marcion’s Gospel was co-written by Christ and Paul might not go back to Marcion, but it could supplement Tertullian’s information that Marcion did not attach a title or a tradition about a named evangelist to his Gospel. Indeed, Megethius critiques the Catholic Christians for possessing spurious Gospels attributed to Mark and Luke, since these individuals were not named disciples of Jesus in the Gospel, but Adamantius replies that Mark and Luke were among Jesus’s unnamed 72 followers in the Gospel (Pretty, pp. 41-42). Markus also claims that Marcion’s Gospel was written by Christ (Pretty, p. 92).

“The wretched Marcion, although he corrupted the statements of the Apostle, did not completely erase them, but these people [his followers], right up to the present, remove anything which does not agree with their opinions” (Pretty, p. 99)

This claim is made by Adamantius in response to Markus, who has the polar opposite reading of a verse from the Apostolicon (Pretty, p. 97). Megethius and Markus, on the other hand, both reject Adamantius’s “spurious Apostolicon” (Pretty, pp. 42, 81).

For this final post on Epiphanius’s comments on Marcion, I want to quote his descriptions of Marcion’s Scriptures. This was not the first time Epiphanius examined Marcion’s Scriptures, as the Panarion reproduced his older collection of 78 extracts from Marcion’s Gospel and 40 extracts from Marcion’s collection of epistles (42.10.1-3; 42.13.2). As mentioned in the post on Tertullian’s assessment of Marcion’s Scriptures, there is renewed debate over whether Epiphanius’s argument that Marcion edited the texts that he received to explain why they differ from their canonical counterparts is right. The following quotes are taken from Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: Sects 1-46 (Vol. 1; 2nd ed.; NHMS 63; Leiden: Brill, 2009):

“But I shall come to his writings, or rather, to his tamperings. This man has only Luke as a Gospel, mutilated at the beginning because of the Savior’s conception and his incarnation. But this person who harmed himself < rather > than the Gospel did not cut just the beginning off. He also cut off many words of the truth both at the end and in the middle, and he has added other things besides, beyond what had been written. And he uses only this (Gospel) canon, the Gospel according to Luke. He also possesses ten Epistles of the holy apostle, the only ones he uses, but not all that is written in them. He deletes some parts of them, and has altered certain sections. He uses these two volumes (of the Bible) but has composed other treatises himself for the persons he has deceived. Here are what he calls Epistles: 1. Galatians. 2. Corinthians. 3. Second Corinthians. 4. Romans. 5. Thessalonians. 6. Second Thessalonians. 7. Ephesians. 8. Colossians. 9. Philemon. 10. Philippians. He also has parts of the so-called Epistle to the Laodiceans.” (Pan. 42.9.1-4 [Williams, p. 302])

“This is Marcion’s corrupt compilation, containing a version and form of the Gospel according to Luke, and an incomplete one of the apostle Paul—not of all his epistles but simply of Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Laodiceans, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, First and Second Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians. (There is no version) of First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews < in his scripture at all, and > even the epistles that are there < have been mutilated >, since they are not all there but are counterfeits. And < I found > that this compilation had been tampered with throughout, and had supplemental material added in certain passages—not for any use, but for inferior, harmful strange sayings against the sound faith, < fictitious > creatures of Marcion’s cracked brain.” (42.11.9-12 [Williams, p. 315])

Since I quoted Epiphanius’s comments from his Panarion (“Medicine Chest”) on Marcion’s biography in the previous post, I want to quote what he has to say about Marcion’s beliefs and praxis. I will skip over Epiphanius’s explanations of these beliefs and practices, which may be more polemical than objective (e.g., he claims Marcion instituted multiple baptisms to excuse his own post-baptismal immoral actions in Pontus), and his own efforts to refute Marcion. Some of these quotes below also reflect beliefs and practices that may have developed among later Marcionites, or at least in Epiphanius’s perception. The following quotes are taken from Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: Sects 1-46 (Vol. 1; 2nd ed.; NHMS 63; Leiden: Brill, 2009):

