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believer of some consequence in the church 6 f Sinope , on the remote shores of the Euxine . His ardent rnind was powerfully captivated with the purity , the spirituality , and the universal benevolence of the teachings of Jesus . Unfortunately his mind had been warped by the ascetic notions then prevalent concerning matter ; and , as his temperament was incapable of entering into
any subject with moderation , this bias urged him into many extravagances . Destitute of any sane pr inciple of historical interpretation , and looking at every subject with the natural simplicity and directness of his ardent rnind , he was excessively revolted by what he considered the gross anthropomorphitism of the Old Testament ; and ascribed it to a Being , opposite in character and hostile in purpose to the God of the New . In this spirit , he published a
work of antitheses , or contradictions between the Old Testament and the New , which he prefixed as an introduction to his edition of Luke , the only one of the gospels which he retained . From this edition he resolutely expunged whatever he thought inconsistent with the character of the God of the new covenant , and every passage which recognised the authority of the old . This was the chief indication of his Gnostic spirit ; viz . the employment of this internal sense to determine what was , and what was not .
pure Christianity ; but his imagination was little exercised in the framing of those wild and fanciful theories , which formed so large a part of other Gnostic systems . His error—and it was that of the whole sect—in great measure , it was the besettin g delusion of the age ,, was that of setting out with a theory , the assumption of a
gnosis ; and then , in defiance of all history and criticism , remodelling the Christian doctrines in accordance with hisviews . Our knowledge of his principles destroys our confidence in his criticism . It is hardly possible to doubt that the New Testament was mutilated by him . It ought , however , to be stated , that one of the most sagacious of modern critics , the late Professor Eichhorn , took
a more favourable view of Marcion ' s gospel , and supposed that it merely exhibited one of the primitive forms of the urevangeliam , of which the gospel according to the Hebrews formed one branch , and that of Marcion the other ; and conceived that he was unjustly charged by his adversaries with cutting away what had , in fact , been added to the original gospel . ( Eichhorris Einleitung in das Neue Testament , 43—72 . )
The supposed contrariety of the Old Testament to the New , and the consequent ascription of it to a different Deity , was the source of some of the wildest theories of the Gnostics . A false zeal for the honour of Christianity was one of the most powerful means of its corruption . The Ophites , for example , so called from the
serpent which they reverenced , considered Jaldabaoth , the God of the old dispensation , as the enemy of man , \\\\ o forbade him , from malice , to eat of the tree of knowledge ; and the serpent , who urged man to violate that command , as the organ of divine wis-
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Spirit of Gnosticism . ' 573 ^
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 573, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/61/
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