Marcion of Sinope
85 CE–160 CE · Sinope
Marcion of Sinope (c. 85–c. 160 CE) was a wealthy ship-owner from Pontus who traveled to Rome around 140 CE and became one of the most consequential — and controversial — figures in early Christian history. He taught a sharp dualism holding that the creator God of the Hebrew scriptures was a lesser, just deity entirely distinct from the supreme God of love revealed by Jesus, and on this basis he rejected the entire Old Testament as Christian Scripture. He produced what is widely regarded as the first explicit Christian biblical canon: an edited version of the Gospel of Luke and ten Pauline epistles, with passages he judged to be Judaizing additions removed. Excommunicated by the Roman church around 144 CE, he founded a rival Marcionite movement that spread across the Mediterranean and persisted for centuries. Proto-orthodox writers including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen wrote extensively against him; modern scholars widely credit his challenge as a catalyst that forced the proto-orthodox church to articulate its own doctrine of Scripture, canon, and the unity of the two Testaments.
Contested teaching
Marcion's rejection of the Old Testament and his dualistic two-God theology were condemned as heresy by the Roman church (c. 144 CE, leading to his excommunication) and subsequently refuted by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen, who rejected Marcionism as incompatible with proto-orthodox Christianity.
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SinopePontus
What they did here
Sinope in Pontus (modern Sinop, Turkey) was Marcion's birthplace; ancient sources describe him as the son of a bishop there, though his exact early biography is uncertain.
About Sinope
Sinope, modern Sinop on the Black Sea coast of northern Turkey, was a Greek colony of Pontus, founded by settlers from Miletus. It was the birthplace of Diogenes the Cynic, who was exiled from the city and went on to live in Athens and Corinth.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Marcion of Sinope’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Polycarp of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Valentinus, Pope St. Anicetus, Pope St. Pius I, Pope St. Hyginus, Tatian
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Marcion of Sinope’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.