“But he took his cue from that charlatan and swindler, Cerdo. For he too preaches two first principles. But adding something to him, I mean to Cerdo, he exhibits something different in his turn by saying that there are three principles. One is the unnameable, invisible one on high which he likes to call a “good God,” but which has made none of the things in the world. Another is a visible God, a creator and demiurge. But the devil is as it were a third god and in between these two, the visible and the invisible. The creator, demiurge and visible God is the God of the Jews, and he is a judge.” (42.3.1-2 [Williams p. 296])

“Celibacy too is preached by Marcion himself, and he preaches fasting on the Sabbath. Marcionite supposed mysteries are celebrated in front of the catechumens. He uses water in the mysteries.” (42.3.3 [Williams p. 296])

“He denies the resurrection of the flesh like many of the sects; he says that resurrection, life and salvation are of the soul only.” (42.3.5 [Williams p. 297])

“Marcionite baptism is not administered just once; in Marcionite congregations it is allowable to give up to three baptisms and more to any one who wishes, as I have heard from many.” (42.3.6 [Williams p. 297])

“He rejects both the Law and all the prophets, and says that the prophets have prophesied by the inspiration of the archon who made the world. And he says that Christ has descended from on high, from the invisible Father who cannot be named, for the salvation of souls and the confusion of the God of the Jews, the Law, the prophets, and anything of the kind. The Lord has gone down even to Hades to save Cain, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Esau, and all the gentiles who had not known the God of the Jews. But he has left Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon there because, as he says, they recognized the God of the Jews, the maker and creator, and have done what is congenial to him, and did not devote themselves to the invisible God.” (42.4.1-4 [Williams pp. 297-298])

“They even permit women to administer baptism! For, given that they even venture to celebrate the mysteries in front of catechumens…” (42.4.5 [Williams p. 298])

“As I indicated, Marcion says resurrection is not of bodies but of souls, and he assigns salvation to these and not to bodies. And he similarly claims that there are reincarnations of souls, and transmigrations from body to body.” (42.4.6 [Williams p. 298])

“For some of them [Marcionites] have dared, as I said, shamelessly to call the Lord himself the son of the evil one. Others disagree, but call him the son of the judge and demiurge. < But > since he is the more compassionate and good, he has abandoned his own father below—the demiurge, say some, others say the evil one—and has taken refuge on high with the good God in realms ineffable, and come over to his side. (4) And Christ has been sent into the world by him and come in opposition to his own father, to annul all the legislation of his real father—either of the God who spoke in the Law or of the God of evil whom they rank as the third principle. (For they explain him variously, as I said, one calling him the demiurge, another the evil one.)” (42.14.2-4 [Williams, p. 362])

Epiphanius was the bishop of Salamis (renamed Constantia) in Cyrpus from roughly 367 to 403 CE. He describes his Panarion as a “medicine chest” containing anecdotes against the poison spread by 80 sects. He opens and closes his 42nd chapter on the Marcionites by comparing Marcion to a serpent (42.1.1; 42.16.14), which is typical in his polemic against the “heretical” founders of various Christian sects. He also notes that the Marcionites were still active in the fourth century “in Rome and Italy, Egypt and Palestine, Arabia and Syria, Cyprus and the Thebaid—in Persia too moreover, and in other places” (42.1.2 [Williams p. 294). I am drawing the previous quotation and the following block quote about Marcion’s biography from the English translation of his work provided in Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: Sects 1-46 (Vol. 1; 2nd ed.; NHMS 63; Leiden: Brill, 2009):

