Note 368 — Chapter V

Footnote 368:

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This is an extremely important point. Marcion rejected all allegories (See Tertull. adv. Marc. II. 19. 21, 22, III. 5. 6, 14, 19, IV. 15. 20, V. 1, Orig. Comment. in Matth. T. XV. 3, Opp. III. p. 655, in ep. ad. Rom. Opp. IV. p. 494 sq., Adamant. Sect. I., Orig. Opp. I. pp. 808, 817, Ephr. Syrus. hymn. 36., Edit. Benedict p. 520 sq.) and describes this method as an arbitrary one. But that simply means that he perceived and avoided the transformation of the Gospel into Hellenic philosophy. No philosophic formulæ are found in any of his statements that have been handed down to us. But what is still more important, none of his early opponents have attributed to Marcion a system as they did to Basilides and Valentinus. There can be no doubt that Marcion did not set up any system (the Armenian Esnik first gives a Marcionite system but that is a late production, see my essay in the Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1896, p. 80 f.). He was just as far from having any apologetic or rationalistic interest; Justin (Apol. I. 58) says of the Marcionites αποδειξιν μηδεμιαν περι 'ων λεγουσιν εχουσιν αλλα αλογως 'ως 'υπο λυκου αρνες συνηρπασμενοι κ.τ.λ.. Tertullian again and again casts in the teeth of Marcion that he has adduced no proof. See I. 11 sq., III. 2. 3, 4, IV. 11: "Subito Christus subito et Johannes Sic sunt omnia apud Marcionem quæ suum et plenum habent ordinem apud creatorem." Rhodon (Euseb. H. E. V. 13. 4) says of two prominent genuine disciples of Marcion μη ευρισκοντες την διαιρεσιν των πραγματων 'ως ουδε εκεινος δυο αρχας απεφηναντο ψιλως κα αναποδεικτως. Of Apelles the most important of Marcion's disciples, who laid aside the Gnostic borrows of his master, we have the words (1. c) μη δειν 'ολως εξεταζειν τον λογον αλλ' 'εκαστον 'ως πεπιστευκε διαμενειν Σωθησεσθαι γαρ τους ετι τον εσταρωμενον ηλπικοτας απεφαινετο μονον εαν εν εργοις αγαθοις 'ευρισκωνται. το δε πως εστι μια αρχη μη γινωσκειν ελεγεν 'ουτω δε κινεισθαι μονον. μη επιστασθαι πως εις εστιν αγεννητος θεος τουτο δε πιστευειν. It was Marcion's purpose therefore to give all value to faith alone to make it dependent on its own convincing power and avoid all philosophic paraphrase and argument. The contrast in which he placed the Christian blessing of salvation has in principle nothing in common with the contract in which Greek philosophy viewed the summum bonum. Finally it may be pointed out that Marcion introduced no new elements (Æons, Matter, etc.) into his evangelic views and leant on no Oriental religious science. The later Marcionite speculations about matter (see the account of Esnik) should not be charged upon the master himself as is manifest from the second book of Tertullian against Marcion. The assumption that the creator of the world created it out of a materia subjacens is certainly found in Marcion (see Tertull. 1. 15, Hippol. Philos. X. 19) but he speculated no further about it and that assumption itself was not rejected, for example, by Clem. Alex. (Strom. II. 16. 74, Photius on Clement's Hypotyposes). Marcion did not really speculate even about the good God, yet see Tertull. adv. Marc. I. 14. 15, IV. 7: "Mundus ille superior—coelum tertium."