Valentinus, Marcion, And Contemporary Christianity

In our ancient church course we have been working through the basic ideas and foundational figures in the Gnostic movement of the second century AD.

After we survey the Gnostic movement we turn to Marcion. As I describe these two related but distinct movements every year I am impressed by how similar they are to post-eighteenth-century evangelical and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in America. The Gnostics offer salvation from the material world and access to a complex spiritual hierarchy through the acquisition of secret knowledge.

At the core of these movements is a hierarchical view of the world. At the bottom of the hierarchy is the physical material world, which was said to be inherently evil. At the top of the hierarchy was said to be a spiritual (i.e., immaterial) world. In between are degrees of “aeons.” Those degrees represent a hierarchy of being and of secret knowledge. One analogy is the Masonic system. A 32nd degree Scottish Rite Masonic has accumulated quasi-secret knowledge by degrees and when he gets to the pinnacle he becomes a “worshipful master.” There are clear Gnostic overtones in the Lodge. The first thing every Mason learns is that they have secrets and you must not reveal them on pain of punishment.

Whether it was Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentinus, or later, Marcion they all disparaged the “god” of the Old Testament, whom they regarded as a “demiurge.” His chief sin was creation. He was regarded as inferior to God of the New Testament. In Marcion’s case, the god of the Old Testament represented law and judgment and the God of the New Testament represents love without law.

For their part, the Gnostics regularly rejected the idea that Jesus was God or that he was crucified. Some of them argued that it was Simon the Cyrene who was crucified. All of the Gnostics denied Jesus’ true humanity. They said he only “appeared” to be human. Thus their view of Christ is described as “docetic” from the Greek verb which means “to appear.”

The Gnostics divided the world into three groups: the Gnostics, i.e., those who had the secret knowledge; the “catholics” (i.e., the Christians), and the “fleshly” or “soulish,” i.e., those without awareness of transcendent truths or realities. Is that not the way that the charismatics and Pentecostals look at the world: There are those Christians who have the gift(s) of the Spirit (e.g., tongues, prophecy, being slain in the Spirit etc), and those ordinary Christians who do not. Then there are unbelievers who are equivalent to the Gnostic category of “fleshly” or “soulish.” The Charismatic and Pentecostal leaders, like the Gnostic leaders have the secret knowledge, which they dispense to those who are worthy, i.e., who have enough faith. I have had Charismatic Christians offer to “give me” the Holy Spirit.

It was when we got to Marcion, however, that it really hit me to what degree we continue to replay the errors faced by the ancient church. Not only did he radically divide the Old and New Testaments and not only did he deny the law of God, but he also denied the validity of the pastoral epistles. How much does that remind one of aspects of Dispensationalism? Here the lines between the Gnostics, the Pentecostals/Charismatics, and the Dispensationalists get blurry. All of them are offering what is essentially secret knowledge that they alone have to explain what Christians heretofore have never known and could not know from Scripture and the ecumenical creeds.

What is there about the New Testament, taken on its own terms, that would lead one to think that the Old Testament is “not for today”? Certainly that would be shock to Matthew, who relied heavily on the Old Testament. It would be a complete surprise to the writer of Hebrews, whose sermon/epistle is a commentary on Psalm 110 among other things. When was the last time a typical American evangelical, or Pentecostal, or Charismatic congregation sang Psalm 110?

What is it about the New Testament, taken on its own terms, that would lead a Christian to conclude that there are two classes of Christians, those who have “the blessing” and those who do not? The ancient, catholic (notice the lower case) post-apostolic church knew nothing of any such distinction. Montanus and his followers were charged with teaching something like what the Pentecostals and Charismatics teach but they were condemned for it.

Marcion was a pastor’s son who, tragically, came under the influence of the Gnostics. He refused to repent and was excommunicated from the congregation in Rome. He founded his own sect around AD 144.  As I described his development I was reminded of the words of H. Richard Niebuhr, about mainline Protestant liberalism:

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross (The Kingdom of God in America) (HT: Zac Reeves for looking up the quotation for us in class).

Niebuhr’s description of the liberal Protestant mainline (e.g., the UCC, the UMC, the ELCA, the ECUSA, the ABC, the Disciples of Christ, and the PCUSA) is a brilliant description of Marcion.

There is an alternative to the Gnosticism and Marcionism of Modern American Christianity. It is the Reformed confession. It seeks to be biblical, ecumenical (or catholic, i.e., adhering the ancient ecumenical or catholic creeds, e.g., the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon, and the Athanasian Creed) and confessional (e.g., the Heidelberg, Belgic, Canons, or the Westminster Standards). The confessional Reformed churches are not perfect nor sinless but they are not shot through with Gnosticism or the spirit of Marcion.

