I want to thank the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for the opportunity to complete the modular Master of Theology in Church History program and thereby become better equipped to serve as a translator and expounder of Holy Scripture. Finally, I want to thank my pastor, Michal Priest, for his encouragement in my pursuit of God's call on my life, his recommendation of research materials, and his friendship.
INTRODUCTION
Life and Career
Hippolytus speculated that the real reason for Marcion's excommunication was his false teaching that seduced the church (i.e. the Apostolicon in Vetus Latina.54 Clabeaux proved that Marcion's slight revision of the authoritative Pauline Greek text used was the version accepted by the Church Roman.
Marcionite Christianity
Jesus' task was to abolish the works of the Creator, including the Law and the Prophets. Marcion's belief that the material world was evil fueled his conclusion that the demiurgic Creator, Israel's God Yahweh, must be evil or ignorant.85 Israel's God was the antithesis of Jesus' Father God. Jesus was a revelation of the Stranger God,91 who appeared in the form of a grown man during the reign of Tiberius.
Marcion's removal of all accounts of the incarnation and portions of Jesus' teaching from Luke, rejection of the fourfold Gospel account, and editorial purging of this evidence from Paul's letters. He was the instrumental witness of the post-sub-apostolic period of early Christianity in the late second century.
Biographical Context
In this strategic location he became the pastor of the congregation in Ephesus and had a special relationship with other churches in the area as we know from his letters to the seven churches in Asia. Eusebius reported that John was condemned to the island of Patmos for his testimony of the divine Word and mentions Irenaeus' statement that John's time was on Patmos. Irenaeus relates that he and Florinus were students of Polycarp and learned from him the teachings of the apostle John and those who saw the Lord personally.
Consequently, Ignatius expected the incumbent bishop to exercise his authority and control over the congregations in each of these cities. Magnesia had problems with a group of Judaizers;67 Ignatius' answer to the struggle with them was the unity of the church body and the correct pattern of leadership.
Literary Contributions
Christianity, as the bishop then explained it to his flock" and declares that its value is inestimable.86 It is noticeable that Irenaeus' methodology is similar to the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, which tell about the culmination of God's actions in the Son and the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit. Covenants and confirmations of its fulfillment, on the other hand, it is the Old Testament that forms the entire Christian revelation.88. This understanding is what makes Irenaeus, with his apostolic heritage, a fully equipped individual to refute Marcion's Christianity.
This five-volume work opposed several groups, including the Gnostics, who believed that all matter was evil and demanded a distinction between the Creator and the Supreme God.89 Gnostic teachings challenged Irenaeus' role as bishop and demanded that he change their interpretation of to refute the Scriptures with the Rule of Faith as the proper interpreter of creation, redemption, and human nature.90 The writings of Irenaeus provide vital information about the various Gnostic teachers whose writings he diligently studied and ultimately considered false, including Ptolemais, Valentinus, and Mark. 91 He ably demonstrated to his readers why the theological assumptions of these opponents contradicted the creed.92 One dispute involved several Gnostic factions who believed that Irenaeus and his community erroneously worshiped the inferior, limited Creator God because they believed the Gnostic interpretation of the Scriptures.93 Each of these groups believed that their opinions were legitimate, but Irenaeus rejected their arguments as contradicting the rule of faith. For Irenaeus, this was proof of the importance of apostolic succession in challenging ever-changing.
Hermeneutical Legacy
Marcion's theological ditheism made it impossible for the God of the law and the prophets to be the God of Jesus Christ. These commands are a continuation of the commands given to Yahweh's followers, and they also reveal that the Greater One has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.141. While Marcion was twice excommunicated for propagating teachings contrary to church beliefs, Irenaeus would become both a propagator and defender of the beliefs Marcion had rejected.
Irenaeus would defend the use of the Old Testament as Holy Scripture and demonstrate why the Roman church was right and Marcion should be rejected as a heretic. Marcion's incorporation of Cerdon's teachings into his own de-Judaized theology helps explain his opposition to the LXX and the Roman Church's decision to use it as part of the canon.
