History of Dogma, Volume 1

by Adolf von Harnack

Footnote 360:[ (return) ]

See the passage Clem. Strom. III. 6, 49, which is given above, p. 238.

Footnote 361:[ (return) ]

Cf. the Apocryphal Acts of Apostles and diverse legends of Apostles (e.g., in Clem. Alex.).

Footnote 362:[ (return) ]

More can hardly be said: the heads of schools were themselves earnest men. No doubt statements such as that of Heracleon seem to have led to laxity in the lower sections of the collegium: 'ομολογιαν ειναι την μεν εν τηι πιστει και πολιτειαι. την δε εν φωνηι; 'η μην ουν εν φωνηι 'ομολογια και επι των εξουσιων γινεται, 'ην μονην 'ομολογιαν 'ηγουνται ειναι 'οι πολλοι, ουχ 'υγιως δυνανται δε ταυτην την 'ομολογιαν και 'οι 'υποκριται 'ομολογειν.

Footnote 363:[ (return) ]

See Epiph. h. 26, and the statements in the Coptic Gnostic works. (Schmidt, Texte u Unters. VIII. 1. 2, p. 566 ff.).

Footnote 364:[ (return) ]

There arose in this way an extremely difficult theoretical problem, but practically a convenient occasion for throwing asceticism altogether overboard, with the Gnostic asceticism, or restricting it to easy exercises. This is not the place for entering into the details. Shibboleths, such as φευγετε ου τας φυσεις αλλα τας γνωμας των κακων, may have soon appeared. It may be noted here, that the asceticism which gained the victory in Monasticism, was not really that which sprang from early Christian, but from Greek impulses, without, of course, being based on the same principle. Gnosticism anticipated the future even here. That could be much more clearly proved in the history of the worship. A few points which are of importance for the history of dogma may be mentioned here: (1) The Gnostics viewed the traditional sacred actions (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) entirely as mysteries, and applied to them the terminology of the mysteries (some Gnostics set them aside as psychic); but in doing so they were only drawing the inferences from changes which were then in process throughout Christendom. To what extent the later Gnosticism in particular was interested in sacraments, may be studied especially in the Pistis Sophia and the other Coptic works of the Gnostics, which Carl Schmidt has edited; see, for example, Pistis Sophia, p. 233. "Dixit Jesus ad suos μαθητας; αμην dixi vobis, haud adduxi quidquam in κοσμον veniens nisi hunc ignem et hanc aquam et hoc vinum et hunc sanguinem." (2) They increased the holy actions by the addition of new ones, repeated baptisms (expiations), anointing with oil, sacrament of confirmation απολυτρωσις; see, on Gnostic sacraments, Iren. I. 20, and Lipsius, Apokr. Apostelgesch. I. pp. 336-343, and cf. the πυκνως μετανοσυσι in the delineation of the Shepherd of Hermas. Mand. XI. (3) Marcus represented the wine in the Lord's Supper as actual blood in consequence of the act of blessing: see Iren., I. 13.2: ποτηρια οινω κεκραμενα προσποιουμενος ευχαριστειν και επι πλεον εκτεινων τον λογον της επικλησεως, πορφυρεα και ερυθρα αναφαινεσθαι ποιει, 'ως δοκειν την απο των 'υπερ τα 'ολα χαριν το 'αιμα το 'εαυτης σταζειν εν εκεινω τω ποτηριω δια της επικλησεως αυτου, και 'υπεριμειρεσθαι τους παροντας εξ εκεινου γευσασθαι του ποματος, 'ινα και εις αυτους επομβρηση 'η δια του μαγου τουτου κληιζομενη χαρις. Marcus was indeed a charlatan; but religious charlatanry afterwards became very earnest, and was certainly taken earnestly by many adherents of Marcus. The transubstantiation idea, in reference to the elements in the mysteries, is also plainly expressed in the Excerpt. ex. Theodot. § 82: και 'ο αρτος και το ελαιον αγιαζεται τη δυναμει του ονοματος ου τα αυτα οντα κατα το φαινομενον δια εληφθη, αλλα δυ αμει εις δυναμιν πνευματικην μεταβεβληται (that is, not into a new super-terrestrial material, not into the real body of Christ, but into a spiritual power) ουτως και το 'υδωρ και το εξορκιζομενον και το βαπτισμα γινομενον ου μονον χωρει το χειρον, αλλα και αγιασμον προσλαμβανει. Irenæus possessed a liturgical handbook of the Marcionites, and communicates many sacramental formula from it (I. c. 13 sq). In my treatise on the Pistis Sophia (Texte u. Unters. VII. 2. pp. 59-94) I think I have shewn ("The common Christian and the Catholic elements of the Pistis Sophia") to what extent Gnosticism anticipated Catholicism as a system of doctrine and an institute of worship. These results have been strengthened by Carl Schmidt (Texte u. Unters. VIII. 1. 2). Even purgatory, prayers for the dead, and many other things, raised in speculative questions and definitely answered, are found in those Coptic Gnostic writings, and are then met with again in Catholicism. One general remark may be permitted in conclusion. The Gnostics were not interested in apologetics, and that is a very significant fact. The πνευμα in man was regarded by them as a supernatural principle, and on that account they are free from all rationalism and moralistic dogmatism. For that very reason they are in earnest with the idea of revelation, and do not attempt to prove it or convert its contents into natural truths. They did endeavour to prove that their doctrines were Christian, but renounced all proof that revelation is the truth (proofs from antiquity). One will not easily find in the case of the Gnostics themselves, the revealed truth described as philosophy, or morality as the philosophic life. If we compare therefore, the first and fundamental system of Catholic doctrine, that of Origen, with the system of the Gnostics, we shall find that Origen, like Basilides and Valentinus, was a philosopher of revelation, but that he had besides a second element which had its origin in apologetics.

