Marcion of Pontus

Marcion of Pontus (flourished 2nd century ce, Asia Minor) was a Christian heretic. Although Marcion is known only through reports and quotations from his orthodox opponents, especially Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem (“Against Marcion”), the principal outlines of his teaching seem clear. His teaching made a radical distinction between the God of the Old Testament (the Creator) and the Father of Jesus Christ (the God of Love).

Sometime after his arrival in Rome, Marcion fell under the influence of Cerdo, a gnostic Christian who held that the God of the Old Testament embodied justice while the God of the New Testament embodied goodness, and further developed this ideology. According to Marcion, that distinction had been obscured at the very earliest stages of the Christian movement, and, among the Apostles, only St. Paul had understood it. Because the corruptions that had consequently been introduced into the life and message of the church and into the very text of the New Testament had to be expunged, Marcion edited his own versions of the biblical books. His collection of those books that he regarded as authoritative seems to have had some influence on the formation of the church’s canon of the New Testament. And various elements of early Christian creeds, such as the widespread equation of Father with Creator, may have been formulated partly in response to his teachings. Marcion was excommunicated from the church in 144 as a heretic, but the Marcionite movement he headed became both widespread and powerful.