With Irenaeus we affirm the goodness of creation against the Gnostics. We reject the spirit-matter dualism and hierarchy of the Gnostics in favor of the Biblical and ancient Christian distinction between the Creator and the creature.

The salvation we offer is a real salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, from the very real wrath of the very real God. We affirm the continuity of the Old and New Testaments. Indeed, it is built into our theology. With Barnabas (AD 120) and Irenaeus (AD 170) we affirm one covenant of grace administered variously throughout the history of salvation.

With the ancient, orthodox, catholic church we affirm Christ’s true deity and his true humanity. We explicitly reject the Gnosticizing tendency of the Anabaptists to dematerialize the humanity of Christ (e.g., the Anabaptist doctrine of “celestial flesh” of Christ).

Biblical, historic, confessional Reformed Christianity is not a collection of secrets. It is the revelation of public teaching and the public acts of redemption. Jesus was crucified in public and his resurrected body was seen by hundreds. He ascended to the Father in the sight of the Apostles. Our Scriptures are not secret. We offer no secret knowledge by degrees. We have pastors, elders, and deacons. We have no Gnostic leaders with secrets for sale. The 66 books of the canonical Scriptures (including all of the Pauline epistles) are public and our confession is public. The Scriptures are our final rule (canon) for Christian faith and life. We are not bound to the idiosyncratic opinions of leaders who claim to receive direct revelations from God. Indeed, any pastor who claimed to receive direct, extra-canonical revelations should be subject to discipline in our churches.

We are catholic Reformed Christians in the truest sense of those words. There are not two kinds of Christians in the Reformed churches. There is only one kind of Christian: sinners saved by grace alone, through faith alone.

If you are weary of the quasi-Gnosticism of the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions or the quasi-Marcionite quality of American evangelicalism or the liberal Protestant mainline, you are welcome to join us. See the resources below for more information. Our teachers and members are not perfect but we are earnest about being biblical, catholic, Reformed and evangelical in the best senses of those words.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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  • R. Scott Clark
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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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7 comments

  1. After spending about a decade at Calvary Chapel up here south of Boston, I can certainly confirm the premise that pentecostalism (and CC will deny this aspect) is gnostic at it’s core.
    As I was coming around to reformed theology (mostly by R.C. Sproul) I can’t tell you how many times I had conversations with the pastor/elders about what they believed, eventually being told (commanded) that I not speak of such things at “their” church.
    Needless to to say, I fled (literally) CC for a 1689 reformed church and have advised all those asking me about CC to avoid it at all cost. Yeah, CC leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
    We, as post-post modern Christians, have duty to uphold the perspicuity of Scripture, upon which our witness to the world AND the Church, which is awash in a sea liberalism, gnosticism, and plain old stupidity, is so sorely needed.

  2. Along with the most ancient heresy rebuked by councils, Montanism, Marcion has a stranglehold amongst many modern sects of “Christianity”.

  3. Dr. Clark:

    Christianity Today has discovered two more categories of Christians: Storytellers and Sages. Why haven’t they asked you to tell a story or dispense wisdom on their podcast?

  4. It seems like a kind of new “neo-gnosticism,” if you will, has emerged during the past several decades that sort of flips the traditional charismatic/Pentecostal view on its head. Youth are now being convinced that it is the earth which is sacred, mankind has been guilty of gradually destroying it, and only those who have embraced some of the “truths” of the recent re-telling of history understand what’s really going on. IOW, they have the secret knowledge about all of that and no one else “gets it.” Therefore, it’s their job to destroy and re-create the established order and bring about a new socialist utopia, cuddling up to the environment, imprisoning (or worse) any hold overs from the previous establishment, and take free advantage of any existing goods or materials. There seems to be a kind of syllogism related to this:

    – You have it
    – I want it
    – You don’t deserve it*
    – I’m going to take it

    *because you obtained it unfairly through some kind of ethnic supremacy and class privilege

    Based on what I’ve heard from members of some of those mainline denominations mentioned in Niebuhr’s quote, they’ve bought (or are buying) into all of this in a big way.

  5. As far as I can tell Satan’s temptation began with secret knowledge. He claimed that both God’s natural revelation and word were untrue and had to be supplemented by his secret knowledge that God was a lair. To become gods Adam and Eve had to not only be enlightened but act on this supposed enlightenment. Thus, the pattern of esoteric knowledge is firmly established in the mystery of iniquity. We could also add that the necessary benefit or detriment of magic (transubstantiation, Ex opere operato, speaking in tongues as a necessary blessing, and more pagan forms) were embedded in the the temptation in that the eating the fruit was to provide a necessary benefit. Essentially, the major components of false religion were folded within the first temptation.

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