Marcion: Patron Saint Of Selectivism

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Marcion – Patron Saint of Selectivism.

Dr Martyn John Smith

Summary

Whilst undertaking research on the obviously divisive issue of divine violence it came to my attention how other potentially unpalatable or difficult areas of theological discourse are ignored or discounted not because scholars find them erroneous, but because they choose to de-prioritise them, do not like them, or find them inconsistent with their personal priorities or their view of God’s nature. Such scri ptural and theological cherry-picking is academically disingenuous, inhibiting honest consideration of Godself, regardless of denomination, agenda, worldview or theological disposition. Marcion alone is, of course, not to blame for such subjectivism, but he is a forerunner for modern ‘protectors of God’s good name’. In this article, I hold both Marcion and his followers’ interpretative methods to account, suggesting a demanding, but more rewarding, alternative.

Addressing Difficult Issues.

I didn’t need to produce a doctorate on divine violence to be aware of the contentious nature of the topic, particularly in regard to its ramifications for understanding Godself and human praxeology. Further research and reflection, however, brought me to the realisation that the problem of biblical interpretation, theological priorities and ascri ptions is not confined to blatantly controversial issues, but is at the heart of all theological and ecclesiological endeavour. The history of the Church can be caricatured as one of interpretation, choice and identity interpretation of biblical material, choice of what is important and how these elements contribute to the identity of their adherents. Throughout two millennia, Christian denominations and Churches have been formed on the basis of these three defining traits, each group using their interpretations and choices to make their identity tangible, to themselves and those who might align with them. Simply put, each ‘tribe’ of Christianity highlights particular theological themes, often to the exclusion of others, especially those which contradict their chosen priorities, in order to express who they are and what matters to them.

Amidst myriad possible examples, let it suffice to acknowledge in broad relief, the Roman Catholic emphasis on Mary, the Pentecostalist prioritising of charismata, the Mennonite focus on peace, the Presbyterian high view of God’s sovereignty and Methodism’s belief in human freewill. In my own research on divine violence, I sought to place the issue into broad historical context, but soon realised that either explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, the shadow of Marcion’s ideas had long been cast across theology and the Church. The most obvious area of influence being the manner in which his views affect the endeavours of theologian, preacher or Church-goer to embrace, or not, a whole-scri pture approach to particular topics or themes.

About a hundred years after Paul`s death there arose with little warning a most amazing figure, who was destined to convulse Christian thinking as it has rarely been convulsed in its nineteen hundred years to challenge and repudiate its scri ptures to cause it in self-defense (sic) to raise to canonical rank Christian writings which it had been gradually coming to regard as of value but not as scri pture to precipitate, in short, such a crisis that not only a Christian Bible but a catholic church resulted.^[1]

This essay will show how this important theologian has, both overtly and subliminally, affected the history of both the Church and theology. Particular attention will be paid to how his perspectives have coloured understanding of God and, for example, violence and the concomitant matters raised for modern theology, preaching and Christian belief. Whilst Marcion’s relevance to divine violence, for instance, might not be immediately apparent, it will be demonstrated that, in this regard and many others, his outlook and practices have so ineluctably infiltrated modern theological thinking that Christian beliefs, in both pulpit and pew, might now be oblivious to his impact. This will be seen, in particular, in regard to the perception of God’s nature and, most strikingly, in terms of how potentially difficult or unpalatable issues are interpreted and understood.

Ever since Marcion, the picture of the God of the ancient Israelites as a God of war has been an occasion for caricature and embarrassment for Christians. That is one of the reasons why both Christians and Jews have developed ways to read those stories that might avoid ascribing to God qualities that we do not praise in men and women.^[2]

The Biblical Canon.

Marcion is one of the earliest theologians to wrestle with the question of canon as a list of books received or rejected during this process, he famously excluded not only the Old Testament but large portions of the New Testament. It was also due to Marcion that canon as an authoritative list was first considered by the orthodox church.^[3] This is an important accomplishment that still resonates throughout theological history and across denominational boundaries.

