Was Marcion a heretic?

[Vanellus]

I was thinking of putting this in the Christian history section but I'm not so much concerned with Marcion but with the issues he raised.

Marcion and Marcionism is quite a multi topic subject but I'm focussing on his reason for generating a cut down version of the Holy Scriptures (which some say spurred the Early Church to decide on a canon of scripture)

Marcion decided on 10 Pauline epistles (not the pastoral ones) and a cut down version of Luke's gospel. Marcion and his followers were concerned that the "God of the Old Testament" whom he regarded as inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal did not tally with the God of the NT gospel.

Now I don't agree with Marcion given how much of the OT is quoted in the NT. But I prefer to think he was mistaken rather than condemn him as a heretic as there are many passages in the OT which are problematic.

A typical example would be in Joshua 8:

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. 26For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed a all who lived in Ai. 27But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.

28So Joshua burned Ai b and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. 29He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

So not just the combatants but the women and children as well. This is what the Waffen SS did in Oradour-sur-Glane in France - now a permanent memorial (note the parallel!)
Oradour-sur-Glane, 10 June 1944 (a war-time tragedy in France)

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Um Marcion like the Gnostics and Manicheans taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament, so yeah I really think he was a heretic!

 

[Petros2015]

Um Marcion like the Gnostics and Manicheans taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament, so yeah I really think he was a heretic!

Heb 10:1

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

Shadows can be scary looking sometimes. You don't see the actual thing and might mistake it for something different.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Yes I can't fault him too much because I have seen a lot of Cognitive Dissonance of Christians dealing with some of the material in the Old Testament like the Canaanite Genocide etc. But that to me is more proof that while we are Created in God's Image, their are some aspects of Him that are little alien or multifaceted, which is why I often speak up to people who think they can reduce certain things down to little formulas and such.

 

[HTacianas]

I was thinking of putting this in the Christian history section but I'm not so much concerned with Marcion but with the issues he raised.

Marcion and Marcionism is quite a multi topic subject but I'm focussing on his reason for generating a cut down version of the Holy Scriptures (which some say spurred the Early Church to decide on a canon of scripture)

Marcion decided on 10 Pauline epistles (not the pastoral ones) and a cut down version of Luke's gospel. Marcion and his followers were concerned that the "God of the Old Testament" whom he regarded as inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal did not tally with the God of the NT gospel.

Now I don't agree with Marcion given how much of the OT is quoted in the NT. But I prefer to think he was mistaken rather than condemn him as a heretic as there are many passages in the OT which are problematic.

A typical example would be in Joshua 8:

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. 26For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed a all who lived in Ai. 27But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.

28So Joshua burned Ai b and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. 29He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

So not just the combatants but the women and children as well. This is what the Waffen SS did in Oradour-sur-Glane in France - now a permanent memorial (note the parallel!)
Oradour-sur-Glane, 10 June 1944 (a war-time tragedy in France)

It's not so much Marcion's views of the old testament that condemned him, but his idea of "two gods". Marcionism held that the god of the old testament was a different, lesser god, than the god of the new testament. It was basically a re-working of the dualistic nature of gnosticism. The gnostics also held to the idea of two gods, one lesser god who created physical matter, and one greater god who created spiritual things. It's the reason for the first line of the Nicene Creed, "We believe in one God...creator of all things, visible and invisible..."

 

[Jeshu]

i think what is clear in the O.T is that the god of the truth of the lie, is bad life galore, a real destroyer, the father of the lie, and all his host, plus all the crap he took out of the Abyss Revelation 9 reveals.

So from that perspective God changed. The truth of the lie had been overcome by Jesus. So satan could no longer rule from heaven. Indeed Jesus saw him fall like lightening out of heaven in Luke 10.

This is a massive change in God who would no longer let the truth of the lie rule from heaven (cursing us,) but Jesus instead.

Jesus Victory did change God for now we can cry ABBA, Father, while in the O.T this was a prophecy to be fulfilled. Through the blood of Jesus the truth of our bad life can no longer accuse us, (Revelation 12,) like he used to do in the O.T. (Job 1, Zechariah 3)


Peace.

