139–144

Marcion and the founding of the Marcionite church

Marcion was a native of Sinope (Pontus) and a bishop's son. He arrived in Rome around 139–140 seeking to reform the Church according to the "pure Gospel of Paul." He contrasted the wrathful Creator-God of the Old Testament with the good, previously unknown God revealed in Christ.

Rejected by the Roman church, Marcion was excommunicated in 144. He founded his own church, which became a dangerous rival to orthodoxy for several centuries.

Marcion compiled the first known Christian canon: a purged Gospel of Luke and ten Pauline epistles. This was a major spur to the whole Church's formation of the New Testament canon.

Marcion's christology was docetic. Christ appeared already grown in the 15th year of Tiberius, bypassing birth from the Virgin. His disciple Apelles later abandoned the two-gods doctrine while retaining docetism.