Word: marcion
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...Marcion, probably born around A.D. 85, was a formidable scholar of Scripture and a devotee of the teachings of St. Paul. A wealthy shipowner from what is now the Black Sea coast of Turkey, he made a large contribution to the struggling Christian community in Rome and then proceeded to enunciate his vision of Christ. The kind and good Jesus, he declared, could not possibly be the Son of the implacably just, harshly rational God of the Jewish Prophets. No, that was the wrong God, merely the creator of this world. Jesus was the Son of an unknown and greater...
That scandalized Marcion's fellow Christians, who believed in a continuity of inspiration from Adam through Moses to Jesus. Not so, said Marcion, who deleted even Luke's accounts of the child Jesus. Jesus, Marcion believed, appeared fully grown in Capernaum to the fishermen who would become the first Disciples. The Christians of Rome promptly started to form their own canon, which included an "old" testament. They expelled Marcion from the church, handing him back his charity...
...Marcion started his own church, and his ideas inspired Christians delving into the theologies of gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge, which, as opposed to faith, they argued, was the true source of salvation. For many Gnostic Christians, Jesus only appeared to be man, for the God of this world is the master of matter, and Jesus could not defile himself by actually materializing. Indeed, he was spirit and only seemed to die. Gnostic texts have Christ appearing to Peter as the Crucifixion is taking place, joyfully transcending all this world could hurl at him. The Resurrection becomes moot...
...idea was too radical for the early church, but a century or two later it was accepted by many quite orthodox Christian theologians. A 2nd century heretic named Marcion was the first Christian to make a compilation of authentic gospels and epistles into a single testament that excluded the many apocryphal writings about Christ. Marcion's version of the scriptural canon was rejected by the church, but he nonetheless deserves to be remembered as the founder of New Testament textual criticism...
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