 

[Shrewd Manager]

Same God. Marcion was heretical.

We're still in the Babylonian baby brain bashing business.

Those passages are to be understood spiritually as being tough on sin, and excising the sinful parts of ourselves (Lord have mercy!). As in "If your right hand offend thee, cut it off".

 

[prodromos]

i think what is clear in the O.T is that the god of the truth of the lie, is bad life galore, a real destroyer, the father of the lie, and all his host, plus all the crap he took out of the Abyss Revelation 9 reveals.

So from that perspective God changed. The truth of the lie had been overcome by Jesus. So satan could no longer rule from heaven. Indeed Jesus saw him fall like lightening out of heaven in Luke 10.

This is a massive change in God who would no longer let the truth of the lie rule from heaven (cursing us,) but Jesus instead.

Jesus Victory did change God for now we can cry ABBA, Father, while in the O.T this was a prophecy to be fulfilled. Through the blood of Jesus the truth of our bad life can no longer accuse us, (Revelation 12,) like he used to do in the O.T. (Job 1, Zechariah 3)


Peace.

What?

 

[Jeshu]

What?

The truth of the lie, our lives in sinful spirituality, had given satan power to accuse us in Heaven in the O.T. (see Job 1 and Zechariah 3 for example,) But the blood of Christ sets us free from our guilt and brought us Newness of life making us say Abba, Father to God. This is what Revelation 12:10-11 teaches us.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.

 

[com7fy8]

Marcion and his followers were concerned that the "God of the Old Testament" whom he regarded as inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal did not tally with the God of the NT gospel.

If you are tricked into supposing that the God of the early scriptures is not the God of Jesus, then you are going to have a problem when you read how Jesus acknowledges the LORD of the early scriptures, in various ways, including how God does judge and exert wrathful judgment.

Also, when you get to the Book of Revelation, you are going to have a major problem, because wrath judgments of God in the Book of Revelation are worse than the ones we see in early scripture.

So, there is what I call a back-door deception > before a person knows the message of Jesus and Revelation, a deceiver can get the person to suppose that God's wrath judgments in early scripture show He could not be Jesus Christ's Father, but another God; then, when the deceived person later finds out that Jesus and Revelation reveal that God does judge with wrath, the people can be tricked into deciding the Bible God is false > because they have already been prejudiced to suppose the real God does not judge in a wrathful way.

So, if Marcion really does believe that the early scripture God is different than Jesus Christ's Father, then Marcion has not gotten to know the message of Jesus and the Book of Revelation.

Another item > I find that there are atheists who claim that the God of early scripture can't be real because of how He judges with wrath in the early scripture. So, it is possible that Marcion's position is not heretical, but atheistic. Atheists often are the ones who claim that if God were good, He would not judge like He does in early scripture and the Book of Revelation. And so, they claim He therefore can not exist. So, if Marcion is trying to dictate that Jesus Christ's Father can not judge with wrath, then possibly Marcion is atheistic, more or less. But in case he really believes there is some kind of Biblical God, then yes I would say his position is heretical, technically speaking . . . and based on extremely poor acquaintance with New Testament scripture and teachings of Jesus, about the wrath of God and judgment.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Jesus believed in the God of the Old Testament. He likewise believed that Israel had a duty to obey God in the conquest of Israel.

Therefore Marcion is a heretic.

 

[disciple Clint]

I was thinking of putting this in the Christian history section but I'm not so much concerned with Marcion but with the issues he raised.

Marcion and Marcionism is quite a multi topic subject but I'm focussing on his reason for generating a cut down version of the Holy Scriptures (which some say spurred the Early Church to decide on a canon of scripture)

Marcion decided on 10 Pauline epistles (not the pastoral ones) and a cut down version of Luke's gospel. Marcion and his followers were concerned that the "God of the Old Testament" whom he regarded as inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal did not tally with the God of the NT gospel.

Now I don't agree with Marcion given how much of the OT is quoted in the NT. But I prefer to think he was mistaken rather than condemn him as a heretic as there are many passages in the OT which are problematic.

A typical example would be in Joshua 8:

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. 26For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed a all who lived in Ai. 27But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.