This was not necessarily his greatest achievement, however Bruce notes that,

The chief importance of Marcion in the second century lies in the reaction which he provoked among the leaders of the Apostolic Churches. Just as Marcion`s canon stimulated the more precise defining of the NT canon by the Catholic Church, not to supersede but to supplement the canon of the OT, so, more generally, Marcion`s teaching led the Catholic Church to define its faith more carefully, in terms calculated to exclude a Marcionite interpretation.^[4]

In the Antitheses Marcion proposed his teachings on the antithetical statements between the Hebrew scri ptures and the New Testament unfortunately no copies survived.^[5] The only evidence for its existence is reference and response to it from his opponents Justin, Irenaeus, Origen and, most notably, Tertullian.^[6] These sources, coming from opposing parties, might warrant a hermeneutic of suspicion^[7] yet, according to early Christian heresiologists, the Antitheses articulated Marcion’s fundamental convictions on the separation of the God of the Hebrew Bible from the God of the Christ.^[8]

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this separation and its implications for theology post-Marcion his views now make it possible to challenge the canon of scri pture, draw theological lines and jettison teachings if they are perceived as unpalatable to a Church, person or theological perspective.^[9] This was pertinent to my consideration of violence being connected with God – whether YHWH of the Hebrew Bible, or Christ of the New Testament.

In Marcion’s time the Old Testament was considered the sole scri pture of the Christian community, even after more specific Christian writings were read and eventually added to it in the second century. This Christian adoption of the Old Testament continued until the Septuagint came to be regarded as the property of Christians rather than of Jews.^[10]

A Selective Hermeneutic.

For Marcion, Old Testament teaching was incompatible with his view of the God of Jesus^[11] his literalistic response was to first denounce allegoristic hermeneutics then, having left no room for Alexandrian interpretations, he entirely rejected them.^[12] This led to the abandonment of the Old Testament and many New Testament writings, except those of Paul and Luke which he redacted to exclude Old Testament references.^[13] In a stroke, Marcion introduced selective and subjective hermeneutics leading to a theological sea-change in how the character of a God disavowed from His Old Testament context would be perceived.^[14]

Modern Repercussions.

Irenic, ‘cherry-picking’ theological and hermeneutical methodology continues in regard to a priori views on Godself and violence which, whilst not so obvious today, nevertheless exist as a means of ignoring, rejecting or re-explaining biblical or theological notions deemed unpalatable to particular theological traditions and perspectives. Miller warns against this, noting that despite the inevitable tendency and perhaps necessity, for a biblical interpreter to pick and choose their points of emphasis, a failure to include the theme of God’s violence somewhere within this theological scheme, or pattern of preaching, is to omit major areas of Old Testament history and theology.^[15] More worryingly, such omission will also inevitably colour one’s view of God’s nature, character and being.

We posit, therefore, that whilst Marcion’s methods and outcome were overt and explicitly stated, modern proponents of pick-and-choose methodology, if they are aware of Marcion at all, practice surreptitiously, providing covert or inadvertent suppressio veri. Gard agrees, observing that the reception of the canon by the modern Church is inhibited by "Functional Marcionism" representing his partial victory excluding Marcion’s fundamental theological aberrations whilst, in new ways, embracing their canonical consequences. These consequences, he asserts, have less to do with the theoretical authority of the Old Testament, than with the determinative value of those books.^[16]

The foundational issue is that the interpreter picks and chooses which theological elements to highlight and which to ignore they cannot, in fact, escape such practice. As Eagleton puts it, the reader, ‘…does not come to the text as a kind of cultural virgin, immaculately free of previous social and literary entanglements, a supremely disinterested spirit or blank sheet onto which the text will transfer its own inscri ptions.’[17] Every biblical interpreter has agendas and choices, including predispositions towards theological priorities and anathemas. Simply put, everyone picks and chooses.

Two Testaments, Two Gods.