The Basis of the Irenaeus's Argument
Marcion viewed anything legal in religion as a perversion, and he wanted to free Christianity from the Old Testament texts that the Catholic Church sought to preserve.5 Marcion biographer Adolf Harnack believed that the Church preserved the Old Testament for history's sake, since both Jesus and Paul stood on his ground; since this was a geographic fact that Marcion could not dispute, Marcion declared that the church's other views of the Old Testament were falsified.6 His goal was to convince Christendom of the church's mistake in using false apostles, Jewish evangelists, and the belief that the gospel was an integral part of the Old Testament rather than something entirely new.7. She believes in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and the seas and all that is in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God, and the Advents, and the birth of a virgin, and the sufferings, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his future manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things into one," and to raise again all flesh of the whole human race, that Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, and Savior and King, according to the will of the invisible father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to him, and that he be a righteous should pass judgment on all; that he may send "spiritual wickedness," and the angels that transgressed and apostates, together with the wicked, unjust, wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but in the exercise of his grace may grant immortality to the righteous and holy, and to those who have kept his commandments and have persevered in his love; some from the beginning of the Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with eternal glory.12. The timing of the incarnation of Christ and his suffering, i.e. why was it not earlier or later.
Irenaeus grounded his arguments in the church's historical affirmation of a faith based on the Old Testament, its God, and the incarnation of the Son who fulfilled the Law and the Prophets.
The Theological Argument
Thus the Scripture says: By the word of the Lord the heavens were founded, and all its power by the spirit of his mouth. To the contention of the Marcionites that written documents lacked divine authority, authenticity, and revelation, and possessed only the voice of their transmitters, Irenaeus replied that the origin of the four Gospels used by the Catholic Church were the persons who wrote down under divine inspiration, what was witnessed by the apostles.29 Finally, Irenaeus drew attention to the continued confession of the Holy Spirit among true Christians; from creation to the time of Christ and the apostles to the time of Irenaeus, the Holy Spirit testified that only one God, the Father, exists.30 This pre-Trinitarian argument claimed that all three members of the Christian Godhead functioned as a singular. being, and rejects Marcion's interpretation of the Creator God and Father God as two separate beings in opposition to each other. He based this on the church's consistent line of presbyters, a tradition ordained by the apostles and verifiable based on succession lists that demonstrated the uninterrupted passage of each episcopate from the apostles to the time of Irenaeus.31 To answer the questions and refute the teaching put forth by Marcionites, Irenaeus declared that the only proper course of action was to approach the oldest of the churches founded by and on the teaching of the apostles.
Irenaeus showed that Clement sent a written correction to Corinth which confirmed the Old Testament by declaring that there is only one God who created heaven, earth and mankind; brought Noah's flood; named Abraham; prompted the exodus; gave the law to Moses; sent prophets; and he was the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaimed in the church and by the church. Compared to the consistent message of the Catholic Church, Marcion's teachings were contrary to the truth generally preached by the apostles, and therefore heretical. 44.
Delegitimizing Marcionite Hermeneutics
In response to the Marcionite claims of the Old Testament God's unjust actions, Irenaeus illustrated that these actions were rightly proportional to the increased degree of greater justice applied in the New Testament. Irenaeus' defense of the Old Testament, his explanation of apostolic succession and his description of church history and doctrine simultaneously defended the Catholic Church and rejected Marcion's theology and community. During the second century, emerging Christianity had to grapple with its understanding of the Jewishness of both Jesus of Nazareth and the Old Testament.
In contrast, Irenaeus of Lyons, a disciple of John's disciple Polycarp, advocated the church's use of the Old Testament and its placement in the Christian canon. This thesis examines Irenaeus' defense of the Old Testament as part of the New Testament canon through the lens of his rejection of Marcion's teachings.
