Although most of the early “Church Fathers” came from a Greek background, some were even more extreme in their views. Marcion, who would eventually be labeled as a heretic, gives one a glimpse at the ideas that were being promoted during this early point in Christian history.

Dr. John Garr writes:

In the middle of the second century, the Hebrew foundations of Christian faith were attacked by the first great heresy that challenged the church. Some of the ideas of this heresy so permeated the church's corporate psyche that it has not yet fully recovered its spiritual and scriptural equilibrium.

Marcion, son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus (there is some question about this) joined the Syrian Gnostic Credo in Rome in developing a dualistic view of sacred history which postulated the existence of two gods, the good and gracious God (Christ) and the Demiurge (Jehovah of the Jews). Marcion taught an irreconcilable dualism between gospel and law, between Christianity and Judaism. The Demiurge and his religion were seen as harsh, severe, and unmerciful, and they were cast into Hades by Christ, the good God.

Marcion invented a new canon of Holy Scripture which included only an abridged Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul's epistles, some of which he edited. He wrested the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:17 to declare, “I am not come to fulfill the law and the prophets, but to destroy them.”

In Marcion's view, Christianity had no connection whatever with the past, whether of the Jewish or the heathen world, but had fallen abruptly and magically from heaven. Jesus, too, was not born, nor did he die.

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