Marcion — testimonia and quotations (not a reconstruction)

1. Testimonium 1 — The Antitheses and the two gods (Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.1)
2. Direct quotation — The Gospel's opening: “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus vouchsafed to come down from heaven” (Marcion's text, via Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.19)
3. Testimonium 2 — Rhodo on the divisions among the Marcionites (Rhodo, via Eusebius, Church History 5.13)

Testimonium 1 — The Antitheses and the two gods (Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.1)

Every opinion and the whole scheme of the impious and sacrilegious Marcion we now bring to the test of that very Gospel which, by his process of interpolation, he has made his own. To encourage a belief of this Gospel he has actually devised for it a sort of dower, in a work composed of contrary statements set in opposition, thence entitled Antitheses, and compiled with a view to such a severance of the law from the gospel as should divide the Deity into two, nay, diverse, gods — one for each Instrument, or Testament as it is more usual to call it; that by such means he might also patronize belief in the Gospel according to the Antitheses. These, however, I would have attacked in special combat, hand to hand; that is to say, I would have encountered singly the several devices of the Pontic heretic, if it were not much more convenient to refute them in and with that very gospel to which they contribute their support. Although it is so easy to meet them at once with a peremptory demurrer, yet, in order that I may both make them admissible in argument, and account them valid expressions of opinion, and even contend that they make for our side, that so there may be all the redder shame for the blindness of their author, we have now drawn out some antitheses of our own in opposition to Marcion. And indeed I do allow that one order did run its course in the old dispensation under the Creator, and that another is on its way in the new under Christ. I do not deny that there is a difference in the language of their documents, in their precepts of virtue, and in their teachings of the law; but yet all this diversity is consistent with one and the same God, even Him by whom it was arranged and also foretold. Long ago did Isaiah declare that out of Sion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem Isaiah 2:3 — some other law, that is, and another word. In short, says he, He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; Isaiah 2:4 meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but of the nations which are judged by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are among themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they have believed. And as the result of this, they beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears (which are a kind of hunting instruments) into pruning-hooks; Isaiah 2:4 that is to say, minds, which once were fierce and cruel, are changed by them into good dispositions productive of good fruit. And again: Hearken unto me, hearken unto me, my people, and you kings, give ear unto me; for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations; wherefore He had determined and decreed that the nations also were to be enlightened by the law and the word of the gospel. This will be that law which (according to David also) is unblameable, because perfect, converting the soul from idols unto God. This likewise will be the word concerning which the same Isaiah says, For the Lord will make a decisive word in the land. Because the New Testament is compendiously short, and freed from the minute and perplexing burdens of the law. But why enlarge, when the Creator by the same prophet foretells the renovation more manifestly and clearly than the light itself? Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old (the old things have passed away, and new things are arising). Behold, I will do new things, which shall now spring forth. Isaiah 43:18-19 So by Jeremiah: Break up for yourselves new pastures, and sow not among thorns, and circumcise yourselves in the foreskin of your heart. And in another passage: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I arrested their dispensation, in order to bring them out of the land of Egypt. He thus shows that the ancient covenant is temporary only, when He indicates its change; also when He promises that it shall be followed by an eternal one. For by Isaiah He says: Hear me, and you shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, adding the sure mercies of David, Isaiah 55:3 in order that He might show that that covenant was to run its course in Christ. That He was of the family of David, according to the genealogy of Mary, He declared in a figurative way even by the rod which was to proceed out of the stem of Jesse. Isaiah 11:1 Forasmuch then as he said, that from the Creator there would come other laws, and other words, and new dispensations of covenants, indicating also that the very sacrifices were to receive higher offices, and that among all nations, by Malachi when he says: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, neither will I accept your sacrifices at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place a sacrifice is offered unto my name, even a pure offering Malachi 1:10-11 — meaning simple prayer from a pure conscience — it is of necessity that every change which comes as the result of innovation, introduces a diversity in those things of which the change is made, from which diversity arises also a contrariety. For as there is nothing, after it has undergone a change, which does not become different, so there is nothing different which is not contrary. Of that very thing, therefore, there will be predicated a contrariety in consequence of its diversity, to which there accrued a change of condition after an innovation. He who brought about the change, the same instituted the diversity also; He who foretold the innovation, the same announced beforehand the contrariety likewise. Why, in your interpretation, do you impute a difference in the state of things to a difference of powers? Why do you wrest to the Creator's prejudice those examples from which you draw your antitheses, when you may recognise them all in His sensations and affections? I will wound, He says, and I will heal; I will kill, He says again, and I will make alive Deuteronomy 32:39 — even the same who creates evil and makes peace; Isaiah 45:7 from which you are used even to censure Him with the imputation of fickleness and inconstancy, as if He forbade what He commanded, and commanded what He forbade. Why, then, have you not reckoned up the Antitheses also which occur in the natural works of the Creator, who is for ever contrary to Himself? You have not been able, unless I am misinformed, to recognise the fact, that the world, at all events, even among your people of Pontus, is made up of a diversity of elements which are hostile to one another. It was therefore your bounden duty first to have determined that the god of the light was one being, and the god of darkness was another, in such wise that you might have been able to have distinctly asserted one of them to be the god of the law and the other the god of the gospel. It is, however, the settled conviction already of my mind from manifest proofs, that, as His works and plans exist in the way of Antitheses, so also by the same rule exist the mysteries of His religion.

