Marcion the heretic

I list Marcion as a heretic for one specific reason. He denies the divinity of Yeshua. And his entire theology is built upon doing this very thing. I find it quite ironic that if you look up the word "catholic" it means universal. While Marcion was considered a Catholic bishop, he apparently was not "catholic" enough to stay within the Catholic church. Hence I see "God's holy church" as having a contradiction. But lets go back to Marcion. I believe it is necessary to cover this gentleman as a church father in a sense, because his worked is often revered as necessary by Christians today, even though most claim to not subscribe to it. And of course, his theology has been quite influential in the movements of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons today. We shall get to what I mean.

Marcion of Sinope the bishop has been described as being a heretic in regards to the Christian background. Marcion in like fashion was consecrated as an early church bishop. Its often ironic that I see Christians divide the Old Testament from the New Testament, so-called, because Marcion is the very one who created the two terms. His purpose for doing this was to divide God into two natures. While Clement of Alexandria places a certain Marcion around the time of Peter, this appears merely a contradiction if it were to apply to the Marcion that we are talking about. Tertullian, a more likely source for Marcion places him around the year 144 A.D.

So lets continue on. We can talk about the history of the Pope at a later time. What I want to look at right now is how the heretical doctrines espoused by Marcion are being instituted within many of our churches today. Marcion is recognized as having a huge following by Justin Martyr and other church fathers like Tertullian by the year of 150 A.D. leaving Clement as a dubious source on this issue.

Now its interesting that these are two terms that seem to be relegated by people within the church even today. By Marcion, there was a God of the Old Testament, who relegated his people to the status of following the Torah and was an issuer of legalistic reciprocal justice, and then there was "our Heavenly Father" who is described as a universal God of love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and compassion, rather known as the God of the New Testament. Before being educated on the Bible, I had this idea of God myself. What is quite interesting is that this terminology is still being utilized in the Christian church today. Lets continue on. Marcion declares in his book "Antitheses" " "One work is sufficient for our God: He has delivered man by His supreme and most excellent goodness, which is preferable to the creation of all the locusts."[ This was viewed upon as being a reconciliation between what was thought by Marcion to be a contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. He also believed in a docetic nature of Yeshua.

Marcion is significant in another way however. Because of this falling away and division of the Bible that we see here in order to promote his Theology that Yeshua was not divine, we get the development of the dogma within the Catholic church that was relegated up until the Protestant Reformation period. So essentially because of this falling away via man's power and necessity to control the issue of where Marcion's theology was heading, through the Catholic church, we get the beginnings of Christian halakah if you will, that which would eventually keep Jews out of the church.

We have this division between the Old Testament and New Testament even to this very day. Let me share something ironic with you however. Marcion's critics came from the very resources that utilized this division. Ireneous, Polycarp, Ephraim of Syria, Theophilus of Antioch, Philip of Gortyna, Hippolytus, Clement and Origen of Alexandria all opposed the teachings of Marcion. The irony is that they also chose not to oppose the teachings of Marcion by splitting the Bible into two halves. This motivation was a motivation shared by Marcion, which had anti-semitic overtures behind it, due to its replacement theology, which was shared by the early church. Marcion was the original founder of this fallacious belief system, often refered to today as Gnosticism. Thus there have been some which connect the Catholic church to Gnosticism.

I want to take a look at some of his viewpoints in relation to scripture now. Of course most Christians need not have a need to understand how the church viewed the diety of Yeshua. This is a non-issue even amongst the Messianic Jews for the most part. We need go no further than John 14:6 and John 10:30. But I want to see why it is impossible according to scripture to separate the Old from the New Testament if you will.

The word that is translated in Jeremiah 31:33 for "new covenant" as it is being applied to the "New Testament" in Hebrew is hadashah, and Aramaic is khawdata. 1 Sam. 11:14; 1 Chr. 15:8; 2 Chr. 24:4, 12; Job 10:17; Psalm 51:10; 103:5; 104:30; Isaiah 61:4; and Lamentations 5:21 all use the term "hadashah". The word for hadashah is the same word utilized by the Jews to refer to the "new" moon. Thus, what happens is not that there is a "new" testament, but in the context that the word is utilized a "renewed" testament. When we have a "new" moon, we don't get a brand new moon. It is merely a "renewed" moon. And the Jews rightfully translated this as "renewed" and it is even understood by us in the Western society to mean renewed, not a brand new covenant. So this separation is unwarranted, and does not even come close to matching the context of scripture.

I don't believe I need go any further with this gentleman except to ask, out of these heretical claims you have heard today, which do you believe apply to your following of Yeshua? This will be very valuable to understand and adjust when walking with Yeshua.