Marcion
of Pontus … advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as
God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to
take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to
Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that
made the world … was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in
Judea, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who
made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the
Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the
generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the
Lord. …
In
addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this also, truly
speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in direct
opposition to the truth—that Cain, and those like him, and the Sodomites, and
the Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all the nations who walked
in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His descending into
Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed Him into their
kingdom. …
For all
those who are of a perverse mind, having been set against the Mosaic
legislation, judging it to be dissimilar and contrary to the doctrine of the
Gospel, have not applied themselves to investigate the causes of the difference
of each covenant. Since, therefore, they have been deserted by the paternal
love, and puffed up by Satan, being brought over to the doctrine of Simon
Magus, they have apostatized in their opinions from Him who is God, and
imagined that they have themselves discovered more than the apostles, by
finding out another god; and [maintained] that the apostles preached the Gospel
still somewhat under the influence of Jewish opinions, but that they themselves
are purer [in doctrine], and more intelligent, than the apostles.
Therefore
also Marcion and his followers have taken themselves to mutilating the
Scriptures, not acknowledging some books at all; and, curtailing the Gospel
according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these are alone
authentic, which they have themselves thus shortened. … But all the rest,
inflated with the false name of “knowledge,” do certainly recognize the
Scriptures; but they pervert the interpretations, as I have shown in the first
book.
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