Marcionism

Marcionism or Marcionite Christianity was an early Christiandualistic belief system originating with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around 144 CE. Marcion was an early Christian theologian, evangelist, and an important figure in early Christianity. Marcion was born between about 85 and 100 and died around 160. He is reported to have been the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus, though nearly all biographical detail about him derives from hostile sources and from a "heretic legend" that later writers extrapolated from his works; Sinope itself first appears as his birthplace in late antique sources. About the middle of the 2nd century (140–155) he traveled to Rome. Irenaeus and other patristic writers present him there as a follower of the Syrian gnostic Cerdo, from whom he is said to have taken the doctrines of the evil creator and the alien good God, but recent scholarship regards the derivation as uncertain and probably unhistorical. Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent deity, the Demiurge or creator deity, identified with Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus.

Marcion's canon, possibly the first Christian biblical canon ever compiled, consisted of eleven books: the Gospel of Marcion, which was a shorter version of the Gospel of Luke, and ten Pauline epistles. Marcion's canon rejected the entire Old Testament, along with all other epistles and gospels of what would become the 27-book canon of the New Testament, which during his life had yet to be compiled.

Marcionism was denounced by its opponents as heresy and written against by the Church Fathers – notably by Tertullian in his five-book treatise Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion) in about 208. Marcion's writings are lost, though they were widely read and numerous manuscripts must have existed. Even so, many scholars say it is possible to reconstruct a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion. The movement was widespread, which forced rivalling sects to begin making defences. Marcionites founded Churches across the Roman empire, and their decline is attributed to state intervention by later imperial edicts banning all groups deemed heretical from assembly.