Gnostics, Marcion and the Rise of Orthodoxy

Arguing about the event

Shelley titles his chapter on this subject "Arguing about the Event." Everyone agreed that something world-changing had happened in Jesus. But what exactly? Who was he? Which God sent him? How are people saved? In the second century these questions were wide open, and many competing answers circulated, each claiming Jesus' authority.

The faith that won out came to be called Orthodoxy ("right opinion"). The views it rejected were labeled heresies, from a Greek word meaning "choice" or "faction." Some modern scholars, notably Walter Bauer in the 1930s, argued that in some regions "heresy" came first and "orthodoxy" later. Most historians think the truth is in between. A recognizable mainstream existed early, but it sharpened its identity by arguing with rivals.

Gnosticism: salvation by secret knowledge

The most serious challenge came from a varied set of movements that scholars call Gnosticism, from gnosis, Greek for "knowledge." There was no single Gnostic church, but many Gnostic teachers shared a family of ideas:

• Matter is bad. The physical world is a prison, a mistake or a trap.
• Two gods. The true, supreme God is pure spirit and far away. The world was made by a lesser, ignorant or even evil god, often identified with the God of the Old Testament.
• Divine sparks. Some humans have a spark of the true God trapped in their bodies.
• Secret knowledge saves. A heavenly messenger, Christ, came to awaken these sparks with secret teaching, so they can escape the material world and return to God.
• Christ only seemed human. Many Gnostics taught that the divine Christ only appeared to have a body, or left the man Jesus before the crucifixion. This view is called Docetism, from the Greek "to seem."

Gnostic teachers such as Valentinus, a brilliant thinker in Rome around 140, built elaborate cosmic dramas with dozens of heavenly beings. Their ideas appealed to educated people who found the body, suffering and a crucified Messiah embarrassing.

For centuries we knew Gnosticism mostly from its enemies' descriptions. Then, in 1945, farmers near Nag Hammadi in Egypt dug up a jar containing thirteen ancient books, a whole library of Gnostic and related texts in Coptic. Among them was the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, some similar to the Gospels and some strange. The find has fueled scholarly debate and popular fascination ever since.

Second-century challenges and the church's response

	Gnostics	Marcion	Montanists	"Great Church" response
God	Supreme God far off; world made by a lesser god	Two gods: harsh Creator vs. loving Father	Orthodox	One God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
Christ	A spirit who only seemed human	Appeared suddenly; not born	Orthodox	Truly born, truly suffered, truly rose
The world & body	A prison to escape	Product of an inferior god	Good, but strict discipline	Good creation, to be redeemed; resurrection of the body
Scripture	Secret gospels and traditions	Edited Luke + 10 Paul letters; no Old Testament	New revelations by prophets	Old Testament + apostolic writings (canon)
Authority	Initiated spiritual elite	Marcion's own church	The Spirit speaking through prophets	Rule of faith + bishops in apostolic succession

Marcion: a Christianity without the Old Testament

Marcion of Sinope, a wealthy shipowner from Sinope on the Black Sea, came to Rome around 140. He was struck by the contrast between the stern, warlike God of the Old Testament and the loving Father revealed by Jesus. He concluded they were two different gods. The creator God of the Jews was just but harsh. The higher God of love, previously unknown, had sent Jesus to rescue people from him.

So Marcion rejected the entire Old Testament. He also cut the New Testament down to an edited Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul's letters, removing passages that seemed to connect Jesus to the Jewish God. In 144 the Roman church expelled him and returned his large donation. He founded his own church, which spread widely and survived for centuries.

Marcion matters because he forced the question: which books are Scripture? His was the first known fixed list (canon) of Christian writings. The mainstream church responded by insisting on keeping the Old Testament and by defining a broader New Testament (see Forming the Bible). The ancient idea of rejecting the "Old Testament God" in favor of a "nicer" Jesus has never entirely disappeared.

Montanism: the New Prophecy

A different challenge came from Phrygia, in central Turkey, around 170. A new convert named Montanus began to prophesy in ecstatic trances, claiming the Holy Spirit (the "Paraclete" promised in John's Gospel) was speaking directly through him. Two women, Prisca and Maximilla, joined him as prophetesses. They announced that the end was near and that the heavenly Jerusalem would soon descend in Phrygia. They demanded strict discipline: fasting, no second marriages, no fleeing from persecution.

The "New Prophecy," as followers called it, was not heretical in its basic doctrine. Its problem was authority. If new revelations could override the apostles' teaching and the bishops' leadership, where would it end? Most bishops condemned it. Yet it attracted serious people. Tertullian himself joined it late in life. Its suppression helped establish that the age of new revelation was closed. Christianity would be anchored in the apostles' witness, not in ongoing prophecy. Some historians see later Pentecostal and charismatic movements as reopening the questions Montanism raised.

The response: three anchors

How could ordinary Christians tell true teaching from false, when every teacher claimed Jesus' authority? The church's answer, developed especially by Irenaeus of Lyon, bishop of Lyon, in his great work Against Heresies (c. 180), rested on three anchors.

1. The rule of faith

Churches taught new converts a short summary of the faith, recited at baptism. Irenaeus called it the "rule of faith" or "canon of truth." It affirmed one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth (against the Gnostics' two gods). It confessed one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who truly became flesh, was born, suffered, rose and will return (against docetism), and the Holy Spirit. These baptismal summaries grew into the creeds. The "Old Roman Creed" of the 100s or 200s is the ancestor of the Apostles' Creed still recited today.

2. The apostolic writings

Against Gnostic "secret gospels," the church appealed to writings widely recognized as coming from the apostles or their companions: the four Gospels, Paul, and others. Teaching had to agree with these public texts.

3. Apostolic succession

Gnostics claimed secret teachings handed down privately from the apostles. Irenaeus replied that if the apostles had any secret teachings, they would surely have passed them to the men they appointed to lead the churches. These leaders were the bishops. He could list the bishops of Rome one after another back to Peter and Paul. The public teaching of these churches, consistent across the world, was the true apostolic tradition. This idea of Apostolic succession gave bishops enormous authority (see Bishops and Church Order).

Body and world are good

Irenaeus also gave a positive vision in place of Gnosticism. God created the material world and called it good. Salvation does not mean escaping the body but healing and raising it. Christ became fully human, going through every stage of life, to restore humanity from within. Irenaeus called this "recapitulation." "The glory of God is a human being fully alive," runs a famous summary of his thought.

This affirmation of creation, the body and history is one of the most important outcomes of the second-century struggle. It underlies Christian teaching on the Incarnation, the sacraments, the resurrection of the body, and care for the physical world.