We contend that there exists, consciously or unconsciously, a Marcion-like suppression of potentially unpalatable issues, including divine violence. Marcion and his followers, both overt and sublime, have led thinking away from the possibility of divine violence and any concomitant negativity in or towards the Godhead. Marcion’s means of addressing the supposed dichotomy between the God of the Testaments was to suggest that different, separated religions are represented in each one. His "solution" carries the same ontological problem that Marcionitism brought, whereby the order of creation is regarded as an inferior order created by a lesser deity and the history of Israel, being a history guided by this lesser deity, ends in miscarriage - the God of light revealed only in the New Testament.^[18]

In synopsis, Marcion,

…carried the Pauline contrast between the Law and the Gospel to the point of denying any compatibility between the Old and the New Testaments, and went on to postulate two Gods: the God of the Old Testament, a God of justice who is the Creator, the Demiurge (and here he is akin to the Gnostics), is inferior to the supreme God of the New Testament who is the God of love. Jesus, as the agent of the good God, came to destroy the work of the Demiurge.[19]

These teachings of Marcion show either clinical brilliance or crude denial the creator god of the Old Testament not only made the universe, but ruled it in bloodshed and cruel justice.^[20] This being existed in blatant contrast to the actual Supreme God, that is to say, the God of Jesus and Paul who, for Marcion, is loving, forgiving, and full of grace.^[21] Marcion was a canonical dualist, the consequence of which is that functional Marcionitism shares with structural supersessionism^[22] the marginalization of the Old Testament in the Church`s self-understanding as the people of God and, in regard to divine violence, her understanding of God, what He does and what attributes He may, or may not, have.^[23] Hesse remarks that,

Every descri ption of God’s activity in the Old Testament must remain inadequate, often also misconceived, even perverted this is so because the faithful people of the Old Testament live perforce in a revelatory relationship which appears from the New Testament vantage point not only as provisional and obsolete, but as insufficient, even distorted.[24]

The ‘payoff’ for Marcion’s theology came in viewing the deity of the Old Testament as a Demiurge,^[25] a ‘just god’ demanding an “eye for an eye...” Contrary to this unpalatable being, he believed there was a ‘good God’ unknown to the Demiurge and humans until Jesus descended from heaven to reveal him.^[26] This unorthodox perspective prevailed in his thinking because Marcion was unable to comprehend or accept a god that he saw, ‘…to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm in purpose, and even to be contrary to himself.’^[27]

On whether God takes pleasure in war, Schwager concedes, after quoting Ezekiel 21:9–15, that, ‘In this bloody song the sword appears like a personified power rushing to a feast of killing at Yahweh’s orders. God seems to harbor (sic) a secret pleasure in murder and to become himself so blinded in bloody intoxication that he will wipe out the just together with the guilty.’[28]

Others share Marcion’s theological fears regarding the implications of ascribing seemingly negative attributes to God whilst reflecting on supposed theistic proofs, Macquarrie considers what criteria for belief might be compatible for those with a faith-conviction, positing that, ‘Perhaps the religious man should be prepared to say what state of affairs he would acknowledge to be incompatible with his faith, and therefore one that falsifies it. Such a state of affairs, for instance, might be the presence in the world of massive, senseless, irremediable evil.’[29]

Instead of conceding that God may thus have revealed himself in the Jewish scri ptures, Marcion chose to repudiate the Hebrew Bible in toto, putting in its place a new scri pture,^[30] the heart of which was Paul’s letters.^[31] Having put away the unpalatable Hebrew god he presented an entirely good God enabling humans to renounce allegiance to the “just god”, flee contact with his works, so to find salvation in the good God revealed in Jesus.^[32]

For Marcion, humans did not need deliverance from the Satan or sin, but from a ‘just god’, a Demiurge who set up creation, a world order, in which humans were enslaved to a law they were incapable of keeping.^[33] The Jewish scri ptures had not foretold the coming of the good God who would release humans from their slavery so with this era at an end and the good God revealed, Marcion proposed a Christianity entirely free from every vestige of Judaism.^[34]

Neo-Marcionitism Today.