28So Joshua burned Ai b and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. 29He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

So not just the combatants but the women and children as well. This is what the Waffen SS did in Oradour-sur-Glane in France - now a permanent memorial (note the parallel!)
Oradour-sur-Glane, 10 June 1944 (a war-time tragedy in France)

The God in the O.T. and the God in the N.T. are one and the same. There are very good reasons for what was done in the O.T. God was building a nation, a kingdom, and His people, starting with slaves who had nothing.

 

[Vanellus]

Thanks for all the responses.

Maybe I need to repeat my statement in the OP: "Now I don't agree with Marcion" which might have been overlooked or ignored in some of the responses above. In fact I wanted this thread to be about what Marcion believed and why he believed it.

Of course if you take heresy to mean faction or opinion (so sect e.g. Sadducees and Pharisees) then that would make Marcion a heretic since he had a different opinion about God and the scriptures from what one might call the orthodox view at the time. But then should Catholics and Protestants regard each other as heretics, or Lutherans and Baptists who have different beliefs about baptism?

Another aspect of the NT word is a faction that is destructive e.g. 1 Cor 11:19, Gal 5:20, 2 Pet 2:1
Though, rather than being greedy, Marcion made a very generous donation to the church in Rome that was returned to him when he was forced out.

But I still think the OT raises problems. One could argue that people were bloodthirsty in those days and if and when the Israelites were defeated they would have faced similar cruel retribution. But shouldn't the followers of the true God be better?

I do find, the "it's all about sin and idolatry" argument not completely satisfactory. Later in their history, the elite Jews were exiled to Babylon yet Jeremiah encouraged them to settle down and at the time of the return many Jews stayed in Babylon to live among people who worshipped different gods. What had changed?

This seems to be expediency. In Joshua's time they needed to clear out the original inhabitants to claim the Promised Land. At the end of the exile there may have been too many Jews in Babylon for Jerusalem and Judea to sustain.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I was thinking of putting this in the Christian history section but I'm not so much concerned with Marcion but with the issues he raised.

Marcion and Marcionism is quite a multi topic subject but I'm focussing on his reason for generating a cut down version of the Holy Scriptures (which some say spurred the Early Church to decide on a canon of scripture)

Marcion decided on 10 Pauline epistles (not the pastoral ones) and a cut down version of Luke's gospel. Marcion and his followers were concerned that the "God of the Old Testament" whom he regarded as inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal did not tally with the God of the NT gospel.

Now I don't agree with Marcion given how much of the OT is quoted in the NT. But I prefer to think he was mistaken rather than condemn him as a heretic as there are many passages in the OT which are problematic.

A typical example would be in Joshua 8:

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. 26For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed a all who lived in Ai. 27But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.

28So Joshua burned Ai b and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. 29He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

So not just the combatants but the women and children as well. This is what the Waffen SS did in Oradour-sur-Glane in France - now a permanent memorial (note the parallel!)
Oradour-sur-Glane, 10 June 1944 (a war-time tragedy in France)

Had Marcion simply been mistaken, that would be one thing. But he chose to deliberately start a brand new church and religion where his views were championed. Marcion wanted to lord himself over and against the Christian Church.

So heretic is a very appropriate term.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

Um Marcion like the Gnostics and Manicheans taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament, so yeah I really think he was a heretic!

Agree since God is Immutable.

 

[JSRG]

How does someone being "mistaken" change whether they are a heretic or not? Aren't all heretics by definition "mistaken"?

 

[prodromos]

How does someone being "mistaken" change whether they are a heretic or not? Aren't all heretics by definition "mistaken"?

Heretics refuse correction.

 

[Vanellus]

Had Marcion simply been mistaken, that would be one thing. But he chose to deliberately start a brand new church and religion where his views were championed. Marcion wanted to lord himself over and against the Christian Church.

So heretic is a very appropriate term.

-CryptoLutheran

He was expelled from the church in Rome first so it wasn't just a one sided self-aggrandisement project.

 

[Vanellus]

Heretics refuse correction.

But who is the human arbiter of correctness?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

He was expelled from the church in Rome first so it wasn't just a one sided self-aggrandisement project.

He was expelled for his erroneous opinions. It was a good thing too.