“He was a native of Pontus—I mean of Helenopontus and the city of Sinope, as is commonly said of him. In early life he supposedly practiced celibacy, for he was a hermit and the son of a bishop of our holy catholic church. But in time he unfortunately became acquainted with a virgin, cheated the virgin of her hope and degraded both her and himself, and for seducing her was excommunicated by his own father. For because of his extreme piety his father was one of those illustrious men who take great care of the church, and was exemplary in the exercise of his episcopal office. Though Marcion begged and pleaded many times, if you please, for penance, he could not obtain it from his own father. For the distinguished old bishop was distressed not only because Marcion had fallen, but because he was bringing the disgrace on him as well. As Marcion could not get what he wanted from him by fawning, unable to bear the scorn of the populace he fled his city and arrived at Rome itself after the death of Hyginus, the bishop of Rome. (Hyginus was ninth in succession from the apostles Peter and Paul). Meeting the elders who were still alive and had been taught by the disciples of the apostles, he asked for admission to communion, and no one would grant it to him. Finally, seized with jealousy since he could not obtain high rank besides entry into the church, he reflected and took refuge in the sect of that fraud, Cerdo.” (42.1.3-8 [Williams, pp. 294-295])

Curiously, Epiphanius’s dating of Marcion’s arrival in Rome just after the death of Hyginus, the bishop of Rome (ca. 138-142 CE), seems to fit better with Tertullian’s dating of Marcion’s ministry to the reign of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (ca. 138-161 CE) than does Tertullian’s other statement that Marcion was rejected by the Roman bishop Eleutherus (ca. 174-189 CE). Epiphanius goes on to discuss how Marcion would not accept the interpretation of Jesus’s saying about the new wine and new cloth offered by the Roman elders, and they in turn did not receive him into fellowship without the permission of Marcion’s father, so Marcion angrily warned that he was going to tear the universal “church” (42.2.1-8). Then, Marcion subsequently became influenced by a Christian teacher named Cerdo in Rome (42.3.1).

Update: the accusation about Marcion’s sexual morality is reported earlier in pseudo-Tertullian’s Against All Heretics (6.2), the appendix that had been added to Tertullian’s The Prescription against the Heretics, and some argue that this writer depends on Hippolytus’s Syntagma against Thirty-Two Heresies.

For my last post on Tertullian, I want to provide quotations from Against Marcion about Marcion’s Scriptures. Just as we are dealing with Tertullian’s representation of Marcion’s beliefs and practices, these quotes also reflect Tertullian’s own perception that Marcion edited the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul. This has been subject to renewed debate in contemporary scholarship. If you read Tertullian’s fourth volume, he is clearly entering into debate with Marcion about how to interpret Luke’s Gospel, but he admits that Marcion’s Gospel did not have a title (4.3.5 even suggests that the Marcionites might have claimed that it was falsely attributed to Luke). Again, I am indebted to  “The Tertullian Project” website created by Roger Pearse for ready access to the Latin text and select English translations and will be citing Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford Early Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

“I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic but Pontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of my order of approach.” (4.2.1 [Evans, p. 261]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“Marcion, on the other hand, attaches to his gospel no author’s name,—as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author’s name. But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmentioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. For out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate. Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person, that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors.” (4.2.3-4 [Evans, p. 263]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“I say that mine is true: Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion’s is falsified: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide between us? Only such a reckoning of dates, as will assume that authority belongs to that which is found to be older, and will prejudge as corrupt that which is convicted of having come later” (4.4.1 [Evans, p. 268]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see <later> whether it is <accepted by> Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion by his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already.” (4.4.4 [Evans, p. 269]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“I now advance a step further, while I call to account, as I have promised, Marcion’s gospel in his own version of it, with the design, even so, of proving it adulterated. Certainly the whole of the work he has done, including the prefixing of his Antitheses, he directs to the one purpose of setting up opposition between the Old Testament and the New, and thereby putting his Christ in separation from the Creator, as belonging to another god, and having no connection with the law and the prophets. Certainly that is why he has expunged all the things that oppose his view, that are in accord with the Creator, on the plea that they have been woven in by his partisans; but has retained those that accord with his opinion. These it is we shall call to account, with these we shall grapple, to see if they will favour my case, not his, to see if they will put a check on Marcion’s pretensions. Then it will become clear that these things have been expunged by the same disease of heretical blindness by which the others have been retained. Such will be the purpose and plan of my treatise, on those precise terms which have been agreed by both parties.” (4.6.1-2 [Evans p. 275]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“I am sorry for you, Marcion: your labour has been in vain. Even in your gospel Christ Jesus is mine.” (4.43.9 [Evans, p. 507]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“From now on I claim I shall prove that no other god was the subject of the apostle’s profession, on the same terms as I have proved this of Christ: and my evidence will be Paul’s epistles. That these have suffered mutilation even in number, the precedent of that gospel, which is now the heretic’s, must have prepared us to expect.” (5.1.9 [p. 513]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