Marcion therefore remains important and influential, not because of his rejection of the Hebrew scri ptures, but as a model for the ongoing practice of selecting particular scri ptures, to the exclusion of others, because of their perceived erroneous concomitant theologies.^[35] We conclude that Christian theology, pulpit and pew likewise risks falling into various manifestations of neo-Marcionitism.^[36] The individual theologian or preacher may not be actively, or even consciously, pursuing a Marcionite perspective they are nevertheless advocating basically Marcionite hermeneutics. The problem is that regardless of their awareness or ignorance of Marcion, their choices will result in a similarly selective methodology. The impending danger for theology and Church is that neo-Marcionite rejection or reinterpretation of “unpalatable” scri ptures presents a view of God alien to authentic biblical perspectives.^[37]

We reject such theological selectivism, instead proposing that when encountering compelling but challenging notions of God’s nature, including ontological or functional violence, the individual or Church should at least consider their potential incorporation into a more textured, nuanced view of God as actually revealed throughout the Judaeo-Christian canonical scri ptures. This is admittedly a demanding methodology, yet one which presents an authentically biblical account of God in whose image humans are made. The alternative is to continue presenting god as one made in the image of humans according to their era, denomination, outlook, predispositions, sensibilities and preferences this is far more damaging than anything previously perpetrated in Marcion’s name.

Dr Martyn John Smith is a philosophy, ethics and theology teacher at a sixth-form centre in the Midlands.

[1] M.S. Enslin, ‘The Pontic Mouse, Anglican Theological Review, 27, No.1, (1945): 1–16, on 6.

[2] J.H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1972), 86.

[3] F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1964), 252.

[4] Bruce, Spreading, 210.

[5] E.W. Scherbenske, ‘Marcion’s Antitheses and the Isagogic Genre’, Vigiliae Christianae, Vol 64, No.3 (2010) 255–79, on 256–57.

[6] Justin, 1 Apologia 58 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.27 Origen, Contra Celsum 5.54 6.53, 74 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem.

[7] Bruce, Spreading, 210.

[8] Scherbenske, ‘Marcion’, 255.

[9] Davis argues that in the name of Saint Paul Marcion addressed what he saw as the problem of the ‘Terrible Father’ of the Old Testament, claiming that this angry God, ‘…has been replaced by a strange new God of love who accepted his Son’s sacrificial death as the purchase price for liberating Christians from the oppressive God of the Old Testament.’ C.T. Davis, ‘Seeds of Violence in Biblical Interpretation’, in J.H. Ellens (ed.), The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Volume 1: Sacred scri ptures, Ideology, and Violence, Westport: Praeger, 2004, 35-53, on 46.

[10] Enslin, ‘Pontic’, 3.

[11] ‘Ever since Marcion, the idea has been widely circulated that the God of the Hebrews, in contrast to the Father of Jesus, was angry or belligerent in such a way that Jesus, although confessed as the expected Anointed One, must be seen as rather rejecting than fulfilling the main thrust of Hebrew and Jewish hopes.’ J.H. Yoder, Introduction, M.C. Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel, (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1980), 17.

[12] Kelly describes Marcion as being a Christian by upbringing and yet one who, ‘…declined to avail himself of the allegorical methods of exegesis current in the church, and consequently found the Old Testament impossible to reconcile with the gospel of Christ.’ J.N.D Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, (London: A C Black, 1958), 57.

[13] Bruce, Spreading, 211–12. The all-permeating problem faced by Marcion in his redaction of the New Testament, and in particular the Gospels, from Old Testament influence is highlighted by the fact that, ‘The Hebrew scri ptures – or Old Testament – permeate Matthew’s Gospel. Approximately fifty-five references prove close enough in wording for commentators typically to label them “quotations”, compared to about sixty-five for the other three canonical Gospels put together.’ C. Blomberg, ‘Matthew’, in G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, Nottingham: Inter Varsity Press, 2007, 1–110, on 1.

[14] In fact, Tertullian claimed that Marcion entitled the Antitheses such because in it he juxtaposed what he

viewed as antithetical statements from the Hebrew scri ptures and his New Testament collection in order to demonstrate the incompatibility of the God of the Hebrew Bible and the God who sent the Christ. In this manner, “Marcion purportedly rejected the ius talionis by juxtaposing it with Jesus’ injunction to, ‘…turn the other cheek”. In Marcion’s understanding, such statements were mutually exclusive and pointed to a conflict in laws, thus demonstrating Jesus’ rejection of the law found in the Hebrew Bible.’ Scherbenske, ‘Marcion’, 257.

