hostile “apology” called Against the Greeks, then returned to the
East, where he died around 173. He is often named as the founder
of an ascetic group called the Encratites (the term means “self-
controlled”), who considered sexual abstinence to be essential to
the Christian profession.• Another teacher, Marcion, came to Rome in 140 from Pontus in
Asia Minor. He proclaimed a Christianity that was based on an
absolute division between matter and spirit: Physical reality is evil,
and only spirit is good.
o Marcion taught that the creator God of the Old Testament is
a god of wrath, who by his creation, entrapped humans in
material reality; Jesus represents an alien god of the spirit who
liberates humans from the body.
o Among the New Testament writings, Marcion considered only
10 letters of Paul to contain the true gospel; other writings were
contaminated by the “Jewishness” sponsored by the creator
God who had revealed the Law. Further, for Marcion, only an
edited version of “Paul’s Gospel” (the Gospel of Luke) portrays
Jesus truly. Marcionism was profoundly and essentially anti-
Semitic in character.o Marcion founded a number of churches that were remarkably
successful, especially in the East. His communities were
strongly ascetical in their behavior: Virginity and fasting were
essential to the freedom of the spirit.• The discovery of a collection of Coptic compositions at Nag
Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945 confirmed the reports of ancient
ecclesiastical writers concerning such teachers as Valentinus (in
Rome, c. 135) and Basilides (in Egypt, c. 135), who sponsored a
strongly dualistic and individualistic version of Christianity that
has come to be called Gnosticism. This term covers a spectrum of
variations, but certain characteristics are held in common.
o The soul is a fragment of the divine that has tragically been
separated from its source and trapped in the darkness of