I want to provide a few quotations from Tertullian’s Against Marcion about Marcion’s other beliefs and practices. Again, I am indebted to  “The Tertullian Project” website created by Roger Pearse for ready access to the Latin text and select English translations and will be citing Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford Early Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). Tertullian describes Marcion’s denial of the belief in the future resurrection of the body, with Marcion holding that only souls are saved, and Marcion’s requirement of celibacy. Tertullian also seems to admit that there are Marcionites who have suffered martyrdom.

“… for they are saved as far as the soul, <and no more,> having perished in the flesh, since according to him the flesh does not rise again. Whence this halving of salvation, if not from defect of goodness? What could have been the function of perfect goodness, if not to bring back to salvation the whole man, wholly condemned by the Creator, wholly elected for himself by the god supremely good? As far as I know, among his adherents the flesh is baptized, the flesh is debarred from matrimony, the flesh suffers torture at the confession of the Name.” (1.24.3-4 [Evans, p. 68]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“He contracts no marriages, nor recognizes them when contracted, refuses baptism except to the celibate or the eunuch, keeping it back until death or divorce.” (4.11.8 [Evans, p. 309]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

I want to provide quotations from Tertullian’s Against Marcion about Marcion’s Christology. Again, I am indebted to  “The Tertullian Project” website created by Roger Pearse for ready access to the Latin text and select English translations and will be citing Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford Early Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). The key observation is that Marcion accepted that Jesus was the Christ of the supremely good deity, but not the Christ (annointed one, Messiah) promised to the Jewish people by the Creator as the one who would restore the kingdom to Israel, and that Jesus only appeared to have flesh (Tertullian often describes Marcion’s Christ as a “phantasm”). Elsewhere, Tertullian argues that Marcion was ashamed of the idea that a divine being would enter a mother’s womb to be born or truly suffer on the cross (e.g., 3.10.1; 3.11.7).

“… their own Christs, one who has appeared under Tiberius, another promised by the Creator” (1.15.6; [Evans, p. 41]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“Now although, in the view of your heresy, Christ did not clothe himself with the verity of flesh, yet he did vouchsafe to take upon him the appearance of it.” (1.24.5 [Evans, p. 68]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“So then, since heretical madness was claiming that that Christ had come who had never been previously mentioned, it followed that it had to contend that that Christ was not yet come who had from all time been foretold: and so it was compelled to form an alliance with Jewish error, and from it to build up an argument for itself, on the pretext that the Jews, assured that he who has come was an alien, not only rejected him as a stranger but even put him to death as an opponent, although they would beyond doubt have recognized him and have treated him with all religious devotion if he had been their own.” (3.6.1-2 [Evans, p. 183]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“’Yes’, you object, ‘I do hope for something from him—and this itself amounts to a proof that there are two different Christs—I hope for the kingdom of God, with an eternal heavenly inheritance: whereas your Christ promises the Jews their former estate, after the restitution of their country, and, when life has run its course, refreshment with those beneath the earth, in Abraham’s bosom. Such a very good God, if when calmed down he gives back what he took away when angry: your God, who both smites and heals, who creates evil and makes peace: a God whose mercy reaches even down to hell.’” (3.24.1 [p. 245, 247]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).

“Marcion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time of Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salvation of all the nations; and another Christ who is destined by God the Creator to come at some time still future for the re-establishment of the Jewish kingdom. Between these he sets up a great and absolute opposition, such as that between justice and kindness, between law and gospel, between Judaism and Christianity.” (4.6.3 [Evans, p. 275]; see also the Latin text and the older translation from Peter Holmes).