[15] P.D. Miller, ‘God the Warrior: A Problem in Biblical Interpretation and Apologetics’, Interpretation, 19, No.1, (1965): 39–46, on 41.

[16] D.L. Gard, ‘The Church’s scri pture and Functional Marcionism’, Concordia Theological Quarterly, No.74, (2010): 209–24, on 209.

[17] T. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 89.

[18] P.D. Hanson, ‘War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible’, Interpretation, Vol.38, No.4, (1984): 341–62, on 344.

[19] H. Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 15.

[20] ‘This primitive language and imagery of the Old Testament was one of the principal factors in the Marcionite effort at destruction of the unity of the Bible and rejection of the Old Testament as Christian scri pture.’ Miller, ‘Warrior’, 41.

[21] Bruce, Spreading, 211. From this perspective, ‘The God of the Hebrew scri ptures is regarded as inferior to the God of the New Testament. Compared to the God revealed in Jesus, the God of Israel is a lesser deity.’ G.L. Jones, ‘Sacred Violence: The Dark Side of God’, Journal of Beliefs and Values, 20:2, (1999): 184–99, on 191.

[22] ‘...supersessionism, or the relationship between Israel and the church, understood as the former being replaced by the latter.’ R.K. Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 6. Jones affirms that supersessionism, “…is nothing other than a modern form of Marcionism.” Jones, ‘Sacred’, 191.

[23] Gard, ‘scri pture’, 209.

[24] Franz Hesse, ‘The Evaluation and the Authority of the Old Testament Texts’, in Claus Westerman (ed.), Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, (London: SCM, 1963): 285–313, on 300.

[25] Marcion insisted that the one is, ‘...judicial, harsh, mighty in war the other mild, placid, and simply good and excellent.’ Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, I, 6.

[26] Enslin, ‘Pontic’, 9.

[27] Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I, 27, 2 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, II, 14.

[28] R. Schwager, Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1987), 54. He goes on to conclude that God, ‘…manifests his might and glory through warfare and holds court like a wrathful avenger. No other topic is as often mentioned [in the Old Testament] as God’s bloody works.’ Schwager, Scapegoats, 55.

[29] J. Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, (London: SCM Press, 1977), 102.

[30] Marcion, ‘...did not regard the Old Testament as a book of lies. It was true history it was what had happened. It was to be eschewed not because it was untrue but because it was evil.’ Enslin, ‘Pontic’, 15.

[31] A.J. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: Harper-Collins, 2001), 385. Harnack too acknowledged Marcion’s deference to Paul in his quip that, ‘It may be said that in the second century only one Christian —Marcion—took the trouble to understand Paul but it must be added that he misunderstood him.’ A.Von Harnack, ‘Marcion and the Marcionite Churches’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Vol. 15, (Edinburgh: A C Black, 1888): 533–35, on 534.

[32] Heschel, Prophets, 384. Marcion claimed that, ‘A better god has been discovered who never takes offense, is never angry, never inflicts pain.` Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, I, 27.

[33] Enslin, ‘Pontic’, 9–10.

[34] Heschel, Prophets, 385.

[35] ‘Marcion erred not just in the breadth of his de-canonization of the entire Old Testament but in his de-canonization of any of it.’ Bruce, Spreading, 224.

[36] It has already been noted, for example, how the teachings of Feuerbach in regard to “projecting one’s image onto God” are a case in point. L. Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, (New York: Dover Publications, 2008), 12.

[37] Enslin notes of Marcion that he made a choice between a God he liked and one he did not then simply choosing to accept and worship the one that met his own sensibilities whilst vilifying and rejecting the one that did not. ‘The true God, the hitherto undivulged God of love, who is himself goodness and love and who desires love and faith from men, was thus totally other than the wrathful, jealous, and capricious God of the Jewish scri ptures, who demanded from his worshipers (sic) not love and faith but fear and obedience couched in terms of outward righteousness.’ Enslin, ‘Pontic’, 9.