Marcion of Sinope (Greek Μαρκίων ὁ Σινωπεύς; Latin Marcion Ponticus)
c. 85 - c. 160 CE · Gnosticism · Prominent
Marcion was a shipowner from the Black Sea coast who came to Rome, was expelled around 144, and founded a rival church that outlasted him by centuries. He taught that the god who made this world is not the Father of Jesus Christ, and that a God of pure goodness, unknown before then, showed himself under Tiberius. He assembled an edited Luke and ten letters of Paul, which many scholars credit as the first fixed Christian scripture. Not one sentence he wrote survives.
Signature
The position Marcion is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence
- Theology
- Duotheism
Positions on the 1 axes the sources answer
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
19 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Marcion refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Duotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Beginning of Things
- Demiurgic
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death?