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What if the sharpest challenge to a sacred text survives only in the words of its opponents?
In Antitheses of Marcion, a Christian teacher places passages from the Jewish scriptures beside the words and acts of Jesus. Marcion of Sinope argues that their contrasts point to two different gods: a just Creator and a loving Father revealed by Christ. His claim challenges the place of Jewish scripture in Christian life.
The complete work no longer survives. This account follows what scholars reconstruct from quotations preserved by Marcion’s opponents, especially Tertullian in Against Marcion. It traces the contrasts, the shorter collection of scriptures, and the communities shaped by his teaching. Throughout, the evidence asks for care: the voices preserving his words also seek to refute them.
What you’ll discover
- A lost book’s traces Explore how hostile witnesses preserve fragments of a work their churches reject.
- Two visions of divinity Follow Marcion’s argument that the Creator’s justice differs from the Father’s goodness.
- Scripture set beside scripture See how opposing passages become the building blocks of Marcion’s religious challenge.
- A shorter sacred collection Examine the place of a shortened Gospel and Paul’s letters in Marcion’s teaching.
- Churches draw their boundaries Discover why this dispute presses other church leaders to clarify which writings they accept.
Is it for you?
This is for readers curious about how the Christian Bible took shape, and about the sharpest challenge its early shapers faced. It suits students of church history. It may suit you less if you want a complete text to read directly, because none survives.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A lost book known through its enemies
- Two gods, one just and one good
- Contrasts drawn from the scriptures themselves
- A shorter scripture to match the contrasts
- Christ, the body and a strict way of life
- The church's reply and the book's lasting mark
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Antitheses of Marcion
by Marcion· 144
A Christian teacher argues that Jesus revealed a different God.
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Language: English
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A lost book known through its enemies
The Antitheses was Marcion's main written work, and it served as a kind of founding charter for the churches that followed him. It never passed into the safe keeping of later copyists, since the larger churches did not preserve the writings of a teacher they had rejected. What remains are quotations, paraphrases and arguments recorded by opponents. Tertullian, writing in Latin in the early third century, is the fullest source. Irenaeus, Epiphanius and the author of a dialogue called Adamantius add more.
This gives modern readers a real difficulty. A critic wants to win an argument, so he may choose the passages that look weakest and describe them in his own terms. Scholars therefore compare the witnesses with one another and look for points where they agree. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the German historian Adolf von Harnack gathered this evidence into a famous study of Marcion, and many later scholars have used it as a base.
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What is the Antitheses of Marcion about?
It is a lost book by the second century teacher Marcion that set the God of the Jewish scriptures against the God taught by Jesus. It argued that they were two different gods, one just and one good.
Does the Antitheses of Marcion still exist?
No complete copy survives. Scholars rebuild its contents from quotations and summaries in the writings of its opponents, above all Tertullian's Against Marcion, as well as Irenaeus and Epiphanius.
Who was Marcion and what did he believe?
Marcion was a Christian teacher from Sinope who taught in Rome. He held that the Creator of the Old Testament was a lesser God and that Jesus revealed a higher, merciful God.
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