MARCION

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Easter Thursday is "Marcion"

I pulled together today's thoughts because of one sentence in today's gospel from Luke: "Then he [Jesus] opened their minds to understand the Scriptures."

In order to understand Christ, one needs to understand the whole of Scriptures. That’s a theme that appears quite a bit during the Easter season. That’s the theme I’d like to reflect upon a bit today. Or to put it another way: private interpretation of scripture vs. public interpretation.

When Christ died the disciples of Jesus had the rug pulled out from under them. In the days that followed, the Risen Christ appeared to them in mystery. Slowly they began to piece together what he had been saying to them while he was with them before his death and resurrection. Slowly they began to see his story in the Old Testament story. And even more slowly they and then the Church began to understand the New Testament. But only slowly.

Slowly we need to begin to see both his story and our story in the Old and New Testaments. Slowly we need to study scripture - but also tradition - Church history. We need to look at the whole picture - the big picture. We need to be Catholic - not Partial.

MARCION

It’s always easier to see the spots on the other leopard’s back than our own. So let’s start with a character in Early Christianity whose name was Marcion.

He was born in Sinope, in Pontus, on the Black Sea. His father was a bishop and his family belonged to the upper crust. He made a fortune on his own as a ship owner. Somewhere along the line he went off on his own thinking. The result was excommunication in his local church. The person who did it: his father.

Whether that was the reason or for some other reason, he went to Rome in 140. In July of 144 he was excommunicated again - this time by the Church in Rome.

Johanes Quasten [1900-1987],  world famous Roman Catholic Theologian and expert on the Early Church, points out, “There was an important difference between Marcion and the other Gnostics. While the other Gnostics founded only schools, Marcion after his separation from the Church of Rome founded his own Church. He established a hierarchy of bishops, priests and deacons. The liturgical meetings were very similar to those of the Roman Church. For this reason he gained more adherents than any other Gnostic. Ten years after his excommunication, Justin reports that his church had spread, `over the whole of mankind.’ Up to the middle of the fifth century there remained many Marcionite communities in the Orient, especially in Syria. Some of them were still in existence at the dawn of the Middle Ages.” (Cf p. 268, Vol. I Quasten)

Exactly what he taught is hard to say. Very little of what he wrote remains. But what he said had a great impact, based on the number of communities of Marcionites that sprung up and the amount of print he received from so many other Early Church writers.

For our purpose here I am using Marcion as an example of the type of person who is narrow in his use of Scripture. He is a good example of someone who selects scripture to back his own viewpoints and not the other way around.

It happens all the time. Listen to people. If there is any one area where people have lots of their own opinions and theories, it’s with the Bible. They like what they like and they avoid what they don’t like. We’re selective readers and listeners.

One of my private theories is that another cause of this practice is that people have picked up their ideas from preachers through the years who didn’t do enough homework. You’re looking at one right here. We preachers get a lot of nonsense off. Laziness is one of the main causes. That’s another one of my pet theories. It takes time to read up on the different studies and research on different scripture passages. It’s much easier to babble on from the pulpit: the Tower of Babel.

The Catholic Church certainly has opened up a lot on the Bible in the past 50 + years. And one of the good things that has happened in the Catholic Church, is their 3 year, 2 year and 1 year cycle in the use of Scripture. It forces us to read and hear most of the Bible in a 3 year cycle. As we move ahead, hopefully, people will attend scripture courses and preachers will do more homework and become more and more open to being stretched.

Marcion eliminated Matthew, Mark and John. Then he cut out a lot of Luke. In Paul he razor bladed out the pastoral epistles of Paul as well as Hebrews. He put the Letter to the Galatians first and changed the Epistle to the Ephesians to the Epistles to the Laodiceans. He also eliminated the whole OT. So becoming a priest in his church would be a lot faster. You would not have to study a lot of that  Scripture stuff.

Marcion read the scriptures and saw 2 gods. Read the scriptures and listen to the psalms when we say office and you can see where he might be coming from.

First there is the good God who lives in the third heaven. You find him in the New Testament - or better in what Marcion had saved of the New Testament.

Then there is the just god who created the world and man. This god is none other than the demiurge - who is well known in Gnostic sects. This second god did not create the world out of nothingness, but formed it out of the eternal matter, the seed of all evil. This god - this second god - is the god of the Jews - the god of the Law and the Prophets. He has passions. He gets angry. He is revengeful. He is the author of all evil - be it physical or moral. He is the instigator of all wars. (cf. Quasten, Vol. 1, p. 270)

How’s that for selective editing? How’s that for selective thinking?

THE NEED TO BE CATHOLIC

What do you do with someone who thinks and preaches that way? You throw the bum out. His father did it and the Church of Rome did.

The word Catholic means whole - KATA HOLOS.

So some obvious lessons for us can be found here.

1)       The need to know what we believe in - what scripture texts we favor and what ones we avoid.

2)       The need to be open to all the scriptures - to do our homework - to do our research - to study and to read.

3)       The need to be open to the Church and its teachings. Marcion wasn’t. But the Church also needs to be open to the research and study done by scripture people. In the past this hasn’t been always so.

4)       The need to be open to our tradition - both in the Old and New Testament - to clarify and collate what we have learned and go from there.

CONCLUSION

I think that’s about enough for now. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mosaic on top - Jesus Christ Pantocrator in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.