y, and was resolved to defend everything which he held to be
Pauline. Secondly, he was influenced by the contrast in which he saw the
ethical powers involved. This contrast seemed to demand a metaphysical
basis, and its actual solution seemed to forbid such a foundation.
Finally, the theories of Gnosticism, the paradoxes of Paul, the
recognition of the duty of strictly mortifying the flesh, suggested to
Marcion the idea that the good God was the exalted God of the spirit,
and the just god the god of the sensuous, of the flesh. This view, which
involved the principle of a metaphysical dualism, had something very
specious about it, and to its influence we must probably ascribe the
fact that Marcion no longer attempted to derive the creator of the world
from the good God. His disciples who had theoretical interests in the
matter, no doubt noted the contradictions. In order to remove them, some
of these disciples advanced to a doctrine of three principles, the good
God, the just creator of the world, the evil god, by conceiving the
creator of the world sometimes as an independent being, sometimes as one
dependent on the good God. Others reverted to the common dualism, God of
the spirit and god of matter. But Apelles, the most important of
Marcion's disciples, returned to the creed of the one God ([Greek: mia
arche]), and conceived the creator of the world and Satan as his angels,
without departing from the fundamental thought of the master, but rather
following suggestions which he himself had given.[389] Apart from
Apelles, who founded a Church of his own, we hear nothing of the
controversies of disciples breaking up the Marcionite church. All those
who lived in the faith for which the master had worked--viz., that the
laws ruling in nature and history, as well as the course of common
legality and righteousness, are the antitheses of the act of Divine
mercy in Christ, and that cordial love and believing confidence have
their proper contrasts in self-righteous pride and the natural religion
of the heart,--those who rejected the Old Testament and clung solely to
the Gospel proclaimed by Paul, and finally, those who considered that a
strict mortification of the flesh and an earnest renunciation of the
world were demanded in the name of the Gospel, felt themselves members
of the same community, and to all appearance allowed perfect liberty to
speculations about final causes.

4. Marcion had no interest in specially emphasising