penalties imposed upon the Apollinarists by former emperors (ib. 517–520). The emperor wrote to the monks of Alexandria by Joannes the Decurio (ib. 481), exhorting them to abandon their errors and to submit to the decrees of Chalcedon. The troubles at Alexandria, however, were too great to be appeased by words. The arrival of Proterius, the bishop appointed in place of Dioscorus, led to violent riots (Evagr. 229, 293).
Palestine was likewise in a disturbed state. Some of the monks of the defeated side, who had attended the council, on their return, headed by Theodosius, a violent monk who had been their leader in the council, stirred up an insurrection of the whole body of desert monks (ib. 293). Juvenalis, bp. of Jerusalem, had, after his return, to fly for his life. Severianus, bp. of Scythopolis, was killed by an assassin sent in pursuit of Juvenalis; Jerusalem was seized by the infuriated monks; houses were burnt, murders were perpetrated, the prisons broken open and criminals released, and finally Theodosius was elected bishop. Marcian, hearing of the outrages, wrote to the archimandrites, monks, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, rebuked them sharply, ordered the punishment of the guilty, and placed a garrison in Jerusalem (Mansi, vii. 487–495).
Marcian also took measures to suppress the last remnants of paganism. By a law of Nov. 12, 451 (Codex, lib. i. tit. xi. 7), he forbade, under pain of death, the reopening of the closed temples, and the offering sacrifices, libations, or incense in them, or even adorning them with flowers, and at the end of his law of Aug. 1, 455, directed the strict enforcement of the laws against paganism.
In Apr. 454 he passed a law granting to nuns, deaconesses, and widows the power of making testamentary dispositions in favour of the church or clergy and repealing all previous contrary enactments. In Apr. 456 he passed another (ib. tit. iii. 25, and tit. iv. 13), by which proceedings against the oeconomus or other clerics of the churches in Constantinople were to be taken at the plaintiff's desire either before the archbishop or the prefect of the city, and no oaths tendered to clerics, who were forbidden to swear by the laws of the church and an ancient canon.
Dying Jan. 457 (Theod. Lect. 565), aged 65, after a reign of 6½ years, he was buried in the church of the Apostles at Constantinople (Cedrenus, 607, in Patr. Gk. cxxi. 659).
[F.D.]
Marcion, a noted and permanently influential heretic of the 2nd cent.
Life.—Justin Martyr (Apol. cc. 26, 58) mentions Simon and Menander as having been instigated by demons to introduce heresy into the church, and goes on to speak of Marcion as still living, evidently regarding him as the most formidable heretic of the day.[1] He states that he was a native of Pontus who had made many disciples out of every nation, and refers for a more detailed refutation to a separate treatise of his own, one sentence of which has been preserved by Irenaeus (iv. 6). This work seems to have been extant in the time of Photius (Cod. 154). Irenaeus also states that Marcion came from Pontus. He adds that thence he came to Rome, where he became an adherent, and afterwards the successor, of Cerdo, a Syrian teacher who, though he made public confession and was reconciled, privately continued teaching heretical doctrine, was betrayed by some of his hearers, and again separated. Irenaeus places the coming of Cerdo to Rome in the episcopate of Hyginus, which lasted four years, ending, according, to Lipsius, 139, 140, or 141. Irenaeus places the activity of Marcion at Rome under Anicetus ("invaluit sub Aniceto"), whose episcopate of 12 years began in 154. He says (iii. 3) that Marcion meeting Polycarp at Rome (probably 154 or 155) claimed recognition, on which Polycarp answered, "I recognize thee as the firstborn of Satan." Irenaeus contemplated (iii. 12) a separate treatise against Marcion. There is no direct evidence of his having carried out this design, but as its proposed method is stated to have been the confutation of Marcion by means of his own gospel, and as this is precisely the method followed by Tertullian, who is elsewhere largely indebted to Irenaeus, the work of Irenaeus may have been then written and known to Tertullian. It has been stated under HIPPOLYTUS how the contents of the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus are inferred. It appears to have named Sinope as Marcion's native city (Epiph. 42, Philast. 45), of which his father was bishop; and to have stated that he was obliged to leave home because he seduced a virgin and was excommunicated by his father (Epiph., Pseudo-Tert. 17). Epiphanius tells, apparently on the same authority, that Marcion, his frequent entreaties for absolution having failed, went to Rome, where he arrived after the death of Hyginus, that he begged restoration from the presbyters there, but they declared themselves unable to act contrary to the decision of his venerated father. The mention of presbyters as then the ruling power in the church of Rome, and their professed inability to reverse the decision of a provincial bishop, indicate a date earlier than that of Epiphanius; but Epiphanius further states that Marcion's quarrel with the presbyters was not only because they did not restore him to church communion, but also because they did not make him bishop. This has been generally understood to mean bp. of Rome, and possibly Epiphanius intended this, but he does not say so. His words are ὡς οὐκ ἀπείληφε τὴν προεδρίαν τε, καὶ τὴν εἴσδυσιν τῆς ἐκκλησίας. It is absurd that an excommunicated foreigner should dream of being made bishop of a church from wh ch he was asking in vain for absolution. Epiphanius must have misunderstood some expression he found in his authority, or Marcion must have been already a bishop (possibly one of his father's suffragans), been deposed, and was seeking at Rome both restoration to communion and recognition of his episcopal dignity. Optatus alone directly countenances the latter view, speaking of Marcion (iv. 5, p. 74) as "ex episcopo factus apostata." But there is indirect confirmation in the fact which we learn from Adamantius (i. 15; xvi. 264, Lommatz.) that Marcion was afterwards recognized as bishop by his own followers and was
- ↑ Though the form Μαρκιανοί (Trypho 35) suggests followers of Marcus, we think Marcion is intended.