Direct quotation — The Gospel's opening: “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus vouchsafed to come down from heaven” (Marcion's text, via Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.19)

Well, but our god, say the Marcionites, although he did not manifest himself from the beginning and by means of the creation, has yet revealed himself in Christ Jesus. A book will be devoted to Christ, treating of His entire state; for it is desirable that these subject-matters should be distinguished one from another, in order that they may receive a fuller and more methodical treatment. Meanwhile it will be sufficient if, at this stage of the question, I show — and that but briefly — that Christ Jesus is the revealer of none other god but the Creator. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus vouchsafed to come down from heaven, as the spirit of saving health. I cared not to inquire, indeed, in what particular year of the elder Antoninus. He who had so gracious a purpose did rather, like a pestilential sirocco, exhale this health or salvation, which Marcion teaches from his Pontus. Of this teacher there is no doubt that he is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the pious. Now, from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6-1/2 months. Just such an interval do they place between Christ and Marcion. Inasmuch, then, as Marcion, as we have shown, first introduced this god to notice in the time of Antoninus, the matter becomes at once clear, if you are a shrewd observer. The dates already decide the case, that he who came to light for the first time in the reign of Antoninus, did not appear in that of Tiberius; in other words, that the God of the Antonine period was not the God of the Tiberian; and consequently, that he whom Marcion has plainly preached for the first time, was not revealed by Christ (who announced His revelation as early as the reign of Tiberius). Now, to prove clearly what remains of the argument, I shall draw materials from my very adversaries. Marcion's special and principal work is the separation of the law and the gospel; and his disciples will not deny that in this point they have their very best pretext for initiating and confirming themselves in his heresy. These are Marcion's Antitheses, or contradictory propositions, which aim at committing the gospel to a variance with the law, in order that from the diversity of the two documents which contain them, they may contend for a diversity of gods also. Since, therefore, it is this very opposition between the law and the gospel which has suggested that the God of the gospel is different from the God of the law, it is clear that, before the said separation, that god could not have been known who became known from the argument of the separation itself. He therefore could not have been revealed by Christ, who came before the separation, but must have been devised by Marcion, the author of the breach of peace between the gospel and the law. Now this peace, which had remained unhurt and unshaken from Christ's appearance to the time of Marcion's audacious doctrine, was no doubt maintained by that way of thinking, which firmly held that the God of both law and gospel was none other than the Creator, against whom after so long a time a separation has been introduced by the heretic of Pontus.

Testimonium 2 — Rhodo on the divisions among the Marcionites (Rhodo, via Eusebius, Church History 5.13)

1. At this time Rhodo, a native of Asia, who had been instructed, as he himself states, by Tatian, with whom we have already become acquainted, having written several books, published among the rest one against the heresy of Marcion. He says that this heresy was divided in his time into various opinions; and while describing those who occasioned the division, he refutes accurately the falsehoods devised by each of them.

3. But others, among whom are Potitus and Basilicus, hold to two principles, as does the mariner Marcion himself.

4. These following the wolf of Pontus, and, like him, unable to fathom the division of things, became reckless, and without giving any proof asserted two principles. Others, again, drifting into a worse error, consider that there are not only two, but three natures. Of these, Syneros is the leader and chief, as those who defend his teaching say.