in producing martyrs. Eusebius tells (iv. 15) that the same letter of the church of Smyrna from which he drew his account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, told also of the martyrdom of a Marcionite presbyter, Metrodorus, who, like Polycarp, suffered at Smyrna by fire, and in the same persecution. When, later, the Montanists appealed in proof of their orthodoxy to the number of their martyrs, they were reminded that this could be equally pleaded for the Marcionites (Eus. v. 16). Other Marcionite martyrs mentioned by Eusebius are a woman who suffered under Valerian at Caesarea in Palestine (iii. 12), and a Marcionite bp. Asclepius, who in the Diocletian persecution was burned alive at Caesarea on the same pyre as the orthodox Apselamus (Mart. Pal. c. 10). The strictness of the Marcionite discipline is proved by the unfriendly testimony of Tertullian, who tries by their practice to convict of falsity the Marcionite theory, that a good God could not be the object of fear: "If so, why do you not take your fill of the enjoyments of this life? Why do you not frequent the circus, the arena, and the theatre? Why do you not boil over with every kind of lust? When the censer is handed you, and you are asked to offer a few grains of incense, why not deny your faith? 'God forbid!' you cry—'God forbid!'"
At the end of the Diocletian persecution the Marcionites had a short interval of freedom of worship. An inscription has been found over the doorway of a house in a Syrian village (Le Bas and Waddington, Inscriptions, No. 2558, vol. iii. p. 583) bearing a Syrian date corresponding to the year commencing Oct. 1, 318. This is more ancient than any dated inscription belonging to a Catholic church. With the complete triumph of Christianity, Marcionite freedom of worship was lost. Constantine (Eus. de Vit. Const. iii. 64) absolutely forbade their meeting for worship in public or private buildings. Their churches were to be given to the Catholics; any private houses used for schismatical worship to be confiscated. But the dying out of Marcionism was probably less the result of imperial legislation than of the absorption of the older heresy by the new wave of Oriental dualism which in Manicheism passed over the church. The Theodosian Code (xvi. tit. v. 65) contains a solitary mention of Marcionites. They were not extinct in the fifth cent., for Theodoret, writing to pope Leo (Ep. 113, p. 1190), boasts that he had himself converted more than a thousand Marcionites. In Ep. 145 the number of converts rises to ten thousand; in Ep. 81 they are said to be the inhabitants of eight villages. In his Church History (v.) Theodoret tells of an unsuccessful effort made by Chrysostom for their conversion. Probably this survival of Marcionism was but a local peculiarity. But as late as 692 the council in Trullo thought it worth while to make provision for the reconciliation of Marcionites, and there is other evidence of lingering remains so late as the 10th cent. (Flügel's Mani, pp. 160, 167).
Doctrine.—There is a striking difference of character between the teaching of Marcion and of others commonly classed with him as Gnostics. The systems of the latter often contain so many elements derived from heathenism, or drawn from the fancy of the speculators, that we feel as if we had scarcely any common ground with them; but with Marcion Christianity is plainly the starting-point, and the character of his system harmonizes with his being the son of a Christian bishop and brought up as a Christian. But he has been perplexed by the question of the origin of evil, and is disposed to accept the solution, much prevalent in the East then, that evil is inextricably mixed up with matter, which therefore could not be the creation of the Supreme. He tries to fit in this solution with his Christian creed and with the Scriptures; but naturally only by a mutilation of both can he force an agreement. Indeed, he sometimes has even to alter the text, e.g. "I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil," into "I am not come to fulfil the law, but to destroy." Still, the arbitrary criticism of Marcion has more points of contact with modern thought than the baseless assumptions of other Gnostics. A modern divine would turn away from the dreams of Valentinianism in silent contempt; but he could not refuse to discuss the question raised by Marcion, whether there is such opposition between different parts of what he regards as the word of God, that all cannot come from the same author.
The fundamental point of difference between Marcion and the church was concerning the unity of the first principle. Marcion plainly asserted the existence of two Gods, a good one and a just one. What he meant to convey by these words Beausobre well illustrates by a passage of Bardesanes, preserved by Eusebius (Praep. Evan. vi. 10). He says that animals are of three kinds: some, like serpents and scorpions, will hurt those who have given them no provocation; some, like sheep, will not attempt to return evil for evil; others will hurt those only that hurt them. These three may be called evil, good, and just respectively. Marcion then thought the infliction of punishment inconsistent with perfect goodness, and would only concede the title of just to the God of O.T., who had distinctly threatened to punish the wicked. The God, he said, whose law was "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," was a just God, but not the same as that good God whose command was, "If any smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also." The command, "Thou shalt love him that loveth thee and hate thine enemy" was that of a just God; "Love thine enemy" was the law of the good God. Further, the God of O.T. had said of Himself, "I create evil"; but since from a good tree evil fruit cannot spring, it follows that He who created evil cannot Himself be good. He could not be the Supreme, for He was of limited intelligence, not being able to find Adam when he hid himself, and obliged to ask, "Where are thou?", and also obliged to come down to see before He could know whether Sodom had done according to its cry. Marcion's theory was that the visible creation was the work of the just God; the good God, whose abode he places in the third or highest heaven and whom apparently he acknowledged as the creator of a high immaterial universe, neither concerned Himself with