CHAPTER V

MARCION'S ATTEMPT TO SET ASIDE THE OLD TESTAMENT FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY, TO PURIFY TRADITION AND TO REFORM CHRISTENDOM ON THE BASIS OF THE PAULINE GOSPEL

Marcion cannot be numbered among the Gnostics in the strict sense of the word.[³⁶⁵] For (1) he was not guided by any speculatively scientific, or even by an apologetic, but by a soteriological interest.[³⁶⁶] (2) He therefore put all emphasis on faith, not on Gnosis.[³⁶⁷] (3) In the exposition of his ideas he neither applied the elements of any Semitic religious wisdom, nor the methods of the Greek philosophy of religion.[³⁶⁸] (4) He never made the distinction between an esoteric and an exoteric form of religion. He rather clung to the publicity of the preaching, and endeavoured to reform Christendom, in opposition to the attempts at founding schools for those who knew and mystery cults for such as were in quest of initiation. It was only after the failure of his attempts at reform that he founded churches of his own, in which brotherly equality, freedom from all ceremonies, and strict evangelical discipline were to rule.[³⁶⁹] Completely carried away with the novelty, uniqueness and grandeur of the Pauline Gospel of the grace of God in Christ, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially its union with the Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from the truth.[³⁷⁰] He accordingly supposed that it was necessary to make the sharp antitheses of Paul, law and gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life, that is the Pauline criticism of the Old Testament religion, the foundation of his religious views, and to refer them to two principles, the righteous and wrathful god of the Old Testament, who is at the same time identical with the creator of the world, and the God of the Gospel, quite unknown before Christ, who is only love and mercy.[³⁷¹] This Paulinism in its religious strength, but without dialectic, without the Jewish Christian view of history, and detached from the soil of the Old Testament, was to him the true Christianity. Marcion, like Paul, felt that the religious value of a statutory law with commandments and ceremonies, was very different from that of a uniform law of love.[³⁷²] Accordingly, he had a capacity for appreciating the Pauline idea of faith; it is to him reliance on the unmerited grace of God which is revealed in Christ. But Marcion shewed himself to be a Greek, influenced by the religious spirit of the time, by changing the ethical contrast of the good and legal into the contrast between the infinitely exalted spiritual and the sensible which is subject to the law of nature, by despairing of the triumph of good in the world and, consequently, correcting the traditional faith that the world and history belong to God, by an empirical view of the world and the course of events in it,[³⁷³] a view to which he was no doubt also led by the severity of the early Christian estimate of the world. Yet to him systematic speculation about the final causes of the contrast actually observed, was by no means the main thing. So far as he himself ventured on such a speculation he seems to have been influenced by the Syrian Cerdo. The numerous contradictions which arise as soon as one attempts to reduce Marcion's propositions to a system, and the fact that his disciples tried all possible conceptions of the doctrine of principles, and defined the relation of the two Gods very differently, are the clearest proof that Marcion was a religious character, that he had in general nothing to do with principles, but with living beings whose power he felt, and that what he ultimately saw in the Gospel was not an explanation of the world, but redemption from the world,[³⁷⁴]—redemption from a world, which even in the best that it can offer, has nothing that can reach the height of the blessing bestowed in Christ.[³⁷⁵] Special attention may be called to the following particulars.

1. Marcion explained the Old Testament in its literal sense and rejected every allegorical interpretation. He recognised it as the revelation of the creator of the world and the god of the Jews, but placed it, just on that account, in sharpest contrast to the Gospel. He demonstrated the contradictions between the Old Testament and the Gospel in a voluminous work (the αντιθεσεις).[³⁷⁶] In the god of the former book he saw a being whose character was stern justice, and therefore anger; contentiousness and unmercifulness. The law which rules nature and man appeared to him to accord with the characteristics of this god and the kind of law revealed by him, and therefore it seemed credible to him that this god is the creator and lord of the world (κοσμοκρατωρ). As the law which governs the world is inflexible, and yet, on the other hand, full of contradictions, just and again brutal, and as the law of the Old Testament exhibits the same features, so the god of creation was to Marcion a being who united in himself the whole gradations of attributes from justice to malevolence, from obstinacy to inconsistency.[³⁷⁷] Into this conception of the creator of the world, the characteristic of which is that it cannot be systematised, could easily be fitted the Syrian Gnostic theory which regards him as an evil being, because he belongs to this world and to matter. Marcion did not accept it in principle,[³⁷⁸] but touched it lightly and adopted certain inferences.[³⁷⁹] On the basis of the Old Testament and of empirical observation, Marcion divided men into two classes, good and evil, though he regarded them all, body and soul, as creatures of the demiurge. The good are those who strive to fulfil the law of the demiurge. These are outwardly better than those who refuse him obedience. But the distinction found here is not the decisive one. To yield to the promptings of Divine grace is the only decisive distinction, and those just men will shew themselves less susceptible to the manifestation of the truly good than sinners. As Marcion held the Old Testament to be a book worthy of belief, though his disciple, Apelles, thought otherwise, he referred all its predictions to a Messiah whom the creator of the world is yet to send, and who, as a warlike hero, is to set up the earthly kingdom of the "just" God.[³⁸⁰]