Marcionites Followers of Marcion, a reformer of Christianity of the 2nd century who, failing to bend the Church to his views, founded a society of his own in Rome, whence it spread to Asia Minor, gaining great influence and for a time seriously competing with the established Church. Though often described as a Gnostic, he holds a position rather between the Gnostics and those who sought to establish a less philosophical and more concrete system -- a church. He had known Christianity at a time when the Gnostic teachings still formed a recognized element; but he found the existing Church too far along the path of materialization of metaphysical ideas and adaptation to mundane politics, and he sought to restore the doctrine and ritual to an older, purer form. He favored the teachings of Paul, whom he regarded as the true interpreter of Christianity, and condemned the Old Testament as being a corrupting influence, while regarding the historical view of the Gospels as a literalization and carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolic teaching. His teachings contain many Gnostic elements: man is formed by the God of the Old Testament, who lays upon him laws which he cannot obey, so that he falls under the power of the lower Demiourgos. But another God, the God of Mercy, sends his son into the world to save man. Yet this son appears in the reign of Tiberius and is crucified in Palestine. The lower Demiourgos, the adversary of man and of the God of Mercy, is at the same time an agent of that God.
to be continue "Marcionites2 "

Marcionites Followers of Marcion, a reformer of Christianity of the 2nd century who, failing to bend the Church to his views, founded a society of his own in Rome, whence it spread to Asia Minor, gaining great influence and for a time seriously competing with the established Church. Though often described as a Gnostic, he holds a position rather between the Gnostics and those who sought to establish a less philosophical and more concrete system -- a church. He had known Christianity at a time when the Gnostic teachings still formed a recognized element; but he found the existing Church too far along the path of materialization of metaphysical ideas and adaptation to mundane politics, and he sought to restore the doctrine and ritual to an older, purer form. He favored the teachings of Paul, whom he regarded as the true interpreter of Christianity, and condemned the Old Testament as being a corrupting influence, while regarding the historical view of the Gospels as a literalization and carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolic teaching. His teachings contain many Gnostic elements: man is formed by the God of the Old Testament, who lays upon him laws which he cannot obey, so that he falls under the power of the lower Demiourgos. But another God, the God of Mercy, sends his son into the world to save man. Yet this son appears in the reign of Tiberius and is crucified in Palestine. The lower Demiourgos, the adversary of man and of the God of Mercy, is at the same time an agent of that God.
to be continue "Marcionites2 "